Pushkalavati, was the capital of the ancient region of
Gāndhāra, situated in present day's Pakistan. Its ruins are located on the outskirts of the modern city of
Charsadda, in
Charsadda District, in the
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Northern Pakistan, northwestern region of the country, Khyber ...
, 35-42 kilometres northeast of
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...
, at the banks of Jindi River, near the junction of
Swat River with
Kabul River. The earliest archaeological remains in Bala Hisar mound are from 1400 to 800 BCE. Pushkalavati (in Bala Hisar mound) may have been incorporated as an
Achaemenid regional settlement around 520 BCE, and it remained an important city (in Shaikhan Dheri mound) through to the beginning of 3rd century CE.
The ruins of Pushkalavati consist of two sites, separated by the small Shambor river. To the south is Bala Hisar, which consists of two separate mounds, one eastern and one western. To the north is Shaikhan Dheri, wedged between the Shambor and Jindi rivers.
Etymology
Pushkalavati (
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
: पुष्कलावती, ) means "Lotus City" in
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
. According to Hindu mythology as per the ''
Ramayana
The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...
'', it was named Pushkalavati because it was given to Pushkala, the son of
Bharata.
[Shastri, Hari Prasad, (1952)]
"Uttara-kanda, Chapter 101: The slaying of the Gandharvas and the conquest of their Country"
in: ''The Ramayana of Valmiki'': "Bharata, the son of Kaikeyi entered those two opulent and magnificent cities, and there, Bharata established Taksha in Takshashila and Pushkala in Pushkalavata, in the country of the Gandharvas, in the ravishing region of Gandhara. Overflowing with treasure and precious gems, adorned with groves, they seemed to vie with each other in magnificence."
The region around ancient Pushkulavati was recorded in the Zoroastrian ''
Zend Avesta'' as ''Vaēkərəta'', or the
seventh most beautiful place on earth created by
Ahura Mazda
Ahura Mazda (; ; or , ),The former is the New Persian rendering of the Avestan form, while the latter derives from Middle Persian. also known as Horomazes (),, is the only creator deity and Sky deity, god of the sky in the ancient Iranian ...
. It was known as the "crown jewel" of
Bactria
Bactria (; Bactrian language, Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization in Central Asia based in the area south of the Oxus River (modern Amu Darya) and north of the mountains of the Hindu Kush, an area ...
, and held sway over nearby
ancient Taxila'.
Ruins
The ruins of Pushkalavati consist of many stupas and the sites of two ancient cities.
Bala Hisar
Bala Hisar site () in this area was first inhabited in the 2nd-millennium BCE. The C14 dating of early deposits in Bala Hisar, bearing "Soapy red"/red burnished ware, is 1420-1160 BCE, so this early phase is considered to last roughly from 1400 to 800 BCE.
Along with the continuity of red burnished ware, but now decorated with grooves (the so-called "grooved" red burnished ware), in the period (c. 750-500 BCE) there was influence from Ganges Valley in the appearance of upright-sided open bowls made of grey ware, similar to
Painted Grey Ware culture
The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age in India, Iron Age Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan Archaeological culture, culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conve ...
's pottery shapes.
The site could have been incorporated to Achaemenid empire c. 520 BCE, although there is no archaeological evidence of administrative buildings or palaces in Bala Hisar, but only "some evidence of the emulation of Achaemenid drinking vessels" which local elites could have adopted from the empire. Pottery known as "Tulip bowls," which attests to emulation of Achaemenid shapes, is only present in Bala Hisar in (c. 400-325 BCE).
According to
Arrian, the city then surrendered in 327/326 BCE to
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...
, who established a garrison in it. Reinhard Dittman (1984) suggested that the earliest appearance of the "Lotus bowl" in Bala Hisar belongs to the time of Alexander the Great up to the beginning of the Mauryan times, late 4th to early 3rd centuries BCE, but according to Cameron Petrie (2013), a post-Achaemenid date around the late 4th to the 2nd centuries BCE is likely.
Peucela in Shaikhan Dheri
The
Bactrian Greeks built a new city (Peucela () or Peucelaitis () at the mound currently known as Shaikhan Dheri (), which lies one kilometre northeast from
Bala Hissar on the other side of Shambor River, at the banks of
River Jindi. This city was established in the second century BCE during the
Indo-Greek
The Indo-Greek Kingdom, also known as the Yavana Kingdom, was a Hellenistic period, Hellenistic-era Ancient Greece, Greek kingdom covering various parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India.
The term "Indo-Greek Kingdom" ...
period and inhabited until the beginning of third century CE, occupied by
Indo-Scythians,
Indo-Parthians and
Kushans.

Two early Buddhist manuscripts were acquired among a group of twenty‐seven birch‐bark scrolls, in 1994 by the British Library, possibly found in a
Dharmaguptaka
The Dharmaguptaka (Sanskrit: धर्मगुप्तक; ; ) are one of the eighteen or twenty early Buddhist schools from the ancient region of Gandhara, now Pakistan. They are said to have originated from another sect, the Mahīśāsakas f ...
monastery in
Hadda, Afghanistan. These two manuscripts, known as ''avadanas'', and written in
Gandhari language around 1st century CE (now in the British Library Collection of Gandharan Scrolls) mention the name of the city as Pokhaladi.

In the 2nd century CE, river changed its course and city was flooded. The town moved to the site of the modern village of
Rajjar.
The former city's ruins were partly excavated by
Ahmad Hasan Dani in 1960s. There are still many mounds at Mir
Ziarat, at Rajar and
Shahr-i-Napursan which are still unexcavated.
The last reference to Pushkalavati as Po-shi-kie-lo-fa-ti was recorded in the account of the Chinese pilgrim
Xuanzang
Xuanzang (; ; 6 April 6025 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making ...
in 7th century C.E. The monk Hui Li also commented Xuanzang's visit to the east of the town Po-shih-kie-lo-fa-ti (Pushkalavati) where there was a stupa built by king Ashoka, in the location which four past Buddhas preached.
Subsequently, after the region was conquered by
Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, the name
Gandhara
Gandhara () was an ancient Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan civilization in present-day northwest Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar valley, Peshawar (Pushkalawati) and Swat valleys extending ...
was not used anymore, and in all probability the following period is when Pushkalavati became known as Shaikhan Dheri, as ''dheri'' means mound/hill in Pashto.
Pushkalavati and Prang

The city of Pushkalavati was situated near the confluence of
Swat and Kabul rivers. Three different branches of Kabul river meet there. That specific place is still called
Prang and considered sacred. A grand graveyard is situated to the north of Prang where the local people bring their dead for burial. This graveyard is considered to be among the largest graveyards in the world. The name ''Prang'' was considered by
Ahmad Hasan Dani as ultimately derived from the word ''
Prayag'', meaning "
confluence
In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...
", via an intermediate contracted form ''*Prag''.
The name is a reference to the Kabul and Swat rivers, which must have once met here.
Pushkalavati in the Ramayana
In the concluding portion of the (
Ramayana
The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...
) Uttarakanda or Supplemental Book, the descendants of
Rama
Rama (; , , ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric Hindu traditions, he is considered the Supreme Being. Also considered as the ideal man (''maryāda' ...
and his brothers are described as the receivers of the great cities and kingdoms which flourished in Western India.
[Dutt, Romesh C., (1899)]
"Ramayana-Conclusion"
in: The Ramayana and Mahabharata: "Bharat had two sons, Taksha and Pushkala. The former founded r receivedTaksha-sila, to the east of the Indus, and known to Alexander and the Greeks as Taxila. The latter founded r receivedPushkala-vati, to the west of the Indus, and known to Alexander and the Greeks as Peukelaotis. Thus the sons of Bharat are said to have founded kingdoms which flourished on either side of the Indus river in the fourth century before Christ." Uttarakānda may have been composed slightly later than c. 500 BCE.
[Goldman, Robert P., and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, (eds.), 2022]
The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: The Complete English Translation
Priceton University Press, p. 3: "The oldest surviving version of the great tale of Rāma, and the one that is doubtless the direct or indirect source of all of the hundreds and perhaps thousands of other versions of the story, is the monumental, mid-first millennium BCE epic poem in some twenty-five thousand Sanskrit couplets attributed to Vālmīki."
According to this historical book,
Bharata the brother of
Rama
Rama (; , , ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric Hindu traditions, he is considered the Supreme Being. Also considered as the ideal man (''maryāda' ...
had two sons, Taksha and Pushkala. Bharata gave to the former Taksha-sila or Taxila, to the east of the
Indus, known to Alexander and the Greeks as
Taxila
Taxila or Takshashila () is a city in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is just south of the ...
. To the latter he gave Pushkala-vati or Pushkalavati, to the west of the Indus,
known to Alexander and the Greeks as Peukelaotis.
Thus according to Hindu legend, the sons of Bharata received kingdoms that flourished on either side of the Indus river, which were conquered by their father.
See also
*
History of Peshawar
*
Pushkalavati Museum
Notes
References
External links
Investigating ancient PushkalavatiPushkalavati Archaeological Research Project
{{Gandhara
Archaeological sites in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Buddhist sites in Pakistan
Populated places in Charsadda District, Pakistan
Former populated places in Pakistan
Places in the Ramayana
Gandhara
Ancient Indian cities