210 V. A. Smith — GrcMa-Homan influence on Ancient India. [Aug. 



In the early centuries of the Christian era on the north-west frontier 

 of India, that is to say, specially in the Gandhara country, or Lower 

 Kabul Valley, in the neighbourhood of Peshawar, pillars, the designs of 

 which are modifications of the Ionic and Corinthian types, were com- 

 monly used. 



The proper extension of the term Gandhara is discussed. 



The Gandhara territory, in the wider sense including Taxile etc., 

 was the principal seat of Hellenic culture in India, and from one or 

 other part of it nearly all the known examples of Indo-Hellenic art in 

 its most characteristic forms have been obtained. In a foot-note refer- 

 ences are given to the principal collections of such examples, and to the 

 publications describing them- 



The Gandhara school obviously deserves, though it has not yet 

 obtained, a placa in the general history of Greek architecture and sculp- 

 ture. The art of Gandhara is in the main Greek or Roman, not 

 Indian. 



The scanty Indo-Ionic remains are examined at length, and shown 

 to date from about the beginning of the Christian era. 



The peculiarities of the abundant specimens of Indo-Corinthian 

 pillars are next discussed. The chronological question is reserved for 

 full discussion on a later page. 



Chapter III. The Gandhara, or Peshawar School of Sculpture described. 



This section is devoted to the description in considerable detail of 

 selected characteristic works of the school, the discussion of aesthetic 

 and chronological questions being reserved, so far as possible, for chap- 

 ter V. 



The eldest known Indo-Hellenic sculpture found in the Pan jab is 

 the statuette of Pallas Athene in the Lahore Museum. It is contempo- 

 rary with Azes, about the beginning of the Christian era. 



Leitner and Cunningham consider the figure of ' the S'aka King ' 

 to be the most striking piece in the extensive collection at Lahore. 

 Other statues of so-called ' kings ' are next discussed. 



Most of the Gandhara sculptures are distinctively Buddhist. Select 

 examples of sculptures illustrating the nativity, preaching, and death 

 of Gautama Buddha are described in detail. In Gandhara art he is fre- 

 quently represented as weaving moustaches, and with the right shoulder 

 draped. 



The suggestion is offered that the later practice of always repre- 

 senting Buddha and the Jain saints with curly negroic hair was merely 

 a conventional suxwival from archaic art, and was probably derived from 

 a bronze prototype. 



