The Common Classical Sources of Buddhist and Christian Narrative Art

The Greco-Buddhist sculpture of Gandhara has for a long time been of singular attraction for students of Indian art. These sculptures of greyish-blue schist found in such quantities in the inaccessible valleys of the Indo-Afghan frontier, have from the outset been noted for their classical affinities, and many were brought to Europe by art-loving dilettanti. The particular qualities distinguishing them from all other Indian sculpture were duly extolled; they came to be recognized as the earliest examples of new ideas which changed the whole development of Indian art and propagated Western influence throughout the Buddhist world. But the rôle so enthusiastically assigned to them has not remained unchallenged. A younger generation, more eager to discover the truly national qualities of the arts of Asia, maintained that the only reason for this admiration was that on account of their Greek affinities the Gandhara sculptures were less strange to Europeans than Asiatic art proper. They considered Greco-Buddhist sculpture a weak and provincial offshoot of Western art, without much influence in the East, and for the most part of a quality which could not compete with the broad current of the Indian tradition. Even those iconographical innovations with which the sculptors of Gandhara had generally been credited, such as the creation of the Buddha image, were attributed by these scholars to other and more “national” schools. To this day no satisfactory solution of the problem has come forward

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• Herakles and the ‘Perpetual Acolyte’ of the Buddha

  Finbarr Barry Flood•South Asian Studies•1989

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