Mardan

Mardan lies in the Peshawar valley, in a landscape rich in the remains of ancient Gandhara. At nearby Shahbaz Garhi, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka's edicts were carved into rock in the Kharosthi script during the third century BCE. The Buddhist monastery of Takht-i-Bahi was founded nearby around the first century CE, while the caves of Kashmir Smast later sheltered Buddhist hermits.