Who ruled Taxila?

Taxila, ancient Takshashila, lies on the Pothohar Plateau in Punjab, Pakistan, about 25 kilometres north-west of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Founded around 1000 BCE, it was one of the chief cities of Gandhara, standing on the great road between the Ganges plain and Central Asia, and for more than a thousand years it was ruled by a remarkable succession of Persian, Greek, Indian, Scythian and Kushan kings. Famous in ancient literature as a centre of learning, it declined after Hunnic invasions in the fifth century, and its ruins have been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1980.

People lived in the Taxila valley long before the city existed. At Sarai Khola, just south-west of the modern museum, radiocarbon dates point to settlement in the late fourth or early third millennium BCE, and later layers there contain pottery of the Kot Diji style, related to the early phase of the Indus Valley civilisation.

The first substantial town grew up on the Hathial mound around 1000 BCE, and by about 900 BCE it was trading with Pushkalavati, the other great city of Gandhara. The settlement later moved to the Bhir Mound, whose oldest layers date to roughly 800 to 525 BCE. A Hindu epic, the Ramayana, credits the founding to Bharata, brother of Rama, who named it after his son Taksha, but this is legend. In the late sixth century BCE the Achaemenid Empire extended its rule to the Indus, and some scholars suggest Taxila was the capital of the Persian province of Hindush.

When Alexander the Great invaded the Indus valley in 326 BCE, Taxila's king, whom the Greeks called Taxiles, submitted without a fight. Greek writers who accompanied Alexander found the city wealthy and well governed, and Alexander held games and sacrifices there before confirming Taxiles as his satrap.

Within about a decade of Alexander's departure, Chandragupta Maurya took the city, and after his war with Seleucus the region was formally added to the Maurya Empire. Buddhist texts say that his adviser Chanakya came from Taxila and that Chandragupta's grandson Ashoka served as governor there before becoming emperor. Under Ashoka the city grew into a major centre of Buddhist learning, and an Aramaic inscription of his has been found on the site.

In the second century BCE the Greco-Bactrian kingdom annexed Taxila, and the Indo-Greeks built a new fortified city, Sirkap, across the river from the old town. Several Greek dynasties probably ruled from it, and between periods of Greek rule local trade guilds ran the city and issued their own coins. Around 90 BCE the Indo-Scythian chief Maues overthrew the last Greek king, and Indo-Parthian rulers followed. By 76 CE the city had passed to the Kushan Empire, whose founder Kujula Kadphises took it from the Parthians; the later Kushan ruler Kanishka built the last of Taxila's ancient cities, Sirsukh. Trade in silk, spices, horses and pearls made the city rich.

Taxila's reputation as a place of study rests largely on Sanskrit and Buddhist literature, which describes students arriving from as far as Kashi and Magadha to learn scripture, law, medicine and military arts from renowned teachers. Some scholars call it one of the world's first universities; others argue that it was a loose community of teachers rather than an institution like later Nalanda.

In the fourth century CE the Gupta Empire may have exercised some influence in the area, and finds of Sasanian coins suggest a period of Persian control. The Chinese pilgrim Faxian visited around 400. The Kidarites invaded about 450, and around 470 the Hunnic peoples who swept over Gandhara destroyed many of Taxila's monasteries and stupas. The city never recovered, and when Xuanzang passed through in the seventh century he found it in decline.

The location of the lost city was uncertain until 1863 and 1864, when Alexander Cunningham used Xuanzang's travel times to identify the ruins near Shah-dheri. John Marshall excavated there for twenty years from 1913, uncovering Bhir Mound, Sirkap, Sirsukh and Buddhist monuments such as the Dharmarajika stupa and the Jaulian monastery. The World Heritage listing covers 18 sites. In 2010 the Global Heritage Fund named Taxila among the sites most at risk, and in 2026 UNESCO warned that unauthorised reconstruction at Sirkap and Mohra Moradu could put it on the danger list. The modern town had about 137,000 people in 2023.