"This city, Mathura or Mathurii, Biruni's Miihurii,137 present-day Mut- tra, was already an important religious site in ancient times- Ptolemy's 'Madoura of the Gods'-, due to its location on the Yamuna, at the very centre of the Ganges-Yamuna Doab. 'Utbi calls it Mahrah al-Hind.138 No Ashokan inscriptions have been found in the area, although archaeology suggests that the first transition to urbanism was made in the area in the Mauryan period. According to Hiuen Tsang there existed in his time three stupas of Ashoka at Mathura. We merely know from inscriptions that there were Buddhists in Mathura by the first century Be, but also that there were probably more Jains than Buddhists in these early times. The city appears to have retained its Buddhist:Jaina imprint up to 300 AD, with a great increase of Buddhist relics being noticeable under Kanishka. Unprecedented urban growth occurred when it became the principal capital of the Kushanas in India. With close relations developing between Gandhara and Mathura, Hellenistic and Parthian elements, were passed on and many new elements of iconography were incorporated. In later times, Mathura became a centre of the Krishna cult, a transformation to which Abhira and Gojar pastoralists, following the tran- shumance route from Saurashtra, probably contributed a great deal. Mathura was the first city in India to be destroyed by the Muslims. This happened in 1018 AD. 'Utbi, again, describes the extraordinary 'buildings' (mabiini) and 'mansions' (mughiini) which Mahmud saw there, and the one thousand 'idolhouses' (but-khiinahii), built in compounds with stone walls (az sang-i-banyiid), raised on high ground to protect them from the water of the Yamuna.140 The main temple of Mathura, according to 'Utbi, represented a total cost of 100,000,000 dinars and could not have been built in less than 200 years. In it were five idols (asniim, sanamhii), in red gold (adh-dhahab al-ahmar, zar-i-sarkh), five meters high, one of which had eyes of rubies worth 50,000 dinars; another contained a blue sapphire which weighed 450 mishqal. There were 'many thousands' of smaller idols in the city. We are told that the Sultan ordered all the temples to be devastated with fire and laid waste, after collecting vast amounts of gold and silver as well as jewels."