Maurya and Shunga Art c5.10

c5.10

With the coming of the Mauryas to power on the throne of Pāṭaliputra, with the building up of an all-India empire by Chandragupta extending upto modern Afghanisthan and therefore touching almost what had once been the heart of Achaemenid power and culture, with the establishment of intimate friendly relations with contemporary Hellenistic powers and intimate contacts of Maurya kings and court with Greek political and cultural representatives from Graeco-Bactrian courts and kingdoms, the situation however took a new turn. The Achaemenid empire had long gone to dust and India had ceased to form a part of that empire. In 330 B. C. Alexander the Great overthrew the once mighty Persian Empire, but in the process of consolidating his conquest the Greek conqueror felt the overpowering influence of Achaemenian imperialism and Achaemenian art and culture to both of which he fell an easy prey. Plutarch has left us a long and vivid description of how Alexander behaved himself at Persepolis and how he worked for a fusion of the cultures of Greece and Iran of the Medo-Achaemenid monarchs. Donned in the robes of Iranian monarchs he used to sit on the throne of Darius under a golden canopy. He himself married Darius's daughter Statira, and married his Greek friends to Iranian ladies; one of these friends was Seleukus, later known as Seleukus Nikator, who married Apama, the daughter of Spitamenes. Not satisfied with having simply adopted somewhat the Persian mode of dress, Alexander, says Plutarch, "accommodated himself more than ever to the manner of the Asiatics, and at the same time persuaded them to adopt some of the Macedonian fashions; for by a mixture of both he thought a union might be promoted, much better than by force, and his authority maintained even when he was at a distance. For the same reason he elected thirty thousand (Persian) boys and gave them masters to instruct them in Grecian literature as well as train them to arms in the Macedonian manner."²¹