Endnote 1 – Imagining Buddha

The French scholar Alfred Foucher (1865–1952) maintained that the sources of classical cultural impact lay in Greek cities nearer at hand; those of Bactria, reinforced by fresh influences from Greece. He suggested that the conversion of the Bactrian ruler Menander (c. 150–100 B.C.E.) to Buddhism planted “the germ of the whole subsequent development of Greco-Buddhist [Gandharan] art.” Foucher’s contemporary, Sir John Marshall, dated the high period of Gandharan art to the first century C.E., when the Parthians—not the Bactrians—revived contact with the classical world. Still other scholars have discounted Greek influence in favor of Roman influence on Gandharan statuary.