June 30-- When Greeks occupied North-Western regions of India and Kashmir, a famous school of Grecio-Buddhist art was specially patronized. This school was established by Bactrian-Greeks at Gandhara, modern Khandhar in 1st century B.C. Greco-Buddhist art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between the Classical Greek culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 1000 years in Central Asia, between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC and the Islamic conquests of the 7th centuryAD.
Photo: Buddha Head, terracotta, c 4th-5th century A.D., Akhnur.
Image Source: http://chdmuseum.nic.in/
Greco-Buddhist art is characterized by the strong idealistic realism of Hellenistic art and the first representations of the Buddha in human form, which have helped to define the artistic (and particularly, sculptural) canon for Buddhist art throughout the Asian continent up to the present.
It is also a strong example of cultural syncretism between eastern and western traditions., Scholars view that it was basically a mixture of Indian and Grecian arts which give birth to a indo- Grecian art which later came to be known as Grecian-Buddhist art. It produced the Indian sculptures with an external theme and decorated them with their own costumes, it cultivated very high skilled craftsmanship in the sculpture and building art of this land. Schalors say that it its center was at Gandhara.
Kashmiri artists played a vital role in development of this art. During the occupation of Kashmir by Indo-Greeks, Kashmiri artists brought it from Gandhara and cultivated it in their own lands later on when Buddhist missioners of Kashmir went to Central Asia land,Lahsa and China, they took this art to these lands. This art is also known by the name of Hellenistic art.
PNK Bamzai writes that ‘long before the Greeks penetrated to this region, Gandhara had close political relations with the kingdom of Kashmir. Kalhana lays the first scenes of his immortal Rajataragini there. Subsequently, we find frequent reference to Gandhara and its Brahmans. It is recorded that Mihirakula the Epthalite Hun king of Kashmir settled thousands of Gandharan Brahmans in Kashmir. He also tells us that the young warriors of Gandhara were in great demand for the army of Kashmir’.
“The abundance in which the coins of Indo- Greek, Parthian and Saka kings of North- Western India were found till recently in Kashmir points to the existence of considerable commercial intercourse, if not actual political connection, between the valley and the principalities of Peshawar and Kabul in the last two centuries B.C. and the first century A.D.
The earliest propagation of Buddhist regions in Kashmir and Gandhara is attributed to the same person- Majhantika, the great missionary sent by Mogaliputta Tissa, the religious adverse of Ashoka. The kingdom of Kashmir appears in ancient records as a part and parcel of Gandhara. In the list of sixteen Mahajanapadas, the Buddhist text mention Kashmira-Gandhara as one Janapada indicating thereby that the two countries formed one political unit in the pre- Ashokan period. During Ashokas reign Kashmir and Gandhara came close together.