ntention of the sculptors is to illustrate
an edifying narrative rather than to provide an object of worship. But
in the Gandharan sculptures, which are a branch of Graeco-Roman art, he
is habitually represented by a figure modelled on the conventional type
of Apollo. The gods of India were not derived from Greece but they were
stereotyped under the influence of western art to this extent that
familiarity with such figures as Apollo and Pallas encouraged the Hindus
to represent their gods and heroes in human or quasi-human shapes. The
influence of Greece on Indian religion was not profound: it did not
affect the architecture or ritual of temples and still less thought or
doctrine. But when Indian religion and especially Buddhism passed into
the hands of men accustomed to Greek statuary, the inclination to
venerate definite personalities having definite shapes was
strengthened[15].

Persian influence was stronger than Greek. To it are probably due the
many radiant deities who shed their beneficent glory over the Mahayanist
pantheon, as well as the doctrine that Bodhisattvas are emanations of
Buddhas. The discoveries of Stein, Pelliot and others have shown that
this influence extended across Central Asia to China and one of the most
important turns in the fortunes of Buddhism was its association with a
Central Asian tribe analogous to the Turks and called Kushans or
Yueeh-chih, whose territories lay without as well as within the frontiers
of modern India and who borrowed much of their culture from Persia and
some from the Greeks. Their great king Kanishka is a figure in Buddhist
annals second only to Asoka. Unfortunately his date is still a matter of
discussion. The majority of scholars place his accession about 78 A.D.
but some put it rather later[16]. The evidence of numismatics and of art
indicates that he came towards the end of his dynasty rather than at the
beginning and the tradition which makes Asvaghosha his contemporary is
compatible with the later date.

Some writers describe Kanishka as the special patron of Mahayanism. But
the description is of doubtful accuracy. The style of religious art
known as Gandharan flourished in his reign and he convened a council
which fixed the canon of the Sarvastivadins. This school was reckoned as
Hinayanist and though Asvaghosha enjoys general fame in the Far East as
a Mahayanist doctor, yet his undoubted writings are not Mahayanist in
the strict sense of the word[17]. But a