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The Gandhara civilization, in what is now the Peshawar Valley, adjoining Afghanistan and Pakistan, flourished under the rule of the Kushan Buddhists.

Soon after, the uncle offers a disquisition on, of all seemingly abstruse subjects, the development of Greco-Buddhist art — the “Gandhara” style — which even this not-entirely-art-ignorant reader knew little about.

One bust is particularly striking, characteristic of Gandhara’s unique blend of Classical and Buddhist influences: a terra-cotta Buddha depicted as a Grecian-looking youth, his hair a mass of finely worked curls.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there is a room dedicated to the art of Gandhara, the ancient region that straddled present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Eskenazi expressed a similar sentiment about Buddhist art: “You tell me what Afghanistan has to do with Gandhara — I mean, modern-day Afghanistan.”