Silk Road Studies
Peace and Peril
Sima Qian's Portrayal of Han-Xiongnu Relations
Emperor Wu is generally recognized as the greatest ruler of the Han Dynasty and his wars against the steppe warrior Xiongnu as one of his greatest undertakings. To the chief narrator of these events ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian the turning point in Han Dynasty history was the way Emperor Wu had abandoned the policy of peaceful relations with the Xiongnu and launched China on a series of campaigns that would last for decades. This has been almost universally accepted as “truth” in modern scholarship but these claims cannot be taken at face value.
Firstly this book identifies ways in which the Shiji account is riddled with inconsistencies and deliberately misleading information and provides explanations for this. He hid signs of rising disquiet with the peace policy of earlier rulers and concealed indications that for at least two decades China’s leadership had been searching for alternatives.
Secondly the work reconstructs a more accurate narrative of events for one hundred years of Han - Xiongnu relations than can be gained by a straight-forwarding reading of individual chapters of the Shiji. A narrative emerges of an historian with an agenda and of a century of Han - Xiongnu relations that is markedly different from any previously produced.
Die Erforschung des Tocharischen und die alttürkische Maitrisimit
This volume contains the proceedings of a small conference held by the Turfan Study Group (Turfanforschung) of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Berlin in April 2008 on the 100th anniversary of E. Sieg and W. Siegling's article 'Tocharisch die Sprache der Indoskythen. Vorläufige Bemerkungen über eine bisher unbekannte indogermanische Literatursprache' which marks the beginning of the new subject 'Tocharian studies'. This forgotten Indo-European language was just re-emerging in texts gathered by the various scientific expeditions to Eastern Central Asia at the beginning of the 20th century. On the basis of a colophon in the Old Turkish text Maitrisimit F. W. K. Müller had already in 1907 suggested the name 'Tocharian' which despite misgivings continues to be used today for texts in two distinct but closely related varieties 'A' and 'B'. The volume is in part devoted to aspects of the history of the study of Tocharian and to details of the languages themselves but also to palaeography and cataloguing the Tocharian fragments in Berlin. The colophon to the Old Turkish Maitrisimit is the starting point for the second theme of the volume: The interaction between Tocharian and Old Turkish Buddhist texts a currently much discussed phenomenon. The contributions here range from a description of newly found Old Turkish fragments to a discussion of parallel Tocharian and Old Turkish passages aspects of the cult of Maitreya the question of Buddhist doctrinal schools in Central Asia the possible connection of Buddhist dramatical texts with the Chinese bianwen literature the Old Turkish 'New Day' and other aspects of this and similar narrative religious texts. The book includes an extensive documentation of Tocharian and Old Turkish fragments in the Berlin Turfan Collection to illustrate the Tocharian fragments for which a C14-dating is now available and Tocharian palaeography as well as fragments containing passages of text common to the Tochrian A Maitreyasamitinataka and the Old Turkish Maitrisimit.
Art, Architecture and Religion Along the Silk Roads
Art Architecture and Religion Along the Silk Roads will be volume 12 in the Silk Road Studies series. It has been produced by the Ancient History Documentary Research Centre at Macquarie University Australia and edited by Ken Parry Senior Research Fellow Department of Ancient History Macquarie University. It consists of selected papers from the 2004 conference of the Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies. The volume contains 14 articles of 350 pages with 40 illustrations and covers topics relating to Ancient Chorasmia Sogdia and China Buddhist and Manichaean art Middle Iranian manuscripts and Buddhist manuscripts from Afghanistan Nestorian Christianity and contemporary Islam Silk Road clowns and headcoverings of Central Asia. The collection highlights the range and depth of Australasian scholarship on Inner Asia and demonstrates that there are still many unexplored aspects of Silk Road Studies.
The Yuezhi. Origin, Migration and the Conquest of Northern Bactria
This book provides a detailed narrative history of the dynasty and confederation of the Yuezhi whose migration from western China to the northern border of present-day Afghanistan resulted ultimately in the creation of the Kushan Empire. Although the Yuezhi have long been recognised as the probable ancestors of the Kushans they have generally only been considered as a prelude to the principal subject of Kushan history rather than as a significant and influential people in their own right. The evidence seemed limited and ambiguous but is actually surprisingly extensive and detailed and certainly sufficient to compile a comprehensive chronological political history of the Yuezhi during the first millennium BCE. The book analyses textual numismatic and archaeological evidence in an attempt to explain the probable origin of the Yuezhi their relationship with several Chinese dynasties their eventual military defeat and expulsion from the Gansu by the Xiongnu their migration through the Ili Valley Ferghana and Sogdia to northern Bactria and their role in the conquest of the former Greco-Bactria state. All of these events were bound up with broader cultural and political developments in ancient Central Asia and show the extraordinary interconnectedness of the Eurasian historical processes. The domino-effect of the migration of the Yuezhi led to significant changes in the broader Eurasian polity.
Calling the Soul of the Dead
Research of Mongolion folk-religion has been the subject of special attention in recent years. Editions and translations of extant texts have appeared providing detailed descriptions of the rituals. This book examines a very special ritual of folk-religion the ceremony of calling back the soul of the dead. Among the Mongols it was commonly believed that illness and death were caused by the absence of the soul so a special ritual was required to call back the wandering soul. The research for this volume has been based on texts preserved in the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. A background is given by observations of researchers who have visited the relevant areas and personal communications of Mongols. These rituals are still living and carried out by Mongolians and their neighbouring peoples. The very old ceremony must have belonged to an early layer of folk-religion. It has now become a ritual of the Lamaist church. Influence of Tibetan Buddhism is found. A special chapter is devoted to evil spirits. The volume is richly illustrated.
From Palmyra to Zayton: Epigraphy and Iconography
This volume highlights research by Australian scholars on two major Silk Road cities: Palmyra in Syria - long regarded as the finest example of a "Caravan City" - and Quanzhou (Zayton) in South China which was the destination of the main Maritime Silk Road between Medieval China and the Middle East. The volume exhibits for the first time in a western language publication and in full colour the unique iconography of the Nestorian Christian community in South China under Mongol rule. This material is virtually unknown to western scholars and will be of major importance to the study of the eastward diffusion of Christianity and of East-West contact in the period of Marco Polo. The volume also contains one of the largest collections of Palmyrene inscriptions (Aramaic Greek Latin and Hebrew) in English translations with accompanying original texts and detailed analytical indices. The selection focuses on politics and trade but also gives representative texts of almost all genres of Palmyrene inscriptions. The volume should prove indispensable to scholars of East-West contacts and of Roman History given the role played by Palmyra under Zenobia in the Crisis of the Third Century.
Nomads, Traders and Holy Men Along China's Silk Road
This collection of papers formed part of the symposium “Nomads Traders and Holy Men Along China’s Silk Road” held at the Asia Society in New York on November 9-10 2001. Although the Silk Road has inspired several important museum exhibitions none had focused on the Hexi Corridor nor attempted to analyze the complexity of the cross-cultural relationships within China’s borders. Nor had any exhibition focused on the nearly four hundred years of political disunity nomadic incursions and social upheaval brought about by the collapse of the great Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) that then after a series of short-lived dynasties culminated in the reunification of China under the Tang empire (618-906).
Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern
Realms of the Silk Roads Part 1: New Sources on Inner Asian History N. Sims-Williams Some Reflections on Zoroastrianism in Sogdiana and Bactria; G. Mikkelsen Traité/Sermon on the Light-Nous in Chinese and its Parallels in the Parthian Sogdian and Old Turkish; A.V.G. Betts & V.N. Yagodin Hunting Traps on the Ustiurt Plateau Uzbekistan. Part 2: Long Distance Contacts S. Lieu Byzantium Persia and China: Interstate Relations on the Eve of the Islamic Conquest; D. Christian Silk Roads or Steppe Roads ? The Silk Roads in World History; M. Underdown The Northern Silk Road: Ties between Turfan and Korea. Part 3: Political Life C. Benjamin The Yuezhi and their Neighbours: Evidence for the Yuezhi in the Chinese Sources c. 220 - c. 25 BCE; K. Nourzhanov Politics of National Reconciliation in Tajikistan: From Peace Talks to (Partial) Political Settlements; S. Akbarzadeh Islam and Regional Stability in Central Asia; C. Mackerras Relations Between the Uygur State and China's Tang Dynasty 744-840. Part 4: Perspectives G. Watson Prestigious Peregrinations : British Travellers in Central Asia c. 1830-1914; F. Patrikeeff The Geopolitics of Myth: Interwar Northeast Asia and Images of an Inner Asian Empire; D. Thwaites The Road to Urumqui: Zunun Kadir's Lost World; F. Patrikeeff & J. Perkins National and Imperial Identity: A Triptych of Baltic Germans in Inner Asia. Part 5: Teaching Inner Asian History R. Fletcher & E. Hetherington The China TimeMap Project: China and the Silk Roads; M. With Creating Responsible Educational Images of Judaic / Christian / Islamic Relations.
Das nestorianische Christentum an den Handelswegen durch Kyrgystan bis zum 14. Jh
The missionary enterprise of the so-called Nestorian christianity in Asia is an amazing chapter of the religious history. Without any support by rulers or states and independent from the important western church centers Rome Constantinople Alexandria and Antioch the Assyrian Church did not only survive so many centuries but it spread by the Silk Road through many parts of the Asian continent. The present book focuses for the first time on a limited region the northern branch of the Silk Road in the modern state Kyrghyzstan. This concentration makes it possible to understand the conditions of expansion survive and eclipse of Christianity there. The reader is introduced in the political and religious environment which its competition of Zoroastrianism Manichaeism Buddhism Shamanism and Islam. Archaeological and literal sources and especially many tombstone inscriptions are not only introduced and discussed but raised to live. The reader gets an intime impression of the society in the Kyrghyzstan of the 7th to the 14th century with its important Christian minority. This society was more similar to our's today than to that of the Middle Ages in Europe because in Europe Christianity was a state religion. Therefore the experiences of Christianity at the Silk Road can help us to understand the evolution of our own modern world.
Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern
Definitions of Inner Asia vary greatly. Inner Asia includes those lands that have linked the major agrarian civilisations of Eurasia from China to India to the Mediterranean and Europe since the late Neolithic period. In the 19th century it became customary to refer to the trade routes between these regions as the 'Silk Roads'. But silk was just one of the goods exchanged through Inner Asia. religions diseases coins cuisines artistic fashions political titles all travelled the Silk Roads as did Buddhism Christianity Manichaeism and Islam. Seen in this way Inner Asia appears as the central knot in the vast tapestry of Eurasian history. To take Inner Asian history seriously is to see the underlying unity of Eurasian history. S.N.C. Lieu From Iran to South China: The Eastward Passage of Manichaeism L. Cansdale Jews on the Silk Roads C. Benjamin An Introduction to Kushan Research D. Christian State Formation in the Inner Eurasian Steppes S. Helms Ancient Chorasmia: The Northern Edge of Central Asia from the 6th Century B.C. to the mid-4th Century A.D. H. Hendrischke Chinese Concerns with Central Asia C. Mackerras Some observations on Xinjiang in the 1990s W. Maley The Dynamics of Regime Transition in Afghanistan K. Nourzhanov Traditional Kinship Structures in Contemporary Tajik Poilitics S. Akbarzadeh Reformism in the Bukharan Khanate G. Lafitte Re-orienting Mongolia F. Patrikeef Baron Ungern and the Eurasian Empire R. Pitty Russia and Eurasia in International Relations A. Van Tongerloo Turkestan: a Treasury of Civilisations G. Watson Central Asia as Hunting Ground: Sporting Images of Central Asia T. Matthew Ciolek 'Digital Caravanserais': Essential Online Resources for Inner Asian Studies.
Uygur Buddhist Literature
This first volume of the Silk Roads Studies is a reference manual of the published Uygur Buddhist literature. Uygur Buddhist Literature creates a complete inventory of the published Uygur Buddhist texts along with a bibliography of the pertinent scholarlyliterature. The work includes an introduction that outlines the history of the discovery of the Uygur Buddhist Literature and a short history of the Buddhist Uygurs and their translation activities. The survey of the literature itself is divided into six sections: (1) Non-Mahayana Texts including Sutra Vinaya Abhidarma Biographies of the Buddha (including Jatakas) and Avadana; (2) Mahayana Sutras; (3) Commentaries; (4) Chinese Apocrypha; (5) Tantric Texts (6) Other Buddhist Works. Included under each title of a text is a brief synopsis of the text and an explanation of the Uygur manuscript including where known: origin of translation the translator and the place of translation the place it was found and any other interesting points. After this brief survey of the manuscript the signature of the manuscript with references to the editions of the text is provided as well as additional references to the secondary literature. The survey concludes with an index to titles translators scribes and sponsors. This manual is an essential tool not only for specialists in the field of Altaic especially Turcological or Monogolian Iranological Sinological or Buddhological Studies but is also written for a larger public of students interested in Asian religions and cultural history in general. This book provides in a systematic and exhaustive way the most recent information on the places where the documents are kept a synopsis of the text editions and secondary literature.