The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c26.s1.101

c26.s1.101

Indications of the influence of Greek example and good taste are discernible in the domain of the fine arts, and a happy blend of Indian, Iranian, and Hellenic factors lent to Maurya sculpture its high quality; but if any buildings on a Greek plan were erected, they were apparently confined to Gandhāra. A temple with Ionic pillars, dating from about 80 B. C., has been discovered at Taxila, which was half-foreign and by no means an essentially Indian centre; but the plan of the building is not Greek, and the pillars, of foreign pattern, are merely borrowed ornaments.² The earliest known example of Indo-Greek sculpture belongs to the same period, the reign of Azes,³ and not a single specimen can be referred to the times of Demetrios, Eukratides, and Menander, not to speak of Alexander. The well-known sculptures of Gandhāra, the region round Peshāwar, are much later in date, and are the offspring of cosmopolitan Graeco-Roman art.