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Buddhism first reached the Gandhara region of Pakistan following the Third Buddhist Council where Ashoka sent missionaries to the region. [3] As per Buddhist tradition, a monk from Varanasi in India called Majjhantika is held to be the first monk to travel to Kashmir and Gandhara to spread Buddhism under the orders of Ashoka. [4]
During the reign of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, the Buddhist community split into two branches: the Mahāsāṃghika and the Sthaviravāda, each of which spread throughout India and split into numerous sub-sects. [4] In modern times, two major branches of Buddhism exist: the Theravada in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and the Mahayana throughout ...
Gandhāran Buddhism was the Buddhist culture of ancient Gandhāra, which was a major center of Buddhism in the northwestern Indian subcontinent from the 3rd century BCE to approximately 1200 CE. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Ancient Gandhāra corresponds to modern day north Pakistan , mainly the Peshawar valley and Potohar plateau as well as Afghanistan 's ...
Gandhara (IAST: Gandhāra) was an ancient Indo-Aryan [1] civilization centred in present-day north-west Pakistan and north-east Afghanistan. [2] [3] [4] The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar and Swat valleys extending as far east as the Pothohar Plateau in Punjab, though the cultural influence of Greater Gandhara extended westwards into the Kabul valley in Afghanistan, and ...
In former times, Khorasan (understood as Eastern Persia), Fars (Ancient province of Fars in Persia), Iraq, Mosul, the country up to the frontier of Syria, was Buddhist”. [3] There still remains a tiny community of Middle Eastern followers of Buddhism, though unrecognized by the state governments in the region, including in Lebanon and Iran. [4]
Buddhist monks from the region of Gandhara, where Greco-Buddhism was most influential, later played a key role in the development and the transmission of Buddhist ideas in the direction of northern Asia. Greco-Buddhist Kushan monks such as Lokaksema (c. 178 CE) travelled to the Chinese capital of Loyang, where they became the first translators ...
Gandhara "flourished at the crossroads of India, Central Asia, and the Middle East," connecting trade routes and absorbing cultural influences from diverse civilizations; Buddhism thrived until the 8th or 9th centuries, when Islam first began to gain sway in the region. [11] It was also the centre of Vedic and later forms of Hinduism. [12]
The Kingdom of Khotan was one of the earliest Buddhist kingdoms in the area and helped transmit Buddhism from India to China. [88] The Kushan Empire's unification of most of this area and their support of Buddhism allowed it to easily spread along the trade routes of the region throughout Central Asia. [77]