1889.] on the Givilization of Ancient India. 183 



I do not propose to discuss its relations with the general course of 

 Greek art, and refer to its peculiarities only to enquire how far they 

 affected the art of coinage in India. 



The realistic portraits executed by the Bactrian artists were be- 

 yond the powers of the Indian die-cutters. The Indo-Scythian coins, 

 except the very latest, are well executed pieces of metal work, but, 

 wit hout exception, almost totally wanting in artistic merit. The effigies 

 of the kings are conventional, and the whole design is stiff and formal. 

 Some of the Gupta coins display more freedom and originality in design, 

 but not a single example of a recognizable portrait can be found, I believe, 

 either in the Indo-Scythian or Gupta series. 



The influence of the second peculiarity of the Bactrian coinage 

 noted by Professor Gardner can be discerned in the Gupta series, 

 though not, I think, in the Indo-Scythian. The peculiar attitude of the 

 standing statues of the school of Praxiteles consists in this that the 

 weight of the body is thrown on one leg, the figure being inclined to 

 one side, and bont in a graceful curve so that the hip on the other side 

 is arched outwards. This peculiarity, which in the hands of a good 

 Greek artist, added grace to the representation of the human form, 

 was imitated by the Graseo-Bactrian mint masters with considerable" 

 success. It caught the Indian taste, but, in the hands of clumsy imi- 

 tators, was converted into a hideous deformity. An inartistic exaggera- 

 tion of the Praxitelean attitude is characteristic of many of the Gupta 

 coins of the fifth century, and of much Indian sculpture from an early 

 date until the present day. 



Unhappily the history of Indian art, is, as obsorved by Mr. Fergus- 

 son, a history of decay, and the criticism, passed by Sir A. Cunningham 

 on Indian sculpture, applies, -mutatis mutandis, to other arts :— 



" It is a fact, which receives fresh proofs every day, that the art 

 of sculpture, or certainly of good sculpture, appeared suddenly in India 

 at tho very tune that the Greeks were masters of the Kabul valley, that 

 it retained its superiority during the Greek and half-Greek rule of the 

 Indo-Scythiaus, and that it deteriorated more and more the further it 

 receded from the Greek age, until the degradation culminated in the 

 wooden inanities and bestial obscenities of the Brahmanical temples."* 



The employment of fairly well-executed Greek legends on the coins 

 of the Indo-Scythian kings of the first two centuries of our era proves 

 that the epithet 'half-Greek' applied to their rule by Sir A. Cunning- 

 ham is not unsuitable. Kanishka and his successors would not have im- 

 pressed Greek legends on their coins, unless the Greek language had 

 considerable currency among their subjects. I do not, of course, mean 

 • irchaial. Rep., Vol. 111., p. loo. 



