Swat Valley

The Swat Valley is a mountainous valley located along the Swat River in northern Pakistan. Swat has an average elevation of 980 m (3, 220 ft), and resultantly a considerably cooler and wetter climate compared to the rest of Pakistan. With lush forests, verdant alpine meadows, and snow-capped mountains, it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the country. The early inhabitants of the valley were Indo-Aryans (also known as Daradas). The valley was a cradle of Swat culture in the second millennium BCE, and after the rise of Indo-Aryan Gandhāra civilization in the 6th century BCE, it became a major centre of early Buddhism, especially the Gandhāran Buddhism. Swat is identified with Oḍḍiyāna in the Buddhist texts; a Buddhist dynasty known as Oḍirājas, which claimed descent from the Śākya clan of Buddha, ruled the valley in the first century CE. The Oḍi Śāhi dynasty was defeated by the Ghaznavids in the 11th century in Gandhāra, but the pockets of Buddhism persisted in the Swat Valley until the 16th century, with Tibetan monks such as Orgyan pa and Buddhaguptanātha continuing to visit it. In the early 16th-century, coinciding with the Babur's conquest of Delhi Sultanate, Swat was conquered by the Yousafzais, which saw the Pashtunization of Swat and the neighbouring areas. The older Dardic communities of Swat, Torwalis and Gawris were

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