In 1980, the Jaulian monastic complex was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The site is situated on a hill at a height of 92 metres, 7 kilometres from Taxila Museum. Its original foundation dates to the Kushan era in the second century CE. Up until its destruction in the fifth century CE, the monastery at Jaulian served as one of the oldest universities in the world.
The main sacred area at Jaulian has a central stupa and twenty-seven smaller votive stupas. There is also a monastery there, which has two courtyards with monk cells and numerous chapels. One of the oldest universities in the world, the monastery at Jaulian attracted students from China and beyond, as well as from Central and Southeast Asia.
The monuments in Jaulian have more ornamentation and are in better condition. The Taxila Museum now houses some of the best stucco sculptures, along with other artefacts like copper coins from the late Kushana and Indo-Sassanian dynasties and fragments of a Buddhist manuscript written in Sanskrit.
Particularly interesting is a sculpture of a seated Buddha with a hole in the naval that is circular and has an inscription in Kharoshti below it. According to the inscription, Budhamitra, who "delighted in the law," gave the sculpture as a gift (dharma). When making prayers for specific physical ailments, the worshipper was supposed to insert their finger into the navel hole.
Sir John Marshall gave Mr. Natesa Aiyar the order to excavate the location between 1916 and 1917. The Jaulian monastery, along with other Buddhist institutions in the Taxila valley, was deserted by the end of the 5th century.
