Gandhara, with its wide variety of architectural remains and sculptures, has for many decades perplexed students of South and Central Asia. Kurt Behrendt in this volume for the first time and convincingly offers a description of the development of 2nd century B.C.E. to 8th century C.E. Buddhist sacred centers in ancient Gandhara, today northwest Pakistan. Regional variations in architecture and sculpture in the Peshawar basin, Swat, and Taxila are discussed. At last a chronological framework is given for the architecture and the sculpture of Gandhara, but also light is being shed on how relic structures were utilized through time, as devotional imagery became increasingly significant to Buddhist religious practice. With an important comparative overview of architectural remains, it is indispensable for all those interested in the development of the early Buddhist tradition of south and central Asia and the roots of Buddhism elsewhere in Asia.
