As Buddhism moved, it changed. In Tibet it incorporated the preceding Bon-Po religion and spawned new demonologies. In eighth-century northern India, it became scholastic; among the forest monks of Sri Lanka, pragmatic; in Newar, Nepal, married monks practiced inverted tantra; and in Japan, Zen devotees contemplated minimalist paradoxes. Afghanistan was where Buddhism met the art of Alexander’s Greece. There, in the Gandharan style, it developed its most distinctive artistic expression: the portrayal of the Buddha in human form. The colossal statues of Bamiyan were the legacy of this
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