The Gandharan Buddhist texts are both the earliest Buddhist and South Asian manuscripts discovered so far. Most are written on birch bark and were found in labeled clay pots. Panini has mentioned both the Vedic form of Sanskrit as well as what seems to be Gandhari; a later form of Sanskrit; in his Ashtadhyayi.

Gandhara's language was a Prakrit or 'Middle Indo-Aryan' dialect; usually called Gandhari. Texts are written right-to-left in the Kharo??hi script; which had been adapted for Indo-Aryan languages from a Semitic alphabet; the Aramaic alphabet.