Gandhara

Gandhara was an ancient region around the city of Peshawar, which today forms the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The center was on the rivers Swat and Kabul, tributaries of the Indus, the most important city of Taxila lay to the east of the Indus towards the Margalla Hills ( Wah - district ).

History

From the middle of the 1st millennium BC Gandhara was one of the 21 satrapies ( provinces ) of the Persian Empire of the Achaemenids. The largest cities were Taxila (35 km northwest of the present Islamabad ) of Darius I ( 549-486 BC) became the capital, and Peshawar. After Alexander the Great ( 356-323 BC) had already conquered large parts of the former Persian Empire, he took over in 326 BC, Taxila one whose ruler resulted in him without a fight.

After the death of Alexander his empire soon disintegrated into a number of smaller successor kingdoms (see also Seleucids ). At the same time, the influence of the Indian Mauryan dynasty under its founder Chandragupta Maurya, the Gandhara his empire grew incorporated. Middle of the 3rd century BC spread among Ashoka Buddhism in the region of Gandhara. After that Gandhara was to the 1st century BC in the area of ​​influence of the Greek kings of Bactria, the Persian Parthians, who built at the same time in the south of the Indian subcontinent a colony. The Sakas, who had settled at that time in the territory of present-day Kandahar and merged with the local Iranian Arachosiern, became vassals of the Parthians. Turning to the Parthian -Roman conflict Profiting built the Arachosier their sphere of by pairing up the succession of the Indo- Greeks in the Indus basin, previously before the Saken to eastern Iran (now North -West Frontier in the Suleiman Mountains in southeastern Afghanistan ) had fled, and the local Indians had sold.

In the 1st century AD ( approximately 50 ou 70) was the center of the Gandhara Kushan empire of the Yuezhi (Indo- Scythians, possibly from the northern Chinese province of Gansu ), whose capital was located near the present-day Kabul. Under pressure from the Sassanid Empire waned, the influence of the Kushan. Order 330, the Gupta Empire, which went down in the 5th century with the conquest of the territory by the Hephthalites ( White Huns ) came into being. This drove the Gandharer from the area. The Kushan Empire was already merged with the Sassanid Empire and the two formed a whole civilization, also called " Kuschano - Sassanian civilization" bringing back to Gandhara. Here, the Gandharer, emerged from the Indo- Greeks, Sakas and Arachosiern, with the Bactrians, Kushans and Persians mingled. At that time they spoke for quite some time the Old Persian Old Dari, called Mekhi. This development is attributable to the Kushans and Sassanids.

Arts and Culture

Gandhara is known for the distinctive Gandhara style of Buddhist art, an aftermath of the Greco- Buddhist syncretism of Indian and Hellenistic influences, as well as those of the Persian empires in the centuries after Alexander the Great's conquests in Central Asia around 330 BC merged together.

In Gandhāra AD were made by the Kushans, the first representations of the Buddha in human form on coins and statues as in the 1st century - previously were only symbolic representations (eg Stupa, Dharmachakra and Bodhi - tree ) have been common. These sculptures were role models for all later representations of the Buddha.

The earliest Buddhist manuscripts that are simultaneously also the oldest Indian, were found in Gandhara (see Gandhāra fonts). The language of this time, the Gandhari, was descended from the Prakrit and was related to Sanskrit. It was written in the Kharoshthi font. With the rule of the Sassanids - Kuschāno Gandhari was replaced by Mekhi, but the Elamite cuneiform was not used as for the neighbors to the west.

Heyday of the Gandhara style was the time from the 1st century under the Kushan dynasty until the invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century. Starting from Gandhāra found Buddhism on the Silk Road its way to East Asia, China and subsequently to Korea and Japan.

From Gandhara is also believed that the mystic Dhanakosha Lake is here, the birthplace of Padmasambhava, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. The Kagyu lineage brings the lake by Andan - Dheri Stupa in conjunction, which is near the small town Uchh at Chakdara in the lower Swat valley. He is said, in its base springs from a source that feeds the lake. Archaeologists have found the stupa but no source and no lake.

The later Buddhist culture in the Bamiyan Valley, which is located further north in the center of present day Afghanistan, with its world-renowned 35 and 53 meter high Buddha statues was significantly influenced by the Gandhara style. The statues have been carved in the 5th -6th century AD in a cliff of red sandstone, had decorated togas in the Greco- Buddhist style, and were with precious stones.