kingdom · South Asia
Kingdom of Gandhara
Origins
Gandhara, praised in the Rigveda for its sheep's wool, became one of the sixteen mahajanapadas by the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. It covered the Peshawar valley and the land across the Indus around Taxila, in modern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, and controlled the routes linking the Ganges plain with Bactria and Iran.
Rule and society
Buddhist texts record its king Pukkusati, said to have exchanged envoys and gifts with Bimbisara of Magadha and later to have become a monk. Taxila was already a centre of learning, where teachers taught the Vedas, medicine and statecraft to students from across northern India. Excavations at the Bhir Mound reveal the early city with its irregular streets.
Decline and legacy
Around 518 BCE Gandhara appears as a subject land in the Behistun inscription of Darius I, conquered by Cyrus or Darius, and it paid tribute to the Achaemenid Empire. Under Persian rule the Kharoshthi script developed from Aramaic. Local rule resurfaced later in the Kingdom of Taxila that Alexander met.
On the connections map
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- Kingdom of Gandhara was conquered by Achaemenid Empire518 BCE
Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Kingdom of Gandhara. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-gandhara
- MLA
- “Kingdom of Gandhara.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-gandhara. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Kingdom of Gandhara.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-gandhara.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Kingdom of Gandhara’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-gandhara (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻