Greek Influence on the Art of Hellenised Gandhara (original) (raw)
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The Achaemenid Expansion to the Indus and Alexander’s Invasion of North-West South Asia
2012
There is a range of evidence that informs us about the organisation of the Achaemenid Empire, but our understanding ofthe eastern-most reaches of the empire, which lie within the bounds of modern-day Pakistan is relatively limited. Whilethere is evidence for the eastern provinces in imperial art and references to them in Achaemenid Royal inscriptions, thearchaeological record in the subcontinent is far more ephemeral and less straightforward to interpret. Some of the clearestinformation about these eastern regions comes from the historians who wrote about the conquest of Alexander at theend of the 4th century BC. The evidence for the Achaemenid period in the east is also informed by an understanding ofthe archaeological evidence from the preceding periods, which implies that the Achaemenid Empire annexed existingregional entities during the 6th century BC, and employed a layered administrative system in the east that saw differingdegrees of control exerted in different regions.
ALEXANDER'S CAMPAIGN (327-326 BC): A CHRONOLOGICAL MARKER IN THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF INDIA
The latter stages of Alexander's tremendous marches and countermarches from Persepolis to the Punjab left a firm heritage of a Hellenistic kind upon the further East. But that was not the only, nor the most enduring of the hero's legacies, although perhaps the most personal and positive of them. Alongside, and emerging from the Greek conquest of the Persian empire a whole chain of eastward reactions was set in motion, which was to have a formative influence upon Indian art, architecture and attitudes until well into the Middle Ages (Wheeler, 1968: 122). W heeler alludes to Alexander's march bringing wealth and sophisticated workmanship to the subcontinent, resulting in the emergence of urban centres, such as at Taxila, laid on the supposed grid-plan of the Greeks. Nor for Wheeler was this a transitory phenomenon, but a catalyst leading to further changes in the East, which had a ripple-effect well into the Medieval Period. In the same work, Wheeler remarks on the planned nature of the settlement at Sisupalgarh in the vicinity of Bhubaneshwar in Orissa in eastern India and credits the Mauryan ruler Asoka with bringing Greek influence to this region far-removed from Alexander's campaign. The attempt in this paper is to examine the enduring legacy that Wheeler proposes predicated on the so-called reliability of Greek historians for establishing a chronology and a framework for Indian history. What is the source for this assessment? Is it the archaeological evidence for Greek settlements in the subcontinent often referred to with reference to Alexander? If so, how was this archaeological data recovered and on what premise does it support this conception? Or was this 'reliability' the creation of colonial archaeologists, which has since constituted the framework for the discipline of ancient Indian history without being questioned? The first part of the paper is an attempt at understanding the emergence of this legacy through an investigation of the work of colonial officers associated with the Archaeological Survey of India from 1861 to 1947, when the subcontinent became independent. The second issue is the chronology of the Alexander legacy itself. How long did it survive within the subcontinent? Did Greek become a language of culture in parts of North India, much
India and Greece from Alexander to Augustus
Graeco Indica, 1991
In an article published in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1986, under the title “India and Greece before Alexander” we have treated of the relations between India and Greece before Alexander, presenting a series of facts that refer to the presence of Indians in Greece and to the knowledge that Greeks had of India. In the present article we shall occupy ourselves with the same relations in the period that goes from Alexander up to Augustus.
Before and after Alexander: Hellenism and Central Asia
2014
If the relation between Greeks and Persians is not a story of love and hate (another aspect of love), it is at least a very interesting story. The Persian military campaigns to Asia Minor and Greece, each one with the participation of hundreds of thousands of warriors led by the richest kings of the time, such as Xerxes and Darius, could not possibly aim at the Greeks' "riches". Fascination with the Aegean civilization seems a more likely motive from the point of view of Persia, the other great civilization of the time, which together with the Egyptians and the Greeks comprised the civilized world of the time, in other words, of the Mediterranean (not including distant China). Let's not forget that in Alexander's times Persia started in Syria and reached the Tian Shan Mountains, including modern Afghanistan and a part of Pakistan.
Mirabilia e Violenza di quà e di là dell'Indo., 2024
Administration Between the Centuries After Alexander's expedition (327-325 BCE) and following events such as the establishment of the Indo-Seleucid peace pact (305-303 BCE) 1 and the Indo-Greek conquests (second century BCE), 2 continuous contact between Indians and Greeks was established in northwestern India. In one regard, if we focus on the legacy of the last Alexander, such long-lasting connections are perhaps the most obvious effects of Alexander's campaign. The mutual influence between Indian and Greek culture is evident primarily from inscriptions and only marginally from literary works. 3 Given the characteristics of the data at our disposal, with extremely short and repetitive texts, this influence most often takes the form of numerous loanwords. Despite the presence of several Greek-borrowed political terms in the Indian languages and particularly in Gāndhārī, a systematic study of such loanwords has yet to be carried out. Such research must go beyond the mere review of these terms since it is necessary, as far as possible, to reconstruct the overall political system and the ideology underlying it: the presence of Greek (or, even more specifically, Seleucid) terminology alone is not enough to presume a full adoption of a given paradigm as it is well known that words travel much faster than the culture that produced them. In this paper, we will focus on the four Gāndhārī official titles Nota: This work was carried out through an ongoing confrontation between the two authors.
Alexander the Great in India: A Reconstruction of Cleitarchus
2009
The most influential account of the career of Alexander the Great was penned by Cleitarchus the son of Deinon, a Greek writing in Alexandria in the decades after Alexander's death. Most of the surviving ancient texts on Alexander were more or less based upon his work, but every single copy of the original was discarded or destroyed in antiquity. To what extent might it be possible to reconstruct it from the secondary writings? This book argues that a considerable degree of reconstruction is feasible and demonstrates the point by presenting a full reconstruction of Cleitarchus' version of Alexander's campaigns in India, the first time that this has been done. For more details see also www.alexanderstomb.com. Alexander the Great in India comprises the reconstruction of books 10 to 12 of Cleitarchus, but the download includes Book 12 only.
Iranian Journal of Archaeological Studies, 2013
There is a range of evidence that informs us about the organisation of the Achaemenid Empire, but our understanding of the eastern-most reaches of the empire, which lie within the bounds of modern-day Pakistan is relatively limited. While there is evidence for the eastern provinces in imperial art and references to them in Achaemenid Royal inscriptions, the archaeological record in the subcontinent is far more ephemeral and less straightforward to interpret. Some of the clearest information about these eastern regions comes from the historians who wrote about the conquest of Alexander at the end of the 4th century BC. The evidence for the Achaemenid period in the east is also informed by an understanding of the archaeological evidence from the preceding periods, which implies that the Achaemenid Empire annexed existing regional entities during the 6th century BC, and employed a layered administrative system in the east that saw differing degrees of control exerted in different regions.
A New Geography for Myths: Echoes of Alexander's Campaign in India in Apollodorus's Library
Faventia, 2022
The new mythical sagas that originated from Alexander's campaign were fully integrated into Greek mythology, as is revealed by the references to India in the Library. Both the reference to the pillars of Dionysus and the ill-fated expedition of Medos depend on versions of the myth that arose in connection with Alexander's campaign and seem to suggest the Apollodorus's dependence on a source connecting Asia with the Greek mythical past.