Indian Sculpture c4.s2.7

c4.s2.7

To allude to the much-discussed question of Persian or Hellenistic influence, it suffices to state that Hellenism has left its undeniable traces in Mauryan India (finds at Basāṛh, the ancient Vaiśālī).²⁴ Equally obvious is the impression that Persian achievements had made on Aśoka.²⁵ But neither altered the trend of Indian sculpture. Considering the sculpture of Harappa (p. 4), it is impossible to deny that Mauryan sculpture is of the same stock as that of the Indus valley and that the artistic attitude of this ramification in the Ganges valley, as well as those of Persia and of Greece, as far as their affinities go, have probably the same root, and that as far as the palæolithic age.