"India" (IVC) before the Buddha (video)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

First human representations of the historical Shakyamuni Buddha from Scythia, Gandhara, Indo-Sakastan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, once part of ancient Greece in Central Asia (WQ).

Portions of ancient "Shakya Land"

In the "Rebirth Tales" (Jatakas) the Buddha recounts a tiny fraction of his past lives, prior to being reborn as Prince Siddhartha Gautama of the Shakya Clan in what is today Afghanistan, near the ancient Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), northwest of what today regard as "India." In one such tale he recounts being reborn along with Ananda, who in his final rebirth was the Buddha's trusted cousin and attendant, in modern Taxila (Takkasila), Gandhara, where there existed a great university.

• The Buddha wasn't from Nepal? (ranajitpal.com)

The Buddha (Taxila Museum)

That this university existed was possible due to the previous IVC that flourished in northwest India in the foothills of the Himalayas in what are now Afghanistan, Gandhara, Sakastan (collectively parts of formerly Hellenistic Bactria), Seistan and Baluchistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, and the great Hindu Kush in general. What was this IVC like of which so little is known? Excavations and archeological explorations of the last five decades are revealing much of the antiquity of proto-India and the culture that gave rise to that followed by the Shakya Clan and 100 million Hindus (formerly followers of Vedantic Brahmanism) and Jains, a wandering-ascetic (shramanic/non-Vedic) tradition most similar to Buddhism.

There once was a ruler from the area of Shakya Land/Scythia named King Pukkusati.

Who were the ancient Scythians or Shakyians, living along the Silk Road in Afghanistan?