The Kingdom of Gandhara

The Hindu and Buddhist architectural heritage of Pakistan is part of a long history of settlement and civilization in Pakistan. The Indus Valley civilization collapsed in the middle of the second millennium BCE and was followed by the Vedic Civilisation, which extended over much of northern India and Pakistan.
The time period in the history of South Asia known as the Vedic period or Vedic age is the period of the composition of the sacred texts called Vedas and other such texts in Vedic Sanskrit. The associated culture sometimes referred to as Vedic civilization was centred on the Punjab (modern day Pakistan and India) and the Gangetic plain (modern India). Scholarship places the Vedic period into the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE, continuing up to the 6th century BCE when it began to be transformed into classical forms of Hinduism. Early medieval Hindu authors suggest dates as early as the 4th millennium BCE.
Its early phase saw the formation of various kingdoms of ancient India. In its late phase (from ca. 700 BCE), it saw the rise of the Mahajanapadas, and was succeeded by the golden age of Hinduism and classical Sanskrit literature, the Maurya Empire (from ca. 320 BCE) and the Middle kingdoms of India.
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient Indian Mahajanapada, currently in northern Pakistan (the North-West Frontier Province and parts of northern Punjab and Kashmir) and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau (see Taxila) and on the northern side of the Kabul River. Its main cities were Peshawar and Taxila.
The Kingdom of Gandhara lasted from the 6th century BCE to the 11th century CE. It attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century CE under the Buddhist Kushan Kings. After it was conquered by Mahmood of Ghazni in 1021 CE, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul. During Mughal time the area was part of Kabul province.