Sanskrit TAKSAShILA, ancient city of northwestern India, the ruins of which are about 22 miles (35 kilometres) northwest of Rawalpindi, Pak. Its prosperity in ancient times resulted from its position at the junction of three great trade routes: one from eastern India described by a Greek writer, Megasthenes, as the "Royal Highway," the second from western Asia, and the third from Kashmir and Central Asia. When these routes ceased to be important the city sank into insignificance and was finally destroyed by the Huns in the 5th century AD.

History.

Taxila is known from references to it in Indian and Greco-Roman literary sources and from the accounts of two Chinese pilgrims, Fa-hsien and Hsuan-tsang. Literally meaning "the city of cut-stone" or "the rock of Taksa," Taksashila (rendered by Greek writers as Taxila) was founded, according to the Indian epic Ramayana, by Bharata, younger brother of Rama, an incarnation of the Hindu god Visnu. The city was named for Bharata's son, Taksa, its first ruler. The great Indian epic Mahabharata was, according to tradition, first recited at Taxila at the great snake sacrifice of King Janamejaya, one of the heroes of the story. Buddhist literature, especially the Jataka, mentions it as the capital of the kingdom of Gandhara and as a great centre of learning. Gandhara (Gandarii) is also mentioned as a satrapy or province in the inscriptions of the Achaemenian (Persian) king Darius I in the 5th century BC. Taxila, as the capital of Gandhara, was evidently under Achaemenian rule for more than a century. When Alexander the Great invaded India in 326 BC Ambhi (Omphis), the ruler of Taxila, surrendered the city and placed his resources at Alexander's disposal. Greek historians accompanying the Macedonian conqueror described Taxila as "wealthy, prosperous, and well governed."

Within a decade after Alexander's death, Taxila was absorbed into the Mauryan empire founded by Candragupta Maurya, under whom it became a provincial capital. But this was only an interlude in the history of Taxila's subjection to conquerors from the west. After three generations of Mauryan rule, the city was annexed by the Indo-Greek kingdom of Bactria. It remained under the Indo-Greeks until the early 1st century BC. They were followed by the Shakas, or Scythians, from Central Asia, and by the Parthians, whose rule lasted until the latter half of the 1st century AD.

According to early Christian legend, Taxila was visited by the Apostle Thomas during the Parthian period. Another distinguished visitor was the Neo-Pythagorean sage Apollonius of Tyana (1st century AD), whose biographer Philostratus described Taxila as a fortified city that was laid out on a symmetrical plan and compared it in size to Nineveh.

Taxila was taken from the Parthians by the Kushans under Kujula Kadphises. The great Kushan ruler Kaniska founded Sirsukh, the third city on the site. (The second, Sirkap, dates from the Indo-Greek period.) In the 4th century AD the Sasanian king Shapur II (310-379) seems to have conquered Taxila, as evidenced by the numerous Sasanian copper coins found there. There is little information about the Sasanian occupation, but when Fa-hsien visited the city at about the beginning of the 5th century AD, he found it a flourishing centre of Buddhist sanctuaries and monasteries. Shortly thereafter it was sacked by the Huns. Taxila never recovered from this calamity. Hsuan-tsang, visiting the site in the 7th century AD, found the city ruined and desolate, and subsequent records do not mention it. Excavations begun by Sir Alexander Cunningham, the father of Indian archaeology, in 1863-64 and 1872-73, identified the local site known as Saraikhala with ancient Taxila. This work was continued by Sir John Marshall, who over a 20-year period completely exposed the ancient site and its monuments.