Hellenistic influence on Indian art

Hellenistic influence on Indian art reflects the artistic influence of the Greeks on Indian art following the conquests of Alexander the Great, from the end of the 4th century BCE to the first centuries of our era. The Greeks in effect maintained a political presence at the doorstep, and sometimes within India, down to the 1st century CE with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdoms, with many noticeable influences on the arts of the Maurya Empire (c.321-185 BCE) especially. Hellenistic influence on Indian art was also felt for several more centuries during the period of Greco-Buddhist art.

The Greek conquests in India under Alexander the Great were limited in time (327-326 BCE) and in extent, but they had extensive long term effects as Greeks settled for centuries at the doorstep of India. Soon after the departure of Alexander, the Greeks (described as Yona or Yavana in Indian sources from the Greek "Ionian") may then have participated, together with other groups, in the armed uprising of Chandragupta Maurya against the Nanda Dynasty around 322 BCE, and gone as far as Pataliputra for the capture of the city from the Nandas. The Mudrarakshasa of Visakhadutta as well as the Jaina work Parisishtaparvan talk of Chandragupta's alliance with the Himalayan king Parvatka, often identified with Porus. According to these accounts, this alliance gave Chandragupta a composite and powerful army made up of Yavanas (Greeks), Kambojas, Shakas (Scythians), Kiratas (Nepalese), Parasikas (Persians) and Bahlikas (Bactrians) who took Pataliputra.

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