Cupids

Winged Cupids holding a wreath over the Buddha (left:detail), Hadda, 3rd century. Musée Guimet.

Winged cupids are another popular motif in Greco-Buddhist art. They usually fly in pair, holding a wreath, the Greek symbol of victory and kingship, over the Buddha.

These figures, also known as “apsarases” were extensively adopted in Buddhist art, especially throughout Eastern Asia, in forms derivative to the Greco-Buddhist representation. The progressive evolution of the style can be seen in the art of Qizil and Dunhuang. It is unclear however if the concept of the flying cupids was brought to India from the West, of if it had an independent Indian origin, although Boardman considers it a Classical contribution: “Another Classical motif we found in India is the pair of hovering winged figures, generally called apsaras.” (Boardman)

Cupids and garlands. Gandhara. 1st-2nd century. Musée Guimet.

Scenes of cupids holding rich garlands, sometimes adorned with fruits, is another very popular Gandharan motif, directly inspired from Greek art. It is sometimes argued that the only concession to Indian art appears in the anklets worn by the cupids. These scenes had a very broad influence, as far as Amaravati on the eastern coast of India, where the cupids are replaced by yakṣas.

Devotees

Gandhara frieze with devotees, holding plantain leaves, in purely Hellenistic style, inside Corinthian columns, 1st-2nd century AD. Buner, Swat, Pakistan. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Some Greco-Buddhist friezes represent groups of donors or devotees, giving interesting insights into the cultural identity of those who participated in the Buddhist cult.

Some groups, often described as the “Buner reliefs,” usually dated to the 1st century AD, depict Greeks in perfect Hellenistic style, either in posture, rendering, or clothing (wearing the Greek chiton and himation). It is sometimes even difficult to perceive an actual religious message behind the scenes. (The devotee scene on the right might, with doubt, depict of the presentation of Prince Siddharta to his bride. It may also just be a festive scene.)

About a century later, friezes also depict Kushan devotees, usually with the Buddha as the central figure.

Fantastic animals

An Ichthyo-Centaur, 2nd century Gandhara, Victoria and Albert Museum.

Various fantastic animal deities of Hellenic origin were used as decorative elements in Buddhist temples, often triangular friezes in staircases or in front of Buddhist altars. The origin of these motifs can be found in Greece in the 5th century BC, and later in the designs of Greco-Bactrian perfume trays as those discovered in Sirkap. Among the most popular fantastic animals are tritons, ichthyo-centaurs and ketos sea-monsters. It should be noted that similar fantastic animals are found in ancient Egyptian reliefs, and might therefore have been passed on to Bactria and India independently of Greek imperialism.

As fantastic animals of the sea, they were, in early Buddhism, supposed to safely bring the souls of dead people to Paradise beyond the waters. These motifs were later adopted in Indian art, where they influenced the depiction of the Indian monster makara, Varuna‘s mount.

Kushan contribution

An early Mahayana Buddhist triad. From left to right, a Kushan devotee, the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha, the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, and a Buddhist monk. 2nd-3rd century AD, Gandhara.

The later part of Greco-Buddhist art in northwestern India is usually associated with the Kushan Empire. The Kushans were nomadic people who started migrating from the Tarim Basin in Central Asia from around 170 BC and ended up founding an empire in northwestern India from the 2nd century BC, after having been rather Hellenized through their contacts with the Greco-Bactrians, and later the Indo-Greeks (they adopted the Greek script for writing).

The Kushans, at the centre of the Silk Road enthusiastically gathered works of art from all the quarters of the ancient world, as suggested by the hoards found in their northern capital in the archeological site of Begram, Afghanistan.

The Kushans sponsored Buddhism together with other Iranian and Hindu faiths, and probably contributed to the flourishing of Greco-Buddhist art. Their coins, however, suggest a lack of artistic sophistication: the representations of their kings, such as Kanishka, tend to be crude (lack of proportion, rough drawing), and the image of the Buddha is an assemblage of a Hellenistic Buddha statue with feet grossly represented and spread apart in the same fashion as the Kushan king. This tends to indicate the anteriority of the Hellenistic Greco-Buddhist statues, used as models, and a subsequent corruption by Kushan artists.

Maitreya, with Kushan devotee couple. 2nd century Gandhara.

Maitreya, with Kushan devotees, left and right. 2nd century Gandhara.

Maitreya, with Indian (left) and Kushan (right) devotees.

Kushans worshipping the Buddha’s bowl. 2nd century Gandhara.

Kushan devotee couple, around the Buddha, Brahma and Indra.

The “Kanishka casket,” with the Buddha surrounded by Brahma and Indra, and Kanishka on the lower part, AD 127.

Buddha triad and kneeling Kushan devotee couple. 3rd century.

Southern influences

Art of the Sunga

Balustrade-holding Yaksa with Corinthian columns, Madhya Pradesh (?), Sunga period (2nd-1st century BC). Musee Guimet.

Indian relief of probable Indo-Greek king, with Buddhist triratana symbol on his sword. Bharhut, 2nd century BC. Indian Museum, Calcutta (drawing).

Examples of the influence of Hellenistic or Greco-Buddhist art on the art of the Sunga empire (183-73 BC) are usually faint. The main religion, at least at the beginning, seems to have been Brahmanic Hinduism, although some late Buddhist realizations in Madhya Pradesh as also known, such as some architectural expansions that were done at the stupas of Sanchi and Bharhut, originally started under King Ashoka.

This Sunga-period balustrate-holding Atalante^{[disambiguation needed]} Yaksa from the Sunga period (left), adopts the Atalante^{[disambiguation needed]} theme, usually fulfilled by Atlas, and elements of Corinthian capital and architecture typical of Greco-Buddhist friezes from the Northwest, although the content does not seem to be related to Buddhism. This work suggests that some of the Gandharan friezes, influential to this work, may have existed as early as the 2nd century or 1st century BC.

Other Sunga works show the influence of floral scroll patterns, and Hellenistic elements in the rendering of the fold of dresses. The 2nd century BC depiction of an armed foreigner (right), probably a Greek king, with Buddhist symbolism (triratana symbol of the sword), also indicates some kind of cultural, religious, and artistic exchange at that point of time.

Art of Mathura

The Bodhisattva Maitreya, 2nd century, Mathura.

A Bodhisattva, 2nd century, Mathura

The representations of the Buddha in Mathura, in central northern India, are generally dated slightly later than those of Gandhara, although not without debate, and are also much less numerous. Up to that point, Indian Buddhist art had essentially been aniconic, avoiding representation of the Buddha, except for his symbols, such as the wheel or the Bodhi tree, although some archaic Mathuran sculptural representation of Yaksas (earth divinities) have been dated to the 1st century BC. Even these Yaksas indicate some Hellenistic influence, possibly dating back to the occupation of Mathura by the Indo-Greeks during the 2nd century BC.

In terms of artistic predispositions for the first representations of the Buddha, Greek art provided a very natural and centuries-old background for an anthropomorphic representation of a divinity, whether on the contrary “there was nothing in earlier Indian statuary to suggest such a treatment of form or dress, and the Hindu pantheon provided no adequate model for an aristocratic and wholly human deity” (Boardman).

Greek scroll supported by Indian Yaksas, Amaravati, 3rd century AD

The Mathura sculptures incorporate many Hellenistic elements, such as the general idealistic realism, and key design elements such as the curly hair, and folded garment. Specific Mathuran adaptations tend to reflect warmer climatic conditions, as they consist in a higher fluidity of the clothing, which progressively tend to cover only one shoulder instead of both. Also, facial types also tend to become more Indianized. Banerjee in “Hellenism in India” describes “the mixed character of the Mathura School in which we find on the one hand, a direct continuation of the old Indian art of Bharut and Sanchi and on the other hand, the classical influence derived from Gandhara”.

The influence of Greek art can be felt beyond Mathura, as far as Amaravati on the East coast of India, as shown by the usage of Greek scrolls in combination with Indian deities. Other motifs such as Greek chariots pulled by four horses can also be found in the same area.

Incidentally, Hindu art started to develop from the 1st to the 2nd century AD and found its first inspiration in the Buddhist art of Mathura. It progressively incorporated a profusion of original Hindu stylistic and symbolic elements however, in contrast with the general balance and simplicity of Buddhist art.

The art of Mathura features frequent sexual imagery. Female images with bare breasts, nude below the waist, displaying labia and female genitalia are common. These images are more sexually explicit than those of earlier or later periods.

Art of the Gupta

Buddha of the Gupta period, 5th century, Mathura.

Head of a Buddha, Gupta period, 6th century.

The art of Mathura acquired progressively more Indian elements and reached a very high sophistication during the Gupta Empire, between the 4th and the 6th century AD. The art of the Gupta is considered as the pinnacle of Indian Buddhist art.

Hellenistic elements are still clearly visible in the purity of the statuary and the folds of the clothing, but are improved upon with a very delicate rendering of the draping and a sort of radiance reinforced by the usage of pink sandstone.

Artistic details tend to be less realistic, as seen in the symbolic shell-like curls used to render the hairstyle of the Buddha.

Expansion in Central Asia

Greco-Buddhist artistic influences naturally followed Buddhism in its expansion to Central and Eastern Asia from the 1st century BC.

Bactria

Statue from a Buddhist monastery 700 AD, Afghanistan

Bactria was under direct Greek control for more than two centuries from the conquests of Alexander the Great in 332 BC to the end of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom around 125 BC. The art of Bactria was almost perfectly Hellenistic as shown by the archaeological remains of Greco-Bactrian cities such as Alexandria on the Oxus (Ai-Khanoum), or the numismatic art of the Greco-Bactrian kings, often considered as the best of the Hellenistic world, and including the largest silver and gold coins ever minted by the Greeks.

When Buddhism expanded in Central Asia from the 1st century AD, Bactria saw the results of the Greco-Buddhist syncretism arrive on its territory from India, and a new blend of sculptural representation remained until the Islamic invasions.

The most striking of these realizations are the Buddhas of Bamyan. They tend to vary between the 5th and the 9th century AD. Their style is strongly inspired by Hellenistic culture.

In another area of Bactria called Fondukistan, some Greco-Buddhist art survived until the 7th century in Buddhist monasteries, displaying a strong Hellenistic influence combined with Indian decorativeness and mannerism, and some influence by the Sasanid Persians.

Most of the remaining art of Bactria was destroyed from the 5th century onward: the Buddhists were often blamed for idolatry and tended to be persecuted by the iconoclastic Muslims. Destructions continued during the Afghanistan War, and especially by the Taliban regime in 2001. The most famous case is that of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan. Ironically, most of the remaining art from Afghanistan still extant was removed from the country during the Colonial period. In particular, a rich collection exists at the Musee Guimet in France.

Tarim Basin

“Heroic gesture of the Bodhisattva“, 6th-7th century terracotta, Tumshuq (Xinjiang).

Head of a Bodhisattva, 6th-7th century terracotta, Tumshuq (Xinjiang).

The art of the Tarim Basin, also called Serindian art, is the art that developed from the 2nd through the 11th century AD in Serindia or Xinjiang, the western region of China that forms part of Central Asia. It derives from the art of the Gandhara and clearly combines Indian traditions with Greek and Roman influences.

Buddhist missionaries travelling on the Silk Road introduced this art, along with Buddhism itself, into Serindia, where it mixed with Chinese and Persian influences.

Influences in Eastern Asia

The arts of China, Korea and Japan adopted Greco-Buddhist artistic influences, but tended to add many local elements as well. What remains most readily identifiable from Greco-Buddhist art are:

• The general idealistic realism of the figures reminiscent of Greek art.
• Clothing elements with elaborate Greek-style folds.
• The curly hairstyle characteristic of the Mediterranean.
• In some Buddhist representations, hovering winged figures holding a wreath.
• Greek sculptural elements such as vines and floral scrolls.

China

Northern Wei Buddha Maitreya, AD 443.

Greco-Buddhist artistic elements can be traced in Chinese Buddhist art, with several local and temporal variations depending on the character of the various dynasties that adopted the Buddhist faith. Some of the earliest known Buddhist artifacts found in China are small statues on “money trees”, dated circa AD 200, in typical Gandharan style (drawing): “That the imported images accompanying the newly arrived doctrine came from Gandhara is strongly suggested by such early Gandhara characteristics on this “money tree” Buddha as the high ushnisha, vertical arrangement of the hair, moustache, symmetrically looped robe and parallel incisions for the folds of the arms.” “Crossroads of Asia” p209

Some Northern Wei statues can be quite reminiscent of Gandharan standing Buddha, although in a slightly more symbolic style. The general attitude and rendering of the dress however remain. Other, like Northern Qi Dynasty statues also maintain the general Greco-Buddhist style, but with less realism and stronger symbolic elements.

Some Eastern Wei statues display Buddhas with elaborate Greek-style robe foldings, and surmounted by flying figures holding a wreath.

Japan

The Buddha, Asuka period, 7th century.

A Buddha in Kamakura (1252), reminiscent of Greco-Buddhist influences.

In Japan, Buddhist art started to develop as the country converted to Buddhism in AD 548. Some tiles from the Asuka period, the first period following the conversion of the country to Buddhism, display a strikingly classical style, with ample Hellenistic dress and realistically rendered body shape characteristic of Greco-Buddhist art.

Other works of art incorporated a variety of Chinese and Korean influences, so that Japanese Buddhist became extremely varied in its expression. Many elements of Greco-Buddhist art remain to this day however, such as the Hercules inspiration behind the Nio guardian deities in front of Japanese Buddhist temples, or representations of the Buddha reminiscent of Greek art such as the Buddha in Kamakura.^[3]

Iconographical evolution of the Wind God.
Left: Greek wind god from Hadda, 2nd century.
Middle: wind god from Kizil, Tarim Basin, 7th century.
Right: Japanese wind god Fujin, 17th century.

Various other Greco-Buddhist artistic influences can be found in the Japanese Buddhist pantheon, the most striking of which being that of the Japanese wind god Fujin. In consistency with Greek iconography for the wind god Boreas, the Japanese wind god holds above his head with his two hands a draping or “wind bag” in the same general attitude.^[4] The abundance of hair have been kept in the Japanese rendering, as well as exaggerated facial features.

Iconographical evolution from the Greek god Herakles to the Japanese god Shukongōshin. From left to right:
1) Herakles (Louvre Museum).
2) Herakles on coin of Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius I.
3) Vajrapani, the protector of the Buddha, depicted as Herakles in the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara.
4) Shukongōshin, manifestation of Vajrapani, as protector deity of Buddhist temples in Japan.

Another Buddhist deity, named Shukongoshin, one of the wrath-filled protector deities of Buddhist temples in Japan, is also an interesting case of transmission of the image of the famous Greek god Herakles to the Far-East along the Silk Road. Herakles was used in Greco-Buddhist art to represent Vajrapani, the protector of the Buddha, and his representation was then used in China and Japan to depict the protector gods of Buddhist temples.^[5]

Temple tiles from Nara, 7th century.

Vine and grape scrolls from Nara, 7th century.

Finally, the artistic inspiration from Greek floral scrolls is found quite literally in the decoration of Japanese roof tiles, one of the only remaining elements of wooden architecture to have survived the centuries. The clearest ones are from 7th century Nara temple building tiles, some of them exactly depicting vines and grapes. These motifs have evolved towards more symbolic representations, but essentially remain to this day in many Japanese traditional buildings.^[6]

Influences on South-East Asian art

Bodhisattva Lokesvara, Cambodia 12th century.

Avalokiteshvara on the wall of Plaosan temple, Javanese Sailendran art, 9th century.

The Indian civilization proved very influential on the cultures of South-East Asia. Most countries adopted Indian writing and culture, together with Hinduism and Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism.

The influence of Greco-Buddhist art is still visible in most of the representation of the Buddha in South-East Asia, through their idealism, realism and details of dress, although they tend to intermix with Indian Hindu art, and they progressively acquire more local elements.

Cultural significance

Beyond stylistic elements which spread throughout Asia for close to a millennium, the main contribution of Greco-Buddhist art to the Buddhist faith may be in the Greek-inspired idealistic realism which helped describe in a visual and immediately understandable manner the state of personal bliss and enlightenment proposed by Buddhism. The communication of deeply human approach of the Buddhist faith, and its accessibility to all have probably benefited from the Greco-Buddhist artistic syncretism.

Museums

Major collections

• Peshawar Museum, Peshawar, Pakistan (largest collection in the world).
• Lahore Museum, Lahore, Pakistan.
• Taxila Museum, Taxila, Pakistan.
• National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan.
• Indian Museum, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
• Mathura Museum, Mathura, India.
• Musée Guimet, Paris, France (about 150 artifacts, largest collection outside of Asia.)
• British Museum, London, Great Britain (about 100 artifacts), such as Seated Buddha from Gandhara
• Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (about 50 artifacts)
• National Museum of Oriental Art, Rome, Italy (about 80 artifacts)
• Museum of Indian Art, Dahlem, Berlin, Germany.

Small collections

• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
• Ancient Orient Museum, Tokyo, Japan (About 20 artifacts)
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Great Britain (About 30 artifacts)
• City Museum of Ancient Art in Palazzo Madama, Turin, Italy.
• Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, NY, United States.
• National Museum, New Delhi, India

Private collections

• Collection de Marteau, Brussels, Belgium.