GandhÃÂra () Pali: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan kingdom of northwestern Indian Subcontinent whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The inhabitants of GandhÃÂra were called the GÃÂndhÃÂrës.
The GandhÃÂra kingdom of the late Vedic period was located on both sides of the Indus river, and it corresponded to the modern Rawalpindi District of modern-day Pakistani Punjab and Peshawar District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. By the 6th century BCE, GandhÃÂra had expanded to include the valley of Kaà Âmëra.
The capitals of GandhÃÂra were Taká¹£aà Âila (PÃÂli: ; Ancient Greek: ), and Puá¹£kalÃÂvatë (; ) or Puá¹£karÃÂvatë (Pali: ).
The first mention of the GandhÃÂrës is attested once in the religious text as a tribe that has sheep with good wool. In the , the GandhÃÂrës are mentioned alongside the Mà «javants, the ÃÂá¹ geyas and the MÃÂgadhës in a hymn asking fever to leave the body of the sick man and instead go those aforementioned tribes. The tribes listed were the furthermost border tribes known to those in , the ÃÂá¹ geyas and MÃÂgadhës in the east, and the Mà «javants and GandhÃÂrës in the north.
The GÃÂndhÃÂrë king Nagnajit and his son Svarajit are mentioned in another religious text, the s, according to which they received Brahmanic consecration, but their family's attitude towards ritual is mentioned negatively, with the royal family of GandhÃÂra during this period following non-Brahmanical religious traditions. According to the Jain , Nagnajit, or Naggaji, was a prominent king who had adopted Jainism and was comparable to Dvimukha of PÃÂñcÃÂla, Nimi of Videha, Karakaá¹Âá¸Âu of Kaliá¹ ga, and Bhëma of Vidarbha; Buddhist sources instead claim that he had achieved .
By the later Vedic period, the situation had changed, and the GÃÂndhÃÂrë capital of Taká¹£aà Âila had become an important centre of knowledge where the men of went to learn the three Vedas and the eighteen branches of knowledge, with the recording that s went north to study. According to the and the , the famous Vedic philosopher UddÃÂlaka ÃÂruá¹Âi was among the famous students of Taká¹£aà Âila, and the claims that his son à Âvetaketu also studied there. In the , UddÃÂlaka ÃÂruá¹Âi himself favourably referred to GÃÂndhÃÂrë education to the Vaideha king Janaka.
During the 6th century BCE, GandhÃÂra was an important imperial power in north-west Iron Age South Asia, with the valley of Kaà Âmëra being part of the kingdom, while the other states of the Punjab region, such as the Kekayas, Madrakas, Uà Âënaras, and Shivis being under GÃÂndhÃÂrë suzerainty. According to Buddhist narratives written a few centuries later, the GÃÂndhÃÂrë king PukkusÃÂti, engaged in expansionist ventures which brought him into conflict with the king Pradyota of the rising power of Avanti. PukkusÃÂti was successful in this struggle with Pradyota, but war broke out between him and the PÃÂá¹Âá¸Âava tribe located in the Punjab region, and who were threatened by his expansionist policy. PukkusÃÂti also engaged in friendly relations with the king BimbisÃÂra of Magadha.
Due to this important position, Buddhist texts listed the GandhÃÂra kingdom as one of the sixteen s ("great realms") of Iron Age Indian subcontinent.
By the later 6th century BCE, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus, soon after his conquests of Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, marched into Gandhara and annexed it into his empire. The scholar Kaikhosru Danjibuoy Sethna advanced that Cyrus had conquered only the trans-Indus borderlands around Peshawar which had belonged to GandhÃÂra while PukkusÃÂti remained a powerful king who maintained his rule over the rest of GandhÃÂra and the western Punjab.
However, according to the scholar Buddha Prakash, PukkusÃÂti might have acted as a bulwark against the expansion of the Persian Achaemenid Empire into the north-west Indian Subcontinent. This hypothesis posits that the army which Nearchus claimed Cyrus had lost in Gedrosia had in fact been defeated by PukkusÃÂti's GÃÂndhÃÂrë kingdom. Therefore, following Prakash's position, the Achaemenids would have been able to conquer GandhÃÂra only after a period of decline of GandhÃÂra after the reign of PukkusÃÂti combined the growth of Achaemenid power under the kings Cambyses II and Darius I. However, the presence of GandhÃÂra, referred to as in Old Persian, among the list of Achaemenid provinces in Darius's Behistun Inscription confirms that his empire had inherited this region from conquests carried out earlier by Cyrus.
Assuming that PukkusÃÂti lived during the 6th century BCE, is unknown whether he remained in power after the Achaemenid conquest as a Persian vassal or if he was replaced by a Persian satrap (governor), although Buddhist sources claim that he renounced his throne and became a monk after becoming a disciple of the Buddha. The annexation under Cyrus was limited to GandhÃÂra proper, after which the peoples of the Punjab region previously under GÃÂndhÃÂrë authority took advantage of the new power vacuum to form their own states.
However, there are no historical facts known for certain about PukkusÃÂti, and all theories about his reign are speculative. It is debated whether he ruled before or after the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley, and is unknown what kind of relationship he historically had with the Persian Achaemenid rulers. With alternative chronologies which date the Buddha's lifetime (and his contemporary kings) as much as a century later, it is alternatively possible that PukkusÃÂti in fact lived as much as a century after the Achaemenid conquest. Among scholars who favour the latter chronology, it remains an open question for debate, what kind of relationship PukkusÃÂti historically had with the Persian Achaemenid rulers. Possible theories are: he "may belong to a period when the Achaemenids had already lost their hold over Indian provinces," or he may have been holding power in eastern parts of Gandhara such as Taxila (speculatively considered by some scholars to be outside the Achaemenid dominions), or may have been serving as a vassal of the Achaemenids but with autonomy to conduct warfare and diplomacy with independent Indian states, similar to the "active and often independent role the western satraps had in Greek politics". Thus it is considered that he may have been an important intermediary for cultural influence between Ancient Persia and India.
Known Gandhara rulers include: