Editing Hindu Kush (section)

=== Other names ===
In [[Vedic Sanskrit]], the range was known as ''upariśaina'', and in [[Avestan]], as ''upāirisaēna'' (from [[Proto-Iranian]] *''upārisaina''- 'covered with juniper').<ref>{{cite book|last=Thapar|first=Romila|title=Which of Us are Aryans?: Rethinking the Concept of Our Origins|date=2019|publisher=Aleph|isbn=978-93-88292-38-2|pages=1|author-link=Romila Thapar}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Schmitt |first=Rüdiger |date=2007|title=Iškata|url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iskata|website=Encyclopaedia Iranica}}</ref> It can alternatively be interpreted as "beyond the reach of eagles".<ref>{{cite book |last=Griffiths |first=Arlo |title=The Vedas: Texts, Language & Ritual |publisher=Egbert Forsten |publication-place=Groningen |year=2004 |isbn=90-6980-149-3 |oclc=57477186 |page=594 |url=https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~rnoyer/courses/51/Witzel2002.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120730063254/http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~rnoyer/courses/51/Witzel2002.pdf |archive-date=2012-07-30 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In the time of [[Alexander the Great]], the mountain range was referred to as the ''Caucasus Indicus'' (as opposed to the [[Greater Caucasus]] range between the [[Caspian Sea|Caspian]] and [[Black Sea]]s), and the extension of the former as ''Paropamisos'' (see ''[[Paropamisadae]]'') by [[Hellenistic period|Hellenic Greeks]] in the late first millennium BCE.<ref name="Vogelsang">{{cite book|last1=Vogelsang|first1=Willem|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9kfJ6MlMsJQC&pg=PA1|title=The Afghans|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2002|isbn=978-0-631-19841-3|access-date=22 August 2010}}</ref>

Some 19th-century encyclopedias and gazetteers state that the term ''Hindu Kush'' originally applied only to the peak in the area of the [[Kushan Pass]], which had become a center of the [[Kushan Empire]] by the first century.<ref>[1890] 1896 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' s.v. "Afghanistan", Vol. I p. 228.;<br />[1893] 1899 ''Johnson's Universal Encyclopedia'' Vol. I p. 61.;<br />1885 ''Imperial Gazetteer of India'', VoI. p. 30.<br />1850 ''A Gazetteer of the World'' Vol. I p. 62.</ref>