Talk:Greco-Buddhist art

Removed Section regarding influence

Removed the part that said Greco-Buddhist art influenced China, Korea, and Japan. East Asian art is NOT influenced by Greco-Buddhist art in any way, and only lightly influenced Theravada Buddhist art. Much more influence comes from Daoism (Zen Buddhism forming from a combination of Daoism and Mahayana) Intranetusa 21:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Hair

So Buddha's curly hair is reminiscent of Mediterranean hairstyle. I read somewhere that this is due to the Dravidian origin of prince Gautama. So what do you think? Meursault2004 13:07, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Buddha's hair is a typical babylonial style of depicting the human hair , the protruding knobs on the surface can be seen in babylonian and later persian statues, it further nullifies the argument that these are greek statues. Rameezraja001 (talk) 17:46, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Mersault. How about Physical characteristics of the Buddha or Gautama Buddha? 61.213.82.143 13:17, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks for your reply. According to the article Gautama Buddha, he was probably an Aryan (i.e. Indo-European) as he was a kshatriya. Off course, so he was not of Dravidian origin (at least not purely). Meursault2004 15:58, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Featured article candidates

What a fantastic article. Are the authors aiming to nominate it as a Featured article? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Map

Could you add a map showing the gradual extension of these styles for those who don't know exactly were those empires are?

Version 0.7

I'd love to include this article - it's exactly the kind of article we need (serious academic topic, much non-Western content, lots of content) but I'm rather concerned that it needs better referencing. There are a few inline refs, but I think such a long article needs more - the sources may be in the general refs, and just need pulling out by someone with those sources available. There is even one section tagged with a cleanup tag (needing refs.), and overall these things make it C-Class, not B. A little bit of work should make it a B, though, then it would be ready to be included in our offline releases, I think. Walkerma (talk) 23:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Impact on Indian Art

The article seems to suggest that deities in India were never depicted in human form before the influence of Greco-Buddhist art. I have two questions regarding that claim:
1. Is that what the article is actually saying? If not, I think some clarification may be needed.
2. If so, is the statement correct? In other words, were there really no Indian depictions of deities in human form previous to the arrival of Greeks and their art in Bactria and northwest India/Pakistan? I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, it just sounds odd to me. Maitreya (talk) 12:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

ΒΟΥΔΙΣΜΟΣ

ΕΛΛΗΝ0ΒΟΥΔΙΣΜΟΣ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.138.191.131 (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Banerjee

>Banerjee in "Hellenism in India"

A source must be given.--Gleb95 (talk) 18:33, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Very dishonest article

what is buddhist art? where did it originate? and why is it being called that buddhistic characteristics are from central asia? buddhist art is indian, not greek or central asian, and buddhist art originated from india not indo greece or central asia.

these statues are buddhist indian statues with greek elements of influence, how does that make it a greek art? its assimilation of greek features in an typically indian statuary.

what i understand and get the general idea is:

Greeks settlers came to periphery of indian sub continent and made cities like ai khanoum

Greek settlers produced pre buddhist arts like posidon (which are very few in quantity)

Greek settlers became buddhist by the religious proliferation of king ashoka

ashoka lays foundation of indian buddhist statuary

greeks become patrons and fund the monuments of sanchi and bharut stupas

greeks adopt buddhist arts to proliferate buddhist statuary in ai khanum

Greek settlers started making indian buddhist statues while incorporating greek elements

buddhistic statues start proliferating due to buddhist religion and world wide spread of buddhist art

as the time goes on greek elements in gandhara statues fade away and incorporate more and more indian stylistic elements?

The article seem to also generalise buddhist art as derivative of greek arts.

the prominent example of indian stylistic influence is the bindi buddha is wearing which is an indian culture, the bodhisatva is not displaying six packs of posidon rather natural body shape and draping indian style clothes and indian styled jewelry ornaments. The genstues and the postures are typically indian and have never been greek styles.

the greek art is not realistic, it is derived from idealistic form of babylonian arts where it depicts idealistic human features, which doesnt seem to be the case in buddhist statues as compared to greek posidon statues.

the article seems to be suggesting otherwise which is a typical reflection of british stereotypical eurocentric dishonesty nothing else.Rameezraja001 (talk) 17:37, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Title should be changed to Gandhara arts

i suggest the title of this article should be changed to gandhara arts to reflect more realistically on the subject which is art of gandhara region. The present title suggest eurocentric bias nothing else. Some members are also shoving greek god statues into this article, i suggest to make a different aticle which reflects on greek influence on central asian arts. Rameezraja001 (talk) 02:46, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree. It is the most neutral. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 18:44, 3 October 2018 (UTC))

• Oppose Unfortunately, Rameezraja001's edits are rarely about neutrality. Johnbod (talk) 18:51, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose not sure how I missed this back in August. But no, we shouldn't be doing that. Simonm223 (talk) 19:04, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

@Rameezraja001 and Simonm223: can you guys provide references and sources why Gandharan art is less accurate than Greco-Buddhist art? (Highpeaks35 (talk) 22:23, 3 October 2018 (UTC))

Gandharan arts is more accurate because greco garbage is a eurocentric nonsense, in our schoools in south asia, we are always taught gandharan arts and not greco buddhist arts, you can also check encyclopedia britannica where the article is under the title of gandharan arts. labelling south asian buddhist art as some european arts is nonsense, and very eurocentric. But i care less about wikipedia and its politics, you can keep pulling your BS eurocentric BS here, nobody cares, as we dont learn that in our schools and we learn as gandharan arts and that should be enough to educate our youth. The hilarious thing is, there is a table about greco garbage where the indian arts of south east asia are also labelled as greco garbage, which is so extremely hilarious to say the least. this whole greco garbage is nothing but eurocentric politics played in wikipedia. If you have a chance to visit borobodur stupa, or prambanan temple or the khmer angkor wat, the guides dont tell you its greco garbage art descended from europeans, but its indian/ south asian. so you eurocentrics should better start paying bribes to all the south east asian guides to change this historical art fact into greco european stuff

regards. Rameezraja001 (talk) 04:10, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

@Lorstaking, Rao Ravindra, Shrikanthv, Pratyush, Accesscrawl, Satpal Dandiwal, Razer2115, and Capitals00: can you guys please provide your inputs. I know you guys were involved in similar debates. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 22:25, 3 October 2018 (UTC))

No WP:CANVASSING please! Johnbod (talk) 02:21, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

• One very good reason not to make the move is that Art of Gandhara is only a part of this subject. The current article ranges much wider. Rameezraja001 has already tried to move the article without discussion twice, to various titles. Johnbod (talk) 02:31, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• "Gandhara arts" is a more WP:COMMON name.[1][2][3] Prevalence of the current title is mostly a production of Wikipedia mirrors and thus not a common name. Comments like "Rameezraja001's edits are rarely about neutrality" never help because they are about the user conduct than the content being discussed. Focus on content please and @Rameezraja001: you can start an official page move request, see WP:RM. Accesscrawl (talk) 04:51, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

While I have concerns about eurocentrism on Wikipedia, a recent example being the short-sighted AfD of Feng Timo caused by a failure of the nominator to recognize that Chinese webpage design principles were different from English ones and to subsequently miss one of the largest and most reliable Chinese media sources as being a key source in the article, I feel a lot of these problems are systemic: Wikipedia is edited by English speaking people who prefer English language sources which have an implicit bias. My knowledge of this subject is tangential due to my interest in the spread of early Buddhism. I'd defer to somebody else to provide reliable sources as I don't have the time to dig right now. And yes, please @Johnbod: canvassing is not likely to improve the tenor of this conversation. Simonm223 (talk) 12:15, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

india, central asia, china, japan, south east asia maybe even mars, titan, universe

why spare mars mate? greco- art reached even titan, you just need to send a probe to titan and you will discover greco art in titan, aliens are appreciating greco arts, maybe someday voyager will come across greco arts too. Rameezraja001 (talk) 07:55, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 4 October 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. There is no consensus at this time that Gandhara art is the same topic as Greco-Buddhist art. (non-admin closure) — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 09:15, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

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Greco-Buddhist art → Gandhara art – "Gandhara art" is a more WP:COMMON name.[4][5][6] Prevalence of the current title is mostly a production of Wikipedia mirrors and thus not a common name.. Rameezraja001 (talk) 05:22, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

@Rameezraja001: Can you consider changing your proposal? "Gandhara Arts" is clearly a more common name than "Greco-Buddhist art", but "Gandhara art" is the most common one. I would prefer if you replace every mention of "Gandhara Arts" to "Gandhara art" above. Lorstaking (talk) 05:49, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

@Rameezraja001: Thanks but "Gandhara Art" should be changed to "Gandhara art". "A" should be lower case. Lorstaking (talk) 06:19, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for these[7][8] edits. Lorstaking (talk) 11:28, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support moving to Gandhara art.

As this source describes: "The origin of Gandhara art can be traced to Greek rulers of Bactria and North West India." "Gandhara art" seems to be the appropriate term here. I also find "Gandhara School of Art" to be more common than "Greco-Buddhist art".

"Gandhara art" has over 11,000 results in Google Books, 75,700 results in Google searches, and 262 results in JSTOR.

"Greco-Buddhist art" has 3,640 results in Google Books, 50,900 results in Google searches, and 73 results in JSTOR.

"Gandhara art" is indeed more WP:COMMONNAME. Lorstaking (talk) 06:36, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Have you allowed for the "Graeco-" spelling, which Indian sources seem to like? Johnbod (talk) 13:33, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes "Graeco-Buddhist art" gets its own 3,300 google books results, and 113 on JSTOR. Johnbod (talk) 17:08, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Still less popular than "Gandhara school of art" and ultimately "Gandhara art". Capitals00 (talk) 20:25, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support moving to Gandhara art per source and WP:COMMONNAME per Google Books, Google searches and JSTOR. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 11:35, 4 October 2018 (UTC))
• Oppose As discussed in the previous section "Gandhara art" is a different subject, a subset of the wider "Greco-Buddhist art". It is only useful comparing edit-counts for different names for the same thing. I'll repeat my warning about WP:CANVASSING here. Simonm223, you may also want to repeat your oppose here. Johnbod (talk) 13:25, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• As the discussion currently stands I Oppose on the grounds that Gandhara art is not the entirety of Greco-Buddhist art. Alexandrian influences on Buddhist art exist outside of this milieu. While I remain sympathetic to concerns of systemic Eurocentric bias on Wikipedia, I feel that the proposed remediation here is not appropriate or due. Simonm223 (talk) 13:32, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

*Support moving to Gandhara art. Rameezraja001 (talk) 16:58, 4 October 2018 (UTC)strikethrough duplicate vote, initiating the page move automatically counts as a vote. Khirurg (talk) 03:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - Not all Greco-Buddhist art is Gandhara art, and not all Gandhara art is Greco-Buddhist art. Google books searches are thus meaningless, and furthermore contain many false positives. Judging from the tone of this, it has WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS written all over it. Khirurg (talk) 18:32, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support As per WP:COMMONNAME. Those who are engaging in WP:OR by claiming that Gandhara art and Greco-Buddhist art have different scope should rather provide sources for their information because so far reliable academic sources say Gandhara art and Greco-Buddist art are same thing.[9][10] "Indo-Greek art" is a more convenient term than the present title but we should prefer the most common name. Capitals00 (talk) 20:25, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

You only have to glance at the article to see it covers areas well beyond the small Gandhara region, both in the sub-continent and beyond, reflecting the usual academic usage of the term. The references given by no means demonstrate that Greco-Buddhist art is ever considered as restricted to Gandhara, which would be absurd. Johnbod (talk) 00:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Why it is so hard to pull out a few reliable sources that say "Gandhara art is different than Greco-Buddhist art"? On contrary, reliable sources only state that they are same. Lorstaking (talk) 02:41, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Nonsense - try this, for one. Or you could even look at the article! Johnbod (talk) 03:25, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Sure the article is hogged with some WP:OR and WP:SYNTH and it doesn't means that it is enough for changing the definition of Gandhara art. Lets see what WP:RS say:-

"Banerjee would explain, 'the Gandhara art is a combination of both Hellenistic and Indian art'".[11]

"the Gandhara School (also known as the Greco-Buddhist School)"[12]

So the sources agree that Gandhara art is generally known as Greco-Buddhist art? Why do you think Gandhara art redirects here? Lorstaking (talk) 04:20, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Because we don't have an article on that specific subject, only this aspect of it. Quoting a couple of sources and saying "so the sources agree" is hardly helpful in this much written-about area. In the relevant period Gandhara was never an independent state, but part of a succession of larger kingdoms or empires and though the style certainly seems to have originated there, it soon spread well beyond Gandhara itself. Ananda Coomaraswamy, here, distinguishes between "Kushan or Greco-Buddhist" art and "Gandhara sculptures of the Afghanistan frontier". Sanchi is a long way from Gandhara, but elements there are often described as "Greco-Buddhist" - [13]. Johnbod (talk) 15:18, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

This is Gandhara art too...

• Oppose per the above. Although there is a large intersection between the two expressions, and one is often used for the other, they are not identical. Strictly speaking, if words have any meaning at all, Greco-Buddhist art is about the artistic interraction of two major cultures (Hellenistic and Buddhist), whereas Gandhara art is about the art of a geographical region (Gandhara). For example I attach a well-known example of Gandhara art which has nothing to do with Greco-Buddhist art. Conversely, the Buddhas of Bamiyan are Greco-Buddhist, but are not in Gandhara. I also strongly oppose the WP:CANVASSING by User:Highpeaks35 on this subject [14]. And what about the nominator's original manifesto on his User Page??? [15] पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 21:22, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Can all you folks who stated "oppose" provide peer reviewed reference, instead of your POV? Especially you User:पाटलिपुत्र. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 00:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC))

@पाटलिपुत्र: Focus on content. You are misunderstanding the definition of Gandhara art and should read the sources provided by support comments above to know Gandhara art is how the art is described. Lorstaking (talk) 02:41, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

in my honest view i fail to see one single logical reason which has been mentioned by people who have opposed the move, they say that the greco buddhist art is dispersed wider than gandhara region, but the art itself is called gandhara art, there is no difference between art in gandhara region and the regions in central asia which have gandharan arts, if one sees greek art lets say in spain, is it labelled anything other than greek art? what about ionian art, is it labelled anything other than greek art? what about chinese porcelain, were they not referred as china in the west? the art where is originates carries the name, and its purely logicl to label it nothing other than gandharan arts, to label it greco buddhist art is giving credit to a buddhist art which has indian roots to the greek arts, similarly there are many useless articles on greco buddhism, greco buddhist monasticism, which reflect no additional or original knowledge other than to impose greek or should i say european or european national identity on a philosophy which is universally accepted as indian/ eastern. this wikipedia exercise in concocting false articles and history and impression is nothing but eurocentric attitude and its purely colonial in origin.

i see some really bad groupings and agendas been pushed here, some member is so intolerant that he/ she doesnt even want my opinions on the talk page and requesting ban using like minded people. well if you cant argue with one sane argument, you just request the ban, will it change the facts that your eurocentric bias and efforts to cloud indian's own history, i mean you have your european history, why dont you just be proud of your damn history and stop claiming indian history as your european, seem to me some very inferiority complex at play.

as a south asian, i dont claim that europeans came from india, i dont claim european civilization was given birth by indians, i dont claim any european achievements, so why europeans are so hell bent on claiming indian ones? Indians can claim a lot of ancient history believe me, but indians are not even interested, europeans surely have a lot to claim from 1500 AD onwards and the greek and the roman stuff, so why they even bother to claim every damn indian history.

regards Rameezraja001 (talk) 17:50, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

The art itself is called both "Gandhara art" and "Greco-Buddhist art", with shades of differences in meaning. If it were more often called the "Gandharan style", that would avoid some of these problems, but that's not so common in RS. We have to follow usage in sources, or things get more confused than they are. The Ionian islands are part of Greece, so that is the reverse of the situation here. Any Greek art in Spain came from Greek colonies there, so that is different too. Johnbod (talk) 02:22, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Don't worry Rameezraja001: Indian soldiers invaded Greece well before Greeks invaded India (under the Achaemenids in the Second Persian invasion of Greece), and many Greek philosophers probably owe a lot to Indian thought (Pyrrho, Hegesias of Cyrene and possibly many others).... पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 08:19, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

My favorite is the possible influence on Pythagoras. However, we are going out of the scope of this RFC. User:पाटलिपुत्र we made compromises before, should we create another article for Gandhara art? I think that might be most apporopriate. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 12:21, 6 October 2018 (UTC))

FOR INFORMATION: The nominator of this RFC (Rameezraja001) has just been permanently blocked "for persistent disruptive editing as well as lack of respect for fellow editors" on multiple pages. [16] पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 13:19, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@पाटलिपुत्र: Indefinite is not "permanently" and the RM was originally my idea if you look carefully.[17] I had asked him to change his proposal to propose the most common name. Can you consider answering the question of Highspeaks35? If you don't want the page to be moved, then would you consider supporting creation of Gandhara art if you are sure that Gandhara art is really different than Greco-Buddhist art? Lorstaking (talk) 04:38, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

The creation of new pages does not require "support", it just needs someone competent to do the work. At the moment Gandhara art rightly redirects here, and Greco-Buddhist art is certainly by far the best known aspect/period of this, so that will work fine for most readers. Given the truly dire state of almost all pages on Indian art, I'm not sure doing a fully-inclusive page on Gandhara is much of a priority personally. Kushan art or Gupta art would be better ones to concentrate on for example. Johnbod (talk) 15:52, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

User:Khirurg rigging the RFC

@Khirurg: can you please explain where User:Rameezraja001 voted twice as mention by your reversal here. You are clearing trying to rig the process which is not acceptable. @RegentsPark: can you please help monitor this RFC as an admin. User:Khirurg is rigging the process as seen here. I don't see any evidence of User:Rameezraja001 voting twice. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 20:59, 4 October 2018 (UTC))

He started the move process, and that counts as his vote in support. This is always the way in RM discussions. I'm happy to believe the 2nd vote was an oversight though. Johnbod (talk) 00:25, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

• The second vote was treated as an understandable oversight and the fact Rameezraja001 is currently blocked did not appear pertinent to my closure of the the discussion above. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 09:17, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Gandhara Art, not Greco-Buddhist art

This article is quite disingenuous. Greek influence doesn't mean the art was created by Greek people. Art belong to the Gandhara people who created them. Current article erase the Gandhara people who created the art in place of Greek people Azegi (talk) 01:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Gandhara Art came hundreds of years after Greek rule, after invasions by Parthians, Scythians and Kushans. Greek influence on the art arguably exist, but crediting Greeks for the art instead of local Gandhara people who created the art is completely disingenuous Azegi (talk) 01:28, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Merge with Greco-Buddhism

This article should be merged with Greco-Buddhism, I don’t have any time or energy to make a big RFC, notify many editors or explain my opinion, but it’s a very obvious and logical point which I am throwing into the room. Xerxes1985 (talk) 11:20, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose The overlap between the actual content isn't that large, & at some 120k raw bytes, a merged article would probably be too large. There's a lot on art at Greco-Buddhism, some of which might be moved here or trimmed, but there is much other stuff there. Johnbod (talk) 01:59, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose There's clearly enough material to justify separate article (proven by the length of this article) and merging would make Greco-Buddhism very unbalanced in terms of the topics covered unless the vast majority the material unique to this article were deleted in the process, something which wouldn't be justified. Scyrme (talk) 23:13, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 20 March 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. If new arguments are to be had, no prejudice against another proposal. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 02:06, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

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Greco-Buddhist art → Gandhara art – Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should use more frequent of the alternative names. As Google Ngram shows[18], "Gandhara art" is more popular than "Greco-Buddhist art". So shouldn't the page be moved to it? Sutyarashi (talk) 14:55, 20 March 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. {{ping|ClydeFranklin}} (t/c) 17:53, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

• This is exactly the same proposal that was rejected above in October 2018. You sjould check if a proposal has been made before. A big issue there was whether the two terms actually covered the same things - much of the article is not about Gandhara. Johnbod (talk) 16:32, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Not convincing in light of the issues raised last time. While I'm here, I will note the inconsistency between article titles using Gandhara vs Gandharan vs either with a macron on the second a. Then there's the confusing mess that is Gandhāra (kingdom) and Gandhara Kingdom on top of Gandhara. Not to mention Gandāra, which isn't even listed at Gandara. Good luck to the reader. Srnec (talk) 14:20, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.