Geography of Early Buddhism c8.6

c8.6

In the Aṅguttara Nikāya, Gandhāra is included in the list of the sixteen Mahājanapadas (AN., I., p. 213; IV, pp. 252, 256, 260). The Gandhāras were a very ancient people. Their capital Takshasilā is also mentioned in the Mahābhārata in connection with the story of King Janamejaya who is said to have conquered it.¹ The kingdom of Gandhāra included Kāshmir and the Takshasilā region (PHAI., p. 93).² Gandhāra comprises the districts of Peshawar and Rawalpindi in the northern Punjab as we find in the Mahāvaṃsa (Geiger’s tr., p. 82, n. 2) wherein it is stated that after the dissolution of the Third Buddhist Council, Moggaliputtatissa thera sent Majjhantika thera to Kāsmīra-Gandhāra for propagation of the Buddhist faith.³ Gandhāra thus comprised the whole of the districts of Peshawar and Rawalpindi in the northern Punjab. Takkasilā or Taxila was the capital city of the Gandhāra kingdom, and according to the Jātakas (Eḷapatta Jātaka, 96, Susīma Jātaka, 163) it lay 2,000 leagues from Benares. In the time of Nimi, King of Videha, Durmukha, King of Pañchāla and Bhīma, King of Vidarbha, the throne of Gandhāra was occupied by Naggaji or Nagnajit (Kumbhakāra Jātaka; Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, VII, 31; Sat. Brāhmaṇa, VIII, 1.4.10).¹ In the Kumbhakāra Jātaka we are told that Naggaji's capital was Takkasilā.