Takshashila
Taxila or Takshashila (Punjabi and Urdu: ٹيکسلا)[2] is a city in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is just south of the Haripur District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
STUNNING ANCIENT HISTORY OF TAKSHASHILA UNIVERSITY !
13 MOST AMAZING FACTS OF TAKSHASHILA UNIVERSITY ! 😍
World Famous students of the university
Destruction of Takshashila University
BRIEF INTRODUCTION
In this article , you will experience the most detailed and the most valuable history of world’s oldest Takshashila university which was once the great center of learning for Hindus as well as for Buddhist . According to some sources , it is dated back to at least 7th century BCE or much before that of ancient India and in 5th century AD , it was destroyed by the White Huns invader .
It is located 32 km northwest of Rawalpindi in Pakistan and on the eastern Bank of the Indus river in Punjab . It is also listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 .
The university was the most ancient and the world’s first Hindu university where students from different varnas and creeds were welcomed with great enthusiasm for higher education. As the popularity of Buddhism was on its peak during 5th or 6th century BCE ,the Takshashila university started to include it as a major subject in its university .
Taxila was the first most ancient university of India which was much older than the Nalanda university which was built by Kumargupta in the 5th century AD . It is unknown to all till now ” who built this great center of learning university ” ? Chinese traveller Huien Tsang ( student of Nalanda university ) also mentioned about Takshashila university in their writing but not in larger context .
Takshashila university was famous for its great learning center which provided the students of Greece, China, Arabia and Babylonia to come here and got blessed with the astounding knowledge of Puranas ,medicine , Itihas ,music ,dance , Arithmetic ,military art , law , poetry ,accountancy , agriculture ,cattle breeding , Commerce ,archery ,surgery ,divination , snake charming , paintings etc.
There is mention of Takshashila University in the Buddhist Jataka tales from where we can extract great information of its luxuriance and astonishing framework of knowledge but here too there is no mention of the exact date when it came into existence .
The great Panini ( the father of Sanskrit Grammar ) , Jivaka ( great physician ) and Chanakya ( the author of Arthashashtra ) were the students of Takshashila university .
During the 5th century BCE , there is mention of Takshashila in the Achaemenid Empire of Persia .
The richness and the remarkable learning in the University of Takshila made it widely known to the world. People from Persia , Arab , China and so on , used to come here and gain knowledge and spread the knowledge that they gained here to their respective countries .
University of Takshashila was once considered to be the intellectual capital of the ancient India.The age of the students who studied there was mostly from 16-20 years .
In Sanskrit it is transcribed as Takshashila and in Greek as taxila .
Takshashila has its connection with Indian epics like Ramayan and Mahabharata . According to the Epic Ramayana , the city of taxila was originally called Gandharva desh which was won by Bharat , the step-brother of Ram, and handed it over to his son Taksha .
On the name of Bharat’s son , Taksha , the Gandharva desh popularly became taxila where great university came into existence during 7th century BCE.
Taksha is considered to be the synonym of Nagas . And from here, the Naagvansha came into existence .
In Mahabharata too , there is mention of a king named Takshak who must be from the lineage of Taksha or Nagvanshi .
Taksha was the one who had bitten Parikshit ( grandson of Arjun ) . Later , Janmayjaye ,son of Parikshit took the revenge of his father’s death by performing Sarpa- satra ( serpent sacrifice ) .
And this is how the territory received the name Takshashila from their ancestors .
There is no exact date mentioned when Takshashila university was built and who built it through any of the references .
Nalanda and Takshashila university were not the same in respect of their educational properties . Takshashila was a Hindu learning center which was fundamentally focus on Vedas , Itihasa and other 64 subjects while Nalanda was focus on Mahayana of Buddhism and then other multiple subjects which were less and more same as takshashila’s learning .
Alexander , a Macedonian King , invaded India (326 BC) when Takshila was the most prosperous ,wealthy and well governed territory of Bharat.
