Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/118

90 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY leans its own weight for the sources of her Buddhistic inspiration on the existence in Bactria, ever since the time of Alexander, of Greek artisan colonies. From these descendants of Greek settlers sprang the art of India. And what was not communicated thus had been the gift of Persia to the East. These two sources being postulated, we may accept the whole story of India's greatness in matters artistic without doubt and without distress. The other theory bears more especially and definitely on the evolution of the statue of Buddha as a sacred image. This, it is held, was not an Indian invention. The idea was first conceived in the country of Gandhara, the contact-point between India and the West. Here, between the beginning of the Christian era and the year A.D. 540, when they were broken up by the tyrant Mihirakula, there was a very rich development of Buddhism in the form of stupas and monasteries. And the argument of Griinwedel may be accepted with regard to the number of Euro-classical elements which the art of this Buddhistic development displayed. There is to this day a highly artistic popu- lation established in the region in question, including as that does Kashmir and the North Punjab, and almost touching Tibet, and on the other side of Afghanistan and Persia. The fertility of the races who meet at this point, in decorative arts and forms of all kinds, need not be disputed. Nor would they ever be slow to absorb new elements that might present themselves in unusual abundance at some