Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c13.30

c13.30

Having thus summarized in general terms the nature of the intercourse between India and the Greco-Roman world, we must seek more specifically its results. As regards Indian art, we may at once say that in the matter of coinage, Indians learnt everything from the West. Coinage never appealed to the Hindu craftsman very strongly, though very occasionally,—as in the case of the life-like portraits of Kanishka, and the beautiful and graceful types of the versatile Samudra Gupta¹,—a fine result is achieved. The Indians were usually content either to imitate foreign coins, generally the Roman aureus, or to restrike them. In the south of India they took the simpler course of importing Roman specie wholesale¹. Not much can be said for the purely native coins of the Āndhras, Chālukyas or Pāṇḍyas.