Gandhara Remembered

Gandhara formed an integral part of India from the earliest epoch of Indo-Aryan civilization. Located on the North West frontiers of India in the neighbourhood of the Kambojas, Madras and other similar tribes, it's boundaries changed with the changing vicissitudes. Gandhara stretched between the Pot [...]
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Gandhara formed an integral part of India from the earliest epoch of Indo-Aryan civilization. Located on the North West frontiers of India in the neighbourhood of the Kambojas, Madras and other similar tribes, it's boundaries changed with the changing vicissitudes. Gandhara stretched between the Potohar plateau and Swat valley regions of Pakistan on one hand and the Jalalabad district of north-eastern Afghanistan, on the other. Thus, Gandhara included the areas on both the Pakistani Punjab and Afghani sides of the Khyber Pass. Gandhara denotes the region comprising the modern districts of Peshawar in the Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Province and Rawalpindi in the Punjab. Some scholars define Gandhara as a region consisting of principally Swat Valley, Peshawar Valley, Charsadda, all comprising KPK. Bajaur was a part of Gandhara too and is presently a part of FATA, Pakistan. It must have been known to the Greeks who called Kaspapyros a 'Gandaric city'. Incidentally Islamabad and Taxila lie to its East and the primary cities of Gandhara were Purushapura (Peshawar), Takshasila (Taxila), and Pushkalavati (Charsadda). The Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, mention Gandhara many a time. It has been described as a Western Kingdom. Takshasila was founded by Raghava Rama's brother Bharata. Hieun-Tsang mentions ten of the neighboring states including Gandhara as dependencies of Kapisa. Buddhism played a great role in the Gandhara region and one can say it was the dominant religion of Punjab and Gandhara from 400 BCE till 600 CE i.e. for a glorious 1000 years. The Indo-Greeks patronized Buddhism and have left remarkable monuments of Gandhara Art. After 600 CE, there was a struggle for supremacy between the various ethnic groups for the Gandhara region. Hindu Shahis were the last Hindu rulers of this area before Mahmud Ghazni. Mahmud Ghazni laid the foundations of a permanent Muslim presence in Punjab and Gandhara and it continues till this date. The Buddhist monuments were ravaged from the time of the Huns and it sadly continues till date The Blasting of Bamiyan Buddhas is a very recent example of the vandalism in the name of the religion. So, Hinduism may have been a dominant religion from 600 CE to about 1400 CE but thereafter for 600 years now, Islam is the dominant religion in the area which was once called Gandhara. This work principally concentrates on the Gandhara Region. Chapter 8 details Punjab in general as the fate of Gandhara was now closely linked with that of Punjab and Lahore in particular. Later Sultan Iltutmish shifted the capital from Lahore to Delhi in the early 13th century CE and the Gandhara region's details and importance became more obscure.