Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/255

GREEK INFLUENCE SLIGHT 217 demonstrates that it was not understood by the people at large. No inscriptions in that tongue have yet been discovered, and the single Greek name, Theodore, met with in a native record, comes from the Suwat valley, and is of late date, probably 56 A. D. There is no evidence that Greek architecture was ever introduced into India. A temple with Ionic pillars, dating from the time of Azes (either Azes I, 50 B. c., or Azes II, some fifty years later), has been discovered at Taxila; but the plan of the building is not Greek, and the pillars of foreign pattern are merely borrowed ornaments. The earliest known example of Indo-Greek sculpture belongs to the same period, the reign of Azes, and not a single specimen can be referred to the times of Demetrios, Eukratides, and Menander, not to speak of Alexander. The well-known sculptures of Gandhara, the region around Peshawar, are much later in date, and are the offspring of cosmopolitan Graeco-Roman art. The conclusion of the matter is that the invasions of Alexander, Antiochos the Great, Demetrios, Eukra- tides, and Menander were in fact, whatever their au- thors may have intended, merely military incursions, which left no appreciable mark upon the institutions of India. The prolonged occupation of the Panjab and neighbouring regions by Greek rulers had extremely little effect in Hellenizing the country. Greek political institutions and architecture were rejected, although to a small extent Hellenic example was accepted in the decorative arts, and the Greek language must have been familiar to the officials at the kings 'courts. The lit-