Thus in its outward form the Buddhism of the invaders tended to be a compound of Indian, Greek and Persian ideas in which Sun worship played a large part, for not only Indian myths, but Apollo and Helios and the Persian Mithra all entered into it.  Persian influence in art is discernible as early as the architecture of Asoka:  in doctrine it has something to do with such figures as Vairocana and Amitabha.  Graeco-Roman influence also was powerful in art and through art affected religion.  In Asoka’s time likenesses of the Buddha were unknown and the adoration of images, if not entirely due to the art of Gandhara, was at least encouraged by it.

But though coins and sculpture bring clearly before us a medley of deities corresponding to a medley of human races, they do not help us much in tracing the growth of thought, phases of which are preserved in a literature sufficiently copious though the record sometimes fails at the points of transition where it would be of most interest.  It is natural that sacred books should record accepted results rather than tentative innovations and even disguise the latter.  But we can fix a few dates which enable us to judge what shape Buddhism was taking about the time of the Christian era.  The Tibetan historian Taranatha is not of much help, for his chronology is most confused, but still he definitely connects the appearance of Mahayanist texts with the reign of Kanishka and the period immediately following it[178] and regards them as a new phenomenon.  Greater assistance is furnished by the Chinese translators, whose dates are known with some exactitude.  Thus the earliest Buddhist work rendered into Chinese is said to be the sutra of forty-two sections, translated by Kasyapa Matanga in 67 A.D.  It consists of extracts or resumes of the Buddha’s teaching mostly prefaced by the words “The Buddha said,” doubtless in imitation of the Confucian Analects where the introductory formula “The master said” plays a similar part.  Its ideas and precepts are Hinayanist:[179] the Arhat is held up as the ideal and in a remarkable passage[180] where the degrees of sanctity are graded and compared no mention is made of Bodhisattvas.  This first translation was followed by a long series of others, principally from the Sutra-Pitaka, for very little of the Vinaya was translated before the fifth century.  A great number of Hinayanist sutras were translated before 300 A.D. but very few after 450.  On the other hand portions of the sutra about Amida’s Paradise, of the Prajna-paramita, and of the Avatamsaka were translated about 150 A.D. and translations of the Lotus and Lalita-vistara appeared about 300.