Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Part I History Literature &c. 1889

Fergusson that the sudden introduction of the use of stone instead of wood for the purposes both of architecture and sculpture in India was the result of communication between the empire of Alexander and his successors and that of the Mauryan dynasty of Chandra Gupta. [...] The pillars undoubtedly as Sir A. Cunningham observes resemble the Grecian Doric in " the great ovolo of the capital and in the hollow flutes of the shaft." It is difficult to believe that the agreement in these respects between the Greek and Indian work is accidental but it is also difficult to imagine the existence of a channel through which the Kashmirians borrowed the Doric form of pillar [...] But the great city of Taxila (Takkhasil6 or Taksbagla the modern Shah ki Dheri) situated three marches or about thirty miles east of the Indus was undoubtedly in the time of Alexander the.Great the chief city on the north-western frontier of India and must have been then as it subsequently was in the reigns of Asoka and Kanishka included in the dominions of the government which ruled [...] The employment of stucco to conceal the roughness of the limestone and to facilitate the execution of the moulding reminds us of the temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome where the same expedient was used to coplete the decorative work on Ionic capitals made of rugged travertino.t Sir A. Cunningham subsequently discovered among the ruins of Taxila in another temple the bases and portions of the dr [...] Leitner's Catalogue) which Professor Cutins compares with the Greek ideal type of Apollo the royal character of the person portrayed is unmistakeably indicated by the presence of the regal fillet the ends of which float loosely behind his head in the same way as they are shown on the coins of Greek princes both of Europe and Asia.