Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c10.82

c10.82

Hiuen Thsang, the Buddhist pilgrim from China who visited India in the seventh century, says that artists from Baktria were employed to paint the Buddhist monasteries during the time of Kanishka, King of Gandhara, about the first century of our era, and that the convent of Serika was famous for its mural paintings. But we must not conclude from this that the traditions of Indian painting were entirely foreign products. The universities of ancient India, like those of Taksashila, near the modern Peshawur, Nalanda in Bengal, and Sridhanya Kataka on the banks of the Krishna, comprised schools of religious painting and sculpture; and in these great culture-centres of India all foreign artistic ideas were gradually transformed by Indian thought, and nationalised.