Colourful past of the South Asian sub-continent

Gananara’s wonders

THE rich, colourful past of the South Asian sub-continent with its many intriguing figures is still something of a secret in this Euro-centric world of ours. We may be aware of the odd important monument, like the Taj Mahai and the Golden Palace at
Amritsar in India, but how much of the region’s history do we get exposed to, really?

Pakistan’s Gandhara Week, from April 2,1 to 30, was an eye opener for me and the other 39 delegates who were taken to some amazing religious and artistic sites in the North West Frontier Province where the ancient Buddhist Empire of Gandhara used to be located.

The tour was particularly educational because we had as our “guide” one of Pakistan’s leading experts on its Buddhist civilisations. Prof Firdaullah Sehrai is a former director of Peshawar Museum and University of Peshawar Archaelogy & Fine Arts department head, and, at 78, he showed an enviable passion for and knowledge of his country’s rich history.

We saw the Jaulian monastery at Taxila, the legendary rock edicts of Asoka the Great at Shahbaz Garhi, a breath-taking monastery at Takht-l-Bahi, the Shingerder Stupa (said to be built where a mystical white elephant belonging to King Uttarasena expired), the Bactria-Grecian city of Sirkap, and the ruins of Butkara.

(A stupa is a solid, large – and much beautified! – funereal monument built by the Buddhists that often contained holy relics. It is actually the forerunner of the pagoda. It is believed that Asoka alone may have ordered the construction of some 84,000 stupas in the region!)

Legend of Prince Kunala
THE Jaulian monastery is situated at the top of a hill that used to in the suburb of Jaulian in Taxila, which was one of Gandhara’s greatest towns for Buddhist arts and learning. The monastery is well preserved and contains a lovely votive stupa.

A legend from the great Mauryan dynasty (see timeline below) is associated with this area: Asoka the Great’s son, Prince Kunala, caught the admiring eye of his stepmother, When he spurned her advances, she stole the royal seal and sent a letter
purportedly from Asoka saying the prince’s eyes should be put out. Prince Kunala, being the noble sort, insisted that the order be carried out; however, when Asoka later found out