The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s7.79

c10.s7.79

Two slight indications may exist of communication, not of course direct, between the Greeks of India and the Indo-Chinese peninsula. One, already noticed, is the occurrence of Menander’s name in Indo-Chinese tradition (p. 267); the other is an object dug up at Taxila (Sirkap), the head and shoulders of a gorilla-like figure.⁹ Sir John Marshall has pointed out that it is hollow like many Hellenistic statuettes, and that the modelling is much superior to that of objects from the Saca-Parthian and Kushan strata; and as it came from one of the Hellenistic strata it is probably Greek work. No Greek in India can have known the gorilla, but the figure certainly suggests that the artist had seen, or had had a description of, an orang; and if a polar bear reached Alexandria,¹ an orang may well have come to Taxila. In addition, the Greek word for mustard, σίναπι, is supposed to have come from Farther India,² but that has nothing to do with the period under consideration, for the word was known at Athens in the fifth century B.C.;³ though how it got there is a mystery, as it is said not to occur in Persian.