Taxila is not one city but three, built one after another in the same valley: the Bhir Mound, the Indo-Greek grid city of Sirkap, and the Kushan city of Sirsukh. Around them stand dozens of Buddhist stupas and monasteries.
Alexander the Great was welcomed here in 326 BCE. Later the city became a centre of learning in the Mauryan empire, and tradition links it with the scholar Chanakya. Under the Kushans, Gandhara artists carved Buddha figures that blended Greek and Indian styles.
Raids by the Hephthalites, or White Huns, in the 5th century CE brought Taxila's great age to an end.
