Gandhara

Finishing up The Silk Road by Bill Porter (2016) written from his trip in 1992 along the silk road. I love this book because it's adventure, good storytelling, mythical storytelling of places that he's at, and there's a lot of Buddhist tourism, visiting archaeological sites.

I've never read about Sabashi temple: Other famous sites nearby are the Ah-ai Grotto, Kizilgaha caves, the Kumtura Caves, the Kizil Caves and the Simsim caves near Xinjiang, China.

Then he makes some difficult crossings to Islamabad, but before he flies home he goes to Taxila. 

He's in Gandhara and he's mentioned John Marshall. There's an exhibit of his photographs online about Taxila, which is in the south east corner of the Gandhara territory 

The Art of Gandhara by Kurt A. Behrendt, 2007, Metropolitan Museum of Art, see artwork below:

Ashoka was the governor of Taxia. He a a brutal murderous ruler, but saw the light, and spread Buddhism and did many interesting things. Some of his pillars still exist today. 

When Hsuan-tsang came to Gandhara in the 7th century there were thousands of monasteries. (See The Life Of Hiuen Tsiang by Beal, Samuel (1914).

Gandhara was a mixture of many cultures and you get Greek styled Buddhist art, mixed in with Persian and Indian.

Porter and his friend visited the Dharmarajika Stupa

I would love go to the Peshawar Museum in Peshawar Pakistan. 

There is so much here, it's overwhelming, I'm defintely skimming hoping to circle back, but my entry into it started with a travelogue by Bill Porter, and I'm grateful for his travel in China books. I've read 4 of the 6 of them, going to track down the last 2. I've been obsessed with this book, it feels a little empty to finish it. What am I going to do next?

Wikipedia: Gandhara Buddhist Art