The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.183.2

v1.c9.183.2

General Cunningham is of opinion that the sculpture was produced by a foreign artist—one “of a small body of Bactrian Greek sculptors who”, he conjectures, “found ready employment for their services amongst the wealthy Buddhists, just in the same way as goldsmiths and artillerymen afterwards found service with the Moghal Emperors;”⁷⁷ and it is undeniable that during the supremacy of the Graeco-Bactrians in North-Western India for about a century, Greek works of art were produced in a more or less debased state for Huviṣka and his successors. But neither the conjecture nor the probability suffices to account for the local character of so many of the accessories of the sculpture. A Greek or Bactrian artist, working for a Greek or, a Bactrian, employer would be the last person to design heavy earrings, thick anklets, five-rowed necklaces, Indian *dhuti*, Indian *pāyajāma*, Indian *cāpkāns* of flowered muslin, Indian *cādars*, and Indian shoes for a Grecian demi-god and his attendants. A local cause for them must be sought, and I believe the Indian nationality of the artist offers the most probable soultion of the difficulty, the Greek “feeling” of the work being accounted for by the design. But whatever the origin of this and the other works named above, there is nothing in them, nor a tittle of evidence of any kind to show that they gave rise to the plastic art in this country, or even appreciably influenced its character.