The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c7.s5.5

c7.s5.5

Since Windisch wrote, the extent of Greek influence on India before and after the Christian era has been the subject of much investigation, which has yielded its richest fruits in the sphere of art. That India borrowed the incitement to the art of Gandhāra from Greece as its ultimate source is undeniable, and it is equally clear that the Buddhist adoption of the practice of depicting the human form of the Buddha, in lieu of merely indicating his presence by some symbol such as his seat, was due to Greek artistic influences. The extent to which the rise of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism was furthered by the influx of religious and philosophical ideas from the west is still uncertain; but it is noteworthy that Professor Lévi,¹ who most strongly opposed the theory of Windisch, has himself attributed to western influences the development of the new spirit in Buddhism which he traces in Aṣvaghoṣa, whom he places in the entourage of Kaniṣka, dating the former in the first century B.C. If this were the case, there would be decided difficulties in maintaining any chronological objections such as Professor Lévi² originally urged to the theory of Windisch; when he attacked that theory he could place the earliest Sanskrit dramas preserved, those of Kālidāsa in his view, five or six centuries A.D. But now we have dramas of about A.D. 100 which are certainly not the earliest of their type, and it is impossible to deny that the Sanskrit drama came into being during the period when Greek influence was present in India. The highest point of that influence politically was doubtless attained under Menander; in the middle of the first century B.C., roughly a century after Menander's conquests, the Greek princes were on the verge of being absorbed by new influences culminating in the establishment of the Kuṣaṇa¹ domination, but there is nothing chronologically difficult in assuming the influence of Greek drama on the drama in India.