The ancient Greeks referred to the region as PentapotamГa ( Greek: О ОµОЅП„О±ПЂОїП„О±ОјОЇО±), which has the same meaning as the Persian word. All are tributaries of the Indus River, the Sutlej being the largest. The word paГ±jДЃb thus means 'The Land of Five Waters', referring to the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. The later name for the region, paГ±jДЃb (English spelling: Punjab), is a Persian translation and is similarly composed of ЩѕЩ†Ш¬, panj, 'five' and ШўШЁ, ДЃb, 'water'. The origin of the region's name can probably be traced to the Mahabharata, which calls one of the regions in Sanskrit: а¤Єа¤ћаҐЌа¤ља¤Ёа¤ѕа¤¦, romanized: paГ±ca-nДЃda, lit.'five rivers'.

2.4 Indo-Parthian Kingdom (19 AD to 226 AD).

2.3 Indo-Scythian Kingdom (150 BC to 400 AD).

2.2 Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC to 10 AD).

The Punjab region is often referred to as the breadbasket in both India and Pakistan. Historic foreign invasions mainly targeted the most productive central region of the Punjab known as the Majha region, which is also the bedrock of Punjabi culture and traditions.

The land was later invaded and contested by the Persians, Mauryans, Indo-Greeks, Indo-Scythians, Kushans, Macedonians, Ghaznavids, Turkic, Mongols, Timurids, Mughals, Marathas, Arabs, Pashtuns, British, and other peoples. The region had numerous migrations by the Indo-Aryan peoples. The Punjab region was the cradle for the Indus Valley Civilisation. Other religious groups are Christianity, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Ravidassia. Punjabi Muslims are the majority in West Punjab (Pakistan), while Punjabi Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus are the majority in East Punjab (India). The predominant ethnolinguistic group of the Punjab region is the Punjabi people, who speak the Indo-Aryan Punjabi language. It bordered the Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa regions to the west, Kashmir to the north, the Hindi Belt to the east, and Rajasthan and Sindh to the south. In British India, until the Partition of India in 1947, the Punjab Province encompassed the present-day Indian states and union territories of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, and Delhi and the Pakistani regions of Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory.

In the 16th century Mughal Empire it referred to a relatively smaller area between the Indus and the Sutlej rivers. The geographical definition of the term 'Punjab' has changed over time. The boundaries of the region are ill-defined and focus on historical accounts. Punjab ( / p КЊ n Л€ dК’ Й‘Лђ b, - Л€ dК’ Г¦ b, Л€ p КЊ n-/ Gurmukhi: аЁЄа©°аЁњаЁѕаЁ¬ Shahmukhi: ЩѕЩ†Ш¬Ш§ШЁ Punjabi: ( listen) also romanised as PanjДЃb or Panj-ДЂb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of eastern Pakistan and northern India.

What does punjabi mean