Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription in the context of "Minor Rock Edict"

Buddhism, a religion founded by Gautama Buddha, first arrived in modern-day Afghanistan through the conquests of Ashoka (r. 268–232 BCE), the third emperor of the Maurya Empire. Among the earliest notable sites of Buddhist influence in the country is a bilingual mountainside inscription in Greek and Aramaic that dates back to 260 BCE and was found on the rocky outcrop of Chil Zena near Kandahar.

Many prominent Buddhist monks were based in Afghanistan during this period: Menander I (r. 165–130 BCE), a Greco-Bactrian king, was a renowned patron of Buddhism and is immortalized in the Milinda Panha, a Pali-language Buddhist text; Mahadharmaraksita, a 2nd-century BCE Indo-Greek monk, is said to have led 30,000 Buddhist monks from "Alasandra, the city of the Yonas" (a colony of Alexander the Great, located approximately 150 kilometres or 93 miles to the north of modern-day Kabul) to Sri Lanka for the dedication of the Mahathupa in Anuradhapura, according to the Mahavamsa (Chap. XXIX); Lokaksema, a 2nd-century Kushan monk, travelled to the Chinese capital city of Luoyang during the reign of the Han dynasty, and was the first translator of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into the Chinese language.

Chil Zena ("Forty steps"), also Chilzina or Chehel Zina, is a mountainous outcrop at the western limit of the city of Kandahar. Forty stone steps lead to the top of the outcrop, hence its name. It gives a commanding view on the city of Kandahar. Chil Zena was located on the northern side of the old citadel of Old Kandahar, destroyed by Nadir Shah Afshar of Persia in 1738. The carving of the staircase was commissioned by the Emperor Babur. Chil Zena later received numerous inscriptions about the conquests of Babur (1526-1530), apparently carved by his son Humayun.

Chil Zena is well known for the discovery of the Indian Emperor Ashoka's Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription on the mountainside, which is still located on in an open-air compound on the mountainside. The presence of this inscription at Chil Zena helped confirm the presence of Greek populations in the vicinity in the 3rd century BCE, as well as the extent of Ashoka's control, which is therefore thought to have incorporated Kandahar and its region of Arachosia.

The Kambojas were a southeastern Iranian people who inhabited the northeastern most part of the territory populated by Iranian tribes, which bordered the Indian lands. They only appear in Indo-Aryan inscriptions and literature, being first attested during the later part of the Vedic period.

They spoke a language similar to Younger Avestan, whose words are considered to have been incorporated in the Aramao-Iranian version of the Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription erected by the Maurya emperor Ashoka (r. 268–232 BCE). They were adherents of Zoroastrianism, as demonstrated by their beliefs that insects, snakes, worms, frogs, and other small animals had to be killed, a practice mentioned in the Avestan Vendidad.