Takshashila

Legend has it that Taksha, an ancient Indian king who ruled in a kingdom called Taksha Khanda (Tashkent) founded the city of Takshashila.[citation needed] The word Takshashila, in Sanskrit means "belonging to the King Taksha". Taksha was the son of Bharata and Mandavi, characters who appear in the Indian epic Ramayana.

In the Indian epic Mahābhārata, the Kuru heir Parikṣit was enthroned at Taxila.[8]

Ahmad Hasan Dani and Saifur Rahman Dar trace the etymology of Taxila to a tribe called the Takka.[9] According to Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, "Taxila" is related to "Takṣaka," which means "carpenter" and is an alternative name for the Nāga.[10]

c. 518 BCE[11] – Darius the Great annexes the North-West of the Indian-Subcontinent (modern day Pakistan), including Taxila, to the Persian Achaemenid Empire.[12]
326 BCE[13] – Alexander the Great receives submission of Āmbhi,[14] king of Taxila, and afterwards surrender to Porus at the Jhelum River.[15]
c. 317 BCE – In quick succession, Alexander's general Eudemus and then the satrap Peithon withdraw from India.[16]
321-317 BCE Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan empire in eastern India, makes himself master of the northern and northwestern India, including Punjab. Chandragupta Maurya's advisor Kautilya (also known as Chanakya) was a teacher at Taxila.
During the reign of Chandragupta's grandson Aśoka, Taxila became a great Buddhist centre of learning. Nonetheless, Taxila was briefly the center of a minor local rebellion, subdued only a few years after its onset.[17]
185 BCE[18] – The last Maurya emperor, Bṛhadratha, is assassinated by his general, Puṣyamitra Śunga, during a parade of his troops.[19]
183 BCE[20] – Demetrios conquers Gandhāra, the Punjab and the Indus valley.[21] He builds his new capital, Sirkap, on the opposite bank of the river from Taxila.[22] During this new period of Bactrian Greek rule, several dynasties (like Antialcidas) likely ruled from the city as their capital. During lulls in Greek rule, the city managed profitably on its own, managed independently and controlled by several local trade guilds, who also minted most of the city's autonomous coinage.
c. 90 BCE[23] – The Indo-Scythian chief Maues overthrows the last Greek king of Taxila.[24]
c. 25 CE[25] – Gondophares, founder of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom, conquers Taxila and makes it his capital.[26].
76[27] – The date of and inscription found at Taxila of 'Great King, King of Kings, Son of God, the Kushana' (maharaja rajatiraja devaputra Kushana).[28]
c. 460–470[29] – The Ephthalites sweep over Gandhāra and the Punjab; wholesale destruction of Buddhist monasteries and stūpas at Taxila, which never again recovers.[30]
Before the fall of these invader-kings, Taxila had been variously a capital for many dynasties, and a centre of Vedic and Buddhist learning, with a population of Buddhists, Classical Hindus, and possibly Greeks that may have endured for centuries.[31]

The British archaeologist Sir John Marshall conducted excavations over a period of twenty years in Taxila.[32]