princess-unipeg reblogged
Coins weren’t the only, or the most important, place that Indian and Greek cultures impacted one another. Take a look at this 1885 photo of a piece of an ancient column found in what’s now northern Pakistan:
If you know your Greek columns, you’ll be able to identify this as the Corinthian style (Corinthian capitals are the really complicated ones with lots of leaves). But who’s that in the middle?
Yep, it’s the Buddha, plunked down in the middle of a very Greek-looking piece of sculpture.
And look what’s on top of it — a bunch of very distinctively stylized Indian elephants:
Yep, we've known about Gandhara style since aeons ago. Glad that the West is "discovering" this afresh