Taxila
Taxila was the capital of Gandhara, an ancient kingdom in northwest India east of the Khyber Pass, which flourished from the sixth century BCE to the fifth century CE. Today Taxila lies in ruins near the modern city of Islamabad in Pakistan, but in its heyday the city was a center of culture and learning. Its location on the main route through the mountains into India ensured Taxila's importance in the commerce linking India, West Asia, and the rest of the world, and its vulnerability to foreign invaders.
Enfolded into the Persian empire in the sixth century BCE by Cyrus the Great (c. 585–c. 529 BCE), Gandhara became one of the wealthiest satrapies in the empire, and Taxila absorbed Persian culture along with its Vedic traditions. Alexander of Macedon (356–323 BCE) visited the city in 326 BCE during his conquest of Gandhara, but after Alexander's death, the Maurya dynasty (c. 324–c. 200 BCE) emerged to rule India.
Taxila became a center of Buddhism after the conversion of the Mauryan ruler Asoka (d. 238 or 232 BCE) around 261 BCE. During the succeeding Kushan dynasty (78–200 CE), established by Buddhist nomadic invaders from Central Asia, Taxila maintained its importance as a Buddhist center. The Gandharan style of Buddhist art emerged in Kushan times. Mirroring the blend of foreign, particularly Hellenistic Greek, and Indian elements in the society of Taxila, Gandharan art introduced the first representations of Buddha as a human being, depicted in elegant Greek style. Through the second century CE, Gandharan art had an immense impact on Buddhist art in Central Asia, China, and Japan, as well as India.
From the second century on, however, Taxila began to decline. The city was ravaged by the armies of the Persian Sasanid dynasty (224/228–651) in the second century and was finally destroyed by the Huns in the fifth century.
Archaeologically, the city is represented by three successive sites. The Bhir Mound (Taxila I), the earliest site, is thought to have existed for three centuries until the second century BCE. Sirkap (Taxila II) was perhaps the most important city in the early historical period in northwestern India and remained in existence until the second century CE, when the Kushan rulers shifted the capital to the nearby site called Sirsukh (Taxila III).
Sima Roy Chowdhury
Further Reading
Basham, Arthur Llewellyn. (1967) The Wonder That Was India: A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Subcontinent before the Coming of the Muslims. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
Chandra, Moti. (1977) Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications.
Foucher, Alfred. ([1917] 1972) The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central Asian Archaeology. Reprint. Varanasi, India: Indological Book House.
Nehru, Lolita. (1989) Origins of the Gandharan Style: A Study of Contributory Influences. New Delhi : Oxford University Press.
Ray Chaudhari, Hem Chandra. (1996) Political History of Ancient India: From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty; With a Commentary by B. N. Mukherjee. New Delhi : Oxford University Press.
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