Keywords
Scythian Art
Gandhara
Indo-Greeks
Pre-Kushana Art
Eurasian Steppes
How to Cite
Abstract
Genetic studies of the South Asian population have revealed the presence of considerable Steppes DNA in the modern human genome, highlighting the importance of scientific validation in understanding cultural influences. Its anthropological implication is suggestive of the fact that there had been a profound movement circa Karakoram that had substantial influences on the development of art and culture in the geographical region. Such anthropological movements resulted in an admixture of cultural domains, especially in ancient Gandhara. The distinct ‘animal-style’ art form of Central Asia, specifically the Scythian and Sarmatian, propagated all the way to the Gandharan culture and mutated in situ into the regional iconographical developments. This study attempts to examine the iconographical relationship between Central Asian ‘animal-style’ art and contemporary and later Gandharan art, courtesy of the political movement of the steppe tribes and the influence of nomadic art on a Hellenized Gandhara, and in what capacity these attributes influenced the development of the Gandhara School before the rise of the Kushana power.
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