Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c10.8

c10.8

At this juncture a brief reference to the source of the culture from which Asoka drew his inspiration seems indicated. From *c* 500 B C. and the ensuing 170 years the pulse of Asiatic culture throbbed in what was then the fertile land of Persia, and as a result there developed in the capital cities of that great empire, the nearest to India, a classical art school composed of Pharoic-Hellenic-Iranian elements of a distinctly effective character. This school was probably partially dispersed by Alexander's conquest of Persia together with the downfall of the Achaemenid dynasty in 330 B.C., but the unsettled period which then ensued was rapidly followed by the extension of the Macedonian empire in the east by means of Greek colonies, such as that of Bactria, which brought the full force of Hellenism to the very borders of Mauryan India. What actually happened to the exponents of the original Achaemenid school under such conditions can only be a matter of conjecture but that they and their successors continued to flourish under the intelligent patronage of the Asiatic Greeks, producing works with still more marked Hellenistic features cannot be doubted It was at this stage of the movement that the Indian emperor Asoka conceived the project of erecting his imperishable and symbolic monuments to the Buddhist faith, and instinctively turned to the descendants of the workmen who had already shown such proficiency in their construction of the stately palaces of the Persian kings