Hellenistic influence on Indian art

[4][5][6][7] In 2007 a small coin hoard was discovered at the site of ancient Pushkalavati (Shaikhan Dehri) in Pakistan, containing a tetradrachm minted in Athens c. 500/490 – 485 BCE, together with a number of local types as well as silver cast ingots.

[6] Daniel Schlumberger also considers that punch-marked bars, similar to the many punch-marked bars found in northwestern India, initially originated in the Achaemenid Empire, rather than in the Indian heartland: "The punch-marked bars were up to now considered to be Indian (...) However the weight standard is considered by some expert to be Persian, and now that we see them also being uncovered in the soil of Afghanistan, we must take into account the possibility that their country of origin should not be sought beyond the Indus, but rather in the oriental provinces of the Achaemenid Empire".The Greek campaigns in India under Alexander the Great were limited in time (327–326 BCE) and in extent, but they had extensive long term effects as Greeks settled for centuries at the doorstep of India.

The Mudrarakshasa of Visakhadutta as well as the Jaina work Parisishtaparvan talk of Chandragupta's alliance with the Himalayan king Parvatka, often identified with Porus.

[9] According to these accounts, this alliance gave Chandragupta a composite and powerful army made up of Yavanas (Greeks), Kambojas, Shakas (Scythians), Kiratas (Nepalese), Parasikas (Persians) and Bahlikas (Bactrians) who took Pataliputra.

During that time, the city of Ai-Khanoum, capital of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and the capitals of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, the cities of Sirkap, founded in what is now Pakistan on the Greek Hippodamian grid plan, and Sagala, now located in Pakistan 10 km from the border with India, interacted heavily with the Indian subcontinent.

It is considered that Ai-Khanoum and Sirkap may have been primary actors in transmitting Western artistic influence to India, for example in the creation of the quasi-Ionic Pataliputra capital or the floral friezes of the Pillars of Ashoka.

One was held by early scholars such as Percy Brown in which stone Indian architecture used immigrant craftsmen experienced in the Persian Achaemenid imperial style, which included much Greek input, to which further more direct Hellenistic influence was added.

[15] It is possible that the difficult pass through the Hindu Kush and locations to the northwest of it such as Ai-Khanoum, a Greek city of Bactria in 3rd-century BCE and about 600 kilometres (370 mi) from Kabul, could have provided the conduit to connect the Hellenistic and Indian artists.

Alternatively, the influence could have come from the ancient Persian Persepolis, now near Shiraz in southwest Iran and about 2,200 kilometres (1,400 mi) from Kabul.

However, a major issue that this proposal faces is that Persepolis was destroyed about 80 years before the first Buddhist stone architecture and arts appeared.

A "marital agreement" was also concluded, and Seleucus received five hundred war elephants, a military asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE.

[18][19] Later, numerous ambassadors visited the Indian court in Pataliputra, especially Megasthenes to Chandragupta, later Deimakos to his son Bindusara, and later again Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt and contemporary of Ashoka, is also recorded by Pliny the Elder as having sent an ambassador named Dionysius to the Mauryan court.

[26] Many similar columns crowned by sphinxes were discovered in ancient Greece, as in Sparta, Athens or Spata, and some were used as funerary steles.

[26] The Greek sphinx, a lion with the face of a human female, was considered as having ferocious strength, and was thought of as a guardian, often flanking the entrances to temples or royal tombs.

[1] The abacus parts also often seem to display a strong influence of Greek art: in the case of the Rampurva bull or the Sankassa elephant, it is composed of flame palmettes alternated with stylized lotuses and small rosettes flowers.

[32] Ashoka also built the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya c. 250 BCE, also a circular structure, in order to protect the Bodhi tree.

[35] Ashoka is thought to have visited Bodh Gaya around 260 BCE, about 10 years into his reign, as explained by his Rock Edict number VIII.

The first appearance of "flame palmettes" goes back to the stand-alone floral akroteria of the Parthenon (447–432 BCE),[39] and slightly later at the Temple of Athena Nike.

The motif then spread to Persia, Egypt and the Hellenistic world, and as far as India, where it can be found on the abacus part of some of the Pillars of Ashoka or the Pataliputra capital.

[44] This motif appears again in the Sunga works of Bharhut, especially on a depiction of a foreign soldier, but the same treatment of the dress is also visible on purely Indian figures.

[51] One of the last Greco-Bactrian kings, Agathocles of Bactria (r. 190–180 BCE), issued remarkable Indian-standard square coins bearing the first known representations of Indian deities, which have been variously interpreted as Vishnu, Shiva, Vasudeva, Buddha or Balarama.

The dedication of a Greek envoy to the cult of Garuda at the Heliodorus pillar in Besnagar could also be indicative of some level of religious syncretism.

The Indo-Greek period (180 BCE – 20 CE) marks a time when Bactrian Greeks established themselves directly in the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent following the fall of the Maurya Empire and its takeover by the Sunga.

Numerous stupas, which had been set up during the time of Ashoka, were then reinforced and embellished during the Indo-Greek period, using elements of Hellenistic sculpture.

[63] The Greek script became used extensively on coins for many centuries, as was the habit of depicting a ruler on the obverse, often in profile, and deities on the reverse.

[63] The full bloom of Greco-Buddhist art seems to have postdated the Indo-Greek Kingdom, although it has been suggested that individual Greek artisans and artist probably continued to work for the new masters.

The archaeologist John Marshall on his visit to Taxila and Gandhara was reported as stating, 'it seemed as I had lighted on a bit of Greece itself' and I felt then there was something appealingly Greek in the countryside itself'.

[67] John Marshall, writing on the 'Primitive religion of the Eastern Indians and their art' declared that during the Ashokan period, the religion of Eastern India asserted its indigenous character through a veneer of Perso-Hellenistic polish and finish, and that Magadhan artists would receive their initial training under foreign masters from the Ashokan school.

Stressing the Persian influences on Mauryan sculpture, Marshall commented on how the upper portion of the yaksha statue displayed a Perso- Median influence in its drapery and style while the stiffness of the lower half exemplified the indigenous Indian art existing side by side with advanced exotic Perso-Hellenistic art.

The Pataliputra capital , a Hellenistic anta capital found in the Mauryan Empire palace of Pataliputra , India, dated to the 3rd century BCE
Athenian coin (minted c. 500/490 – 485 BCE) discovered in Pushkalavati , Gandhara . This coin is the earliest known example of its type to be found so far east. [ 3 ]
"Victory coin" of Alexander the Great, minted in Babylon c. 322 BCE, following his campaigns in the subcontinent.
Obv : Alexander being crowned by Nike .
Rev : Alexander attacking king Porus on his elephant.
Silver. British Museum .
The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Hellenistic city of Ai-Khanoum were located at the very doorstep of India.
Ashoka 's Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription in Greek and Aramaic
Front of the Pataliputra capital , found in Pataliputra and dated to the 3rd century BCE
Greek votive columns such as the Sphinx of Naxos , Delphi , 560 BCE (left), may have influenced the creation of the Pillars of Ashoka , 250 BCE (here at Lauria Nandangarh ). [ 26 ] [ 27 ]
The horse motif on the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka is often described as an example of Hellenistic realism. [ 1 ]
Greek and Indian flame palmettes . Left : Flame palmette at Didyma , Ionia , c.300 BCE. Middle : Pataliputra capital , India, c.3rd century BCE. Right : Ashoka 's Diamond throne , Bodh Gaya , India, 250 BCE.
Rampurva bull capital , detail of the abacus , with two "flame palmettes" framing a lotus surrounded by small rosette flowers
Two lotuses framing a "flame palmette" surrounded by small rosette flowers, over a band of beads and reels . Allahabad pillar , circa 250 BCE.
Hellenistic " flame palmette " designs have also been identified on Mauryan ringstones, here framing the image of a goddess. [ 38 ]
The Mathura Herakles . A statue of Herakles strangling the Nemean lion , from Mathura . Also: [18] . Kolkota Indian Museum .
Comparison of Bodh Gaya quadriga relief of Surya (left) and Classical example of Phoebus Apollo on quadriga (right)
Coin of Greco-Bactrian king Agathocles with Hindu deities: Vasudeva – Krishna and Balarama – Samkarshana
Indian coinage of Agathocles , with Buddhist lion and dancing woman holding lotus, possible Indian goddess Lakshmi , a goddess of abundance and fortune for Buddhists
The Butkara stupa was reinforced and decorated from the Indo-Greek period on.
Foreign devotees and musicians on the Northern Gateway of Stupa I, Sanchi
Gautama Buddha in Greco-Buddhist style, 1st–2nd centuries CE, Gandhara (modern eastern Afghanistan)
Gold coin of Kanishka , with a depiction of the Buddha , with the legend "Boddo" in Greek script; Ahin Posh
This Bronze Age artifact of Red Jasper torso, despite being excavated by from a Harappan mound, was assigned to the historic Gupta period by archaeologist John Marshall because of its classical Greek art appearance. [ 65 ]