09/05/2022
History
Taxila is known from references in Indian and Greco-Roman literary sources and from the accounts of two Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Faxian and Xuanzang. Literally meaning “City of Cut Stone” or “Rock of Taksha,” Takshashila (rendered by Greek writers as Taxila) was founded, according to the Indian epic Ramayana, by Bharata, younger brother of Rama, an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. The city was named for Bharata’s son Taksha, its first ruler. The great Indian epic Mahabharata was, according to tradition, first recited at Taxila at the great snake sacrifice of King Janamejaya, one of the heroes of the story. Buddhist literature, especially the Jatakas, mentions it as the capital of the kingdom of Gandhara and as a great centre of learning. Gandhara is also mentioned as a satrapy, or province, in the inscriptions of the Achaemenian (Persian) king Darius I in the 5th century BCE. Taxila, as the capital of Gandhara, was evidently under Achaemenian rule for more than a century. When Alexander the Great invaded India in 326 BCE, Ambhi (Omphis), the ruler of Taxila, surrendered the city and placed his resources at Alexander’s disposal. Greek historians accompanying the Macedonian conqueror described Taxila as “wealthy, prosperous, and well governed.”
Within a decade after Alexander’s death, Taxila was absorbed into the Mauryan empire founded by Chandragupta, under whom it became a provincial capital. However, this was only an interlude in the history of Taxila’s subjection to conquerors from the west. After three generations of Mauryan rule, the city was annexed by the Indo-Greek kingdom of Bactria. It remained under the Indo-Greeks until the early 1st century BCE. They were followed by the Shakas, or Scythians, from Central Asia, and by the Parthians, whose rule lasted until the latter half of the 1st century CE.
According to early Christian legend, Taxila was visited by the apostle Thomas during the Parthian period. Another distinguished visitor was the neo-Pythagorean sage Apollonius of Tyana (1st century CE), whose biographer Philostratus described Taxila as a fortified city that was laid out on a symmetrical plan and compared it in size to Nineveh (ancient city of the Assyrian empire).
Taxila was taken from the Parthians by the Kushans under Kujula Kadphises. The great Kushan ruler Kanishka founded Sirsukh, the third city on the site. (The second, Sirkap, dates from the Indo-Greek period.) In the 4th century CE the Sāsānian king Shāpūr II (309–379) seems to have conquered Taxila, as evidenced by the numerous Sāsānian copper coins found there. There is little information about the Sāsānian occupation, but, when Faxian visited the city at about the beginning of the 5th century CE, he found it a flourishing centre of Buddhist sanctuaries and monasteries. Shortly thereafter it was sacked by the Huns; Taxila never recovered from this calamity. Xuanzang, visiting the site in the 7th century CE, found the city ruined and desolate, and subsequent records do not mention it. Excavations begun by Sir Alexander Cunningham, the father of Indian archaeology, in 1863–64 and 1872–73 identified the local site known as Saraikhala with ancient Taxila. This work was continued by Sir John Hubert Marshall, who over a 20-year period completely exposed the ancient site and its monuments.
Archaeology
The structural remains at Taxila include the Bhir mound area, the palace area at Sirkap, the Jandial and Pippala temples, the Giri fortress, the Mohra Moradu and Jaulian monasteries, and the Dharmarajika, Bhallar, and Kunala stupas (burial mounds). Different types of masonry used in the monuments indicate their period of origin. The earliest remains are those of the Bhir mound. The palace area, modeled on the same lines as its Assyrian counterpart, Nineveh, has several entrances and outer fortifications. It reveals traces of successive settlements, with the oldest parts of the buildings consisting of rubble masonry. A spacious Buddhist temple, several small shrines, and blocks of dwelling houses were uncovered . The shrine of the double-headed eagle is interesting for its pilasters of the Corinthian order on the front and for niches in the interspaces. Other antiquities of the palace area include terra-cottas and potteries; small bronze, copper, and iron objects; and beads, gems, and coins of Indo-Greek, Parthian, and early Kushan rulers.
Small stupa in the Mohra Moradu monastery, Taxila, Pakistan.
Small stupa in the Mohra Moradu monastery, Taxila, Pakistan.
Holle Bildarchiv, Baden-Baden
The Dharmarajika stupa, popularly known as Chir Tope, is a circular structure with a raised terrace around its base. A circle of small chapels surround the great stupa. Three distinctive types of masonry in the buildings around the main stupa suggest the contributions of different periods to the building activity. A silver scroll inscription in Kharoshti and a small gold casket containing some bone relics of the Buddha were found in one of the chapels. The inscription refers to the enshrinement of the relics, by a Bactrian named Ursaka from the town of Noacha in the year 136 BCE, for the bestowal of health on “the great King, Supreme King of Kings, the Son of Heaven, the Kushana” (probably Vima Kadphises, son of the Kushan conqueror Kujala). That site also contained several statues of the Buddha and bodhisattvas.
The Jandial temple, set up on an artificial mound, closely resembles the Classical temples of Greece. Its Ionic columns and pilasters are composed of massive blocks of sandstone. Built in the Scythio-Parthian period, it is probably the temple described by Philostratus in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Though the Jandial temple is not Buddhist, the Jaulian remains are. These include a monastery and two stupa courts.
Taxila, besides being a provincial seat, was also a centre of learning. It was not a university town with lecture halls and residential quarters, however, such as have been found at Nalanda in the Indian state of Bihar. At Taxila the preceptor housed his own pupils, who paid for their board and lodging in cash or in the form of service to the teacher and his family. The Buddhist monasteries also catered to the needs of the students and monks.
Baij Nath Puri
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Punjab
province, Pakistan
By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Edit History
Punjab, province of eastern Pakistan. It is bordered by the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the northeast, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, Sindh province to the south, Balochistān and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces to the west, and Islamabad federal capital area and Azad Kashmir to the north. The provincial capital, Lahore, is located in the east-central region, near the border with India. The name Punjab means “five waters,” or “five rivers,” and signifies the land drained by the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers, which are tributaries of the Indus River. Punjab is Pakistan’s second largest province, after Balochistān, and the most densely populated. Area 79,284 square miles (205,345 square km). Pop. (2011 est.) 91,379,615.
Urban civilization existed in the Indus River valley from about 2500 to 1500 BCE, when, it is believed, A***n incursions brought it to an end. The area entered recorded history with the annexation of Punjab and Sindh to the Persian empire by Darius I (c. 518 BCE). The founder of the Maurya dynasty, Chandragupta, incorporated the region into his Indian empire about 322 BCE. The first Muslims to pe*****te northern India were the Arabs, who in 712 CE conquered the lower Punjab. The rest of the Punjab was conquered (1007–27) by Maḥmūd of Ghazna. The area subsequently came under various other Muslim rulers until the victorious entry of the Mughals in 1526. Under the Mughals the province enjoyed peace and prosperity for more than 200 years. Their power declined after 1738, however, and in 1747 Lahore fell under weak Afghan rule marked by lawlessness and disorder. The religious sect called the Sikhs rose to power in the latter part of the 18th century. The Punjab came under British occupation in 1849, after the British victory over the Sikhs in the battles of Chilianwala and Gujrat. When the Indian subcontinent received its independence in 1947, Punjab was split between Pakistan and India, with the larger western portion becoming part of Pakistan. The present provincial boundaries were established in 1970.
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Punjab’s area mostly consists of an alluvial plain formed by the southward-flowing Indus River and its four major tributaries in Pakistan, the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej rivers. The general slope of the land is from northeast to southwest, but it rises in the areas between rivers. The alluvial plain has a diversity of landforms: its active floodplains are flooded every rainy season and contain changing river channels, while meander floodplains lying adjacent to the active floodplain are marked by relict and abandoned channels. In the northern parts of the province are the Murree and Rawalpindi and the Pabbi hills, part of the Sub-Himalayas, and in the far north is the Potwar Plateau. Although the region is a traditional floodplain, the extraordinary flooding of the Indus River in the summer of 2010 was especially disastrous in Punjab, where millions of people were affected (by some estimates, one-half of all Pakistanis affected were in Punjab). The government’s failure to alert the public of the impending disaster elicited much criticism; some felt that officials, having had previous experience handling flooding there, should have been able to provide Punjabis with more forewarning.
Punjab lies on the margin of the monsoon climate. The temperature is generally hot, with marked variations between summer and winter. In the plain the mean June temperature reaches the mid-90s F (mid-30s C), while the mean January temperature is in the mid-50s F (low 10s C). The average annual precipitation is low, except in the sub-Himalayan and northern areas, and decreases markedly from north to south or southwest, from 23 inches (580 mm) at Lahore in east-central Punjab to just 7 inches (180 mm) at Multān in the southwest.
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, containing more than half the country’s total population as well as several of its major cities: Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Multān, and Gujranwala. There is considerable rural-to-urban migration in the province, especially to the larger cities. In religion, the province is almost entirely Muslim, with a small Christian minority. Punjabi is the mother tongue of the great majority of the population. The main written language is Urdu, followed by English. The major ethnic groups are the Jat, Rajput, Arain, Gujar, and Awan. The caste system is gradually becoming blurred as a result of increasing social mobility, intercaste marriages, and changing public opinion.
Agriculture is the chief source of income and employment in Punjab. Much of the province once consisted of desert wastes that were unfavourable for settlement, but its character changed after an extensive network of irrigation canals was built in the early 20th century using the waters of the Indus tributaries. The area of settlement, which had formerly been limited to the north and northeast, was enlarged to include the whole province, and now about three-quarters of the province’s cultivable land is irrigated. Wheat and cotton are the principal crops. Other crops grown include rice, sugarcane, millet, corn (maize), oilseeds, pulses, fruits, and vegetables. Livestock and poultry are raised in large numbers.
Punjab is one of the more industrialized provinces in Pakistan; its manufacturing industries produce textiles, machinery, electrical appliances, surgical instruments, metals, bicycles and rickshaws, floor coverings, and processed foods. Pakistan’s main north-south road and railway connect Lahore with Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, to the north and with the ocean port of Karachi to the south. Punjab is connected by road or railway to India, China, and Afghanistan, and its major cities are linked by road. Lahore’s airport provides domestic service. The University of the Punjab and the University of Engineering and Technology are located in Lahore, as are other colleges, museums, libraries, and cultural centres.
