Maurya and Shunga Art c5.14

c5.14

The phil-Hellenism of the Maurya kings and court is indeed beyond doubt, and it must have been their intimate relation with the Hellenistic East that also brought them into an indirect contact with the art and culture of the Achaemenids. The grandiose and magnificent monuments of the Achaemenid monarchs had still been standing when the Mauryas came to exercise all-India suzerainty and Maurya art was making its appearance. Certain Achaemenian forms and motifs had presumably already migrated to the Punjab and the Indus Valley during the Achaemenian occupation of the region.