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The Tahkt i Bahi site, which is around 13km NW of Mardan, stands at an elevation of around 500m, or around 300ft above the surrounding countryside. It was a Buddhist Monastery, with a stūpa, votive stūpas, and living quarters; as well as having residential and work areas for the lay people who served the monastery.

The main area consists of a stūpa area, at which only the base still remains; beyond that is a courtyard for shrines and statues; and beyond that a monastery. To the east of the monastery may be the sīma area, where acts of vinaya were performed.

Beyond this central or focus area there are the remains of many buildings, which must have residential and work areas for the lay people attached to the monastery, and also store rooms. Cunningham wrote a report of the Takht i Bahi site with detailed drawings in 1848.

 

In the foreground is the stūpa area, beyond which are the shrine rooms, and at the top is the monastery, which potentially had rooms for 30 monastics. To the left of that is the sīma area.