# Taxila, crossroads of the north-west
**तक्षशिला, उत्तर-पश्चिम का संगम**

- Canonical page: https://indianepics.online/event/taxila-learning/
- Chapter: [The Mauryan Empire](https://indianepics.online/chapter/maurya.md)
- Track: evidence (archaeology and documents)
- When: 326 BCE – 316 BCE (± 5 years)
- Where: Taxila, Punjab (Pakistan) (33.74, 72.79)
- Tags: trade, language, science

## Summary

Gandhara's chief city: once Persian, host to Alexander in 326 BCE, then a Mauryan provincial seat governed by a prince.

गांधार का प्रमुख नगर: पहले फ़ारसी साम्राज्य का अंग, 326 ई.पू. में सिकंदर का पड़ाव, फिर एक राजकुमार के अधीन मौर्य प्रांतीय केंद्र।

## Account

Taxila sat on the road from Bactria to the Ganges, in a province the Persian kings had ruled. Alexander's army was received there in 326 BCE, and within a decade or so the city was Mauryan; Ashoka's Kalinga edicts name Takhasila, with Ujjeni, as a seat from which a prince sent out officials.

Marshall's excavations at Sirkap turned up an Aramaic inscription of the Mauryan period, probably Ashokan: the chancery language of the Persian empire still at work under an Indian one. Kharoshthi, the local script derived from Aramaic, carried Gandhari Prakrit for centuries after. The Buddhist Jatakas remember Taxila as a place students travelled to for teachers; no single "university" has been found in the ground.

## Sources

- Marshall, Taxila, vol. I (1951) — https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.27254
- Arrian, Anabasis 5.8 (Alexander received at Taxila by its king, Taxiles (Ambhi))
- Kalinga Separate Edict I, in Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (1925) — https://archive.org/details/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch (Officials sent out from Takhasila)

## Image

SirkapJainTemple. Dawoodmajoka, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASirkapJainTemple.JPG

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