Travelling thence to Peshawar (Purushapura), the capital of Gandhara, he made a digression, through the now inaccessible valley of Swat and the Dard states, to the Upper Indus, returning to Peshawar, and then crossing the Indus (Sintu) into the decayed kingdom of Taxila (Ta-cha-si-lo, Takshasila), then subject to Kashmir.
He was not, however, killed, but took refuge in Kashmir, where after a few years he seized the throne and then attacked the neighbouring kingdom of Gandhara, perpetrating terrible massacres.
The Gandhara school of sculpture, of which the best specimens come from the neighbourhood of Kanishka's capital, Purushpura (the modern Peshawar), is a branch of Graeco-Roman art adapted to Oriental religious subjects.
In the north-west was Gandhara, on the banks of the Indus, in the neighbourhood of Peshawar.
The purest specimens have been found in the Northwest frontier province (the ancient Gandhara) and the Punjab, where the Greeks settled in greatest force.