Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom.docx

1. Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom (Mahajanapada), located in modern-day
northern Pakistan and parts of eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in
the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau, and the Kabul River. Its main cities
were Purushapura (modern Peshawar), literally meaning “The City of
Man”, Varmayana (modern Bamyan), and Takshashila (modern Taxila). The Kingdom of
Gandhara lasted from the early 1st millennium BC to the 11th century AD. It attained its
height from the 1st century to the 5th century under the Buddhist Kushan Kings. The
Hindu term Shahi is used by history writer Al-Biruni to refer to the
ruling Hindu dynasty that took over from the Turki Shahiand ruled the region during the
period before Muslim conquests of the 10th and 11th centuries. After it was conquered
by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1021 CE, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim
period, the area was administered from Lahore or Kabul. During Mughal times the area
was part of Kabul province. The Gandhāri people were settled since the Vedic times on
the banks of Kabul River (river Kubha or Kabol) down to its confluence with the Indus.
Later Gandhara included parts of northwest Punjab. Gandhara was located on
the northern trunk road (Uttarapatha) and was a center of international commercial
activities. It was an important channel of communication with ancient Iran, India,
and Central Asia. The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history. Sometimes
the Peshawar valley and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara and
sometimes the Swat valley was also included. The heart of Gandhara, however, was
always the Peshawar valley. The kingdom was ruled from capitals at Pushkalavati
(Charsadda), Taxila, Purushapura (Peshawar), and in its final days from
Udabhandapura (Hund) on the Indus. According to the Puranas, they were named after
Taksha and Pushkara, the two sons of Bharata, a prince of Ayodhya.
Evidence of Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools and burnt
bones, was discovered at Sanghao near Mardan in area caves. The artifacts are
approximately 15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before
the present. The region shows an influx of southern Central Asian culture in the Bronze
Age with the Gandhara grave culture, likely corresponding to the immigration of Indo-
Aryan speakers and the nucleus of Vedic civilization. This culture survived till 1000 BC.
Its evidence has been discovered in the hilly regions of Swat and Dir, and even at
Taxila. the name of the Gandhāris is attested in the Rigveda and ancient inscriptions
dating back to Achaemenid Persia. The Behistun inscription listing the 23 territories of
King Darius I (519 BC) includes Gandāra along with Bactria and Thatagush. In the book
“Histories” by Herodotus, Gandhara is named as a source of tax collections for King
Darius.
Gandhara had played an important role in the epic of Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Ambhi Kumar was a direct descendant of Bharata (of Ramayana) and Shakuni (of
Mahabharata). It is said that Lord Rama consolidated the rule of the Kosala Kingdom
over the whole of the Indian peninsula. His brothers and sons ruled most of the
Janapadas (16 states) at that time.
The primary cities of Gandhara were Purushapura (now Peshawar), Takshashila
(or Taxila), and Pushkalavati. The latter remained the capital of Gandhara down to the

2. 2nd century AD when the capital was moved to Peshawar. An important Buddhist shrine
helped to make the city a center of pilgrimage until the 7th century. Pushkalavati in
the Peshawar Valley is situated at the confluence of the Swat and Kabul rivers, where
three different branches of the River Kabul meet. That specific place is still called Prang
(from Prayaga) and considered sacred and where local people still bring their dead for
burial. Similar geographical characteristics are found at the site of Prang in Kashmir and
at the confluence of Ganges and Yamuna, where the sacred city of Prayag is situated
west of Benares. Prayaga (Allahabad) one of the ancient pilgrim centers of India as the
two rivers are said to be joined here by the underground Sarasvati River, forming a
Triveni, a confluence of three rivers.
The Gandharan Buddhist texts are both the earliest Buddhist and South Asian
manuscripts discovered so far. Most are written on birch bark and were found in labeled
clay pots. Panini has mentioned both the Vedic form of Sanskrit as well as what seems
to be Gandhari, a later form (bhasa) of Sanskrit, in his Ashtadhyayi. Gandhara’s
language was a Prakrit or “Middle Indo-Aryan” dialect, usually called Gandhari. Texts
are written right-to-left in the Kharosthi script, which had been adapted for Indo-Aryan
languages from a Semitic alphabet, the Aramaic alphabet. Gandhara was then
controlled by the Achaemenid dynasty of the Persian Empire, which used the Aramaic
script to write the Iranian languages of the Empire. Semitic scripts were not used to
write South Asian languages again until the arrival of Islam and subsequent adoption of
the Persian-style Arabic alphabet for New Indo-Aryan languages
like Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Kashmiri. Kharosthi script died out about the 4th century.
However, the Hindko and the archaic Dardic and Kohistani dialects, derived from the
local Indo-Aryan Prakrits, are still spoken, though the Afghan Pashto language is the
most dominant language of the region today.
Gandhara is noted for the distinctive Gandhara style of Buddhist art, which developed
out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and Indian artistic influence. This
development began during the Parthian Period (50 BC- 75 AD). The Gandharan style
flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th
century. It declined and suffered destruction after the invasion of the White Huns in the
5th century. Stucco, as well as stone, was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the
decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of
great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expressiveness to be given to the sculpture.
Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara – India,
Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China.
Though the marks and ruins of Gandhara civilization can be found throughout Northern
Pakistan, its heritage has been saved more in true form in Taxila, Peshawar, and Swat
valley. According to Wikipedia, evidence of Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara,
including stone tools and burnt bones, was discovered at Sanghao near Mardan in area
caves. The artifacts are approximately 15,000 years old. This Civilization is primarily a
symbol of human development in the area of human knowledge, religion, art, and
history for the world to come to a great extent.