Gandh?ra (kingdom)

Gandh?ra
Gandh?ra
c. 1200 BCE ? c. 535 BCE
	Gandh?ra among the Mah?janapadas in the Post Vedic period
Capital	Tak?a?ila ; Pu?kal?vat?
Common languages	Prakrits
Religion	Hinduism ; Jainism ; Buddhism
Demonym(s)	G?ndh?r?
Government	Monarchy
? c. 700 BCE	Nagnajit
? c. 550 BCE	Pukkus?ti
Historical era	Iron Age India
? Established	c. 1200 BCE
? Conquered by the Achaemenid Empire	c. 535 BCE
	Succeeded by
Gaⁿd?ra ; (Achaemenid Empire)
Today part of	Pakistan

Gandh?ra ( Sanskrit : ?????? ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan kingdom of northwestern Indian subcontinent whose existence is attested during the Iron Age . The inhabitants of Gandh?ra were called the G?ndh?r?s .

Location [ edit ]

Location of the G?ndh?r?s the Vedic tribes

Location of Gandh?ra during the late Vedic period

Location of Gandh?ra during the post-Vedic period

The Gandh?ra kingdom of the late Vedic period was located on both sides of the Indus river, and it corresponded to the modern Rawalpindi District of modern-day Pakistani Punjab and Peshawar District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . ^[1]^[2] By the 6th century BCE, Gandh?ra had expanded to include the valley of Ka?m?ra . ^[3]

The capitals of Gandh?ra were Tak?a?ila ( P?li : Takkasil? ; Ancient Greek : Ταξιλα Taxila ), and Pu?kal?vat? ( Pr?krit : Pukkal?oti ; Ancient Greek : Πευκελαωτι? Peukela?tis ) or Pu?kar?vat? ( P?li : Pokkharavat? ). ^[2]

History [ edit ]

Kingdom [ edit ]

The first mention of the Gandh?r?s is attested once in the ?gveda as a tribe that has sheep with good wool. In the Atharvaveda , the Gandh?r?s are mentioned alongside the M?javants, the ??geyas . and the M?gadh?s in a hymn asking fever to leave the body of the sick man and instead go those aforementioned tribes. The tribes listed were the furthermost border tribes known to those in Madhyade?a , the ??geyas and M?gadh?s in the east, and the M?javants and Gandh?r?s in the north. ^[4]^[5]

The G?ndh?r? king Nagnajit and his son Svarajit are mentioned in the Br?hma?a s , according to which they received Brahmanic consecration, but their family's attitude towards ritual is mentioned negatively, ^[2] with the royal family of Gandh?ra during this period following non-Brahmanical religious traditions. According to the Jain Uttar?dhyayana-s?tra , Nagnajit, or Naggaji, was a prominent king who had adopted Jainism and was comparable to Dvimukha of P?nc?la , Nimi of Videha , Karaka??u of Kali?ga , and Bh?ma of Vidarbha ; Buddhist sources instead claim that he had achieved paccekabuddhay?na . ^[3]^[6]^[7]

By the later Vedic period, the situation had changed, and the G?ndh?r? capital of Tak?a?ila had become an important centre of knowledge where the men of Madhya-de?a went to learn the three Vedas and the eighteen branches of knowledge, with the Kau??taki Br?hma?a recording that br?hma?a s went north to study. According to the ?atapatha Br?hma?a and the Udd?laka J?taka , the famous Vedic philosopher Udd?laka ?ru?i was among the famous students of Tak?a?ila, and the Setaketu J?taka claims that his son ?vetaketu also studied there. In the Ch?ndogya Upani?ad , Udd?laka ?ru?i himself favourably referred to G?ndh?r? education to the Vaideha king Janaka . ^[2]

During the 6th century BCE, Gandh?ra was an important imperial power in north-west Iron Age South Asia, with the valley of Ka?m?ra being part of the kingdom, ^[3] while the other states of the Punjab region, such as the Kekayas , Madrakas , U??naras , and Shivis being under G?ndh?r? suzerainty. The G?ndh?r? king Pukkus?ti , who reigned around 550 BCE, engaged in expansionist conquests which brought him into conflict with the king Pradyota of the rising power of Avanti . Pukkus?ti was successful in this struggle with Pradyota, but war broke out between him and the P???ava tribe located in the Punjab region, and who were threatened by his expansionist policy. ^[6]^[8] Pukkus?ti also engaged in friendly relations with the king Bimbis?ra of Magadha . ^[6]

Due to this important position, Buddhist texts listed the Gandh?ra kingdom as one of the sixteen Mah?janapada s ("great realms") of Iron Age South Asia. ^[9]^[10]

Conquest by Persia [ edit ]

By the later 6th century BCE, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire , Cyrus , soon after his conquests of Media , Lydia , and Babylonia , marched into Gandhara and annexed it into his empire. ^[11] The scholar Kaikhosru Danjibuoy Sethna advanced that Cyrus had conquered only the trans-Indus borderlands around Peshawar which had belonged to Gandh?ra while Pukkus?ti remained a powerful king who maintained his rule over the rest of Gandh?ra and the western Punjab. ^[12]

However, according to the scholar Buddha Prakash , Pukkus?ti might have acted as a bulwark against the expansion of the Persian Achaemenid Empire into north-west South Asia. This hypothesis posits that the army which Nearchus claimed Cyrus had lost in Gedrosia had in fact been defeated by Pukkus?ti's G?ndh?r? kingdom. Therefore, following Prakash's position, the Achaemenids would have been able to conquer Gandh?ra only after a period of decline of Gandh?ra after the reign of Pukkus?ti combined the growth of Achaemenid power under the kings Cambyses II and Darius I . ^[6] However, the presence of Gandh?ra, referred to as Gaⁿd?ra in Old Persian , among the list of Achaemenid provinces in Darius's Behistun Inscription confirms that his empire had inherited this region from conquests carried out earlier by Cyrus. ^[11]

It is unknown whether Pukkus?ti remained in power after the Achaemenid conquest as a Persian vassal or if he was replaced by a Persian satrap (governor), ^[13] although Buddhist sources claim that he renounced his throne and became a monk after becoming a disciple of the Buddha . ^[14] The annexation under Cyrus was limited to Gandh?ra proper, after which the peoples of the Punjab region previously under G?ndh?r? authority took advantage of the new power vacuum to form their own states. ^[6]

References [ edit ]

^ Singh, Upinder . A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century . Pearson Education India . p. 264.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Raychaudhuri 1953 , p. 59-62.
^ ^a ^b ^c Raychaudhuri 1953 , p. 146-147.
^ Macdonell, Arthur Anthony; Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1912). Vedic Index of Names and Subjects . John Murray. pp. 218?219.
^ Chattopadhyaya, Sudhakar (1978). Reflections on the Tantras . Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. p. 4.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Prakash, Buddha (1951). "Poros" . Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute . 32 (1): 198?233. JSTOR 41784590 . Retrieved 12 June 2022 .
^ Macdonell & Keith 1912 , p. 218-219, 432.
^ Jain, Kailash Chand (1972). Malwa Through the Ages . Delhi , India : Motilal Banarsidass . pp. 98?104. ISBN 978-8-120-80824-9 .
^ Higham, Charles (2014), Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations , Infobase Publishing, pp. 209?, ISBN 978-1-4381-0996-1 , archived from the original on 31 March 2022 , retrieved 24 June 2022
^ Khoinaijam Rita Devi (1 January 2007). History of ancient India: on the basis of Buddhist literature . Akansha Publishing House. ISBN 978-81-8370-086-3 . Archived from the original on 24 June 2022 . Retrieved 24 June 2022 .
^ ^a ^b Young, T. Cuyler (1988). "The early history of the Medes and the Persians and the Achaemenid empire to the death of Cambyses". In Boardman, John ; Hammond, N. G. L. ; Lewis, D. M. ; Ostwald, M. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History . Vol. 4. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . pp. 1?52. ISBN 978-0-521-22804-6 .
^ Sethna, Kaikhosru Danjibuoy (2000). "To P??ini's Time from P??ini's Place". Problems of Ancient India . Aditya Prakashan. pp. 121?172. ISBN 978-8-177-42026-5 .
^ Bivar, A. D. H. (1988). "The Indus Lands". In Boardman, John ; Hammond, N. G. L. ; Lewis, D. M. ; Ostwald, M. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History . Vol. 4. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . pp. 194?210. ISBN 978-0-521-22804-6 .
^ "Pukkus?ti" . www.palikanon.com. Archived from the original on 24 June 2022 . Retrieved 26 July 2020 .