Essay name: Scythian Elements in early Indian Art
Author:
Swati Ray
Affiliation: University of Calcutta / Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture
This essay studies Scythian Elements in early Indian Art—a topic that has not garnered extensive scholarly attention. Although much research has focused on various aspects of Saka/Scythian culture, such as politics and numismatics, their contribution to Indian art remains underexplored. This essay delves into archaeological evidence, historical texts, and art forms from Eurasian steppes to decipher the Scythian impact.
Addendum
3 (of 8)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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analysis of the thesis by the learned examiner only because the thesis was carried out in one of the best, if not the best, Departments in the subject of the whole world, the Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture, University of Calcutta, and under the supervision of one of the most fastidious scholars and front-ranking Indologists of the present times, Prof. Dr. Samaresh Bandyopadhyay. In fact, the present candidate has been working on the thesis since 1993 but for reasons not desirable to be mentioned here, when all hopes were almost given up, it must be mentioned here, that the Honourable Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta placing me under an eternal debt of gratitude allowed me to change my earlier supervisor and to work under the supervision of Prof. Bandyopadhyay, who immensely helped in giving the thesis its final shape within a very short time in July-August, 2005, and submit it for the Ph.D. degree of the University of Calcutta. The learned examiner's observation "from which many conclusions could be drawn" at the end of Paragraphl, quoted above, is indeed very encouraging and very aptly sums up the main objective of the thesis in which every attempt has been made to present things utilizing the available sources and avoiding hasty conclusions so that the thesis is not criticized for exhibiting any theorising tendency. 2
