The Silk Road is a trade passage between the East and the West in ancient times, and it is also an important land passage across Asia, Africa and Europe. For hundreds of years, the Silk Road has played a vital role in cultural exchanges and mutual learning in different areas along the route. It connects East Asia, Southeast Asia and East Africa, West Asia and Southern Europe. Businessmen and camel teams left the most footprints on this ancient road, but the earliest and most determined were Buddhists who spread western learning to the east. The most famous Western Buddhists are Fa Xian, Xuan Zang and others, and the powerful promoter of Buddhism in the East is a king, who is Ashoka of the peacock dynasty in ancient India. In the process of these Buddhists going west to east, carving skills from all over the world also gathered and merged in Gandhara, the Buddhist center of ancient India. Thus formed the world-famous Buddhist sculpture craft style-Gandhara style!

Sarasvati Relief Gandhara Style

In fact, the artistic style of Gandhara is not the original artistic style of ancient India. It is based on the original carving skills of ancient Indian Buddha statues and pagodas, and influenced by the carving skills of different civilizations such as China, Persia, Rome and Greece. The reason why it was named "Gandhara style" has a lot to do with its geographical location. Gandhara, located in South Asia, was the sacred place and center of Buddhism at that time. It is precisely because it is the holy land and center of Buddhism that there is a great demand for Buddha statues, stupas and other religious items in this place after Ashoka's worship of stupas. Driven by the demand, Gandhara naturally becomes the most important production place and main sales place of Buddha statues and pagodas (Buddha statues and pagodas are mostly carved from stones, and the stones in Gandhara are suitable for carving and are also located in. Therefore, Gandhara region has become the main producing area and selling place of pagodas and Buddha statues.

Siddhartha's Birthday Relief Karachi National Museum

The worship of stupa is related to the customs of ancient India before the Buddha era. Before the Buddha's time, there was a custom of building towers or repairing tombs on the remains of the deceased in ancient India. This custom is recorded in the literature after the Buddha's nirvana. It is recorded that people built eight pagodas for worship on the Buddhist relics, which were distributed in eight tribes. Similarly, thousands of years later, the records of worship of stupas can be seen in the travel notes of China's eminent monks Fa Xian and Xuan Zang. In their travel notes, there are Buddhist relics in a small town near the Acropolis, on which stand ancient pagodas related to the detention of Sun Buddha, Muni Buddha and Kaya Buddha in seven buddha in the past. These two records strongly illustrate that it is an ancient custom in ancient India to build a memorial tower for the dead. However, there is no record of large-scale worship of stupa by people or monks before Ashoka in early Buddhist documents.

Therefore, since the Buddha's nirvana, although the Eight Pagodas built on the Buddha's relics have been the object of worship by monks, the custom of worshipping the Pagodas has been an unknown, small-scale and spontaneous activity for a long time before Ashoka preached the Dharma. It was not until the time of Ashoka that it became the object of large-scale Buddhist sacrifice activities. Because if the early monks did have a large number of activities to worship pagodas and other historical sites, then there will definitely be records in the literature. However, according to the current literature, there is no indication that the stupa was recognized as a symbol of Buddhist belief before Ashoka.

Ashoka's measures to promote the worship of pagodas are mainly attributed to his opening of seven of the above eight pagodas, subdividing the seven pagodas into major cities in the kingdom, and building magnificent pagodas on the pagodas in major cities before the pagodas became the true symbols of Buddhist beliefs. Therefore, Ashoka is the first person to promote the worship of stupa and the catalyst of Gandhara style!