Really Adstar, you should qualify your statements:
Nomenclature
The name Hindu Kush is usually applied to the whole of the range separating the basins of the Kabul and Helmand rivers from that of the Amu Darya (or ancient Oxus), or more specifically, to that part of the range to the northwest of Kabul.
[edit] Greek
Alexander the Great conquered the region in 329 BC and it was called the Καύκασος Ινδικός or Caucasus Indicus by the Greek historians with Alexander the Great. Thus meaning 'Mountain of the Indus'. This name was used until recently by Historians worldwide. Greeks remained as rulers, administrators, or scribes in the region for many centuries. See Greco-Bactrian. It was also referred to by the Greeks as the "Paropamisos."
[edit] Arabic and Persian
In Arabic, the name means Mountains of India or Mountains of the Indus (from the Indus River)[1]. In some of the Iranian languages that are still spoken in the region; that furthermore, many peaks, mountains, and related places in the region have "Kosh" or "Kush" in their names. In the Persian language of the Sassanian period, Hindu referred to any inhabitant of Indian subcontinent (Hindustan), or Hind, rather than to followers of Hinduism as it does now. The name is also said to be a corruption of Hindu Koh, from the (modern) Persian word Kuh, meaning mountain. Rennell, writing in 1793, refers to the range as the "Hindoo-Kho or Hindoo-Kush".[citation needed]
[edit] Sanskrit
Sanskrit documents refer Hindukush as Pāriyatra Parvat. Also that the name is a corruption of Hindu-Kusha, where "kusha" in Sanskrit meens "seat". Hence it translates to 'The Seat of the Hindus'.[2]
[edit] Folk Etymology
The factual accuracy of this section is disputed.
Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page
There are others who consider this origin to be a "folk etymology", and put forward alternate possibilities for its origin[citation needed]:
* The origin of the term "Hindu Kush" (and whether it translates as "Killer of Hindu") is a point of contention. The earliest known use of this name was by the famous Muslim Berber traveller, Ibn Battūta (circa 1334), who wrote: "Another reason for our halt was fear of the snow, for on the road there is a mountain called Hindūkūsh, which means "Slayer of Indians," because the slave boys and girls who are brought from Hind (India) die there in large numbers as a result of the extreme cold and the quantity of snow."
* that the name is a corruption of Caucasus Indicus, a name by which the Hindu Kush range was known in the ancient world after its conquest by Alexander the Great in the Fourth Century BC. Greek rule in the Hindu Kush region lasted over three centuries, and was followed by the rule of a dynasty known, significantly, as the Kushan. In its early period, the Kushan Empire had its capital near modern-day Kabul. Later, when the Hindu Kush region became part of the Sassanian Empire, it was ruled by a satrap known as the Kushan-shah (ruler of Kushan).[citation needed]
* In modern Persian, the word "Kush" is derived from the verb Kushtan - to defeat, kill, or subdue. This could be interpreted as a memorial to the South Asian captives who perished in the mountains while being transported to other Central Asian slave markets.
* that the name refers to the last great 'killer' mountains to cross when moving between the Afghan plateau and the Indian subcontinent, named after the toll it took on anyone crossing them.
* that the name is a posited Avestan appellation meaning "water mountains."[citation needed]
* that the name is a corruption of Hind-o Kushan, containing the name of the Kushan dynasty that once ruled this region for more than three centuries.
