Gandhara

Satrapy in the far east of the Achemenid empire that was conquered by Alexander the Great and was the scene of one of his greatest victories (at Hydaspes in 326 BC). Ceded by the Seleucids to India's Mauryan empire in 303 BC, it was a center of east-west trade. Gandhara art, a fusion of Greek and Indian influences that developed in the last centuries BC, became the most important style of Buddhist art in southeast Asia.