Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c14.22

c14.22

The most important site was Bactria, situated midway between Afghanistan and Turkistan and lying to the south of Oxus. Its ancient name was Bāhlīka, or Bahlāyanī of Patañjali. It was an international site where four great routes, viz. from India, Iran, Scythia and China, met. The archaeological researches in Bactriana have shown it to be a veritable crucible of art and culture. Its principal sites are Bactria (modern, Mazar-i-Sharif), Kunduz, Khulm, Andkhui and Termez on the Oxus (ancient Tarmita of the Vinaya-sūtra-ṭīkā and Ta-mi of Yuan Chwang). Bactria was the country of Bāhlīka-Yavanas and art remains of Indian inspiration have been mostly negative so far. The undoubted Buddhist monument is the Nava-Vihāra monastery which dates from the time of Vāsudeva or one of his immediate successors. The site of Kunduz was the real cradle of Graeco-Buddhist art where a number of statues and a temple of Jandial type of Taxila was found which led Foucher to think that the area from Kunduz to Taxila was the home-land of the Gandhāra art in its two versions, one with emphasis on Hellenistic elements and the other on Indian elements.