The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c10.8

c10.8

We must conclude, then, that all these reliefs without exception were modelled by hand on the spot, the best of them by a sculptor familiar with Hellenistic ideals and methods, the rest by local craftsmen of varying ability. It may be recalled that the same thing had happened in the case of the famous pillars of Aśoka, erected nearly three centuries earlier. Two of them, at Sārnāth and Sāñchī, are magnificent specimens of Hellenistic sculpture, executed by a master of the art; the others, of different degrees of merit but all much inferior, are evidently the works of his local assistants. That skilled artists and craftsmen from Western Asia were being encouraged at this time to find work under Parthian patronage at Taxila is evidenced by the well-known story of St Thomas. According to this story, the apostle, who was a carpenter or builder by trade, was recruited in Syria by an Indian merchant named Habban to accompany him to India, to take service at the court of the Parthian king Gondophares, for whom he was acting as agent. Whatever the precise facts behind this story, it fully confirms the conclusion drawn from the monuments themselves that the Parthian conquest of the North-West and the consequent opening-up of communications with the Mediterranean coasts were followed by an influx not only of small *objets d'art* from Western Asia and Egypt but also of artists and skilled craftsmen seeking their fortunes under the patronage of the philhellene Parthians. We shall see presently that further evidence on this subject is provided by sculptures from the Peshāwar Valley.