History of Peshawar

area of Peshawar was called Purushapura (Sanskrit for City of Men), from which the current name "Peshawar" might have been derived; the city was founded by the Kushans, a Central Asian tribe of Tocharian origin, over 2,000 years ago.

The area that Peshawar occupies was then seized by the Greco-Bactrian king, Eucratides (170 – 159 BC), and was controlled by a series of Greco-Bactrian, and later, Indo-Greek kings, who ruled an empire that geographically spanned from the area of present-day Pakistan to North India. According to the historian, Tertius Chandler, Peshawar consisted of a population of 120,000 in the year 100 AD, making it the seventh most populous city in the world at the time. Later, the city was ruled by several Parthian and Indo-Parthian kings, another group of Iranic peoples germane to the region, the most famous of whom, Gondophares (Gandapur in Pashto), ruled the city and its environs, starting in circa 46 AD; the period of rule by Gondophares was briefly followed by two or three of his descendants, before they were displaced by the first of the "Great Kushans", Kujula Kadphises, around the middle of the 1st century AD.

The Kushan king, Kanishka, who ruled from at least 127 AD, moved the capital from Pushkalavati (now called Charsadda, in the Peshawar valley), to Purushapura (Peshawar) in the 2nd century AD, Buddhist missionaries arrived at Zoroastrian, Hindu and animist Peshawar, seeking counsel with the Zoroastrian Kushan rulers. Their teachings were embraced by the Zoroastrian Kushans, who converted to Buddhism, assigning the religion with an official status in the city. Following this move by the Kushans, Peshawar became a great center of Buddhist learning; although, the majority of the population, particularly in rural areas, continue to embrace Zoroastrianism, Hindusim and animism.

However, Kanishka, who became an ardent follower of