The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s12.7.1

c5.s12.7.1

Takshasilâ—Taxila, in the district of Rawalpindi in the Panjab. General Cunningham places the site of the city near Shahdheri, one mile north-east of Kâlâ-kâ-serai between Attock and Rawalpindi, where he found the ruins of a fortified city (see Delmerick’s Notes on Archæological Remains at Shah-ki-Dheri and the Site of Taxila in JASB., 1870, p. 89; Arch. S. Rep., vol. II, p. 125). St. Martin places it at Hasan Abdul, eight miles north-west of Shah-dheri. Takshaśilâ is said to have been founded by Bharata, brother of Râmachandra, after the name of his son Taksha, who was placed here as king (Râmâyaṇa, Uttara, chs. 114, 201). In the Divyâvadâna (Dr. R. Mitra’s Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, p. 310), however, it is mentioned that Buddha in a former birth was king of Bhadraśilâ and was known by the name of Candraprabhā, he allowed himself to be decapitated by a Brahmin beggar, and since then the town is called Takshaśilā (The Kathāsaritsāgara (bk.