PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Davidson: Hidden Realms and Pure Abodes 155Perhaps stimulated by the simultaneous specter of barbarian attacksand the wealth of the trade routes, Buddhist descriptions are noted for theiremphasis either on the fertile origin or on the immanent demise of Buddhistcultural and religious systems, and the authority eventually grantedCentral Asia spilled over into the remarkable acceptance of Silk Routedoctrinal or ritual innovations in an unprecedented manner. We will findthat these Silk Route areas will be depicted quite differently from otherimportant Buddhist locales, such as Ûr∆ Låçka, which has been so oftenrepresented as the abode of demons. The precise reasons for this disparityare as yet obscure, but it is my thesis that the acceptance of Indic languagesas the media of official discourse, combined with the cultural geography ofisolated cultures—whether through the isolation of desert travel (Khotan)or the seclusion enforced by mountain passes (Kashmir, Swat)—werestrong contributing factors in their perceptions. We may also wish to reflecton Central Asia as a “frontier” zone and consider if Central Asian culturesrepresented such a romantic reality to Indian Buddhists for some of thesame reasons as the American West was considered romantic by those inEurope and in the Eurocentric culture of the Atlantic seaboard. In all ofthese estimations, we may begin to take into account that no other area hashad so strong an impact on South Asian and Tibetan Buddhist perceptionsof Buddhism in the way that Silk Route sites have had. While art historiansand archaeologists have dominated Silk Route studies, the evidence fromthe literary archive is only now beginning to come into its own, and it is tothat archive that we may turn.GREEK, ÛAKA, AND KUÛÅNA INTRUSIONSIn the larger cultural sphere, fully engaged by the Indian Buddhistsubculture, the Indo-Greeks and their successors, especially the Ûakas andKuΩånas, have been influential beyond that of any other foreign culturesuntil the time of the Muslim intrusion. In some ways, we can certainlyunderstand an Indian engagement with the Eastern Greeks, which isparalleled in our own use of the classical world as our primary referencepoint for art, philosophy, and politics. Yet the Indo-Greeks did not haveinfluence in the same way in India that they have had on Europe andAmerica. Indians, for example, remained virtually immune to the canonsand functions of Hellenistic art per se, and there was certainly nothing likethe Renaissance or the Neoclassical periods in the Northwest as revivalperiods for their artistic heritage. While the origin of the Buddha figurecontinues to be disputed, and is likely to remain so for some time, there canbe no doubt that the simple fact of its dispute indicates the ambivalenceobservable in Indian art about the Hellenistic forms they encountered andultimately rebuffed. One could even argue that, because of the Silk Route,