GREEK SPIRIT IN BUDDHISM

"According to an ancient Sri Lankan source, the Mahavamsa, Greek monks seem to have been active proselytizers of Buddhism during the time of Menander: the Yona (Greek) Mahadhammarakkhita (Sanskrit: Mahadharmaraksita) is said to have come from "Alasandra" (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, the city founded by Alexander the Great, near today’s Kabul) with 30,000 monks for the foundation ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, during the 2nd century BC.."

In order to propagate the Buddhist faith, Ashoka explains he sent emissaries to the Hellenistic kings as far as the Mediterranean, and to people throughout India, claiming they were all converted to the Dharma as a result. He names the Greek rulers of the time, inheritors of the conquest of Alexander the Great, from Bactria to as far as Greece and North Africa, displaying an amazingly clear grasp of the political situation at the time.

The Gandhāran Buddhist Texts (oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, from ca. 1 CE) are attributed to the Dharmaguptaka school. And some believe that the founder of that Buddhist school was a Greek, named  "Dhammarakkhita (Pali, "protected by the Dharma"), and he was one of the missionaries sent by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka to promote the Buddhist faith. He is described as being a Greek (Pali yona) in the Mahavamsa, and his activities are indicative of the strength of the Hellenistic Greek involvement during the formative centuries of Buddhism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmaraksita) "One of the major missionaries was Yonaka Dhammarakkhita. He was a Greek monk, native of ‘Alasanda’ (Alexandria)". He features in the Pali tradition as a master of psychic powers as well as an expert on Abhidhamma.

The 36 Indo-Greek kings known through epigraphy or through their coins belong to the period between 180 BCE to 10–20 CE.

Isidorus of Charax in his 1st century CE "Parthian stations" itinerary described "Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia" as being Greek:....."Beyond is Arachosia (Old Persian Hara[h]uvati, Avestan Haraxvaiti)). And the Parthians call this White India; there are the city of Biyt and the city of Pharsana and the city of Chorochoad (Haraxvat) and the city of Demetrias; then Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia; it is Greek, and by it flows the river Arachotus(Harahvati). As far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians."—"Parthians stations", 1st century CE.

GREEK ART GIVES BUDDHA HIS HUMAN FORM

 https://greekasia.blogspot.com/2019/04/greco-buddhism-unknown-influence-of.html

The first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha himself are a result of the Greco-Buddhist interaction. Before this innovation, Buddhist art was "aniconic": the Buddha was only represented through his symbols (an empty throne, the Bodhi tree, the Buddha's footprints, the Dharma wheel). This reluctance towards anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha, and the sophisticated development of aniconic symbols to avoid it (even in narrative scenes where other human figures would appear), seem to be connected to one of the Buddha’s sayings, reported in the Digha Nikaya, that discouraged representations of himself after the extinction of his body.....Probably not feeling bound by these restrictions, and because of "their cult of form, the Greeks were the first to attempt a sculptural representation of the Buddha".

Edited from ~ tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com