Orient Middle East or the Far East. The term Oriental is often used to describe objects from the Orient. However, given its Eurocentric connotations and shifting, inaccurate definition through the ages, it is generally considered offensive as a label for people from Asia. The term "Orient" derives from the Latin word "oriens" meaning "east" (lit. "rising" < "orior" " rise"). The use of the word for "rising" to refer to the east (where the sun rises) has analogs from many languages: compare the terms "Levant" (< French "levant" "rising"), "Vostok" (< Russian "voskhod" "sunrise"), "Anatolia" (< Greek "anatole"), "mizrahi" in Hebrew
Ancient Greek art of Greek objects still further afield, exposed much of Eurasia to it, including the regions in the north of the Indian subcontinent where Buddhism was expanding, and creating Greco-Buddhist art. As Buddhism spread across Central Asia to China and the rest of East Asia, in a form that made great use of religious art, versions of this vocabulary were taken with it and used to surround images of buddhas and other religious images, often with a size and emphasis that would have seemed excessive to the ancient Greeks. The vocabulary was absorbed into the ornament of India, China, Persia and