The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c8.15

c8.15

Such is the — I must confess unexpected — result of our researches on the spot. It is only in the country which from our point of view we might quite correctly call the vestibule of India, that we finally discover the archetype of Buddha; and when at last we find it, it is to acknowledge that its appearance is at the least as much Greek as Indian. The fact is, doubtless, sufficiently surprising to call for some commentary. What historical circumstances can have rendered possible, and even spontaneously engendered, this creation of the Indo-Greek type of Buddha? What attracts us most in the question is, I will warrant, how the Hellenic influence could thus have reached as far as the banks of the Indus. Allow me to call your attention to the fact that Gandhâra is scarcely further, as the crow flies, from the mouth of the Hellenized Euphrates than from that of the Buddhist Ganges. In reality the problem has two faces, like the images which we have to explain. To account for the birth of such a statue, it is necessary to justify the penetration not only of Greek Art, but also of the Buddhist religion, into the country which was to be the theatre of their prolific union. And it is indeed with the latter that it will be best to undertake the historical part of our quest.