Gandhāra and the Exploration of Gandhāra Art of Pakistan

Abstract

In the Rigvedic times people living in the Peshawar valley and the modern district of Rāwalpindi of Pakistan were called Gandhāras, while in the third century BC, they are mentioned as the inhabitants of Gandhāra. Gandhāra, thus, was a distinct geographical region. The Rigveda (verse 1.126.7) confines it to the Kābul valley down to the right bank (where river Kābul terminates into the Indus in the east) of the Indus, while THR Griffith on the basis of Atharvaveda (verse .22.14) places it in the north-west of the Brahmanical India. The Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana include Takṣaśilā, Modern Taxila, on the left bank of the Indus in Gandhāra. HH Wilson extends the boundary further east to the river Jehlum,7 and also, defines the Kian-tho-lo of A Remusat as Gandhāra. . . .