Ashoka in Kashmir

Ancient Buddhist mounds uncovered in Baramulla reveal Kashmir's forgotten role as a bridge between India, Gandhara, and Central Asia.

- Muskan Shafi Malik

In October 2023, far from home, archaeologist Mohmmad Ajmal Shah sat in France staring at an old, pale photograph. It showed three low mounds in Zehanpora, Baramulla.

The earth seemed ordinary, almost invisible, but something beneath it was calling to him.

Baramulla has seen spades before. Records trace digs back to the 1860s.

At Ushkur, once called Hushka-pura, the Archaeological Survey of India uncovered a stupa in the 1870s.

What came out of the soil surprised everyone: terracotta heads shaped in the Gandharan style, proof that Kashmir was tied into a larger Buddhist world of art and ideas.

Then the clock jumped to 1914.

At Parihaspora, archaeologists exposed a monastery, a stupa, and a temple. The pieces were scattered, but the pattern was forming.

After 1947, the ground fell silent for decades.

Until now.

Since July 2025, excavation has restarted at Zehanpora. This is the first major post-partition dig in the area, and it is changing how Kashmir's past is read.

These mounds point to Kashmir's long role as a meeting point of faith, learning, and power.

To see why, the story has to rewind more than two thousand years.

In the 3rd century BCE, Ashoka rose to power. Then came the Kalinga war, remembered for mass killing on a scale that shocked even a conqueror. Ancient accounts speak of lakhs dead or displaced. What followed made Ashoka one of history's most discussed rulers.

He changed.