PESHAWAR, a city of British India, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, giving its name to a district. The city is situated near the left bank of the river Bara, I 1 m. from Jamrud at the entrance of the Khyber Pass, the railway station being 1,588 m. north-west of Calcutta; pop. (1931), 121,866. Two miles west of the city are the cantonments, forming the principal military station of the North-West Frontier Province. To Pesha war for many centuries the Povinda/is, or Afghan travelling merchants, have brought their caravans from Kabul, Bokhara and Samarkand every autumn. They bring horses, wool, woollen stuffs, silks, dyes, gold-thread, fruits, precious stones, carpets and posh tins (sheepskin clothing), fighting and buying their way to the British border where, leaving their arms, they are free to wander at will to Delhi, Agra and Calcutta.
The DISTRICT OF PESHAWAR has an area of 2,637 sq.m., pop. (1930, Except on the south-east, where the Indus flows, it is encircled by mountains which are inhabited by the Mohmand, Utman Khel and Afridi tribes. The inhabitants are Pathans.
In early times the district of Peshawar seems to have had an essentially Indian population, for it was not till the 15th century that its present Pathan inhabitants occupied it. Under the name
of Gandhara it was a centre of Buddhism, and especially Graeco Buddhism. Rock-edicts of Asoka still exist at two places; and a stupa excavated in 1909 was found to contain an inscription of Kanishka, as well as relics believed to be those of Buddha himself. The Mogul emperors always found difficulty in maintaining their authority over the Afghan border tribes. Peshawar was a favourite residence of the Afghan dynasty founded by Ahmed Shah Durrani, and here Mountstuart Elphinstone came as ambassador to Shah Shujah in 1809. A few years later Ranjit Singh crossed the Indus, and after much hard fighting Sikh authority was firmly established under General Avitabile in 1834. In 1848 Peshawar passed to the British. During the Mutiny, after the sepoy regi ments had been disarmed, Peshawar was a source of strength rather than of danger, though Sir John Lawrence did at one time contemplate the necessity of surrendering it to the Afghans, in order to preserve the rest of Northern India.