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Pakhtas

Ancient Vedic Indo-Aryan tribe

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors

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Source updated August 30, 2026

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Pakthas or Pakhtas was an ancient Vedic Indo-Aryan tribe living in the northern borderlands of South Asia. They are sometimes identified with the Pactyans of Herodotus.

It is theorised that they are the ancestors of modern Pashtuns, based on the phonetical similarity between the words Pakhta and Pakhtun (alternate for Pashtuns).

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Pakhtas”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Early Vedic Culture (1700-1100 BCE).png by Avantiputra7, CC BY-SA 3.0

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