Ancient site

Taxila

ਤਕਸ਼ਿਲਾٹیکسلا، پنجاب

Ancient city and centre of learning between the Indus and Jhelum, visited by Alexander in 326 BCE and later a Buddhist centre.

Taxila, Takshashila, between the Indus and the Jhelum near Rawalpindi, was for a thousand years one of the great cities of Asia, a meeting place of the roads from Persia, Central Asia and India, and a famous centre of learning where Chanakya and the grammarian Panini are said to have studied.

It has three successive cities: the Bhir Mound, the city Alexander visited in 326 BCE, where its king Ambhi submitted to him; Sirkap, a Greek grid-planned city of the Indo-Greeks and Parthians, where the apostle Thomas is said to have come to the court of King Gondophares; and Sirsukh, built by the Kushans. Around them are Buddhist monasteries and stupas, among them the Dharmarajika stupa said to have been built by Ashoka, and Jaulian, with its rows of stucco Buddhas.

The White Huns sacked it in the fifth century, and it never recovered. Its ruins and museum, with their Gandharan sculpture, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Taxila, Punjab, Pakistan

People

Alexander of Macedon356 – 323 BCE

Crossed the Indus in 326 BCE, defeated Porus, and turned back at the Beas when his army refused to go on. He was badly wounded storming a Malli town, probably near Multan.

Chandragupta Mauryac. 350 – 295 BCE

Founder of the Mauryan empire who, with his adviser Chanakya of Taxila, drove out the Greek garrisons and made Taxila a provincial capital.

Kanishka2nd century CE

Greatest of the Kushan emperors, patron of Buddhism and Gandharan art, who built a huge stupa at Peshawar.

Artifacts

The Dharmarajika stupa, Taxila3rd century BCE onwards

The great stupa of Taxila, said to have been founded by Ashoka over relics of the Buddha, surrounded by the cells and chapels of a monastery.

The stucco Buddhas of Jaulian2nd – 5th century CE

A hilltop monastery near Taxila whose stupas are ringed with rows of seated Buddhas modelled in stucco, many still in place.

The bent-bar coins of Gandharac. 400 – 300 BCE

Bent bars of silver stamped with symbols, the first coins of the Punjab, dug up in hoards at Taxila.

Coins of the Scythian kings1st century BCE

Coins of Azes and other Scythian (Saka) kings, who ruled Taxila after the Greeks.

Coins of Gondophares1st century CE

Coins of the Parthian king of Taxila who, Christian legend says, met the apostle Thomas.

The Taxila copper plate1st century BCE or CE

A plate inscribed in Kharosthi recording a Buddhist gift by Patika, son of a Scythian satrap of Taxila: one of the few documents of Scythian rule in the Punjab.