Rawalpindi - Taxila, Part 1

Tour date: July 2010

Since we were already in Rawalpindi and after finishing the tour at Gurdwara Panji Sahib, we headed to Taxila Museum and later to it's nearby Archaelogical site. Taxila is a place for remembrances of the most famous Hindu Emperor, Asoka. I came to know about him while watching a fictional movie about him with Shahrukh Khan as a leading actor in 2007. In case you never heard anything about Asoka before, please click to the link here "The fictional film of Asoka's Life". 

First and foremost, Taxila is a town and an important archaeological site in the Rawalpindi district of the Punjab province in Northern Pakistan. It is situated about 32km northwest of Islamabad capital territory, just off the famous Grand Trunk Road. It was part of India before the partition. The construction of Taxila museum started in 1918 and was completed 10 years later. It was opened for public by Sir Habibullah, the then Education minister of British India. Later in 1998, the Government of Pakistan constructed the northern gallery. 

With a tip of Rs100 the museum assistant allowed me to shoot numerous photos of about 4000 objects displayed, including stone, stucco, terracotta, silver, gold, iron and semi precious stones. The displayed objects are mainly the objects found the ruin Taxila complex from 500 BC to 600 BC. The objects represents the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain religions found in the ancient cities and more than 2 dozen Buddhist stupas and monasteries including the Greek temple. Those photos were all gone in my crashed hard disk, so what was left in this entry were the one save in Nahran's facebook.

The 1 that left and found is the above photo of me with the "tug tug" outside the museum and a green scenery of the entrance to the museum.

After we had enough of exploration inside the museum, we went straight to the archaeological site @ Taxila valley, among others we visited the Jaulian, ancient Buddhist monastery and another monastery in Dharmarajika Stupa.

The people in the photos with me were among a great friends who I found along my journey of which we managed to form a small friendship over a shortest time ever. I'm truly bless.

to be continued....