Sagala

Sagala, also written Sakala or Sangala, was an ancient city in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, generally identified as the predecessor of the present-day city of Sialkot in the Pakistani province of Punjab. It served as the capital of the Madra kingdom and was razed in 326 BC when Alexander the Great campaigned in India, after the Cathaeans had entrenched themselves there. In the second century BC the Indo-Greek king Menander I made it his capital, and the Buddhist text Milinda Panha records that he embraced Buddhism there after debating the monk Nagasena. The city prospered as a trading centre renowned for silk and became a major centre of Buddhism. Ptolemy recorded it as Euthymedia, and the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, writing in the seventh century, described it as the old capital of the Alchon Hun king Mihirakula.