page_title: Greco-Buddhist art
section_title: Kushan contribution
hierarchical_section_title: Greco-Buddhist art / Kushan contribution
context_page_description: Greco-Buddhist art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between the Classical Greek culture and Buddhism. Greco-Buddhist art is characterized by the strong idealistic realism and sensuous description of Hellenistic art and the first representations of the Buddha in human form, which have helped define the artistic canon for Buddhist art throughout the Asian continent up to the present. It is also a strong example of cultural syncretism between eastern and western traditions.
  The origins of Greco-Buddhist art are to be found in the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom, located in today’s Afghanistan, from which Hellenistic culture radiated into the Indian subcontinent with the establishment of the Indo-Greek kingdom. Under the Indo-Greeks and then the Kushans, the interaction of Greek and Buddhist culture flourished in the area of Gandhara, in today’s northern Pakistan, before spreading further into India, influencing the art of Mathura, and then the Hindu art of the Gupta empire, which was to extend to the rest of South-East Asia.
context_section_description: The later part of Greco-Buddhist art in northwestern India is usually associated with the Kushan Empire. The Kushans were nomadic people who started migrating from the Tarim Basin in Central Asia from around 170 BC and ended up founding an empire in northwestern India from the 2nd century BC. After conquering the lands once inhabited by Greco-Bactrians and Indo-Greeks, the Kushan Empire adopted Greco-Buddhist art.
caption: A Buddhist coin of Kanishka I, with "Boddo" (=Buddha) in Greek script.
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