The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.50

v1.c33.50

As with the architectural, so with the minor arts; they, one and all, derived their inspiration from the Hellenistic School, and in the very slowness of their decline bear testimony to the remarkable persistency of its teachings. Of earlier and purer workmanship a charming illustration is afforded by some fragmentary ceramic wares from the neighbourhood of Peshāwar, the designs on which are singularly human, and singularly Greek, in sentiment. On one of them are depicted little Amorini at play; on another, a child reaching for a bunch of grapes in the hands of its mother; on a third, a scene from the *Antigone*, where Haemon is supplicating his father Creon for the life of his affianced bride. Equally Hellenistic in character, and equally devoid of any Indian feeling, is an ivory pendant adorned with two bearded heads from Taxila, and the vine-wreathed head of Dionysus in silver repoussé (Pl. XXXI, 84) from the same site. Then, a little later—about the beginning, that is to say, of the Christian era—we find Indian forms appearing among the Hellenistic, just as they did in the case of architecture. Witness, for instance, the relic casket of gold encrusted with balas rubies, which was found in a tope at Bīmarān (Pl. XXXII, 87).