by IPSITA CHAKRAVARTY
Bactria: Euthydemos I, Gold stater, c. 230-220 BCE. Weight: 8.14 gm., Diam: 18 mm., Die axis: 6h. Diademed head of king facing right, within dotted border/Nude Herakles seated left on a pile of rocks. IMAGE/Coin India
A look at India’s Greek contagion, the one that happened centuries ago when Buddhist and Hellenic traditions merged
India may be safe from Greek contagion so far but it was not always so. In India, we like to tell the story of Alexander the Great’s failed campaign to India in 328 BC. Yes, he was Macedonian. That didn’t stop him from ruling Greece, Egypt and a sizeable part of Asia. He left behind Greek forces in India, establishing the first Hellenistic populations near the Ganges and opening up the east to Greek immigration.
Then around 180 BC, a Greco-Bactrian king, Demetrius, is believed to have invaded India. It was the start of what would come to be known as the Indo-Greek kingdom, a cluster of dynasties that would cover the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent for roughly the next hundred years, before they started losing their territories to the Sakas. The last Indo-Greek king died in 10 BC. But long after the Greek kings left, the memory remained.
Their system of coinage was adopted by contemporary Buddhist kingdoms. Kings also followed Hellenic fashions in numismatics, such as having themselves represented in profile on coins, with legends, which carry the year of minting and other details, in Greek characters forming a halo around their heads.
The Greek language continued to appear on coins during Kushana rule, from 1 to 4 AD, and the Greek script appeared for centuries afterwards.
But the most lasting traces would remain in the Gandhara schools of art and sculpture, where Buddhist and Hellenic traditions merged.Much of the Hellenic influence in the Gandhara school is reflected in statues of the Buddha. The earliest ones, in fact, may have been idealised versions of King Demetrius himself. Some historians have placed these early statues in the western tradition of representing the man-god in human form, much like the gods of Greek mythology.
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