130. India meets Rome: Making the Image of the Buddha

In the 1st century AD, the nomadic Kushans settled in what is now Afghanistan and established settlements and trade. From here, they moved down over the Hindu Kush and took large sections of Northern India. Within their new kingdom, Buddhism flourished under the patronage of the ruling class. Before Kushan rule, the Buddha had never been represented as a human, only as a tree or an empty throne. Yet through the empire’s trade connections with Rome, Buddhist symbols took on a more classically western form, and so the Buddha began to be depicted in Apollo-like statues. By the 3rd century AD, the Kushan Empire was dwindling, but Buddhism would not be stopped. It began to spread even further along the Golden Road, right to the borders of China. Listen as Anita and William explore the Kushan Empire and its role in the spread of Buddhism.

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