Taxila: Pakistan’s heritage

A visit to the centre of Gandhara:

[General Information]

* Taxila is situated at an altitude of 512 m. above sea level.

* The ruins of the ancient cities are spread over an area of about 20 sq. kms.

* The best season for a visit is between September and March.

The modern town of Taxila is 35 km from Islamabad. Most of the archaeological sites of Taxila (600 BC to 500 AD) are located around Taxila Museum. For over one thousand years, Taxila remained famous as a centre of learning Gandhara art of sculpture, architecture, education and Buddhism in the days of Buddhist glory.

There are over 50 archaeological sites scattered in a radius of 30 kms around Taxila. Some of the most important sites are; Dhamarajika Stupa and Monastery (300 BC - 200 AD), Bhir Mound (600-200 BC), Sirkap (200 BC - 600 AD), Jandial Temple (c.250 BC) and Jaulian Monastery (200 - 600 AD).

Today the Gandhara sculptures occupy a prominent place in the museums of England, France, Germany, USA, Japan, Korea, China, India and Afghanistan, together with many private collections world over, as well as a vast collection in the museums of Pakistan.

Buddhism left a monumental and rich legacy of art and architecture in Pakistan. Despite the vagaries of centuries, the Gandhara region preserved a lot of the heritage in craft and art. Much of this legacy is visible even today in Pakistan.

At Taxila you come face to face with the great Buddha. He looms over you larger than life. His serene eyes gaze at you till you find yourself gripped by a feeling of awe. You meet others also at Taxila.

Alexander of Macedonia, for one. And Asoka, the famous Buddhist king. And the Emperor Kanishka, perhaps the greatest of them all. Their imprints are everywhere.

As you,- the space-age visitor, step into Taxila you feel suddenly 2,500 years younger. For that is when one of the world’s least known but most interesting civilizations took root and flourished in Taxila.

Once a province of the powerful Achaemenian Empire, Taxila was conquered by Alexander in 327 B.C. It later came under the Mauryan dynasty and reached a remarkably mature level of development under the great Asoka.

Then appeared the Indo-Greek descendants of Alexander’s warrior and finally came the most creative period of Gandhara. The great Kushan dynasty was established about 50 A.D. During the next 200 years, Taxila became a renowned centre of learning, from as far away as China and Greece. The end came in the fifth century A.D. when the White Huns snuffed out the last of the successive civilizations that had held unbroken sway in this region for several centuries.

Exploring Taxila is a multi-dimensional experience. You are attracted by the richness and variety of the famed Gandhara sculpture.

There are endless images of Buddha, in stone and stucco, and numerous panels depicting all the important stages of the great sage’s life. Exquisitely sculpted friezes and statues of all sizes evoke the life and times of one of the worlds’ most impressive men of peace: Gautama Buddha.

Each carved bit of sculpture, from the colossal to the miniature - and there are literally thousands of them – is a collector’s item. Even if you aren’t exactly a devotee of the sculpture of the first century A.D., you will find it a challenge to trace similarities between the Gandhara masterpieces and their Graeco-Roman counterparts.

Visual Expression

Incidentally, it is these stone men and women of Gandhara who greet you so graciously in Taxila, or rather their craftsmen, who first gave visual expression to Buddha and his era.

And then there are the excavated ruins. Three distinct cities stretch before you in a surprisingly good state of preservation.

With your imagination aided by the carved people who inhabit these cities, you will have little difficulty in picturing crowds on the well laid out streets, families in the spacious houses, priests in the towering stupas and royalty in the great palaces.

The earliest city, Bhir Mound, dates back to the sixth century B.C. Its irregular streets, cramped houses and mediocre public building indicate its primitive origins. Sirkap, on the opposite side of the Tamara Stream, is much newer, having been built in the second century B.C. You will find Sirkap a well-planned city.

And as you stroll down its wide streets, you can call at the houses of the affluent and go slumming, as it were, in the more crowded sections where dwelt the common man of the dim and misty past.

Note the fortification wall, the long, straight and impressive main street, the Royal Palace, and Apsidal Temple and the Shrine of the Double-Headed Eagle. The third city, Sirsukh, is modern by comparison. It was apparently built by the Kushan kings in the first century A.D.

It has not been fully excavated as yet but it is clearly a well fortified, well laid out city, patterned after Central Asian cities and is complete with a suburb.

In addition to these three major cities, many important monasteries, stupas and places have been excavated all along the Taxila valley. Many more, surely, still lies buried awaiting discovery.

If you can’t manage all, you must at least explore the remarkable Dharmarajika Stupa, three kilometers east of the Taxila Museum. It comprises a main building, a monastery area where the monks lived and a series of small chapels. Sacred relics of Buddha and a silver scroll commemorating the relics were found in one of the chapels.

A wealth of gold and silver coins, gems, jewellery and other antiques were discovered at Dharmarajika.

They are all housed in the Taxila Museum.

There is also Jaulian, another impressive complex of chapels, stupas, quadrangles, and a monastery with assembly hall, storerooms, refectory, kitchen and bathrooms.

At five small stupas you will see beautiful stucco relief of Buddha and Bodhisatvas supported by rows of stone elephants and lions.

Two miles from Jaulian is another well-preserved monastery —- at Mohra Moradu.

In one of the monk’ cells here was found a small stupa with almost all the details intact.

At Jandial, two kilometers from Sirsukh, is an imageless temple in the classic Greek style, with columns and cornices.

For the climbers, there is the Glen of Giri, about five kilometers from Dharmarajika Stupa.

A place of peace

Atop the highest peak of a range of hills are two stupas and a fortress built in a cleft near a spring of pure, sweet water.

The stucco decoration of the stupas is well worth the climb.

No amount of description can do justice to Taxila. To feel and understand its full importance, you simply have to go there. Even today, Taxila is a place of peace.

Its pastoral landscape is almost as inviting as its living past.

Early man knew what he was doing when 3,000 years ago he chose to site his cities in this delightful, hill-edged valley.

Museum

The archaeological museum at Taxila is a real treasure-house. Its collection of coins, jewellery, relics, and gold and silver caskets alone are worth a king’s ransom. But its real glory comes from stone and stucco—that exquisite Gandhara sculpture crafted at a time when the world was young. Its impressive collection will help you get to know Gautama, the Lord Buddha, better.

The ivy-covered, Gothic-style museum is in a picturesque garden. There is in the central hall a plaster cast of the Stupa topped with seven umbrellas found in Mohra Moradu. As relief map of the valley pinpoints the location of the different excavated sites. There are rows of cases filled with the famed sculpture, stucco relief, stone, plaster and terra-cotta figures, glass tiles and other objects, toilet articles seals, beads bark manuscripts, silver utensils, carpentry tools, surgical instruments and much else.

Accommodation

Visitors to Taxila generally stay at nearby Rawalpindi and Islamabad, which have good hotels in every category.

A Tourist Information office Centre, a Motel and a Restaurant are located just opposite the Taxila Museum for the convenience of tourists. Food can be had from the Snack Bar ‘a la carte’.

The rest-house near the Museum and the dak bungalow near Nikra, five kilometers away, provide simple, comfortable accommodation. Lodging charges are nominal. Caretakers arranges for meals on payments. Advance booking is done through the Curator of Taxila Museum. There is a Youth Hostel quite close to the Museum with accommodation for 24 persons. It can be used by members Association affiliated with the International Youth Hostels Federation. It costs only a few rupees.

Places of Interest Around Taxila

Islamabad

Pakistan’s new capital has, like Brasilia, been built to order by some of the world’s top architects and planners. It is a picturesque place with wide tree-linked streets and impressive buildings.

Rawalpindi

And old town with a crowded colourful bazaar, and souvenir shops packed with wonderful handicrafts, parks, gardens and a golf course.

Murree

63 km from Rawalpindi is the country’s leading hill station. Built by the British in the old colonial days, Murree perches precariously at a height of 2,275 m. It is famous for its pine-fresh air, its green slopes and glens and spectacular views.

Nathiagali

35 km from Murree, Nathiagali is even higher and more bracing than Murree.

Ayubia

A hill station in the making, famous for its chair-lift, Ayubia is very picturesque.

Abbottabad

122 km from Rawalpindi is the beautiful town of Abbottabad, located over a series of refreshing green low hills