[rmlew]

Western Culture is involved. Alexand the Great conquered Afghanistan and created towns there. The most famous is Kandahar, formerly Iskandaria / Alexandria. Central Asian Buddhism, and from it Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, were influenced by a Greek mythology and iconography.

Greco-Buddhist art
Greco-Buddhism
I almost fell out of my seat once, when a historian pointed out the iconographic similarities of the Japanese bhodisatva Shukongōshin to Hercules.

[miss marmelstein]

My point was that it was Western technology, culture and a love of beauty that was helping to restore - I use the word very loosely - these great antiquities. And, of course, Japan, has it’s oar in, bless them.