Ancient Capital of Empires and Hub of Culture

  Taxila, Pakistan
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

After getting a Chinese visa in the green and clean city of Islamabad, I headed to Taxila, the ancient capital of Gandhara, where Buddhist ruins with Persian, Greek, and Mauryan influences show that the people of Pakistan were once part of a Buddhist land and Taxila was the crossroads. 

Bhir Mound Ruins

As the morning sun began to intensify, I began at the Bhir Mound, inhabited over two thousand years ago by Archaemenians from Persia and the oldest site at Taxila.  Only the tops of walls can now be seen, as the lower levels are mostly buried.

Dharmarajika Stupa

A few kilometers to the east was the Dharmarajika Stupa, surrounded by a monastery complex created during the reign of Ashoka, the Mauryan Emperor who spread Buddhism throughout the subcontinent.  The monasteries were now in ruin, with much of the art housed in museums around the world, including the local Taxila Museum, which I visited the evening before to see sculpture, pots, and other ancient art.  Buddha statues resembled Greek Gods or wore a Persian moustache in some cases, showing the influence of various rulers.  The museum was full of Pakistani families interested in their heritage.  One man could not believe his eyes when he saw an exquisite pot two millenium old: "they could do that then!?"

Dharmarajika Stupa Sculpture Remains

I imagined what Taxila would have been like during Mauryan times over two thousand years ago: monks developing Mahayana Buddhism, statues of people with Persian and Greek features, and rich patrons from the vibrant city visiting the temples to pray.  Monks would have followed the major trade routes to Kashmir, Northern India, and Afghanistan exchanging ideas along the way.  Likewise, traders from Europe, Persia, Central Asia, India, and China would have met in Taxila during this time.

Walking to the northwest through rocky hills with scattered plowed fields, passing people quarrying rocks by hand and ruined hilltop monasteries, I soon reached Sirkap, a city with a six centuries of history (183 B.C. to 460 A.D.).  Indeed, three cities are built one on top of the other, with their different walls clearly visible in one spot: the Bactrian Greeks, the Central Asian Scythians, and the Iranian Parthians. 

Jandial Greek (Zoroastrian Fire) Temple

During Parthian rule, St. Thomas is believed to have visited here on his wanderings towards India, discovering a florishing capital, baptizing Indo-Parthian King Gondopharnes, and building a church, which a local man showed me.  In addition to the church, St. Thomas would have found a Jain temple, a nearby Greek Zoroastrian fire temple with ionic columns, a Buddhist stupa, a Hindu sun temple-cum-sundial, a shrine now named Double-headed Eagle Shrine, and streets lined with market shops and residences.

Double Headed Eagle and Columns

The local man also showed me some old coins and, idol worshipping aside, said that he liked Buddha, which reminded me of a story Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche recounted in Kathmandu. While the Rinpoche was in New York City, he entered a taxi.  The driver, seeing his maroon garb and shaved head asked if he was a Tibetan monk.  The driver was Pakistani and proceeded to take out a photgraph of the Dalai Lama and kiss it: "I love the Dalai Lama," he said.

Stupa in Sirkap City

Sirkap was organized into grids, which Islamabad now emulates.  Bisected with treed boulevards, a Sim City square grid system labels sectors in the capital like a game of Battleship: G-8, F-2, B-5.  As the city expands, new sectors are added, hopefully, as the planners predict, to avoid sprawl and urban decay.  Because of the sector system, residential grids were tranquil, I found, belying the political turmoil in the capital, as President General Musharraf battles with lawyers, fundamentalists, and other politicians.

Eventually the White Huns destroyed Taxila in the 5th century, along with earthquakes, and Taxila slowly became buried and almost forgotton until the British came to excavate the sites.

My amblings around Taxila were a brief glimpse into the past: Pakistan was once many things at different times.