Page:Younghusband - Kashmir.pdf/167

 GRACO-BUDDHIST INFLUENCE 119

so massive and enduring a scale. We cannot, for instance, imagine present-day Kashmiris building anything so noble, so simple, so true, and so endur- ing. And the people who built the ancient temples of Kashmir must have been religious, for the remains are all of temples or of sacred emblems, and not of palaces, commercial offices, or hotels ; and they must have held, at least, one large idea or they would not have built on so enduring a scale. They must have been men of strong and simple tastes, averse to the paltry and the florid. What was their history? Were they a purely indigenous race? Were they foreigners and conquerors settled in the land, or were they a native race, much influenced from outside, and with sufficient pliability to assimilate’ that influence and turn it to profitable use for fheir own ends ?

Fortunately one of their native historians has left us a record, nd Dr. Stein’s skill and industry in translating and annotating this record makes it possible to obtain a fairly clear idea of ancient Kashmir. From this and from the style of the ruins themselves, we gather that the main impulses came from outside rather than from within—from India and from Greece. And perhaps, if in place
 * uf-theu mountains, which tend to seclusion and