page_title: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
section_title: Pre-Islamic era
hierarchical_section_title: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa / History / Pre-Islamic era
caption_attribution_description: This picture is of the ruby and gold relic casket holding a crystal reliquary with three fragments of bone, believed to be relics of Gautama Buddha, buried by the Kushan Emperor Kanishka in the 2nd century A.D. at his stupa in Peshawar (now in Pakistan) from where they were sent by the British for safekeeping to Mandalay, Burma in 1910. To the left of the ruby and gold casket is a miniature golden stupa in which the relics were transported to Mandalay
context_page_description: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the northwestern region of the country along the International border with Afghanistan.
  It was previously known as the North-West Frontier Province until 2010 when the name was changed to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the 18th Amendment to Pakistan's Constitution and is known colloquially by various other names. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the third-largest province of Pakistan by the size of both population and economy, though it is geographically the smallest of four. Within Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shares a border with Punjab, Balochistan, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad. It is home to 17.9% of Pakistan's total population, with the majority of the province's inhabitants being Pashtuns and Hindko speakers.
  The province is the site of the ancient kingdom Gandhara, including the ruins of its capital Pushkalavati near modern-day Charsadda. Once a stronghold of Buddhism, the history of the region was characterized by frequent invasions by various empires due to its geographical proximity to the Khyber Pass.
context_section_description: After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Porus obtained possession of the region but was murdered by Eudemus in 317 BCE. Eudemus then left the region, and with his departure, Macedonian power collapsed. Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, then declared himself master of the province. His grandson, Ashoka, made Buddhism the dominant religion in ancient Gandhara.
  After Ashoka's death the Mauryan empire collapse, just as in the west the Seleucid power was rising. The Greek princes of neighboring Bactria (in modern Afghanistan) took advantage of the power vacuum to declare their independence. The Bactrian kingdoms were then attacked from the west by the Parthians and from the north (about 139 BCE) by the Sakas, a Central Asian tribe. Local Greek rulers still exercised a feeble and precarious power along the borderland, but the last vestige of Greek dominion was extinguished by the arrival of the Yueh-chi.
  The Yueh-Chi were a race of nomads that were themselves forced southwards out of Central Asia by the nomadic Xiongnu people. The Kushan clan of the Yuek Chi seized vast swathes of territory under the rule of Kujula Kadphises. His successors, Vima Takto and Vima Kadphises, conquered the north-western portion of the Indian subcontinent. Vima Kadphises was then succeeded by his son, the legendary Buddhist king Kanishka, who himself was succeeded by Huvishka, and Vasudeva I.
caption: Relics of the Buddha from the ruins of the Kanishka stupa at Peshawar – now in Mandalay, Myanmar
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