In the view of Buddhist sources, Gandhāra was one of the so-called great regions (mahjanapada) of ancient India (a geographical concept that included many other parts of modern South Asia). Under the Mauryan empire (ca. 300-185 BCE), its capital was the city of Taxila. The center of ancient Gandhāra was the Peshawar basin in northwestern Pakistan which extends westward into Afghanistan along the Kabul River. This region exerted cultural and linguistic influence on what has been called Greater Gandhāra which encompasses the surrounding areas eastwards across the Indus River (such as Taxila), north towards the Swat Valley and Upper Indus, west towards Bamiyan and across the Hindu Kush into Bactria and the Oxus river valley.