Hellenism in Ancient India

333 BOOK ONE INTRODUCTIONOn the dismemberment of the conquests of Alexander the Great Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Grecian kingdoms were called into existence by which the plastic and the intelligent genius of the Greeks had been united to that of the imagintive and pious or according to the view of others supertitious Orientals and by the amalgamation of the West with the East produced a n [...] There was a continuous coming and going of the caravans across the plateau of Iran and the deserts which lie between it and the oases of Bactriana Aria and Arachosia and through the passes which lead down to what is now called the Punjab ; between the ports of the Arabian and Persian Gulfs and those of the Lower Indus and the Malabar Coast continual commercial movment went on which though fl [...] Fergusson that the sudden intrduction of the use of stone instead of wood for the purposes of architecture and sculpture was the result of communication between the empires of Alexander and the Seleucids and that of the Maurya Dynasty is to some extent infallible. [...] Moreover the barbarism of the invaders from Central Asia and the consequent isolation of the Greek colonists were the other potent factors in the extinction of Hellenism in the East. [...] The degradation of the legends on the coins and the degeneacy of the artistic products reveal the growing barbarism of the time.