The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.51

v1.c33.51

Here, the figures of the Buddha and his devotees—the chief and central features of the design—are in inspiration demonstrably Hellenistic; but the arches beneath which they stand are no less demonstrably Indian in form; while the sacred Indian lotus, full-blown, is incised beneath the base of the casket. Doubtless, it was in the sphere of religious and more particularly of Buddhist art, with its essentially Indian associations, that Indian ideas first began to trespass on the domain of Hellenism in the north-west, and this partly explains why the monuments which betray the first encroachments of indigenous art, belong without exception to that faith, and why other objects of a non-religious character, such as engraved gems or the graceful bronze statuette of a child from Taxila (Pl. XXXII, 86), preserve their classical style intact until a much later date. But it must be borne in mind, also, that it was in architectural forms that the earliest symptoms of Indian influence appeared, and that at the time of which we are speaking India was already in possession of a national architecture of her own and likely, therefore, to exercise more influence in that particular sphere than in the glyptic or plastic arts, in which she had then made less independent progress. The engraved gems referred to are found in large numbers throughout the whole north-western area and are proved by the presence of legends in early Brāhmī or Kharoshṭhī, as well as in Greek characters, to be the work of resident artists. Some typical specimens are illustrated in Pl. XXXIII, 88, *a–k*. The first is a cornelian intaglio from Akra in the Bannu district, of pure Hellenistic workmanship, designed and executed with a fine sense of composition and relief. Judging by the persistency with which it was repeated, the motif of the fighting warriors on this gem must have been almost as favourite a one in India as it was in Greece. Next to it and of about the same date is a remarkably spirited elephant cut on a pale sard. Then comes a jacinth (*c*), the jugate heads on which recall to mind the busts of Heliocles and Laodice on coins of Eucratides, though it is slightly later than they. The lion, also, on pale sard (*d*) is a fine example of delicate technique; but in fig. *e*—a singularly beautiful sardoine—the style shows incipient signs of falling off, and in the three following specimens, a black garnet and two sards, we watch its slow and sure deterioration until the beginning of the Christian era. The next two gems of the series (*i* and *j*) are still more decadent. The treatment of the drapery and other details of the seated Athena in the former remind us irresistibly of coins struck about the time of Hermaeus, and we cannot be far wrong in assigning this gem to about 50 A.D., and the one which follows it to the close of the same century. The latter is a cornelian from the Hazāra District, engraved with a figure of Aphrodite and bearing a legend in corrupt Greek characters. Finally, in fig. *k*, we have a representative of a large group of gems executed in a meretricious and distinctive style, which appears to have been fashionable in India in the first and second centuries A.D. and which, taken in conjunction with other facts, suggests that a strong wave of influence—due, perhaps, to Roman expansion—set in about that time from Asia Minor.