Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/123

THE ANCIENT ABBEY OF AJANTA 93 The best answer to the suggestion lies in the extraordinary difference between the two forms of art. The art of the Greek world was concerned almost entirely with the human form. The horse, indeed, with the deer, the eagle, and the palm-tree, are not altogether unknown to it. But it is remarkable for the absence of any strong feeling for vegetative beauty, or for the animal world as a whole. Now it is precisely in these two elements that the populations of the Gandharan country were and are to this day strongest. Severe chastity and restraint of the decorative instinct is the mark of Greece. Exuberance is the characteristic, on the other hand, of Oriental art. It revels in invention. Its fertility of flower and foliage is unbounded. Being of the nature of high art, it knows indeed how to submit itself to curbing forces. The highest achievement of the Eastern arts of decoration, whether Chinese or Persian, Tibetan or Kajhmirian, or Indian proper, often seems to lie in the supreme temperance and distinction with which they are used. But the power of hydra-headed productivity is there. In Greece and Rome it is altogether lacking Thus to say that the art of Gandhara was due to elements in the population which were of Hellenic descent is absurd. There was never in it the slightest sign of any wedding of East and West in a single blended product, such as this theory presupposes. We can always pick out the elements in its compositions that are unassimilated of the West, as well as those that are unassimilated of the East,