Kushan Empire
Following the rise of the Central Asian Kushan Empire in later centuries, the Buddhist culture of Afghanistan and Pakistan, centre on the city of Taxila just west of Islamabad, experienced a cultural renaissance known as the Gandhara period. The northern regions of Pakistan came under the rule of Central Asian nomadic tribes called Sakas who at the start of the first century BC, had founded a kingdom in Gandhara (modern Kandahar in Afghanistan and northern areas of Pakistan) displacing the ailing Indo-Greek kings but were later were driven eastward by Pahlavis (Parthians related to the Scythians) who in turn were displaced by the Kushans (also
known as the Yueh-Chih in Chinese chronicles).
The Kushans had earlier moved into territory in the northern part of present-day Afghanistan and had taken control of Bactria. Along with the Indo-Parthians (Pahlavas), the Sakas dominated India from present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan right over to parts of Maharashtra and Kathiawar (modern Gujarat). Kanishka, the
greatest of the Kushan rulers (ca AD 120-60), extended his empire from Patna in the east to Bukhara in the west and from the Pamirs in the north to central India, with the capital at Peshawar (then Purushapura). Kushan territories were eventually overrun by the Huns in the north and taken over by the Guptas in the east and the Sassanians of Persia in the west.
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