Silk Road Greatest Years
The height of the importance of the Silk Road was during the Tang dynasty, with relative internal stability in China after the divisions of the earlier dynasties since the Han. The individual states has mostly been assimilated, and the threats from marauding peoples was rather less.
During this period, in the seventh century, the Chinese traveller Xuan Zhuang crossed the region on his way to obtain Buddhist scriptures from India. He followed the northern branch round the Taklimakan on his outward journey, and the southern route on his return; he carefully recorded the cultures and styles of Buddhism along the way. On his return to the Tang capital at Changan, he was permitted to build the `Great Goose Pagoda’ in the southern half of the city, to house the more than 600 scriptures that he had brought back from India. He is still seen by the Chinese as an important influence in the development of Buddhism in China, and his travels were dramatized by in the popular classic `Tales of a Journey to the West’.
The art and civilization of the Silk Road achieved its highest point in the Tang Dynasty. Changan, as the starting point of the route, as well as the capital of the dynasty, developed into one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities of the time. By 742 A.D., the population had reached almost two million, and the city itself covered almost the same area as present-day Xian, considerably more than within the present walls of the city.
The 754 A.D. census showed that five thousand foreigners lived in the city; Turks, Iranians, Indians and others from along the Road, as well as Japanese, Koreans and Malays from the east. Many were missionaries, merchants or pilgrims, but every other occupation was also represented. Rare plants, medicines, spices and other goods from the west were to be found in the bazaars of the city. It is quite clear, however, despite the exotic imports, that the Chinese regarded all foreigners as barbarians; the gifts provided for the Emperors by foreign rulers were simply considered as tribute from vassal states.
After the Tang, however, the traffic along the road subsided, along with the grotto building and art of the period. The Five Dynasties period did not maintain the internal stability of the Tang dynasty, and again neighboring states started to plunder the caravans. China was partially unified again in the Song dynasty, but the Silk Road was not as important as it had been in the Tang.
From the point of view of those in the far west, China was still an unknown territory, and silk production was not understood.
Since the days of Alexander the Great, there had been some knowledge of India, but there was no real knowledge of, or contact with, the `Seres’ until about the 7th century, when information started to filter along the Road.
It was at this time that the rise of Islam started to affect Asia, and a curtain came down between the east and west. Trade relations soon resumed, however, with the Moslems playing the part of middlemen. The sea route to China was explored at this time, and the `Sea Silk Route’ was opened, eventually holding a more important place than the land route itself, as the land route became less profitable. But the final shake-up that occurred was to come from a different direction; the hoards from the grasslands of Mongolia.
Trade along the route was adversely affected by the strife which built up between the Christian and Moslem worlds. The Crusades brought the Christian world a little nearer to Central Asia, but the unified Moslem armies under Saladin drove them back again. However, it was not the Christians who finally split the Moslem world, but the Mongols from the east.
Whilst Europe and Western Asia were torn by religious differences, the Mongols had only the vaguest of religious beliefs. Several of the tribes of Turkestan which had launched offensives westwards towards Persia and Arabia, came to adopt Islam, as Islam had spread far across Central Asia, but had not reached as far as the tribes which wandered the vast grasslands of Mongolia.
These nomadic peoples had perfected the arts of archery and horsemanship. With an eye to expanding their sphere of influence, they met in 1206 and elected a leader for their unified forces, Genghis Khan. Under his leadership they rapidly proceeded to conquer an Empire that enveloped the whole of Central Asia from China to Persia, and stretched as far west as the Mediterranean. After Genghis’ death, Kubilai completed the conquest of China, subduing the Song in the South of the country, and establishing the Yuan dynasty.
The partial unification of so many states under the Mongol Empire allowed a significant interaction between cultures of different regions. The route of the Silk Road became important as a path for communication between different parts of the Empire, and trading was continued. Although less `civilized’ than people in the west, the Mongols were more open to ideas. Kubilai Khan, in particular, is reported to have been quite sympathetic to most religions and a large number of people of different nationalities and creeds took part in the trade across Asia, and settled in China.
The most popular religion in China at the time was Daoism, which at first the Mongols favored. However, from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards, Buddhist influence increased, and the early Lamaist Buddhism from Tibet was particularly favored. The two religions existed side by side for a long period during the Yuan dynasty. This religious liberalism was extended to all; Christianity first made headway in China in this period, with the first Roman Catholic arch-bishopric set up in Beijing in 1307. The Nestorian church was also quite widespread in China; Jews and Moslems as well populated several of the major cities, though they do not seem to have made many converts.
It was at this time that Europeans first ventured towards the lands of the `Seres’. The earliest were probably Franciscan friars who are reported to have visited the Mongolian city of Karakorum. The first Europeans to arrive at Kubilai’s court were Northern European traders, who arrived in 1261.
However, the most well known and best documented visitor was the Italian Marco Polo.
As a member of a merchant family from Venice, he was a good businessman and a keen observer. Starting in 1271, at the age of only seventeen, his travels with his father and uncle took him across Persia, and then along the southern branch of the Silk Road, via Khotan, finally ending at the court of Kubilai Khan at Khanbalik, the site of present-day Beijing, and the summer palace, better known as Xanadu. He travelled quite extensively in China, before returning to Italy by ship, via Sumatra and India to Hormuz and Constantinople.
He describes the way of life in the cities and small kingdoms through which his party passed, with particular interest on the trade and marriage customs. His classification of other races centre mainly on their religion, and he looks at things with the eyes of one brought up under the auspices of the Catholic Church; it is therefore not surprising that he has a great mistrust of the Moslems, but he seems to have viewed the `Idolaters’ (Buddhists and Hindus) with more tolerance. He judges towns and countryside in terms of productivity; he appears to be having been quick to observe available sources of food and water along the way, and to size up the products and manufacture techniques of the places they passed through.
His description of exotic plants and beasts are sufficiently accurate to be quite easily recognizable, and better than most of the textbooks of the period. He seems to have shown little interest in the history of the regions he was passing through, however, and his reports of military campaigns are full of inaccuracies, though this might be due to other additions or misinformation.
The `Travels’ were not actually written by Marco Polo himself. After his return to the West in 1295, he was captured as a prisoner of war in Genoa, when serving in the Venetian forces. Whilst detained in prison for a year, he met Rustichello of Pisa, a relatively well-known romance writer and a fellow prisoner of war. Rustichello was obviously attracted to the possibilities of writing a romantic tale of adventure about Polo’s travels; it should be remembered that the book was written for entertainment rather than as a historic document. However, the collaboration between them, assuming that the story has not been embroidered excessively by Rustichello, gives an interesting picture of life along the Silk Road in the time of the Khans.
Some of the tales are no doubt due to the romance-writing instincts of Rustichello, and some of those due to Polo are at best third-hand reports from people he met; however, much of the material can be verified against Chinese and Persian records. As a whole, the book captured public notice at the time, and added much to what was known of Asian geography, customs and natural history.
Vantage World Strongly Recommends Insurance for all your Travel Programs
We provide, through TravelSafe Insurance, one of the nation's largest and most respected providers of travel insurance, a TravelSafe Custom Plan, where you decide the benefits YOU want and the levels of protection YOU desire including access to their 24-hour emergency assistance service from anywhere in the world. Click the link below the Plan Benefits table for plan details.
