Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) World Heritage Site

From monastery to university

AS impressive as some of these constructs were, they couldn’t match the sheer majesty of the Takht-l-Bahi monastery, which is a Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) World Heritage Site.

Built high up on a hill(one hell of a climb at 2pm after a rich Mogul meal, 1 can tell you !) the monastery was located near a spring on the hill’s flat top. Amazingly, the guest quarters are located on a neighbouring hill – they must have been fit folk in those days!

Takht-l-Bahi dates back to circa 200CE and was probably active until 500CE. It occupies an area of 32.9ha and was excavated first by archaeologist D.B. Spooner (a curator of the Peshawar Museum) and then Harold Hargreaves from 1907-1911.

Prof Firdanllah painted a vivid picture of life in the monastery, beginning with, “Takht-l-Bahi was the most beautiful
monastery of Gandhara !

“One of the greatest achievements of monasteries was to set the pattern for universities in this part of the world. There were spiritual teachers and regular teachers./klmost all of it was oral “teaching as writing came very late.

“When it did come into being monasteries became book repositories. The monks also studied agriculture and architecture. In fact, the chief monk was the chief architect and usually his wife would look after sick students or travellers.

“There were many princes who would live in the monastery, sometimes with servants in attendance, but poorer students would have to work and study. Lectures were also open to non-students … although the lower castes (chandel) were not allowed to enter the monastery.”

The monastery contained a number of different units, including a court of many stupas, a main stupa, an assembly hall
(where fortnightly meetings were held), a courtyard, and a meditation centre.

The Buddha captured in stone
ACCORDING to Prof Firdaullah, one of the greatest contributions of Gandhara to Buddhist art was its focus on the life of the Buddha himself.

“Gandhara really offers a ‘carved drama’ of the Buddha’s life. Interestingly, when the Buddha’s image was first personified in Gandhara (during Asoka’s reign, 273BCE-232BCE), they gave him the head of Apollo, because the Greek influence was still strong.

“Eventually, though, he became more Asiatic and lost his moustache, although the Buddha-image of Gandhara consistently has both shoulders covered (in the Greek style). here are also ample examples of each of Buddha’s four poses, the dhayana raudra (meditation pose), abhaya mudra (reassurance pose), dharma chakra mudra (preaching pose) and bhuraipersai raudra (touching earth pose). The Wesantara Buddha (last life of the Buddha) is very popular among the artists of Gandhara.”

Keeping treasures safe
ASIDE from Pakistan’s oldest museum, Lahore Museum, which contains many important sculptures from Gandhara, we visited many museums in Gandhara itself including Taxila Museum, Swat Museum, Dir (Chakdara) Museum and Peshawar Museum, each more remark-
able than the last.

Often, the artefacts in a given museum would correlate directly to a site we had just visitc-d. For example, the Peshawar Museum, which has the most extensive collection of Gandhara art in the world, contained many of the sculptures that had onginally been found in Takht-l-Bahi. Unfortunately, thieves, vandals, and religious zealots have combined to ensure that these wonderful relics cannot be left in situ.

Dr Mohammad Ashraf Khan, Director of Archaelogy at Taxila Museum, explained, “Over the years we have discovered over 500,000 objects from the various civilisations of the past ranging from terracotta, tools and coins to more sophisticated sculptures. Our museum can only display around 10,000 objects, and so every couple of years, we change the display.”

The sheer volume of historical sites means that the guardians of its rich past are constantly facing new challenges. Dr
Insan Ali, of the Peshawar Museum, gave us an idea of the scope of the task when he said, “There are now 2,578 known sites in Gandhara – just six years ago, we knew of only about 400r’