Memory as History : The Legacy of Alexander in Asia
Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: \'Wild Follies and Ostentatious Displays\': reflections on Alexander the Great in India and the question of collective memory/Stephen Garton. The evolution of the legend: 2. Alexander\'s historians and the Alexander romance: a comparative study of the representation of India and Indians/Ioannis Xydopoulos. 3. Alexander\'s mythic journey into India/Alastair J.L. Blanshard. 4. Alexander and the virtuous Indians/Andy T. Fear. 5. The Syriac sources of the early Arabic narratives of Alexander/Kevin Van Bladel. 6. Visual illustrations of the life of Alexander in Persian manuscripts/Nasim Akhtar. 7. Alexander and Asia: Droysen and Grote/Phiroze Vasunia. The archaeology of the Greeks: 8. Alexander\'s campaign (327-326 BC): a chronological marker in the archaeology of India/Himanshu Prabha Ray. 9. Differing modes of contact between India and the west: some Achaemenid and Seleucid examples/Daniel T. Potts. 10. Recent discoveries of Buddhist manuscripts from Afghanistan and Pakistan: the heritage of the Greeks in the north-west/Mark Allon. 11. Alexander\'s lost kingdom: from Diodotus to Strato III/Robert Bracey. 12. Travelling to India without Alexander\'s log-books/Jean-Francois Salles. 13. Hellenism in an Afghan context/Grant Parker. 14. Creating Alexander\'s legacy in Egypt/Marie-Francoise Boussac. 15. Not just a pretty face: interpretations of Alexander\'s numismatic imagery in the Hellenic east/Shailendra Bhandare. Index.
"This volume examines the legacy of Alexander, the Macedonian, as it survived and transformed itself in literature, the arts and archaeology in Asia. The tendency to idealise Alexander began in antiquity and by the Roman period, a body of romance had grown around him, which continued to expand in almost every language from Scotland to Mongolia. The portrait of Alexander as the universal conqueror who was also the civiliser and benefactor of mankind owes its origin to Plutarch who wrote in the early centuries AD and has been extraordinarily potent in shaping modern views of Alexander.
The legacy itself has been surprisingly tenacious and continued well into the present, as it became the guiding star of nineteenth and twentieth century British archaeologists in the Indian subcontinent, such as Alexander Cunningham, John Marshall, etc. in their search for cities established by Alexander and of the entire development of Gandharan art, which was considered Buddhist in nature, but Greek in form. The larger question that this book addresses is the creation of cultural memory and its persistence or appropriation through time as it establishes an almost parallel perspective on the past.
The Book will be of interest to historians, archaeologists, art historians and all those interested in Alexander\'s journey through Asia." (jacket)
