The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c7.11

c7.11

The Śakas themselves do not appear to have been a very artistic people. Here and there among their ornaments are some attractive examples of Scythic and, particularly, Sarmatian designs, but, with these few exceptions Śaka art in the North-West was nothing more than a perpetuation of decaying Greek art—so much so, indeed, that no one comparing, for example, the coins of the two peoples or taking note of the ornamental features of Śaka buildings, can doubt for a moment that the Śakas continued to employ the same Greek artificers as their predecessors, or that these artificers and their descendants were responsible for carrying on the Greek traditions to the last days of Śaka rule in the North-West. As the years went by, those traditions tended to grow weaker and the workmanship to deteriorate. That, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that the Śakas and their Greek subjects were almost entirely cut off by the Parthian empire from intercourse with the Western world. Later, when the Parthians themselves became masters of the North-West, Greek arts and crafts received a fresh and invigorating stimulus. For, like the Śakas, the Parthians were confirmed philhellenes and proud of their Hellenistic culture, and not only had they large numbers of Greek subjects in their empire but they were in a position to maintain close commercial contacts with the Mediterranean coasts. This revival of Greek arts and crafts is very noticeable at Taxila after its conquest by Gondophares, the Suren of Eastern Parthia. That an earlier revival had followed the transient victories of his predecessor Vonones is a possibility, but only a remote one. There is no evidence for it at Taxila. All the evidence from that site and all the evidence of the sculptures themselves go to show that at about the close of the last century before the Christian era there existed in Gandhāra local artists capable of turning out work in a decadent Hellenistic style which served at first as a basis for the incipient Buddhist art of that region, but that after the Parthian conquest of *circa* A.D. 25 there was a notable revival of Hellenistic art followed by a striking change for the better in the character of local Buddhist art. All this I shall discuss in detail in a later chapter. But first we must take stock of some artistic influences other than Greek which contributed to the making of the Gandhāra School, namely those of the Early Buddhist School of Central India and Hindustān.