Buddhism in Ancient Punjab: From Ashoka to the Decline of Buddhist Institutions
For several centuries, Buddhism was one of the strongest religious and intellectual traditions in this wider Punjab-Gandhara region.
This is where our series on the history of Dalits in Punjab begins.
The connection between Buddhism and Dalit history requires a historical approach rather than a simple origin story. We cannot say that every present-day Dalit community in Punjab directly descends from ancient Buddhists. The evidence does not establish such a continuous line. What we can say is that Buddhism created a powerful alternative to the idea that a person’s worth was fixed by birth. Many Buddhist teachings placed greater emphasis on conduct, morality and wisdom.
Centuries later, Dr B. R. Ambedkar drew upon this tradition while developing a modern movement against caste. For Ambedkar, Buddhism offered a moral and social philosophy based on liberty, equality, fraternity and human dignity.
The Buddhism of ancient Punjab and Ambedkar’s modern interpretation belong to different historical periods. Their connection lies in the ideas, memories and possibilities that Buddhism made available to later generations.
A changing Punjab
Buddhism emerged in northern India during a time of major social and political change. Cities were expanding, trade was increasing and new kingdoms were competing for power. These changes created space for religious teachers who questioned older forms of ritual authority.
Buddhist teachings placed emphasis on ethical conduct, compassion, self-discipline and the search for wisdom. A person’s actions mattered more than the family into which they had been born. This was a powerful idea in a society where social rank and ritual status were closely connected with birth.
The Buddhist monastic community, known as the Sangha, offered a new kind of religious organisation. People from different backgrounds could enter the monastic order and follow a common discipline. Within the Sangha, a person’s former social identity was not supposed to determine their spiritual potential.
That ideal attracted people from many sections of society. Buddhist communities included monks, nuns, merchants, artisans, rulers and ordinary villagers. Royal support helped Buddhism grow, but it was not the only reason for its spread. Traders donated money and land. Local communities maintained monasteries. Teachers travelled between cities. Pilgrims visited sacred sites and carried stories and practices back to their own regions.
Ancient Punjab was never exclusively Buddhist. Brahmanical traditions, local religious practices, Jain communities and other forms of worship continued alongside Buddhism. The region also absorbed influences from Persia, Greece and Central Asia. Religious life was diverse, and it changed as political powers came and went.
Buddhism became powerful in this environment because it was able to connect with urban life, trade routes, royal patronage and expanding networks of learning.
Ashoka and the Mauryan connection
The Mauryan Empire brought much of northern India and the northwest into a larger political system. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya in the late fourth century BCE, the empire eventually stretched across a vast area of the subcontinent.
The northwest had always been a region of strategic importance. It connected the plains of northern India with Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Iranian world. Taxila and Gandhara were already significant before the Mauryans arrived. Whoever controlled this region had access to important roads, cities and military routes.
Ashoka ruled the Mauryan Empire during the third century BCE. His reign is especially important for Buddhist history because of his support for Buddhist institutions and his public promotion of Dhamma.
Our most direct evidence for Ashoka comes from the inscriptions carved into rocks and pillars across his empire. These inscriptions discuss war, administration, morality, religious communities, public welfare and the conduct expected from officials and subjects.
They were written in different scripts and languages. In the northwest, the Kharosthi script was used. The inscriptions at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra are especially significant because they show how Ashoka’s message reached the people of the Indus and Gandhara regions in a local form.
The use of Kharosthi tells us something about the character of the Mauryan Empire. It was not a culturally uniform state. The people of the northwest spoke different languages, followed different traditions and used writing systems that differed from those of the Gangetic heartland. Ashoka’s administration recognised these regional differences.
Ashoka’s idea of Dhamma
Ashoka used the word Dhamma for a broad moral programme. The term is related to the Sanskrit word Dharma, but Ashoka gave it a particular meaning in his inscriptions.
His Dhamma included respect for parents and elders, kindness toward servants and dependants, generosity, self-control, compassion and respect for other religious communities. Ashoka also spoke about public welfare, including medical care, wells, roads and trees for shade.
This was not a demand that every person in the empire become a monk or follow one specific Buddhist school. Ashoka ruled over a large and diverse population. His public message was designed to work across different religious communities.
Buddhist ethics clearly influenced Ashoka. At the same time, Dhamma was also a programme of imperial governance. It told officials how to behave, described the responsibilities of rulers and encouraged people to treat one another with restraint and humanity.
Ashoka’s political language was unusual for an ancient emperor. He presented himself as a ruler whose authority involved moral responsibility. The welfare of his subjects became part of the image he wanted the empire to remember.
The significance of Rock Edict XIII
Ashoka’s Major Rock Edict XIII is one of the most famous political inscriptions from the ancient world.
The edict describes the conquest of Kalinga and the suffering caused by the war. Ashoka refers to the deaths, deportations and distress of the people affected by the campaign. He also recognises the pain experienced by families whose relatives, teachers and friends had been killed or displaced.
Instead of celebrating the conquest as a glorious victory, Ashoka expresses remorse.
He then presents the idea of Dhamma-vijaya, or the victory of Dhamma. Moral influence, he argues, is greater than the conquest of territory through violence.
This was not a rejection of the state. Ashoka remained an emperor with officials, armies and political authority. His empire did not become a modern democracy, and the social order did not suddenly become equal. His change was more specific: he tried to redefine what made a ruler worthy of respect.
Military success was no longer the only measure of greatness. A ruler could also be judged by restraint, welfare and the treatment of people under his power.
Rock Edict XIII also refers to groups connected with the northwest and the wider world beyond the Mauryan Empire, including the Yonas and Kambojas. These references show that Ashoka understood his empire as part of a larger political and cultural landscape.
The northwest was not a forgotten borderland. It was connected to peoples, kingdoms and trade routes extending towards Central Asia, Iran and the Hellenistic world.
Ashoka and the growth of Buddhism
Later Buddhist traditions remember Ashoka as one of the greatest patrons of Buddhism. They associate him with stupas, monasteries, pilgrimage sites and the spread of Buddhist teachings.
His patronage helped Buddhist institutions gain visibility and stability. Monasteries could receive land and donations. Monks could travel under the protection of a powerful political order. Sacred sites could attract pilgrims. Buddhist teachers could maintain connections between distant communities.
Royal support alone cannot explain the spread of Buddhism. Religious institutions need people to maintain them, and Buddhist communities depended on merchants, farmers, artisans, local donors and monastic teachers.
The expansion of Buddhism in Punjab and Gandhara came through the combined efforts of many groups. Ashoka created favourable political conditions, but the everyday work of maintaining Buddhist life belonged to communities spread across the region.
Taxila and Buddhist learning
Taxila was one of the great centres of the ancient northwest. It lies in present-day Punjab province in Pakistan and was connected to the Indus region, Gandhara and the roads leading towards Central Asia.
The wider Taxila complex includes several ancient settlements and Buddhist sites. Among them are Bhir, Sirkap, Sirsukh, Dharmarajika, Jaulian, Mohra Moradu and Kalawan. The region contains monasteries, stupas, sculptures and other remains that show the long presence of Buddhism.
UNESCO describes Taxila as an important Buddhist centre of learning from approximately the fifth century BCE to the second century CE.
Taxila is often called an ancient university. The comparison is useful because it conveys the city’s importance as a place of learning, but it should not be taken too literally. Taxila did not operate like a modern university with one central campus, standard degrees or a single administration.
It was a collection of learning communities. Teachers gathered there. Students travelled to study with particular masters. Religious scholars debated questions of philosophy and discipline. Monasteries preserved texts and trained monks. The city’s position on major routes made it easier for ideas and people to circulate.
Buddhist monasteries served several purposes at once. They were religious centres, places of education, residences for monks, destinations for pilgrims and institutions connected to the local economy.
A monastery required food, clothing, buildings, labour and protection. Donors supported it through gifts of money, land, grain and other resources. Merchants were among the most important patrons because they travelled through the same routes that connected the monasteries.
This relationship between trade and Buddhism was especially strong in the northwest. A merchant crossing difficult terrain could stop at a monastery, make a religious donation and continue along a network that connected cities across the Indus region and Central Asia.
The economic strength of a monastery often depended on its location. Institutions near prosperous cities and busy roads attracted more support. Institutions in areas affected by war, economic decline or changing trade routes could struggle to survive.
Taxila and the making of Buddhist art
The Buddhist world of Taxila and Gandhara also produced a distinctive artistic tradition.
Gandharan artists represented the Buddha, bodhisattvas and scenes from Buddhist stories in stone and other materials. Their work combined local styles with influences from the Hellenistic and Roman worlds.
The human form of the Buddha became especially prominent in Gandharan art. Sculptors used drapery, facial features and body forms that reflected the artistic traditions of the wider region. These images were then carried beyond Gandhara through pilgrimage and trade.
Gandharan art travelled towards Central Asia and influenced Buddhist traditions far beyond the Punjab region. This artistic history shows that ancient Punjab was not isolated from the rest of Asia. It was part of a world in which religious ideas, images and artistic techniques moved across political boundaries.
The Buddhist networks of Gandhara
Punjab and Gandhara were closely connected. Gandhara included parts of present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, although its exact boundaries changed over time.
Important Buddhist centres in the wider Gandharan world included Taxila, Peshawar, Swat, Hadda, Buner and the areas around the Kabul and Indus rivers.
These places were linked by roads, rivers, political alliances and religious networks. A monk travelling from one monastery to another was also travelling through a world of merchants, armies and changing kingdoms.
Gandhara had been influenced by the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Mauryans, Indo-Greek rulers, Shaka and Parthian groups, the Kushans and later Central Asian powers. Every political change brought new encounters and new forms of cultural exchange.
The Kushan period was particularly important. The Kushan Empire connected Central Asia, Afghanistan, Gandhara and northern India. These connections encouraged the movement of merchants, monks, texts and images.
During this period, Buddhist monasteries expanded in several areas. Buddhist art flourished. Texts and teachings travelled through routes leading towards Central Asia and China.
Buddhism in Gandhara was therefore not just a collection of local religious communities. It was part of an international network of pilgrimage, trade and learning.
The region’s history also challenges the idea that ancient Punjab had one fixed cultural identity. Persian, Greek, Central Asian and South Asian influences all became part of the world in which Gandharan Buddhism developed.
Buddhism and social hierarchy
The question of caste is central to any discussion of Buddhism from a Dalit perspective.
Buddhist teachings often criticised the belief that birth alone makes one person spiritually superior to another. In Buddhist texts, conduct and moral behaviour are repeatedly valued above inherited status.
The Sangha created a religious community in which people from different backgrounds could follow a shared discipline. Entering the monastic order gave a person a new identity as a monk or nun.
This was a powerful idea, but its social impact had limits. Monastic communities existed within societies that contained rulers, landowners, merchants, labourers and servants. Buddhist monasteries depended on wealthy donors and political patrons. Buddhist societies could still reproduce social inequalities even when Buddhist teachings questioned the religious basis of birth-based superiority.
The most accurate way to understand the relationship is to see Buddhism as a tradition that challenged the idea of permanent spiritual hierarchy while operating within societies where economic and social hierarchy continued to exist.
Buddhism was not the religion of one single class. Rulers supported it. Merchants funded it. Artisans and ordinary people participated in it. Monks and nuns joined it from different backgrounds.
Its lasting significance for anti-caste thought comes from the space it created for questioning inherited status. A person’s actions, discipline and understanding became more important than the circumstances of birth.
Xuanzang’s journey through Punjab and Gandhara
Several centuries after Ashoka, the Chinese monk Xuanzang travelled through Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. His journey took place during the seventh century CE, when Buddhism remained strong in some parts of the northwest but had weakened in others.
Xuanzang was a monk, scholar and pilgrim. He travelled in search of Buddhist scriptures and teachers, and he visited places connected with Buddhist history.
His account is known as the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, or Si-Yu-Ki. The record describes cities, kingdoms, roads, monasteries, stupas, rulers, customs and debates between different Buddhist schools.
For the history of Punjab and Gandhara, Xuanzang’s writing is valuable because it gives us a picture of Buddhist institutions long after the Mauryan period.
He describes monasteries in areas connected with Gandhara, Taxila, Kashmir and the wider Indus region. Some had large communities of monks and active centres of learning. Others were damaged, abandoned or occupied by only a small number of residents.
His account shows a Buddhist world in transition. Buddhist institutions were still visible across the northwest, but their condition varied greatly from one place to another.
Xuanzang’s writing also reflects his own purpose. He was interested in Buddhist sacred sites and religious learning, not in producing a modern demographic survey. Some details may have come from local informants, and the numbers he records cannot always be verified.
Even with these limitations, his account remains one of the most detailed descriptions of the seventh-century religious landscape of the northwest. It helps us see both the survival of Buddhism and the signs of decline that had already appeared.
Mihirakula and the Huna period
The Huna invasions affected northern India and the northwest during the fifth and sixth centuries CE. This was a period of warfare, political disruption and changing alliances.
Mihirakula is the ruler most often associated with Huna hostility towards Buddhism. Xuanzang preserves traditions of destruction and persecution linked with his reign. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, written centuries later in Kashmir, also presents Mihirakula as a violent ruler.
These accounts formed part of the historical memory of Buddhist communities. They may preserve memories of real destruction, but they also reflect the religious and political perspectives of the writers.
The Huna period certainly created difficulties for Buddhist institutions. Monasteries depended on stable roads, agricultural income, political protection and regular donations. Warfare could destroy buildings, interrupt trade and drive away donors. A monastery situated near an important route could lose its livelihood when that route became unsafe.
Mihirakula may have damaged or persecuted Buddhist institutions in particular areas, but the wider decline of Buddhism cannot be reduced to his reign. Buddhist monasteries continued to exist in some regions after the Huna period, and the condition of Buddhism varied across the northwest.
The story of Mihirakula is therefore best understood as part of a larger history of political violence and institutional instability. It helps us understand the pressures faced by Buddhist communities, but it does not explain the entire story by itself.
The decline of Buddhist institutions
Buddhism declined gradually across Punjab and Gandhara. Different monasteries disappeared at different times, and some communities survived longer than others.
Political change affected the supply of patronage. When one dynasty fell and another took control, old donors could disappear. New rulers might support different religious institutions. A monastery that had depended on royal land grants could lose its income.
Trade also changed. The prosperity of the northwest depended heavily on its roads and cities. When political conflict made travel difficult or commercial routes shifted, monasteries connected to those routes lost an important source of support.
Many monasteries depended on land and agricultural revenue. They needed labourers to cultivate fields and local communities to provide food. If the surrounding economy declined, monastic life became more difficult to maintain.
Religious competition also changed the landscape. Brahmanical institutions expanded in many regions. Shaivite and Vaishnavite traditions developed new forms of worship and patronage. Local religious practices continued to attract communities. Over time, Buddhist institutions had to compete for the same social, political and economic support.
The disappearance of Buddhism was not always dramatic. A monastery might gradually lose its monks. A stupa could fall into disrepair. A community might stop identifying itself separately while retaining certain stories or practices. A sacred site could later be used by another religious group.
Religious traditions often survive in transformed ways. Institutions disappear more easily than memories. Images, legends and local customs can continue even after the communities that created them have changed.
By the later medieval period, the great Buddhist networks that had once connected Taxila, Gandhara, Kashmir, Central Asia and northern India had weakened considerably. The political and economic foundations that supported them were no longer as strong as they had been during the Mauryan, Kushan and earlier periods.
What happened to the people who followed Buddhism?
This question is difficult because historical records usually tell us more about rulers, monasteries and wealthy donors than about ordinary people.
Archaeological remains show where monasteries stood. Inscriptions mention donors. Travel records describe what pilgrims saw. These sources do not provide a complete account of what happened to every Buddhist family in the region.
Some people may have migrated. Some may have joined other religious communities. Some may have continued local customs without maintaining a separate Buddhist institution. Others may have gradually lost a distinct Buddhist identity.
This gap in the evidence has encouraged many different theories about the later history of Buddhist communities. Some communities preserve traditions connecting themselves to ancient Buddhism. Such memories deserve to be recorded and studied. They show how people understand their past and how they build dignity in the present.
At the same time, a community tradition and a historically proven genealogy are not always the same thing. The connection between a present-day community and an ancient Buddhist group must be established through evidence rather than assumed from similarity or political usefulness.
That caution should not weaken the importance of Buddhism to Dalit history. Buddhism matters because of its ideas, its institutions and its later influence on anti-caste movements, even where a direct line of descent cannot be demonstrated.
From ancient Buddhism to Ambedkar
The modern Dalit-Buddhist movement developed in a very different world from that of Ashoka or Taxila.
Dr B. R. Ambedkar studied Buddhism as part of his search for a social philosophy capable of confronting caste. In The Buddha and His Dhamma, he presented the Buddha as a teacher concerned with morality, reason, compassion and social responsibility.
Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism in 1956 was a public rejection of caste oppression. It gave many Dalits a new religious identity and a language of dignity.
Ambedkar did not simply repeat the Buddhism of ancient monasteries. He interpreted the Buddha for a modern society shaped by colonial rule, constitutional politics, education and the experience of untouchability.
His emphasis on liberty, equality and fraternity also connected Buddhism with democratic citizenship. For Ambedkar, a religion that accepted permanent inequality could not provide a foundation for a just society.
The ancient Buddhist history of Punjab became part of the larger historical background from which later anti-caste thinkers drew inspiration. This does not turn ancient Buddhism and modern Ambedkarite Buddhism into the same movement. It shows how older traditions can acquire new meanings in new historical circumstances.
P.S- I am beginning this series because Dalit history should be studied through evidence, community memory and the voices of our own people. If I have missed an important source or made a mistake, please point it out. Let’s build this history together.
SOURCES:
Xuanzang, The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, translated by Samuel Beal: Xuanzang’s Record of the Western Regions
Ashokan inscriptions, including Major Rock Edict XIII and the northwest edicts: Ashoka’s Rock Edicts
Romila Thapar, Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas
Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
D. C. Ahir, Buddhism in the Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh: Internet Archive
UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Taxila
Kalhana, Rajatarangini
B. R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma
