Charsadda District, Pakistan

Charsadda () is a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan that contains the town of Charsadda. The town was part of the Peshawar ex-metropolitan region. Pashtuns make up majority of the population of the district.

History

Charsadda was once part of the kingdom of Gandhara, however around 516 BC Gandhara became part of the seventh satrapy or province of the Achaemenid Empire and paid tribute to Darius the Great of Persia, until its overthrow by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.

After the death of Alexander in 323 BC the Indian Emperor Chandragupta Maurya rose to power and brought Gandhara under his sway. According to a popular tradition, Emperor Ashoka built one of his stupas there. This stupa was mentioned by the famous Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hieun Tsang, who visited in 630, according to him Po-Lu-Sha (as he called the stupa) was in circumference.

A Brahminical temple to the east and a monastery to the north which according to Buddhist legends was the place where Buddha preached the Law. The name Gandhara disappeared after Mahmud of Ghazni conquered the area and converted it to Islam in 1026.

Bactrian Greeks

This area was also ruled by the Bactrian Greeks between 250–125 BC which was succeeded by the Indo-Greek Kingdom who ruled until 10 AD.

Sharkargarh

Shabqadr is a small town in Charsadda tehsil north west of Peshawar. Here is a fort built by the Sikhs called Sharkargarh. The town was burnt by Mohmands in 1897 It has since been...
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