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
4 (of 8)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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As regards the learned examiner's remark in Paragraph 3 "that a possible criticism is that there is too great a contrast between the density and profusion of information in the main chapters, and a broad conclusion stated in the Epilogue'," it may be mentioned that the 'Epilogue' has in fact been a brief summarisation of the possible conclusions attempted to be derived in different chapters, on the basis of available sources justly considered by the examiner as the “density and profusion of information". Efforts have always been there in this regard to be on guard against a possible criticism of repetition. The learned examiner's opinion in Paragraph 3 “Much more could be done to bring out in the earlier chapters the lines of argument based on the evidence leading to the conclusions about the integrity and continuity of Scythian art forms, or about the dichotomy between written and archaeological ancient sources. However, there is an abundance of evidence to support the case for continuity." fully justifies the main objective of the preparation of the thesis entitled "Scythian Elements in Early Indian Art" which had hardly attracted the attention of scholars. Continuity of Scythian elements in Indian art of early times and at least in some cases upto modern times has indeed been discussed in Chapters V and VI of the thesis. 3
