That this influence was at any rate believed in, may be also gathered from a passage in Aelian, in which he speaks of the Indians and Persian kings singing Homer in their own tongues. I owe the communication of this passage to Sir Edward Fry, Q.C., which runs as follows; Ὄτι Ἰνδοὶ τῆ παρα σφίσιν ἐπιχωριά φωνη τά Ὁμήρου μεταγράψαντις ᾄδουσιν οὐ μάνοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἲ Περσῶν βασιλεῖς εὶ τι χρη πιστεύειν τοῖς ὕπερ τούτων ἱστοροῦσι.—Aeliani Variæ Historiæ, Lib. XII., Cap. 48. [I find from a note in my edition that Dio Chrysostom tells the same story of the Indians in his 53rd Oration.—E.F.]
I trust to be able to show, if permitted to do so, in a future note (1) that the Aryan dialects of Dardistan are, at least, contemporaneous with Sanskrit, (2) that the Khajuná is a remnant of a prehistoric language, (3) that certain sculptors followed on Alexander’s invasion and taught the natives of India to execute what I first termed “Græco-Buddhistic” sculptures, a term which specifies a distinct period in history and in the history of Art.
G. W. Leitner.
P.S. in 1893.—The above, which appeared in “the Calcutta Review” of January 1878, was also reprinted in the Asiatic Quarterly Review of April 1893 with reference to Mr. J. W. McCrindle’s recent work on “Ancient India: Its Invasion by Alexander the Great,” in which he omits to draw attention to the importance of Plutarch’s Speech on the civilizing results of Alexander’s invasion, and makes no mention whatever of the traces which Greek art has left on the Buddhistic sculptures of the Panjab.
He only just mentions Plutarch’s speech on page 13 of his otherwise excellent work, published by Messrs. Constable of 14 Parliament Street, London. As that speech, which is divided into two parts, is, however, of the utmost importance in showing what were believed to be in Plutarch’s days the results of Alexander’s mission, I think it necessary to quote some of the most prominent passages from it relating to the subject under inquiry. I also propose to show in a monograph on the græco-buddhistic sculptures, now at the Woking Museum, which I brought from beyond the Panjab frontier, that Alexander introduced not only Greek Art but also Greek mythology into India. I will specially refer to the “Pallas Athene,” “the rape of Ganymede,” and “the Centaur” in my collection, leaving such sculptures as “Olympian games,” “Greek soldiers accompanying Buddhist processions,” “the Buddhist Parthenon,” [if not also Silanion’s “Sappho with the lyre,”]—all executed by Indian artists—to tell their own tale as to the corroborations in sculpture of passages in ancient Greek and Roman writers relating to the genial assimilation of Eastern with Western culture which the Great Conqueror of the Two Continents, “the possessor of two horns,” the “Zu’l-Qarnein” (Al-Asghar) of the Arabs, endeavoured to bring about.
The following passages from Plutarch’s Speech may, I hope, be read with interest. The author endeavours to answer his question as to whether Alexander owed his success “to his fortune or to his virtue” by showing that he was almost solely indebted to his good qualities:
“The discipline of Alexander ... oh marvellous philosophy, through which the Indians worship the Greek gods.”
“When Alexander had recivilized Asia, they read Homer and the children of the Persians ... sang the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles.” “Socrates was condemned in Athens because he introduced foreign Gods ... but, through Alexander, Bactria and the Caucasus worshipped the Greek Gods.” “Few among us, as yet, read the laws of Plato, but myriads of men use, and have used, those of Alexander, the vanquished deeming themselves more fortunate than those who had escaped his arms, for the latter had no one who saved them from the miseries of life, whilst the conqueror had forced the conquered to live happily.”
“Plato only wrote one form of Government and not a single man followed it because it was too severe, whereas Alexander founded more than 70 cities among barbarous nations and permeating Asia with Hellenic Institutions....” Plutarch makes the conquered say that if they had not been subdued “Egypt would not have had Alexandria nor India Bucephalia,” that “Alexander made no distinction between Greek and Barbarian, but considered the virtuous only among either as Greek and the vicious as Barbarian” and that he by “intermarriages and the adaptation of customs and dresses sought to found that union which he considered himself as sent from heaven to bring about as the arbitrator and the reformer of the universe.” “Thus do the wise unite Asia and Europe.” “By the adoption of (Asiatic) dress, the minds were conciliated.” Alexander desired that “One common justice should administer the Republic of the Universe.”
“He disseminated Greece and diffused throughout the world justice and peace.” Alexander himself announces to the Greeks, “Through me you will know them (the Indians) and they will know you, but I must yet strike coins and stamp the bronze of the barbarians with Greek impressions.” The fulfilment of this statement is attested by the Bactrian coins. I submit that he who left his mark on metal did so also on sculpture, as I have endeavoured to show since 1870 when I first called my finds “græco-buddhistic,” a term which has, at last, been adopted after much opposition, as descriptive of a period in History and in the history of Art and Religion.