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History 2
Chapter 5
Encounters Along the Silk Roads
Nowadays silk is found in all of the world's markets. It travels easily and cheaply
by sea and air freight. This was not always so.
The early trade in silk was carried on against incredible odds by great caravans of
merchants and animals traveling at a snail's pace over some of the most
inhospitable territory on the face of the earth - searing, waterless deserts and
snowbound mountain passes. In high summer, the caravans traveled at night, less
afraid of legendary desert demons than of the palpable, scorching heat. Blinding
sandstorms forced both merchants and animals to the ground for days on
end - their eyes, ears and mouths covered - before the fury abated. Altitude
sickness and snow blindness affected both man and beast along cliff-hanging and
boulder-strewn tracks. Death followed on the heels of every caravan.
For protection against gangs of marauders, who were much tempted by the
precious cargoes of silk, gemstones, spices and incense, merchants set aside their
competitiveness and joined forces to form large caravans of as many as 1,000
camels under the protection of armed escorts. The two-humped Bactrian camel
could carry 400 to 500 pounds of merchandise and was favored over the
single-humped species which, although capable of the same load, could not keep
up the pace.
The long route was divided into areas of influence both political and economic.
The Chinese traders escorted their merchandise probably as far west as Dunhuang
or beyond the Great Wall to Loulan, where it was sold or bartered to Central Asian
middlemen - Parthians, Sogdians, Indians and Kushans - who carried the trade on
to the cities of the Persian, Syrian and Greek merchants. Each transaction increased
the cost of the end product, which reached the Roman Empire in the hands of
Greek and Jewish entrepreneurs.
The Han-dynasty Silk Road began at the magnificent capital city of Chang'an
(present-day Xi'an). The route took traders westwards into Gansu Province and
along the Hexi Corridor to the giant barrier of the Great Wall. From here, many
caravans favored the northern route through the Jade Gate Pass (Yumenguan)
northwest of Dunhuang, along the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains
(the “Heavenly Mountains”) and, skirting the northern rim of the Taklamakan
Desert, past the rich oasis towns of Harm, Turpan, Yanqi, Korla, Kucha and
Kashgar. Others chose the more arduous but direct route through Yangguan Pass
southwest of Dunhuang, around the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert to
Loulan, Khotan, Yarkand and Kashgar.
At Kashgar, there were more choices. Some went westwards over the Terek Pass in
the Heavenly Mountains into the kingdoms of Ferghana and Sogdiana (in the
vicinity of Tashkent and Samarkand) and across the Oxus River to Merv
(present-day Mary in Turkmenia). Others crossed the high Pamir Mountains to the
south near Tashkurgan and went along the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to
Balkh, in the ancient Graeco-Iranian kingdom of Bactria, to meet up with the
northern route in Merv. Still another route from Kashgar went south to Srinagar,
passed over the Karakoram Pass and extended down into India.
From Merv the Silk Road continued west on an easier path to the old capital of
Parthia (present-day Damghan), continuing south of the Caspian Sea to Hamadan,
southwest of Teheran, then on to the ancient twin cities of Seleuceia and
Ctesiphon, near Baghdad on the Tigris River. From here various routes led through
Syria to Antioch, Palmyra and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the
Roman Empire.
1. Early Travelers
Zhang Qian
The Silk Road was first traveled by Chinese General Zhang Qian in the second
century BC while on a mission from Emperor Wudi of the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD
220). Zhang was sent to recruit the Yuezhi people, who had recently been defeated
by the Xiongnu (Huns of Turkish descent) and driven to the western fringes of the
Taklamakan Desert. The Huns had been launching aggressive raids into Chinese
territory, which had prompted Emperor Qin Shihuangdi of the Qin dynasty
(221-207 BC) to build the Great Wall. Eager to defeat these powerful roving
marauders, Han Wudi heard that the Yuezhi were seeking revenge on the Xiongnu
and would welcome help with retaliation from any ally.
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Zhang with a caravan of 100 men set out in 138 BC from the Chinese capital of
Chang'an only to be soon captured by the Huns as they passed through the Hexi
Corridor in northwest Gansu. The surviving members of the caravan were treated
well; Zhang married and had a son. After ten years, he and the remainder of the
party managed to escape and continue their journey west along the northern Silk
Road to Kashgar and Ferghana. Upon reaching the Yuezhi, Zhang found them to
have settled prosperously in the various oases of Central Asia and to be no longer
interested in avenging themselves of the Huns. Zhang stayed one year gathering
valuable military, economic, political and geographical information and returned
via the southern Silk Road, only to be captured again, this time by Tibetan tribes
allied with the Xiongnu; once again he escaped. In 125 BC, 13 years later, he
returned to Chang'an. Of the original party only he and one other completed the
trailblazing journey - the first land route between East and West and one that
would eventually link Imperial China with Imperial Rome.
Zhang reported on some 36 kingdoms in the Western Regions, delighting Emperor
Han Wudi with detailed accounts of the previously unknown kingdoms of
Ferghana, Samarkand, Bukhara and others in what are now Uzbekistan, Pakistan
and Iran - as well as the city of “Li Kun” which was almost certainly Rome. Zhang
recounted stories he had heard of the famous Ferghana horse, rumored to be of
'heavenly' stock. Tempted by this fast and powerful warhorse, seemingly far
superior to the average steed and having the potential to defeat the marauding
Huns, Han Wudi dispatched successive missions to develop political contacts and
return with foreign envoys and of course horses from the courts of Ferghana,
Sogdiana, Bactria, Parthia and northern India. Now extinct, these horses were
immortalized by artists of both the Han (206 BC-AD 220 ) and the Tang dynasties
(AD 618-907). The most famous work is the Flying Horse of Gansu, a small bronze
sculpture cast by an unknown artist over 2,000 years ago and excavated in 1969 by
Chinese archeologists in Wuwei County. Zhang continued seeking allies against
the Xiongnu, traveling in 115 BC to the territory of the Wusun, a nomadic
tribespeople who lived on the western frontier of the Huns, but again Zhang was
unable to enlist support. Upon his return, Zhang died in 113 BC, bearing the
Imperial Title of 'Great Traveler'.
Greeks and Romans
Alexander the Great's expansion into Central Asia stopped far short of Chinese
Turkestan, and he appears to have gained little knowledge of the lands beyond.
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The Romans, with only a slightly better understanding, were convinced that the
Seres (the Silk People, or the Chinese) harvested silk from trees, the 'wool of the
forests' according to Pliny. In 53 BC, the seven legions of Marcus Licinius Crassus
were the first Romans to see silk in battle whilst pursuing the Parthians, a rough
warlike tribe, across the Euphrates. They became the victims of the first 'Parthian
shot', which broke the Romans' front line formation and was quickly followed by a
tactic that both terrorized and amazed the Romans: the Parthians waved banners of
a strange, shimmering material that towered above the defeated soldiers, blinding
them in the brilliant heat of the desert. The Romans managed to obtain samples of
this marvelous silk from the victorious Parthians, who had traded it for an ostrich
egg and some conjurers with a member of Emperor Han Wudi's early trade
missions.
The Parthians along with the Sogdians, Indians and Kushans soon became
prominent middlemen in the trade of silk, reaping tremendous profits, bartering
with Chinese traders who escorted their merchandise to Dunhuang and as far as
Loulan, in the heart of the Lop Nor Desert beyond the Great Wall, and carrying the
trade on to Persian, Syrian and Greek merchants. Each transaction increased the
cost of the end product, which reached the Roman Empire in the hands of Greek
and Jewish entrepreneurs. Silk garments became all the rage in Roman society, so
much so that in AD 14 men were no longer permitted to wear them, as they were
perceived to contribute to an already decadent society. Despite the disapproval of
the Empire's moral superiors and its high cost, silk was widely worn amongst even
the lowest socio-economic classes. The silk trade flourished up until the second
century AD, when it began to arrive in Rome via the sea trade routes.
2. Caravans and Trade Routes
Silk was not the only product in the trade along the Silk Road: eastbound caravans
brought gold, precious metals and stones, textiles, ivory and coral, while
westbound caravans transported furs, ceramics, cinnamon bark and rhubarb as
well as bronze weapons. Very few caravans, including the people, animals and
goods they transported, would complete the entire route that connected the
capitals of these two great empires. The oasis towns that made the overland
journey possible became important trading posts, commercial centers where
caravans would take on fresh merchants, animals and goods. The oasis towns
prospered considerably, extracting large profits on the goods they bought and sold.
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During the Han dynasty, the Chinese referred to the Taklamakan Desert as Liu sha,
or ‘moving sands’, since the dunes are constantly moving, blown about by fierce
winds. Geographers call it the Tarim Basin, after the glacier-fed Tarim River that
flows east across the Taklamakan Desert to the Lop Nor Lake. The Taklamakan is
bordered on three sides by some of the highest mountain ranges in the world: to
the north, by the Heavenly Mountains (Tianshan); to the west, by the Pamirs (Roof
of the World); and to the south, by the Karakoram and Kunlun Mountains. To the
east lie the Lop Nor and Gobi Deserts. The infamous Taklamakan - which in Turkic
means ‘go in and you will not come out’ - has been feared and cursed by travelers
for more than 2,000 years. Sir Clarmont Skrine, British consul-general at Kashgar in
the 1920s, described it in his book Chinese Central Asia:
To the north in the clear dawn the view is inexpressibly awe-inspiring and sinister.
The yellow dunes of the Taklamakan, like the giant waves of a petrified ocean,
extend in countless myriads to a far horizon with, here and there, an extra large
sand-hill, a king dune as it were, towering above his fellows. They seem to clamor
silently, those dunes, for travelers to engulf, for whole caravans to swallow up as
they have swallowed up so many in the past.1
3. Religion and Art
The most significant innovations carried along the Silk Road to China were the
belief systems and religious arts of India, Central Asia and the Middle East.
Buddhism began its evolution as a religious doctrine in the sixth century BC, and
was adopted as India's official religion in the third century BC. When Buddhism,
and to a lesser extent Manicheanism and Nestorianism arrived in China, their art
and creed revolutionized Chinese culture. Many of the structures housing ancient
religious manuscripts, beautiful frescoes and statuary - built from the first century
BC to the end of the Tang dynasty - lay hidden under centuries of sand until their
rediscovery at the beginning of the 20th century.
Buddhism
According to legend, the Han Emperor Mingdi, who had already heard of
Buddhism, dreamt of a golden figure floating in a halo of light - perhaps a flying
apsara (Buddhist angel) - that was interpreted by the Emperor's wise men to be the
Buddha himself. Consequently, an envoy was sent to India to learn about the new
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religion, returning with sacred Buddhist texts and paintings as well as Indian priests
to explain the teachings of the Buddha to the Emperor. Monks, missionaries and
pilgrims began traveling from India to Central Asia and then on to China, bringing
Buddhist writings and paintings, while converts followed the Silk Road west. The
new Buddhist art that emerged from Chinese Turkestan absorbed different styles
and forms along the way, including those popular in the Kingdom of Gandhara (in
what is now the Peshawar valley of northwest Pakistan), where indigenous Indian
art forms had already been mixed with those of the Greeks and Persians in the early
sixth century BC.
This Graeco-Indian, or Gandharan art was considered revolutionary for its
depiction of the Buddha in human form, the temporal earthbound personality of
Sakyamuni. Since Sakyamuni had achieved nirvana, escaping the cycles of birth
and rebirth, he had essentially ceased to exist. He had previously been symbolized
by a footprint, a wheel, a tree, a stupa or Sanskrit characters. The Greek
(Hellenistic) influence on traditional Buddhist painting was obvious: instead of a
loincloth the Buddha wore flowing robes, had a straight chiseled nose and brow,
full lips and wavy hair. Some of the Indian influences that remained were the heavy
eyelids and elongated ear lobes, stretched long because of Sakyamuni's former life
as a heavily jeweled and worldly prince, a symbol of the life he renounced for the
ascetic spiritual life. As a result of rushed and highly unprofessional excavations in
the cities and temples of Gandhara (which were already in extremely poor
condition), most of the wall paintings and frescoes were destroyed and sculptures
are all that remain of this exquisite art form. Nonetheless, it was this art form that
traveled across the Pamirs, establishing itself in the oasis towns of the Taklamakan
and beyond, where it was again to absorb new influences.
Buddhist Pilgrims
With the rapid spread of Buddhism along the Silk Road, elaborate cave complexes
and monasteries were built in and around the oasis towns, generously supported by
powerful local families and merchants to ensure the safe passage of their caravans.
Many of the cave frescoes portray these benefactors in pious positions, sometimes
by name, since these gifts were believed to help them in their quest for nirvana.
Pilgrims from China continued to travel west searching for original manuscripts and
holy sites, over the Karakoram range to Gandhara and India.
The first Chinese pilgrim to actually reach India and return with a knowledge of
Buddhism was Fa Xian (337-422), a monk who traveled the southern route in 399,
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through Dunhuang and Khotan and over the Himalayas to India. He studied
Buddhism under various Indian masters in Benares, Gandhara and Ceylon (Sri
Lanka), and went as far as Sumatra and Java in Indonesia; altogether he visited over
30 countries, returning to China in 414 via the sea route.
The Buddhist monk, Xuan Zang (600-664), is perhaps the most well-known of all
Chinese travelers on the Silk Road, and one of the four great translators of Buddhist
texts. His lasting fame is primarily due to the humorous 16th-century novel,
Journey to the West (also known as Monkey), a fictional account of his pilgrimage
that includes an odd assortment of the characters who accompany the monk on his
journey, along with their various escapades.
Xuan Zang left Chang'an in 629 and traveled along the northern Silk Road to
Turpan, Kucha, then onto Tashkent, Samarkand and Bactria, over the Hindu Kush
to Gandhara and eventually further south to Sri Lanka. He studied Mahayana
Buddhism, particularly the Yogachara school, at various monasteries for 14 years
and became a renowned scholar, winning many debates against Hinayana
Buddhist scholars. He returned to China in 645 via the southern Silk Road and
wrote Records of the Western Regions, an excellent account of his travels and the
state of Buddhism in the seventh century. Xuan Zang translated over 75 Sanskrit
works into Chinese, and translated the teachings of the Taoist philosopher, Laozi,
into Sanskrit as well. His translations were known for their high literary content and
he was instrumental in creating an extensive Buddhist vocabulary in Chinese. The
Big Goose Pagoda in Xian was built to house the 520 Mahayana and Hinayana
texts and various relics that he brought back, and this was where he worked for the
remainder of his life, translating sutras.
Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity
The religions of Manicheanism and Nestorianism were also introduced, accepted
and assimilated along the Silk Road, although neither reached the popularity
enjoyed by Buddhism. Manicheanism was started by Manes of Persia in the third
century BC and is a religion based on the opposing principles of light and dark
(spirit and flesh). Followers of Manicheanism, persecuted by the Christians in the
fifth century AD, began arriving in Central Asia and flourished during the Sui
(581-618) and Tang dynasties. Until the recent discovery of Manichean libraries
and wall paintings at Kharakhoja (near Turpan), little was known of this religious
sect, believed by most scholars to have no literature or art. It sustained a substantial
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following into the tenth century, but then quickly disappeared with the advent of
Islam in the West and Buddhism in the East.
One of the essential beliefs of Nestorian Christianity was that Christ could not be
both human and divine. Outlawed in the West in 432 at the Council of Ephesus,
the disciples fled east to the Sassanian Empire (present-day Iran), and then to China
in the seventh century. Nestorian manuscripts were discovered in the Turpan and
Dunhuang regions, and Marco Polo found traces of the religion in Kashgar and
Khotan as late as the 13th century, even though all foreign religions were officially
banned by the Chinese in 845 and virtually wiped out by the Islamic crusades in
the 11th century.
4. The Fall of the Silk Road
Not coincidentally, the Silk Road flourished during the highly artistic and
prosperous Tang dynasty. Chang'an, the capital, a large cosmopolitan center, was
the departure point and final destination for travelers on the Silk Road. The city in
742 was five by six miles in area and had a population of nearly two million,
including over 5,000 foreigners. Numerous religions were represented and the city
contained the temples, churches and synagogues of Nestorians, Manicheans,
Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, to name but a few. Foreigners
from Turkey, Iran, Arabia, Sogdia, Mongolia, Armenia, India, Korea, Malaya and
Japan lived in Chang'an. Dwarfs, who impressed and delighted the Chinese elite as
jugglers and actors, were recruited from all over Asia to come to the imperial court.
Some Tang tomb murals depict foreigners in the imperial court.
In addition to Western goods, religious thought and art, Chang'an received
caravans from distant lands loaded with exotic treasures such as cosmetics, rare
plants including saffron, medicines, perfumes, wines, spices, fragrant woods, books
and woven rugs. Strange and unknown animals also arrived: peacocks, parrots,
falcons, gazelles, hunting dogs, lions, leopards and a rare prize for the Chinese, the
ostrich or 'camel bird'.
By the end of the eighth century, the sea routes from the southern coastal city of
Canton (Guangzhou) to the Middle East were well developed. The art of silkmaking
had been mastered by the Persians and, though silk was not to be produced in
Europe until the 12th century, the heyday of the Silk Road was over. The Tang
dynasty's downfall led to political chaos and an unstable economy less able to
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support extravagant foreign imports. At the same time, entire communities, active
oasis towns, thriving monasteries and grottoes along the Silk Road were
disappearing in the space of weeks, as the glacier-fed streams ran dry or changed
course. Since the end of the Ice Age, shrinking glaciers have been consistently
reducing the amount of water in the Tarim Basin. Only the most fertile and
well-irrigated oasis towns have survived.
The spread of Islam from the Middle East was one of the most critical factors in the
disappearance of the Buddhist civilizations along the Silk Road. Only those caves
and monasteries that had been swallowed by the sands centuries before were able
to survive unmutilated by the followers of Allah. Many of the Buddhist cave
frescoes, silk paintings and statues had adopted the Gandharan figurative style,
portraying 'the almighty' in human form, of which the Muslims were intolerant and
even fearful. By the late 15th century, the entire Taklamakan region was thoroughly
entrenched in Islam; Buddhist stupas and temples were either destroyed or left to
crumble. At this time, the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) virtually shut China off from
the outside world, effectively ending the centuries-old influx of foreign ideas and
culture. Islam brought a whole new mix of religion, art and architecture that today
is the root of Uygur culture in Xinjiang. The surviving remnants of an intensely
artistic Buddhist civilization were to remain interned until the late 19th century,
when a new generation of 'foreign devils' undertook archaeological excavations in
the Tarim Basin.
NOTES
1.
C.P. Skrine, Chinese Central Asia, (London: Methuen & Co., 1926), 142.
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