Gandharan Buddhism

Gandhāran Buddhism refers to the Buddhist culture of ancient Gandhāra which was a major center of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent from the 3rd century BCE to approximately 1200 CE. Ancient Gandhāra corresponds to modern day north Pakistan, mainly the Peshawar valley and Potohar plateau as well as Afghanistan's Jalalabad. The region has yielded the Gandhāran Buddhist texts written in Gāndhārī Prakrit the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered (1st century CE).Gandhāra was also home to a unique Buddhist artistic and architectural culture which blended elements from Indian, Hellenistic, Roman and Parthian art. Buddhist Gandhāra was also influential as the gateway through which Buddhism spread to Central Asia and China.

According to Pali Buddhist sources, c was one of India's great regions (mahjanapada). Under the Mauryan empire (ca. 300–185 BCE), its capital was the city of Taxila. The center of ancient Gandhāra was the Peshawar basin in northwestern Pakistan which extends westward into Afghanistan along the Kabul River. This region exerted cultural and linguistic influence on what has been called "Greater Gandhāra" which encompasses the surrounding areas eastwards across the Indus River (such as Taxila), north towards the Swat Valley and Upper Indus, west towards Bamiyan and across the Hindu Kush into Bactria and the Oxus river valley.

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