The Kushans and Gandhara art
A Central Asian empire produces Buddhist sculpture in Greek drapery.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 345 years
- Known to
- ± 30 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
The Kushan Empire controls Bactria, Gandhara and northern India from around 30 CE, sitting astride the Silk Road and profiting enormously from it. Under Kanishka, Buddhism is patronised and — for the first time — the Buddha is depicted in human form, in a style visibly descended from Hellenistic sculpture left behind by Alexander's successors. The image of the Buddha that spreads across Asia is a Greco-Indian invention.