section_path: History/Ancient history/Mauryan empire
section_name: Mauryan empire
paragraph_text: Mauryan empire
  
  Following the Seleucid–Mauryan war, the region was ceded to the Mauryan Empire in 303 BCE. Around 300 BCE, the Greek diplomat and historian Megasthenes noted that Purushapura was the western terminus of a Mauryan road that connected the city to the empire's capital at Pataliputra, near the city of Patna in the modern-day Indian state of Bihar.
  
  As Mauryan power declined, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom based in modern Afghanistan declared its independence from the Seleucid Empire, and quickly seized ancient Peshawar around 190 BCE. The city was then captured by Gondophares, founder of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom. Gondophares established the nearby Takht-i-Bahi monastery in 46 CE.