State of Swat (; locally called as Dera Swat) was a kingdom established in 1849 that was ruled by chiefs known as Akhunds. It was then recognized as a princely state in alliance with the British Indian Empire between 1926 and 1947, after which the Akhwand acceded to the newly independent state of Pakistan. Swat continued to exist as an autonomous region until it was dissolved in 1969, and incorporated into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (formerly called NWFP). The area it covered is now divided between the present-day districts of Swat, Dir, Buner and Shangla. History The Swat region has been inhabited for more than two thousand years and was known in ancient times as Udyana. The location of Swat made it an important stopping point for many invaders, including Alexander the Great and Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. In the second century BCE, Swat formed part of the Buddhist civilisation of Gandhara. Swat was a center of Hinayana Buddhism and of the Mahayana school that developed from it. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hsien, who visited the valley around 403 CE, mentions 500 monasteries. After him, Sun Yun (519 CE), Xuanzang (630 CE), and Wu-kung (752 CE) visited Swat as well and praised the richness of the region, its favourable climate, the abundance of forest, flowers and fruit-trees and the respect in which Buddhism was held. The Kushan dynasty ruled for four centuries until it was overrun by the White Huns in the 5th century CE and the glory of the Gandhara era came to an end. Xuanzang recorded the decline of Buddhism. According to him, of the 1400 monasteries that had supposedly been there, most were in ruins or had been abandoned. The monks still quoted from the scriptures but no longer understood them. There were grapes in abundance but cultivation of the fields was sparse. Tajiks had been living and ruling the Swat for centuries until their rule ended by Yousafzai Pashtun tribes under the leadership of malak Ahmad Khan in a battle in 1519 A.D. The modern area of Swat was ruled sporadically by religious leaders, who variously took the title of Akhoond, also spelt Akhund or Akond. The Akhund of Swat who died in 1878 was particularly famous as the subject of a well known humorist poem by Edward Lear, The Akond of Swat. The nonsensical poem suggests a faraway place and a mystical person, at least through the