The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s5.13

c5.s5.13

Gândhâra—The country of Gândhâra lies along the Kabul river between the Khoaspes (Kunar) and the Indus, comprising the districts of Peshawar and Rawalpindi in the northern Punjab. Its capitals were Purushapura now called Peshawar, and Takshaśilâ, the Taxila of Alexander's historians. Ptolemy makes the Indus the western boundary of Gandari. In the Behistun inscription which was inscribed by the order of Darjus, king of Persia, in 516 B.C. in the fifth year of his reign, Gadara or Gandhara is mentioned among the conquered countries of Darius (for a copy of the inscription, see Rawlinson's *Herodotus* vol III, p. 590). The Gandarians and the Dadicæ were united under one commander in the army of Xerxes (*Herodotus* VII, 6). It is the Kiantolo of Hiuen Tsiang, the Kundam Gandhridae of Strabo and other ancient Greek geographers. In the *Ain-i-Akbari*, it forms the district of Pukely, lying between Káśmír and Attock [*JASB*., vol. XV (1816)]. Gandhara not only comprised the modern districts of Peshawar and Rawalpindi, but also Swat and Hoti Mardan or what is called the Eusofzai country, that is the country between the Indus and the Panjkora, where at Ranigat, Sanghao and Nuttu, discoveries were made of excellent Buddhist architecture and sculptures of the time of Kanishka, i.e., of the first century of the Christian era, through the labours of Major Cole (*Memorandum of Ancient monuments of Eusafzai*). Ancient sculptures have also been discoverd at Jamal Giri in the Eusafzai Pargana of the Peshawar district, Jamal Giri being thirty miles distant from Peshawar [*JASB*., (1852) p. 606]. The Eusofzai country is bounded on the north by Chitral and Yasin, on the west by Bojawar and the Swat river, on the east by the Indus, and on the south by the Kabul river (*Arch. S. Rep.*, vol. V). Pushkarāvatī or Pushkalāvati (Pukely) was its most ancient capital, which the *Rāmāyaṇa* placed in Gandharva-deśa. The *Kathā-sarit-sāgara* (ch. XXXVII) calls Pushkarāvat the capital of the Vidyādharas. Gandhara of the *Mahābhārata* and of the Buddhist period, therefore, is the corruption of Gandharva-deśa of Vālmīki (*Rāmāyaṇa*, Uttara kh., chs. 113 and 114). Major Cole says that the Corinthian style of architecture reproduces itself all over Eusofzai, the Doric in Káśmír, and the Ionic at Taxila or Shahderi between Attock and Rawalpindi (*Second Report of the Curator of Ancient Monuments in India for 1882-83*, p. cxvi). Asoka sent here a Buddhist missionary named Majjhantika in 245 B.C., (*Mahāvaṃśa*, ch XII). Gandhara was included in the kingdom of Chandra Gupta and Asoka, and it seems that Agathocles conquered the country and expelled the Mauryas. According to Col. Rawlinson, the Gandarians of the Indus seem to have first emigrated to Kandahar in the fifth century A. D. (*Herodotus*, vol. I, p. 675, note).