The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

PART THREE
ROMANO-INDIAN ART
IN NORTH-WEST INDIA AND CENTRAL ASIA
hP I*
CHAPTER 9 ^ ^
ART UNDER THE KUSHANS
I. GANDHARA: GRECO-ROMAN FORM AND INDIAN ICONOGRAPHY
The designation Kushan art may properly be
applied to all the productions of architecture,
sculpture, and painting in Afghanistan, northwestern
India, and the Punjab, and present-day
Pakistan from about the first to the seventh centuries
a.d., when these territories were under
the domination of the Kushan or Indo-Scythian
Dynasty of rulers. Art under the Kushans, however,
divides itself into two completely distinct
categories. Whereas in the northern portions of
their domains, comprising the ancient province
of Gandhara, the Kushan patrons of Buddhism
availed themselves of the services of journeymen
craftsmen from the Roman East who produced
a form of Late Antique art dedicated to
Buddhism/at the southern capital of Mathura
(Muttra), on the Jumna River, the construction
and embellishment of the Buddhist and
Jain establishments were a continuation of the
techniques of the native Indian schools. The
peculiarly hybrid character of the art that
flourished in these regions can be explained only
by devoting considerable space to the history of
north-western India both before and after its
conquest by the Kushans.
The earliest reference to Gandhara and its
people is in the Bisutun inscription of Darius
(c.
516 B.C.), in which the region of Gandhara,
separate from India, is numbered among the
nations subject to the Achaemenian Empire.
Presumably this subjection to the first great
Persian empire continued until Gandhara was
invaded by Alexander the Great in the cold
season of 327 B.C. The influence of Alexander's
raid in northern India has been greatly exaggerated,
and this is particularly true of the region of
Gandhara and its art. The actual rule by Macedonian
Greek captains in India lasted only until
the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. The successor
to Alexander's Indian dominions, Seleucus
Nicator, was forced to relinquish all claim to
Indian territory south of the Hindu Kush by
the consolidated power of the first of the Indian
emperors of the Maurya Dynasty, Chandragupta.
Under the great Buddhist sovereign,
Asoka, the region was converted to Buddhism,
and the rock edict of Asoka at Shahbazgarhi,
some ten miles to the east of Mardan, gives
positive proof of the proclamation of the
Buddha's Law in Gandhara. The gradual breakup
of the Maurya Empire following the death of
Asoka in 232 B.C. again opened the Peshawar
Valley to foreign aggression.
Although the might of Chandragupta Maurya