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decoration and was fully developed in the well-known 

 Grecian forms ; but it is quite absent in Egyptian and old 

 Oriental (Assyrian, &c.) decorative art, and so cannot have 

 reached India by way of Assyria. It would be difficult to 

 exaggerate the importance of its discovery and development, 

 for it became of supreme value in Greek and Roman, Medi- 

 aeval and Saracenic, and Renaissance art, and remains so still. 

 It is typically developed at Bharhut ; it is also a character- 

 istic feature in Sinhalese art, where it can be studied in the 

 various creeper (wela) patterns, of which figure 17 is a single 

 example selected on account of the obviously palmette 

 character of the floral elements. I am inclined to regard 

 this wellenranhe as a specifically Greek element in Sinhalese 

 art, and as we meet with it in the Indo-Persian art of 

 Bharhut (Cunningham's Bharhut Stupa, plate XL), to trace 

 it back to intercourse between Greece and Persia anterior to 

 the Christian era (see Perrot and Chipiz, " History of Persian 

 Art," 1892, p. 492), or more probably to the period of Grecian 

 influence in North India subsequent to Alexander's conquests 

 about 300 B.C. This Greek influence could hardly have reached 

 India before the departure of Vijaya, for the evolution of 

 Greek decorative art had not progressed very far previous to 

 the 5th century B.C. We have no remains to guide us as to 

 the actual artistic capabilities of the Vijayan immigrants, who, 

 by the way, are said to have been all of the cultivator 

 caste. It is therefore reasonable to trace to the period 

 of Asokan influence and the introduction of Buddhism, the 

 introduction of whatever Greek elements are recognizable at 

 Bharhut. It may be indeed that we should trace to this 

 period the origin of most of the vegetable decorative elements 

 in Sinhalese art. We are hardly in a position to say just 

 what decorative art motifs the Vijayans may have brought 

 with them or found amongst the aboriginal Yakkhas. At any 

 rate we cannot doubt that with Asoka's missionaries (who are 

 specifically stated to have been accompanied by craftsmen) 

 and the resulting impulse to the erection of magnificent 



