OVERVIEW of GREATER GANDHARA the Region of Ancient
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CHAPTER ONE OVERVIEW OF GREATER GANDHARA The region of ancient Gandhara, located in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, was the center of a flourishing Buddhist tradi tion between the 2nd century B.C.E. and the 6th century C.E. Inhabitants of this area, today part of Pakistan, became affluent through international trade, as objects were exchanged among India, China, and the Mediterranean. Traffic in luxury goods brought streams of foreign traders into this already culturally diverse region, and it is this mix of different people and ideas that makes the study of Gandhara both complex and intriguing. In this prosperous milieu, many large Buddhist complexes were built at the beginning of the common era. Works of art, also produced in great quantity, reflect south Asian tastes and religious ideology imbued with western char acteristics. The people who lived in Gandhara embraced this mul ticultural hybrid and over time creatively recontextualized outside forms and ideas to suit their own needs and interests. The Buddhist architectural remains in Greater Gandhara (fig. 3) offer glimpses of the religious life that thrived in this region for nearly 1,000 years. The development of Gandharan art and architecture, an extensive range of structures and figurative sculpture, also offers a paradigmatic model for the study of the larger south Asian Buddhist tradition. It was in Gandhara that some of the earliest anthropo morphic images of the Buddha were created as a complement to worship practices centered on relics. Only by considering how Gandharan Buddhists understood and used relics of the Teacher and why imagery became so ubiquitous does the Buddhist tradition of Gandhara come into focus. Around 330 B.C.E. Alexander the Great conquered large parts of what are now Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. After Alexander's death, his generals divided the empire, initiating a complex period of political history known primarily through scattered numismatic evidence recording rulers with Greek names. The excavated city of Ai Khanoum, in Afghanistan, with its gymnasium, amphitheater, and temples, indicates that for a time a Hellenistic colony existed in the OVERVIEW OF GREATER GANDHAAA 13 northwest of the subcontinent. 1 The roots of the Greater Gandharan taste for classical forms are apparent in the material culture pre served in this polis. In the middle of the 3rd century B.C.E. King Asoka, a powerful Mauryan proponent of Buddhism, directed that several edicts stressing ahimsa and dharma (nonviolence and duty) be carved on boulders in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is generally understood as the beginning of Buddhism in the north west, even though these isolated inscriptions do not explicitly refer to Buddhism, which would have been just one of many religions practiced in this area. Over the following 200 years, Greater Gandhara was repeatedly invaded by different ethnic groups, which sought to control key passes through the Himalayas. In rapid succession the Parthians, Scythians, lndo-Scythians, Indo-Parthians, and others fought over this region before the powerful Yueh-chih began to move toward Afghanistan from the western Chinese borderlands. Bearing the dynastic title of Kushan, the Yueh-chih gradually invaded Greater Gandhara in the 1st century B.C.E. Their rule culminated under the kings Kani~ka I and Huvi~ka in the 2nd century C.E., by which time the Kushans had established a large kingdom, extending beyond the Hindu Kush to northern India. They established political stability and unified the many cultures and religions within a single political system. 2 In the 2nd century B.C.E., while political turmoil was churning Gandhara, the first Buddhist sites were established in the region (fig. 6). The two earliest centers, Butkara I in the Swat valley and the Dharmarajika complex in Taxila, share many characteristics with contemporary Buddhist sites in India. At this time, relics of the Buddha housed in massive hemispherical stiipas were the focus of worship (figs. 1, 17). Not until the 1st and 2nd centuries C.E., however, were a significant number of Buddhist centers founded in Gandhara.3 Beginning at that 1 D. MacDowall and M. Taddei, "The Early Historic Period: Achaemenids and Greeks," in 77ze Archaeology of Afr;hanistan from Earliest Times to the Timurid Period, ed. R. Allchin and N. Hammond (London: Academic Press, I 978), 218-32. 2 Ibid., 204-12; D. MacDowall and M. Taddei, "The Pre-Muslim Period," in 77te Archaeology ef Al~hanistan from Earliest Times to the Timurid Period, ed. R. Allchin and N. Hammond (London: Academic Press, 1978), 233-4, 245-8. 3 Errington, "Numismatic Evidence for Dating the Buddhist Remains of Gandhara," 194; G. Fussman, "Numismatic and Epigraphic Evidence for the Chronology of Early Gandharan Art," in Investigating Indian Art: Proceedings ef a Symposium on the .