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Takht-i-Bahi
Takht-i-Bahi ( Persian/ ur, , translation=throne of the water spring), is an Indo-Parthian archaeological site of an ancient Buddhist monastery in Mardan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The site is considered among the most important relics of Buddhism in all of what was once Gandhara, and has been "exceptionally well-preserved." The monastery was founded in the 1st century CE,''Takht-i-Bahi'', UNESCO Office, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2002 and was in use until the 7th century. The complex is regarded by archaeologists as being particularly representative of the architecture of Buddhist monastic centers from its era. Takht-i-Bahi was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. Etymology A monastery under the domain of Purusapura which was also a center for Buddhist learning, the origin of the name Takht-i-Bahi is uncertain. Local belief postulates that site got its name from two wells on the hill, or the springs nearby. In Persian, ''Takht'' means 'top' or 'throne' while ''bahi' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-Parthian
The Indo-Parthian Kingdom was a Parthian kingdom founded by Gondophares, and active from 19 CE to c. 226 CE. At their zenith, they ruled an area covering parts of eastern Iran, various parts of Afghanistan and the northwest regions of the Indian subcontinent (most of modern Pakistan and parts of northwestern India). The rulers may have been members of the House of Suren, and the kingdom has even been called the "Suren Kingdom" by some authors. The kingdom was founded in 19 when the governor of Drangiana (Sakastan) Gondophares declared independence from the Parthian Empire. He would later make expeditions to the east, conquering territory from the Indo-Scythians and Indo-Greeks, thus transforming his kingdom into an empire. The domains of the Indo-Parthians were greatly reduced following the invasions of the Kushans in the second half of the 1st. century. They managed to retain control of Sakastan, until its conquest by the Sasanian Empire in c. 224/5. In Baluchistan, the P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mardan
Mardān (Pashto and ; Urdu ; Pashto: ) is a city in the Mardan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. Located in the Valley of Peshawar, Mardan is the second-largest city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (after Peshawar). It is a fast-growing city that experienced a population boom in the latter half of the twentieth century. Around 1800 BCE, the area around Mardan was part of the homeland of the Gandhara grave culture. Rock edicts of the ancient Indian King Ashoka in the nearby Shahbaz Garhi, written in the right-to-left Kharosthi script, date from the Mauryan period (mid-200s BCE) and represent the earliest irrefutable evidence of writing in South Asia. The nearby Takht-i-Bahi which has remains of an ancient Buddhist monastery was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. History Mardan is located in a region rich in archaeological sites. In 1962, the Sanghao Caves were discovered outside of Mardan, which yielded artefacts from the Middle Paleolithic period, ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seri Bahlol
Seri Bahlol ( ur, ), also Sahr-i Bahlol or Sahri Bahlol, is a city and archaeological site located near Takht-i-Bahi, in Mardan District, about 70 kilometer north-west of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. History Seri Bahlol is a historical place and it has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1980. The ruins of Seri Bahlol are the remnants of a small ancient fortified town built during the Kushan period. The city was protected during the time of John Marshall. It contains the remains of Buddha, which have not been properly excavated. Antiques such as statues, coins, utensils and jewellery are commonly found. The local people continue illegal excavation in their homes and land, damaging the historical monuments. Some of the local dealers of antiques misguide the local population and instigate them to involve in illegal excavation. It requires national and international attention in order to reserve the remnants at Seri Bahlol. The word "Seri Bahlol" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-largest Muslim population just behind Indonesia. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country in the world by area and 2nd largest in South Asia, spanning . It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the north, and also shares a maritime border with Oman. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the site of several ancient cultures, including the 8,500-year-old Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Balochistan, the Indus Valley civilisation of the Bronze Age, the most extens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gondophares
Gondophares I ( Greek: Γονδοφαρης ''Gondopharēs'', Υνδοφερρης ''Hyndopherrēs''; Kharosthi: 𐨒𐨂𐨡𐨥𐨪 ', '; 𐨒𐨂𐨡𐨥𐨪𐨿𐨣 ', '; 𐨒𐨂𐨡𐨂𐨵𐨪 ', ') was the founder of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom and its most prominent king, ruling from 19 to 46. He probably belonged to a line of local princes who had governed the Parthian province of Drangiana since its disruption by the Indo-Scythians in c. 129 BC, and may have been a member of the House of Suren. During his reign, his kingdom became independent from Parthian authority and was transformed into an empire, which encompassed Drangiana, Arachosia, and Gandhara. He is generally known from the Acts of Thomas, the Takht-i-Bahi inscription, and silver and copper coins bearing his visage. He was succeeded in Drangiana and Arachosia by Orthagnes, and in Gandhara by his nephew Abdagases I. Etymology The name of Gondophares was not a personal name, but an epithet derived ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.Among the national museums in London, sculpture and decorative and applied art are in the Victoria and Albert Museum; the British Museum houses earlier art, non-Western art, prints and drawings. The National Gallery holds the national collection of Western European art to about 1900, while art of the 20th century on is at Tate Modern. Tate Britain holds British Art from 1500 onwards. Books, manuscripts and many works on paper are in the British Library. There are significant overlaps between the coverage of the various collections. The British Museum was the first public national museum to cover all fields of knowledge. The museum was established in 1753, largely b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kushan
The Kushan Empire ( grc, Βασιλεία Κοσσανῶν; xbc, Κυϸανο, ; sa, कुषाण वंश; Brahmi: , '; BHS: ; xpr, 𐭊𐭅𐭔𐭍 𐭇𐭔𐭕𐭓, ; zh, 貴霜 ) was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of modern-day territory of, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and northern India, at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares), where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan Emperor Kanishka the Great. The Kushans were most probably one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, an Indo-European nomadic people of possible Tocharian origin, who migrated from northwestern China (Xinjiang and Gansu) and settled in ancient Bactria. The founder of the dynasty, Kujula Kadphises, followed Greek religious ideas and iconography after the Greco-Bactrian tradition, and being a follower of Shaivism. The Kushans in general ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanishka
Kanishka I (Sanskrit: कनिष्क, '; Greco-Bactrian: Κανηϸκε ''Kanēške''; Kharosthi: 𐨐𐨞𐨁𐨮𐨿𐨐 '; Brahmi: '), or Kanishka, was an emperor of the Kushan dynasty, under whose reign (c. 127–150 CE) the empire reached its zenith. He is famous for his military, political, and spiritual achievements. A descendant of Kujula Kadphises, founder of the Kushan empire, Kanishka came to rule an empire, extending from Central Asia and Gandhara to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain. The main capital of his empire was located at ''Puruṣapura'' (Peshawar) in Gandhara, with another major capital at Mathura. Coins of Kanishka were found in Tripuri (present-day Jabalpur). His conquests and patronage of Buddhism played an important role in the development of the Silk Road, and in the transmission of Mahayana Buddhism from Gandhara across the Karakoram range to China. Around 127 CE, he replaced Greek with Bactrian as the official language of administration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parthia
Parthia ( peo, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 ''Parθava''; xpr, 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 ''Parθaw''; pal, 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC, and formed part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire following the 4th-century-BC conquests of Alexander the Great. The region later served as the political and cultural base of the Eastern Iranian Parni people and Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD). The Sasanian Empire, the last state of pre-Islamic Iran, also held the region and maintained the seven Parthian clans as part of their feudal aristocracy. Name The name "Parthia" is a continuation from Latin ', from Old Persian ', which was the Parthian language self-designator signifying "of the Parthians" who were an Iranian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns' arrival is associated with the migration westward of an Iranian people, the Alans. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, and by 430, they had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and many other Germanic peoples living outside of Roman borders and causing many others to flee into Roman territory. The Huns, especially under their King Attila, made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, they invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, and in 452, they invaded Italy. After the death of Attila in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mihirakula
Mihirakula (Gupta script: , ''Mi-hi-ra-ku-la'', Chinese: 摩酰逻矩罗 ''Mo-hi-lo-kiu-lo''), sometimes referred to as Mihiragula or Mahiragula, was the second and last Alchon Hun king of northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent between 502 and 530 CE. He was a son of and successor to Toramana of Huna heritage. His father ruled the Indian part of the Hephthalite Empire. Mihirakula ruled from his capital of Sagala (modern-day Sialkot, Pakistan). In around 520 CE, the Chinese monk Song Yun met with Mihirakula. According to the 7th-century travelogue of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim and student Xuanzang, Mihirakula ruled several hundreds of years before his visit, was initially interested in Buddhism, and sought a Buddhist teacher from monasteries in his domain. They did not send him a learned Buddhist scholar. Feeling insulted, he became anti-Buddhist and destroyed the monasteries in his kingdom.Li Rongxi (1996), ''The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
