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Taxila lies in the Pothohar Plateau, 35 km northwest of Islamabad, at the eastern end of the Khyber Pass route from Central Asia into the subcontinent. The strategic position made it the meeting point of overland trade routes connecting Persia, Central Asia, China, and India — and the city reflects this intersection in its architecture, coinage, and art.
The site encompasses three major successive urban settlements, each occupying a distinct location on the plateau:
Bhir Mound (6th–2nd century BCE): The oldest city at Taxila, founded in the Achaemenid period when Taxila was a provincial capital of the Persian Empire (mentioned in the Behistun Inscription of Darius I, c. 518 BCE). The city became an important intellectual center — later tradition identifies it as the location of a university where the grammarian Panini (author of the Ashtadhyayi, the world's first formal linguistic grammar) was educated, and where Chanakya (Kautilya), author of the Arthashastra statecraft manual, taught. Alexander the Great received the submission of the city's king Ambhi in 326 BCE and used Taxila as his base before crossing the Indus.
Sirkap (2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE): Founded by the Bactrian Greek king Demetrius I after his invasion of the subcontinent c. 185 BCE, Sirkap was laid out on a Hellenistic grid plan with a main street (a typical Greek decumanus) and rectangular blocks. The city passed successively under Saka, Parthian, and Kushana rule. Its most remarkable monument is the Dharmarajika Stupa complex, built by Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE and expanded over the following centuries.
Sirsukh (2nd century CE onward): Founded by the Kushana emperor Kanishka (c. 127 CE), Sirsukh is a large rectangular walled city of the Kushana type. The Kushana period was the golden age of Gandharan Buddhist art: the sculpture workshops of Taxila produced the first realistic human depictions of the Buddha in stone and stucco, combining Hellenistic figural conventions with Buddhist iconography. The resulting Gandharan style spread Buddha imagery across Asia.
Dozens of Buddhist monasteries, stupas, and viharas surround the three city sites, the most celebrated being the Jaulian Monastery (2nd–5th century CE) with its decorated stupa and assembly hall.