Gandhara is a unique place in terms of history of art and religion: this civilization became a place of interaction of Hellenistic sculptural traditions and Buddhist motifs which would later form the basis of Buddhist religious art in Central and East Asia. To understand why this area is so important, one should shift his focus from the idea that it is a place of ancient cultural interaction and ask questions about what particular conditions allowed for such synthesis and why its heritage has not been fully absorbed by modern heritage policy.
The importance of Gandhara is due to its location and time period. After the invasions of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Hellenic presence in this area, Hellenistic artistic tradition, including naturalistic drapery, contrapposto poses, and idealization of face proportions were available to artists who worked in developing Buddhist tradition which had not used any figurative depiction of Buddha before.
This corpus of sculpture was created during the period between the first and fifth century CE in a manner which is neither borrowing nor imposition, but a proper artistic engagement, possible only due to the geographical position of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the nexus of trade routes connecting South Asia, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean World. It is not mere decorative history but a demonstration of the extent to which religious iconography can be influenced through contact as much as through theological evolution.
There are a number of archaeological sites in the province like Takht-i-Bahi, which is perhaps the most preserved Buddhist monastic site in South Asia. There are other stupas and monastic remains all over the valley of Swat, which were a very important center of Buddhist learning until its eventual downfall after the transformation of the region politically and religiously during the medieval period. The difference of these sites compared to other heritage sites elsewhere lies in the amount of material left over within the limited geography.
The problem remains that this legacy finds itself at the periphery of the concerns of national tourism and conservation programs, even though its importance to art historians, and to the Buddhist majority countries from which part of the region’s religious heritage stems, is well known. Constraints of funding for conservation, poor management of sites, and infrastructure problems common to the rest of the province have kept scholars and foreign tourists away from these sites.
A reassessment of Gandhara’s heritage sites must, therefore, view these as an example of a phenomenon that is not unique to Gandhara, but one that is exemplified by the region: that of the contribution made by frontier zones to human history through their openness to multiple cultures.
