Ancient Greek Culture and Buddhism in the Far East of the Hellenistic World

Abstract

The topic of the book by Olga Kubica, a professor at the University of Wroclaw, is the interaction between ancient Greek and Indian civilizations in the far East of the Hellenistic world in the epoch from the conquests of Alexander the Great to the emergence of the Kushan Empire. The influence of ancient artistic traditions on the fine arts of northwestern India (the so-called “Gandhāra school”) is well known, and it has been suggested on this basis that the influence of Greece extended to the philosophical and religious views of Indians. It was seen, in particular, in the themes and structure of the early Buddhist treatise “Milinda’s Questions” (Pali Milindapañha). However, the author of the monograph proves that the actual interaction of Greek and Indian cultures in the intellectual sphere was not so large and profound and therefore the term “Greco-Buddhism”, widespread in Oriental studies, has no sense. This conclusion is based on an deep analysis of extensive material, including not only texts, but also archaeological sites, numismatic data and other sources. Analyzing the material, the author uses, along with the usual philological methods of working with sources, also methods of sociology and cultural studies, considering the Greeks in Bactria and northwestern India as a social group that obeys all the laws of behavior of such objects interacting with society as a social system.