Ancient Silk Trade Routes

The following sections are included:

• Foreword
• Contents

For centuries the overland route between China and the Mediterranean has excited scholars and the general public. This innate interest has inspired many kinds of narrative, from those purely based on verifiable knowledge to the completely imaginary. The boundaries between these stories are not easy to draw. Even some of the most substantial accounts of the Silk Road such as Marco Polo's account of his journey cannot easily be assigned to only one category…

The exchange between the East and the West on the Silk Road is divided into several stages, each with its own characteristics, sometimes in the form of alliance marriages — attempts to pacify the minority rulers along the border by marrying daughters of the Han imperial family to them, while other times trade based. Since the Mongolian Yuan dynasty, missionaries played an important role in the cultural exchange of silk. These missionaries traveled far and wide to arrive in China, bearing the letters from the Pope and the sense of mission to spread the word of God. The scale of the missionaries was unprecedented between the Ming and Qing dynasty.

This paper draws on the Western fabric, velvet and the Western silk used by the Chinese royalties to describe the phenomenon and the importance of the missionaries in the course of the cultural exchange of silk.

Trying to track China's ancient route to the West, scavenging with a few workers in the ruins of a large tract of houses, Sven Hedin found 3^rd century Chinese documents that repeated ly named the place as Lou-lan. He had discovered the ancient site known as Lou-lan. Hedin's description of his expedition across the Taklamakan and his survival with only two local men and two camels left is a fearful one which Hedin sadly called his death march. Later Sir Aurel Stein and his caravan found Lou-lan exactly where Hedin's map of 1900 plotted it. Several days of digging in the ruins produced more wood tablets bearing ancient Chinese writings and also Kharosthi tablets similar in language to those Stein had found at Niya. In these texts the name of the town was rendered as Kroraina, an indigenous form from which the Chinese counterpart Lou-lan has come as per the more restrictive rules of Chinese phonology…

When speaking of maritime Silk roads one thinks of ships sailing back and forth on an East-West axis passing through Southeast Asia. In a paper on pre-Islamic South Sulawesi the French anthropologist, Christian Pelras, envisaged the existence of a trading network from Sulawesi towards the South already in pre-European times, adding that this was still to be proven. This is what this paper wants to demonstrate, examining a North-South segment of the Maritime Silk Routes, an intra-link in eastern Indonesia, between the island of Sulawesi (Celebes) and a number of islands of the Lesser Sundas, more precisely the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) which means literally “south-eastern islands”. Timor, the most famous of these islands, has been known since early times for its export of sandalwood. The focus here is not only on trade and place-names, but also on migrations and objects people carried with them in pre- and early European times…

Based on our recent archaeological investigations of Chinese ceramics excavated from some ancient sites on the coastal region in Kenya, we proposed the following preliminary discussions on the export of Chinese ceramics to East African areas. Firstly, our research shows that Chinese ceramics were first exported to Africa from the late Tang to the Northern Song dynasties (9^th–10^th centuries). Most of the export was carried as transit trade at that time. Majority of the export ceramics, products of 9^th century Changsha kilns, were replaced by products of Yue kilns in the 10^th century. Secondly, the second half of Northern Song Dynasty to the late Southern Song Dynasty (11^th–mid-13^th centuries) was a period of low trade in Chinese export ceramics. Thirdly, we discovered there were four peak periods of Chinese ceramics export to the East Africa and Indian Ocean Rim areas. These periods were from: late Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties (9^th to 10^th centuries); late Southern Song Dynasty to early Ming Dynasty (second half of 13^th to early 15^th centuries); mid Ming Dynasty (late 15^th to early 16^th centuries); and late Ming Dynasty to mid Kangxi reign of Qing Dynasty (17^th century). Additionally, we discovered some shards from early Ming Dynasty imperial kilns. These shards are related to Admiral Zheng He's voyages. Lastly, we obtained a conclusion after comparing the types and quality of Chinese ceramic wares salvaged from the Portuguese shipwreck in Mombasa with trade wares of the Dutch East India Company. When the Dutch East India Company controled the trade on the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese were still conducting trade on a small scale. They purchased their merchandise from workshops which were different from the ones the Dutch were buying from in Jingdezhen.

Towards the end of 2010 a shipwreck was discovered by fishermen divers off the northernmost tip of Borneo. While it was heavily looted in the space of a couple of months, an official excavation resulted in some important discoveries. The c.1300 ship was of the Southeast Asian lashed-lug tradition, chronologically the latest example of this construction technique so far documented. The ceramic cargo was almost exclusively Longquan celadon. The site is now known as the Jade Dragon Wreck.

Some years ago another ancient wreck was discovered less than 800 m away. Again, it was heavily looted before official investigation but some archaeological evidence remained. Dating to the early 13 century, it is arguably the oldest Chinese junk so far found. It too carried a primary cargo of ceramics, in this case from a variety of Fujian kilns. The site is known as the Tanjung Simpang Mengayau Wreck.

Both wrecks and their cargoes are analyzed here in order to determine likely origin and destination, and consequently the role these very different ships played in the trade between China and Borneo. The close proximity of the oldest junk and ‘newest’ lashed-lug ship would seem to be pure coincidence.

For decades, excavations along the East African coast have unearthed thousands of Chinese ceramics in several centers along this coast, which stretches for nearly 3000 km. These ceramics range from the Changsha (Du'sun) jass Yue stone wares to the white porcelains. The Changsha stone ware found in East Africa is dated in China to the early 9^th century while the Yue stone wares date from the 9^th century onwards while white porcelain date to after 900. This paper will survey the prevalence of these ceramics along the East African coast and will argue that the presence of these ceramics is an indication of a long time exchange system between China and the East African coast. An exchange system that was based not on one part exploiting the other, as it happened with the emergence of European powers later in the 16^th century, but an exchange system based on mutual respect.

It will also be argued that the exchange system in this coastline was based on the understanding of geographical factors; the tide regime and the regularity of the reversal of the monsoon. There are two seasons of the monsoon winds: the first is the Northeast Monsoon (in Kiswahili known as Kaskasi) that flows between November/December to early May and is comparatively dry while between July and September is the season of the Southeast (Kusi) monsoon that is accompanied with strong winds and heavy rains. This regular reversal of the monsoon winds provided the East African coast with an assured communication links with far off lands such as the Mediterranean and Red Seas, South and South East Asia, the Persian Gulf as well as with Southern Africa and Indian Ocean Islands. These geographical factors therefore, not only created a system which ensured that the East African coast was part of a wide seafaring trade network that occurred within the Indian Ocean and adjacent lands, but also may have contributed to the development of a seafaring culture and technology that was second to none at that time.

Aceh occupies a strategic location on the ancient maritime silk route between southern China, India and the Middle East. Long before this region became an Islamic sultanate in the early 16^th century and was later to become known as the “Veranda of Mecca”, it played an important role in mediaeval inter-regional commerce. Ancient texts suggest the existence of two harbors in particular that were located to provide key landfalls to mariners crossing the Indian Ocean: one known to the 9^th century Arabs as Fansur at the northwestern tip of Aceh and another also known to the Arabs as Rami or Ramni, to the Cölas as Ilamuridesam and to the Ming Chinese as Lan-li or Lan-wu-li which was located at no great distance further east at the western end of the Selat Melaka.

Both of these two harbors provided ideal locations as arrival and departure points for ships crossing the Indian Ocean with the monsoon winds. In the 14^th century, however, Fansur seems to have disappeared rather suddenly. A possible reason for this abrupt disappearance — of what was a major mediaeval harbor, would now seem to be due to a major seismic event or events — a major earthquake or quakes, each followed by a tsunami that hit the north and west coasts of Aceh in the late 14^th century and again in the mid 15^th century.

Archaeological work is beginning to reveal evidence of the existence of long-lost harbor sites in the Aceh and north Sumatra region. At the Lhok Pancu, a wide bay that lies immediately west of modern Banda Aceh and further eastwards along the coast of Aceh Besar to the village of Lamreh on the Krueng Raya bay some 40 km to the east of Banda Aceh, archaeological surveys and excavation work have revealed a series of ancient settlements that date to the beginning of the 2^nd millennium CE. It was on this coast that a notable Southeast Asian historian, the late Professor O.W. Wolters, placed a polity known to the Tang Chinese as P'o-lu (pronounced “pawlaw”), a point noted by Jia Dan, whose itinerary is mentioned in the Xin Tangshu. Jia Dan was a minister in the Zhenyuan period (785–805) and a geographer who recorded valuable data relating to various routes used at around the turn of the 9^th century CE. Although no recognizable tangible evidence for P'o-lu has, as yet, appeared, the gaps are beginning to be filled in. Other sites in the region are near Barus in Tapanouli on the west coast and at Kota Cina near Medan on the east coast. In particular, Chinese and other mediaeval (south Asian) ceramic wares have played a major role in the identification of these sites. This paper sums up progress to date.

The spice trade was one of the world's ancient commercial activities. The Indonesian Archipelago (Nusantara), as a spice producer, was crucial in this trade network. The emergence of big ports as the main trade harbours marks the peak of the thriving long distance spice trade connecting India, the Middle East, China, and Europe. The trade was also marked by the existence of foreign communities in the archipelago in their search for spice.

The presence of foreigners influenced the types of commodities that they brought from their homelands, among which is ceramics. Ceramics were key to the history of sea navigation and trade. The presence of ceramics offered additional detail of the spice trade and evidence of reciprocal relations between spice producers and their consumers. For example, in shipwrecks, we find ceramics and natural produce in their cargo and these commodities prove the reciprocal trade relations that took place.

In this paper I will particularly discuss the spice trade, which had an impact on the existence of other types of commodities, including ceramics. This can be carried out by means of archaeological investigations. This mode of research can be viewed as one of the regional-interregional studies to be used as a foundation to reconstruct the ancient trade network.

22,007 pieces of relics were excavated from the South Korean Shinan Wreck after 11 times of salvage. 34 pieces are Yuan Dynasty Chinese silverwares, including a silver jingping discovered for the first time, lamp, censer, gu and etc. There are more than 360 pieces of wooden slip which were used as labels to distinguish the owners of the goods. Eight wooden tags have the words “Zhizhi Sannian” [The third year of Zhizhi Period] (1323 AD) written on them, which should be the time of loading for shipment. Also discovered was a copper weight with the inscription “Qingyuan Lu” [Qingyuan District]. Today's Ningbo was known as Mingzhou during the Song Dynasty and Qingyuan during the Yuan Dyansty respectively. Considering the large number of Longquan celadon wares found in the shipwreck, the departure port was undoubtedly Qingyuan. During the Tang Dynasty, Qingyuan port was one of the places where Japanese envoys landed. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, Qingyuan port became a big trading port with an export market of more than 20 countries and regions. In the Song Dynasty, the court decreed Mingzhou as the exclusive port of trade with Japan and Korea which were also the main maritime trading partners then. According to the place-names on the text labels of the goods, it can be inferred that the ship was bound for Hakata, Japan. It shows that many goods on the shipwreck were bought by Tōfukuji Temple in Japan because the silver censer, lamp and jingping have corresponding combinations, and there are many temple utensils among the copper and ceramic wares. 470 boxes of Chinese coins, weighing 28 tons, were found on the shipwreck. This coincides with the background that the purpose of Japanese trade with China in the Yuan Dynasty was to obtain Chinese coins. It had been documented that large ocean-going ships of 200 tonnage were constructed in the Yuan Dynasty. Through restoration, the Shinan Wreck has a loading of 200 tons which is comparable to Yuan ocean-going ships. Thus, it is highly probable that the shipwreck was that of a Chinese ship.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• The Structural Feature of the Pottery Building
• The Decorative Motif
• The Chinese Shrine of Buddha (Futu Ci) and Indian Stupa
• Conclusion

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Esoteric Buddhism Along the Overland Silk Road
• Orissan Influence on the Iconography of Borobudur
• Borobudur and Amarāvatī
• Conclusion

The following sections are included:

• Visual Representation of Gandavyūha
• Sudhana as a Bodhisattva
• Gandavyūha in Indonesia
• Journey of Sudhana at Tabo
• Avatamsaka-Sūtra in East Asia
• Daśa Bhūmi: Ten Stages of Enlightenment
• Journey of Sudhana

Borobudur, located in Yogyakarta, Java, is one of the biggest Buddhist monuments in the world. It was built in 8^th–9^th AD as a stepped pyramid with 9 platforms and approximately 2670 individual reliefs which cover its facades and galleries. Among them, 1460 are narratives and 1112 are decorative. The narrative panels are grouped into 11 series and distributed at the hidden foot (Kāmadhātu) and the five square platforms (Rupadhatu). The hidden foot contains the first series of the narrative panels of karmic law and the remaining 10 series are distributed in four galleries. They are Buddhacharita, the life of Buddha; Jakatas, the previous lives of the Buddha, and the story of Sudhana's visits to the 53 virtuous personalities as given in Gandvyuha, or the chapter of “the Entry to the Realm of Reality” in the Avatamsaka Sutra.

This paper is a preliminary study exploring the link and looking for the connection between Borobudur Temple and Gandavyuha, and the Tang-version of Avatamsaka Sutra of Sudhana's 53^rd visits. There are 460 panels wherein can be found the visits of the good man, Sudhana who also had a good track record of his previous lives. He expressed his sincere wish to learn the way of Dharma and visited Manjusri asking for his advice. Manjusri showed him the path. He then visited 53 Kalyanamitras inclusive of Gods, Goddesses, monks, laymen, travelers, kings and Bodhisattvas. The 53rd visit was to Maitreya who showed him the door of Dharma and told him to visit Manjusri again. Manju sri empowered him with wisdom and told him to visit Samantabbadra. Through Samantabbadra's Adhishthana or aid he reached perfection at the end.

In studies relating to Buddhism in Java, Chinese documents have always received widespread attention from the scholars concerned. These documents were studied meticulously, with nearly no record neglected. Therefore, to once more review the Chinese classics on Java Buddhism, one would need to interpret these materials from a new angle other than searching for more documents. It would provide more clarity to areas which had been unclear in the past.

In this paper, the author provides a more in-depth study of “Biographies of Eminent Monks — Gunavarman”. New academic results of Buddhism in the 5^th century northwestern India, as well as related records from other literatures will be quoted as important cross-references. This paper starts from three major clues; Gunavarman's translation of Buddhism classics, his early paintings and his meditation practices to discuss the main features of his studies and activities. As Buddhist master residing in Java between the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries, Gunavarman deeply influenced the development of Buddhism in Java. This paper tries to explain the sectarian and Dharma nature of Gunavarman and the aspects of Buddhism in Java which he possibly influenced. These issues are undoubtedly important references to understanding the nature of early Buddhism in Java, and its interaction with the other Buddhist cultural districts in Asia.

The Silk Road is as much a path of hope, cross-fertilization, and wealth as it is a path of death, despair, and separation. As an artery that runs across Eurasia, the Silk Road is well known as a channel for commerce, bringing luxury items from East to West and back over centuries. Light, low bulk luxury items like silk, spices, handicrafts, and specie were key because they were relatively easy to transport and provided high enough profit margins to make long-range trade both feasible and profitable. Commercial activity linked the Central Plains in China to the oases of Inner Asia, South Asia, Asia Minor, and points beyond in Europe, and sustained a channel for exchange that persisted for more than a millennia…

The following sections are included:

• About the Editors
• Acknowledgements