Gandhara Art

number
We c o m e a c r o s s a large
The Kushana period is famous for the growth of Gandhara art.
Gandhara of which Peshawar was
of specimens of this art in the region known in olden days as
about 300 years and was
the centre. This region was ruled over by a number of Greek princes for
a meeting ground of the East and the West. A large number of
Graeco-Roman craftsmen s e e m to
have been employed in the execution of the works of the Gandhara art and it is suggested that
they found their way to Gandhara through the Parthian Empire. The most important centres of the
Gandhara school were at Jalalabad, Hadda and Bamiyan in Afghanistan, the Swat Valley and the
Peshawar District.
According to Dr. V.A. Smith, the Gandhara style is Graeco-Roman, based on the cosmopolitan
as practised in the first three centuries of the Christian era.
art of AsiaMinor and the Roman Empire
Much of the best work in that style was executed during the second century A.D. in the
reigns of
Kanishka and Huvishka. According to Paul Masson-Oursel and others, the Gandhara art is more Greek
than Indian. It flourished probably from the 2nd half of the first
century B.C. to the fifth century of
Christian era. According to N.R. Ray, the Gandhara art was active from about
the middle of the first
century B.C. to about the fifth century A.D.
Accordingto Dr. H. Goetz, "In its aesthetic ideals, however, this art had
Gaudy and bombastic in its general effect, it is a nothing
with Graeco-Roman art. in common
foreign and barbarian local work. Only in its last did
hodgepodge of goodd
a delicate stage it achieve a balanced architecture and
sculpture. The hillsides of ancient Gandhara are even
ruin sites: Peshawara, the ruins
of Begram and Hadda near today covered with hundreds of
Taxila in the Punjab, etc. The Kabul, Ushkur and Harwan in Kashmir.
also infiltrated into India principal sphere of Gandharan art influence was Central Asia, but it
proper as far as Saurashtra and Gujarat and the Great
Mathura on the Yamuna." mercantile town of
According to Dr. B.N. Puri, "The Gandhara art is not
dominates, but foreign elements are free from
controversy. Indian iconography
Supposed to form the basis for the conspicuous. In fact the Hellenistic-Roman elements are
noticed in the artist's conceptions and
Apollo-faced figure of the Buddha, in the design. The extent of foreign influence is
dress-chiton and himation, in the corinthian
350 Ancient India
orders, and floral decorations; and, in fact, some foreign divinities also figure in this art. These
have been the earlier contribution of the Gandhara artists but the time factor was
importaht
ultimate Indianisation was the test of the age. It is probable that the Gandhara artists
heloedhe
counterparts at Mathura, and they too might have been inspired in return. This may have ha ther
under the Kushanas, whose empire included both these regions of artistic activities. Thekned
rulers patronised these artists, and mutual understanding in some form or the otheris notana
out. It is a pity that there was no synthesis in the artistic traditions in this period,
although the
and the folds of drapery at Mathura might have been connected or borrowed to some
extent fro
Gandhara. It is very likely that Buddhist iconography while dominating at Gandhara mighe om
have
accepted certain iconographic concepts of the West-from Greece or Rome, or both." (IndiaUnd
the Kushanas, p. 195). nder
The dating of the Gandhara art is a very difficult problem as we do not have any monuma.
which bears any date. "Not one of the thousands of known images bears a date in any known erament
do considerations of style permitto determine their chronological sequence with any sure nor
to accuracy" However, it
approac
oach
is definite that the majority of the works were produced during the Kushana
period and the most prolific period of activity of the school must be assigned to
assumed that the school had begun to take shape long before the Kushanas came upon the
them. It can ho
scene
The evolution of
the types that we find already standardised with the Kushanas presupposes fairl a

long period of earlier achievement. All that can be definitely said is that the Gandhara school
from the first century B.C. and definitely attained its
dated
greatest expansion in the reign of Kanishka.
According to Dr. Kramrisch, "It (Gandhara art) may be considered from one point of view as
representing an eastward expansion of the Hellenistic civilization mixed with Iranian elements; from
another as a westward expansion of the Indian culture in a western
garb." Again, "If it is Indian and
colonial from a Hellenistic point of view, it is Hellenistic and colonial when viewed from India"
The
Iranian elements noticed in the sculptures of Gandhara art have been assumed
by some scholars
to have found their way into Indian art at the time when are Achaemenian
Empire extended over
the north-west and the Hellenic element followed later. However, Sir John Marshall is of the
opinion
that the fusion of Iranian with Hellenistic ideas took place in Bactria and the
neighbouring countries
after their colonization by Alexander the Great, and the hybrid art that was evolved was
introduced
into India, either as a result of peaceful intercourse between the Mauryan Empire and Western
Asia or as a result of the subsequent invasions of the Bactrian Greeks, Scythians, Parthians and
Kushanaswho must have been influenced by the Graeco-Iranian culture. The Hellenistic elements
are manifest in a variety of motifs and technical details. The Buddha was transformed into the
likeness of Apollo and he became an aspirant to Olympus. Drapery began to flow about Hindu
deities and saints in the style of Pheidias pediments. The pious Bodhisattvas rubbed their elbows
with jolly drunken Sileni. Idealised and almost effeminate representations of the Buddha and his
discipleswereoffset with horrible examples ofthe decadent Greek realism, like the starving Buddha
of Lahorein which every rib and tendon is shown underneath a ferminine face with ladylike coifure
and masculine beard.
The Gandhara art, though Hellenistic in form and execution, is certainly Indian in content
and subjectmatter. It follows the Indian tradition, both verbal and plastic, in every essential of its
iconography. Thewhole conception ofthe seated Yogi and teacher is Indian. The Usnisa, the Mudras,
the Asana, etc., cannot be anything but Indian. All that is really Hellenistic is the plasticity and the
treatmentofthe drapery. "Indian in theme, based on Indian tradition, it (Gandhara art) may evenbe
said tobeIndian to all intents and purposes, practically an offshoot of early Indian art transformed
by powerful extraneous influence"
t is tobe noted that thefigures and their draperies of the Bimayan reliquary strongly recall
Hellenisticideals. The drapery is treated plastically as separate volume with its own weight. In the
standing Buddha from Loriyan Tongai, the drapery is separated from the body, but it is so dispo
that
certain parts ofthe body are made visible from underneath the
garment, the fold-lines of which
remain agitated. This fact is more dear in the Buddha from Charsadda. As time went on
transparent drapery with agitated fold-lines became more and more prominent. The figures the
pasoit
o
 Rise and Foll of the Kushana Empire 3531

first tury A.D. are and are treated in a rough manner.

hshorter in stature, stumpy in appearance
shorter
It appears that due to Saka-Kushana influences from the Mathura
region. From the 3rdegenerate art was partly
region. From forces that were current in the
there was a revival of artistic
first centur wor centur
first century. The century onwards
an intensity of feeling, a telling
indi rom Hadda and Jaulian are characterised by
realism, and an
of Gandhara art that was taken to Central
of character. It was this phase
Asia and China and whichty
and
There has
made it so famous in the woria.
been a lot of difference of opinion among scholars with regard to the influenceof
the
the Gandhara
purely
Gandnara
technicalart.
art.in According to the Havell the influence of the Hellenistic art upon Indian art was
purelytec
and
was in no way the spiritual or intellectual force which shaped its
deals and ordered its form of
expression. Magadha and not Gandhara was the spiritual centre of
Mahayana Buddhism which Kanishka gave imperial patronage. According to Will Durant, the
to
Gandnara
Gandhara di ad little inA
art had influence upon the sculptural form and methods of India itself. When, after
some centur
some uries of flourishing activity, the Gandhara school passed away, Indian art came to life
under Hindu
again under rulers, took up the traditions left by the native artists of Bharhut, Amravati and
Mathura andpaid little
Mathura and attention to the Greek interlude at Gandhara. According to Dr. R.C. Majumdar,
Gandhara iniuenced to some extent, as it was itself influenced by the
art

Art, but the nature and extent of other scnoois o a

this influence are matters of controversy. It failed,
penetrate
penetrate deeeply into the interior and had no share in the later however, to
of Indian art. "But
outside India the Gandhara School achieved a grand success by development
outside India

art Eastern or Chinese Turkistan, becoming the parent of the Buddhist

Mongolia. China, Korea and Japan.
The view of R.D. Banerjee was that the
Gandhara art held for nearly five centuries and
radually influenced all other schools of India proper and the sway
countries within its zone of influence.
The relics of Indian art found in Central Asia and the Buddhist relics at Amravati in the Krishna
all betray the far-reaching influence of the Gandhara art.
The most important contribution of the
district
school to Indian sculpture is the fashioning of images of the Buddha and the
of dedth was introduced by them into bas-reliefs. The Bodhisattvas. The idea
Scythian monarchs continued these ideals
and motifs. The Buddhist structures of Central Asia were all decorated with
terracota which proved the very deep hold which this school of art had. The
sculptures, painting and
Gandhara art, depicting scenes from the life of Buddha, persisted in Northern India style introduced by
till the twelfth
century A.D.

According to Paul Masson-Oursel and others, the Gandhara art exercised a two-fold influence.
Its influence spread on one side through Central Asia to China and
Japan and on the other in India
itself and by the the islands and Indo-China. The art of Mathura
sea to
seems to have been the first
to come under the influence or Gandhara art.