Gandhara (Mahajanapada)

Two kings became close friends without ever meeting. Merchants carried their letters and gifts back and forth for years. This article covers Gandhara, and the friendship that ended with one king’s death in a rubbish heap.

A bent-bar punch-marked coin of the Gandhara Mahajanapada, from the INHCRF Coin Museum, Nashik. Photo: SpeakingArch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Friends Who Never Met

AncHist0048

6TH CENTURY BCE

A Friendship by Letter

Pukkusati of Gandhara and Bimbisara of Magadha, never once meeting

GIFTS EXCHANGED

Shawls for a Golden Scroll

Bimbisara sends back the Buddha’s teachings, not treasure

MOVED BY THE DHAMMA

Pukkusati Renounces His Throne

Travels in disguise to meet the Buddha in person

DEATH BEFORE ORDINATION

Gored in a Rubbish Heap

The Buddha declares him a non-returner regardless

The lesson taught: the Buddha said intent and insight mattered more than the formal ritual Pukkusati never lived to complete.

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📑 Contents

1Timeline
2Where Gandhara Stood, and Its Two Great Cities
3A Friendship Sealed by Letter
4Test Yourself
5Trade Routes, Old Texts, and a Persian Province

Timeline

6th century BCE: King Pukkusati (Pushkarasarin) of Gandhara and King Bimbisara of Magadha build a deep friendship through merchant-carried letters, without ever meeting in person.
Gift exchange: Pukkusati sends fine Gandharan woolen shawls. Bimbisara sends back a golden scroll of the Buddha’s teachings, valuing the Dhamma above treasure.
Moved by the Dhamma: Pukkusati renounces his throne and travels in disguise to meet the Buddha in person at Rajagriha.
Death before ordination: Pukkusati is gored by a stray cow while searching for alms robes. The Buddha declares he had already reached the stage of non-returner.

Where Gandhara Stood, and Its Two Great Cities Need to Know

Gandhara was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas of ancient India. See AncHist0008 for how all sixteen fit together.
It lay in the northwest, roughly the Peshawar valley and Potohar plateau, spanning parts of modern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.
Its older capital was Pushkalavati (modern Charsadda), which stayed a major city for centuries.
Its other great city was Taxila (Takshashila). See AncHist0083 for Taxila’s own story as a centre of learning.
Buddhist texts group Gandhara with its neighbour Kamboja under Uttarapatha, the northwest region, apart from the other fourteen Mahajanapadas of mid-India.
Gandhara’s king in this era, per the Buddhist tradition, was Pukkusati (also called Pushkarasarin), a contemporary of Bimbisara of Magadha.

A Friendship Sealed by Letter Good to Know

Pukkusati and Bimbisara became close friends purely through letters and gifts carried by trading merchants, despite never meeting face to face.
After receiving word of the Buddha’s teachings, Pukkusati travelled to Rajagriha and unknowingly shared a potter’s guest room with the Buddha himself.
He recognised the Buddha only after hearing him teach the Dhatuvibhanga Sutta, recorded in the Majjhima Nikaya.
Pukkusati asked for ordination but never received it. He was killed on the way, gored by a stray cow while searching for alms robes in a rubbish heap.

Test Yourself

Trade Routes, Old Texts, and a Persian Province Great to Know

Gandhara sat on the Uttarapatha, the great northwest trade route running through Punjab to Taxila, and on towards Bactria.
Gandhara is also named in the much older Rigveda, prized for its wool. This points to a Vedic-era presence well before the Mahajanapada period itself.
Gandhara came under Achaemenid Persian rule during this same era. Cyrus the Great made early incursions towards the Indus around 550–539 BCE, and Darius I extended control further, around 518 BCE. See AncHist0059 for that campaign in full.
Per Herodotus, Gandhara was grouped into the empire’s seventh tax district, together with the Sattagydians, Dadicae, and Aparytae. This group paid a joint tribute of 170 talents. That is a lighter, separate assessment from “India” (Hindush) further southeast, the empire’s richest district, taxed 360 talents in gold dust.
Centuries later, Chandragupta Maurya’s army reportedly included Gandharan troops, per the Mudrarakshasa — a sign of the region’s lasting martial reputation.