y and having
done this were not likely to repudiate other Indian deities. Thus in
its outward form the Buddhism of the invaders tended to be a compound
of Indian, Greek and Persian ideas in which Sun worship played a large
part, for not only Indian myths, but Apollo and Helios and the Persian
Mithra all entered into it. Persian influence in art is discernible as
early as the architecture of Asoka: in doctrine it has something to do
with such figures as Vairocana and Amitabha. Graeco-Roman influence
also was powerful in art and through art affected religion. In Asoka's
time likenesses of the Buddha were unknown and the adoration of
images, if not entirely due to the art of Gandhara, was at least
encouraged by it.

But though coins and sculpture bring clearly before us a medley of
deities corresponding to a medley of human races, they do not help us
much in tracing the growth of thought, phases of which are preserved
in a literature sufficiently copious though the record sometimes fails
at the points of transition where it would be of most interest. It is
natural that sacred books should record accepted results rather than
tentative innovations and even disguise the latter. But we can fix a
few dates which enable us to judge what shape Buddhism was taking
about the time of the Christian era. The Tibetan historian Taranatha
is not of much help, for his chronology is most confused, but still he
definitely connects the appearance of Mahayanist texts with the reign
of Kanishka and the period immediately following it[178] and regards
them as a new phenomenon. Greater assistance is furnished by the
Chinese translators, whose dates are known with some exactitude. Thus
the earliest Buddhist work rendered into Chinese is said to be the
sutra of forty-two sections, translated by Kasyapa Matanga in 67 A.D.
It consists of extracts or resumes of the Buddha's teaching mostly
prefaced by the words "The Buddha said," doubtless in imitation of the
Confucian Analects where the introductory formula "The master said"
plays a similar part. Its ideas and precepts are Hinayanist:[179] the
Arhat is held up as the ideal and in a remarkable passage[180] where
the degrees of sanctity are graded and compared no mention is made of
Bodhisattvas. This first translation was followed by a long series of
others, principally from the Sutra-Pitaka, for very little of the
Vinaya was translated before the fifth century. A great number of
Hinayanist sutras we