Taksashila - modern taxila?

[zooeyglass]

hello

i've visited taxila in northern pakistan twice. it's just in the foothills of the kush, more or less, and is fairly fascinating due to the range of different cultures and societies that built there. it was an alexandrian city, but has also been layered with buddhist buildings and certainly a third society had a major city there (if not a fourth as well).

i was wondering if taksashila was based on taxila (i am assuming so) and if any of the eb team had visited - it's truly fascinating, and one of those few places you can get a feeling of history stretching back for centuries under your very feet.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yep. AFAIK.

[machinor]

Since Taksashila is the place where you can recruit "Taxilan Agema" I do think so.

[The Persian Cataphract]

Note of correction: Taxila has a pre-Achaemenid urban history. It is not an "Alexandrian city". It was here that Pânini wrote his celebrated treatise on grammar circa 4th century BCE. Some would on linguistic grounds posit that he was around in the late 6th century, nothing is definite as almost little is known of his life.

[zooeyglass]

Note of correction: Taxila has a pre-Achaemenid urban history. It is not an "Alexandrian city". It was here that Pânini wrote his celebrated treatise on grammar circa 4th century BCE. Some would on linguistic grounds posit that he was around in the late 6th century, nothing is definite as almost little is known of his life.

apologies - i didn't mean to imply nothing was there pre-alexander bumbling through. it's been an important site for centuries i believe.

Is there a way i can get hold of Panini's treatise on grammar? or at least, can you recommend a decent english translation?

[keravnos]

It was probably destroyed by Eukratides, king of the Baktrians, and rebuilt by Menandros, whose best coin you see in my avatar, which was found there by the way. So, in a sense it is an IndoGreek city.
Here's Menandros' Taxila...
http://www.livius.org/ta-td/taxila/sirkap1.html#phases

In general,
http://www.livius.org/ta-td/taxila/taxila.htm

Achaimenid city was the Bhir,
http://www.livius.org/ta-td/taxila/bhir.html

My greatest hope there is that someday it will be possible to excavate fully or see by other means the IndoGreek layer of the city, which is under Kushana, IndoParthian and IndoSaka one.

Google map of the site,
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...6,0.008669&t=h

Greatest of thanks to
www.livius.org which I would deffinitely reccomend for anything historic. I have used it on many occasions and it has yet to dissapoint.