Gandhara

Gandhara (IAST: Gandhāra) was an ancient Indo-Aryan civilisation in present-day northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Valley of Peshawar, though the cultural influence of "Greater Gandhara" extended across the Indus River to Taxila and westwards into the Kabul Valley as far as Bamyan, and northwards up to the Karakoram range, including Swat, Bajaur and other valleys.

The Gandhara tribe, after which it is named, is attested in the Rigveda (c. 1500 – c. 1200 BCE), while the region is mentioned in the Zoroastrian Avesta as Vaēkərəta, the seventh most beautiful place on earth created by Ahura Mazda. Gandhara was one of the 16 Great Realms of the second urbanisation.

The Iron Age Gandhara kingdom was conquered by Cyrus I in the 6th century BCE who incorporated it as the satrapy of Gandāra into the Achaemenid Empire, later being conquered by Alexander the Great in 327 BCE. Afterwards it became a part of the Maurya Empire, followed by the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The region was a major centre for Greco-Buddhism under the Indo-Greeks and Gandharan Buddhism under later dynasties; Gandhara was also the central location for the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism to Central and East Asia.

Gandhārī, an Indo-Aryan language written in Kharosthi script, acted as lingua franca of the region. Famed for its unique Gandharan style of art influenced by the classical Hellenistic styles, Gandhara attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century CE under the Kushan Empire, who had their capital at Peshawar (Puruṣapura) and ushered a period of relative peace known as Pax Kushana. Gandhara "flourished at the crossroads of India, Central Asia, and the Middle East," connecting trade routes and absorbing cultural influences from diverse civilizations; Buddhism thrived until the 8th or 9th centuries, when Islam first began to gain sway in the region.

The region declined after the invasion by the Alchon Huns in 6th century, and the name Gandhara disappeared after Mahmud Ghaznavi's conquest of Hindu Shahi Kingdom in 1001 CE.