Page:Younghusband - Kashmir.pdf/169

 BUDDHISM 121

the Romans landed in Britain, and 700 years before what is now known as England had yet been trodden by truly English feet.

At this time Buddhism was the dominating religion in northern India, and perhaps received an additional impulse from the Greek kingdoms in the Punjab, planted by Alexander the Great as the result of his invasion in 327 Bc. Asoka had organised it on the basis of a state religion, he had spread the religion with immense en- thusiasm, and in Kashmir he caused stupas and temples to be erected, and founded the original city of Srinagar, then situated on the site of the present village of Pandrathan, three miles above the existing capital. He had broken through the fetters of Brayfminism and established a friendly intercourse! with Greece and Egypt, and it is to this connection that the introduction of stone architecture and sculpture is due. The Punjab contains many examples of Graeco- Buddhist art, and Kashmir history dawns at the time when Greek influence was most prominent in India.

The first great impulse which has left its mark on the ages came, then, not from within, but from without—not from within Kashmir, but from


 * India, Greece, and Egypt. Little, indeed, now