Gandharan Art
A cross-cultural melting pot
“Our Butkara ruins were a magical place to play hide-and-seek. Once some foreign archaeologists arrived to do some work there and told us that in times gone by it was a place of pilgrimage, full of beautiful temples domed with gold where Buddhist kings lay buried. My father wrote a poem, “The Relics of Butkara,” which summed up perfectly how temple and mosque could exist side by side: “When the voice of truth rises from the minarets, / The Buddha smiles, / And the broken chain of history reconnects.”
Malala Yousafzai, “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban”
Images: Bodhisattva head, Gandhara, ca. 4th century AD, terracotta, 85 cm high ·· Relief of Vajrapāṇi as Buddha’s guardian, 2nd century AD. London, British Museum. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 Unported
In the historical region of Gandhara -which corresponds to the north of what is now Pakistan, including also parts of eastern Afghanistan and northwestern India (Kashmir)- a unique artistic style flourished, Buddhist in its substance but Greek in its forms, testifying to the incorporation of Western elements into the Eastern art of the region after its conquest by Alexander the Great.
In the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, the traditional Buddha or Bodhisattva figures often display elements typical of Greek art, such as curly hair or the contrapposto pose. Elements of Greek architecture (such as Corinthian capitals) are present in the temples of Butkara Stupa or Ai-Khanoum. This fusion of Eastern and Western elements, taken to the extreme, can be seen in a relief in the British Museum (see images), in which the figure of Vajrapāṇi, guardian of the Buddha, is depicted as a typical Greek hero, usually identified with Hercules.
Of course, art existed in Gandhara before the arrival of the Greek conquerors, with examples such as the ceramics of the Gandhara Tomb Culture (1500-500 BC). But it is the images of Greco-Buddhist art that make this region a unique place and a fascinating culture for those interested in world history and culture, and that make us lament the senseless destruction by the Taliban of the colossal Buddhas of Bāmiyān in 2001.
G. Fernandez · theartwolf.com
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