The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c12.3

c12.3

The influx of Hellenistic art described in the preceding chapter was short-lived. It began soon after the Parthian conquest of Gandhāra in *circa* A.D. 25, and ended abruptly with the advent of the Kushāns soon after A.D. 60. But it left an enduring mark on the nascent School of Buddhist sculpture, and its influence can be seen, clear and unmistakable, long after that date. This period, covered by the first four or five decades of Kushān rule, is in some ways the most fascinating in the history of the School. It is the period when Gandhāra art was in a formative, adolescent stage; when we can discern more clearly than at other times the efforts of the artists to overcome their initial difficulties, to reconcile Greek and local ideas, and to create from them a new synthesis of religious art suited to the needs of the Buddhist Church. Of all the sculptures dating from this period some of the earliest and most attractive are comprised in the collection which formerly belonged to the Guides' Mess at Mardān. For the preservation of these sculptures we owe no small debt to the officers of the Guides; but it could be wished that they had spared themselves the trouble of trying to brighten up the sculptures by occasionally blacking and polishing them, since the effect has been completely to obscure the surface texture and fine finish, and to make it virtually impossible to secure satisfactory photographs. How disastrous for reproduction this maltreatment has proved can be seen by comparing fig. 56, which was taken in 1927, with fig. 54, which was taken more than half a century ago when the relief was first unearthed. I stress this point the more because many of the other illustrations which follow suffer from the same serious defect, and it is important that full allowance should be made for it, if the merits of the sculptures are to be correctly assessed.