Buddhist Legacy of Pakistan | Gandhara the Spiritual centre of Buddhism

Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region in the present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of north-east Afghanistan, with its influence going on the greater north-western region of the Indian subcontinent. The region centered around the Peshawar Valley and Swat river valley, though the cultural influence of “Greater Gandhara“ extended across the Indus river to the Taxila region in Potohar Plateau and westwards into the Kabul and Bamiyan valleys in Afghanistan, and northwards up to the Karakoram ’s existence is attested since the time of the Rigveda (c. 1500 – c. 1200 BCE),[6][7] as well as the Zoroastrian Avesta, which mentions it as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place on earth created by Ahura Mazda. Gandhara was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE, Alexander the Great in 327 BCE, and later became part of the Maurya Empire before being a centre of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The region was a major centre for Greco-Bu