College aantekeningen
Lecture notes/summary History Central Asia & Afghanistan
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- Universiteit Leiden (UL)
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Voorbeeld 4 van de 42 pagina's
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Voorbeeld van de inhoud
Week 1: What is Central Asia and why should we study it?The region has a constant mobility and
circulation of goods and people. In groups
and individuals, looking for trade but also
for migration. Not a geographical constant:
changed accessibility (for e.g. security) and
the borders have constantly changed,
with/by shifting fortunes of commercial
transit routes and indigenous production
centres. The borders of today are a result of
the USSR.
Trade has always been a major force in
Central Asia, there is always a focus on silk.
But paper was much more important. It
transferred art, knowledge and many more
across the whole region.
The geography of Central Asia are mountains (Pamir, Tian Shan, Hindu Kush), desserts
(Taklamakan desert, Kylzylkum desert) and rivers (Amu-darya, Oxus, Sur-darya, Jaxartes,
Seyhun, cotton & rice fields).
The term Central Asia was coined around 1825, simultaneously in Russia by the political
agent Georges de Meyendorff (d. 1863) and in France by Julius Klaproth (d. 1835).
Frantz Grenet: “Central Asia was defined as that which was neither Russia, nor China, nor
Persia, nor what was becoming British India.”
Nile Green: “Central Asia as a cultural contact zone between different peoples and polities
as much as a transit zone for material commodities such as silk, cotton and oil.”
Eurasia is part of Europe, but more Asian than Europe.The post-soviet context was the
(trade) interactions between Europe and Asia (mostly Kazakhstan). Eurasia can also mean
the southern parts of the former Soviet Union (so the five stans and the Caucasus; without
Russia).
Why did the Russians conquer Central Asia? Russia was the third great European imperial
power of the 19th century. The British may have assumed that the Russian advance was
directed at them, but that is no reason to believe the Russians intended this. The conquest
marginalised local rulers and peoples. Russian archival sources demonstrate far greater
concern about relations with them than with the British. The initial impulse came from a
sense of competitive emulation with other European powers –rebellions on the steppe,
attacks on caravans, defiance from ‘petty’ Central Asian states, came to seem intolerable
after Russia’s victory over Napoleon made Russia one of just two global powers after 1815.
This was not direct competition for territory or influence so much as a ‘fear of falling’ – of
seeing imperial prestige damaged in the eyes of European rivals.
,Week 2: The Silk Road: the Kushans and the Sogdians
The lecture will discuss the cultural legacy of the Kushans and the Sogdians with a focus on
their material culture and major monuments across Central Asia.
Buddhism in Central Asia
One of the major features of Buddhism is that it is a proselytising (an attempt of any
religion or religious individuals to convert people to their beliefs) faith with a proclivity for
long-distance travel on foot by moncks. Buddha, Great Caravan Leader (mahasarthavaha),
was famous for his role in protecting and leading followers from the world of suffering
throughout the cyclic existence (samsara) to the world of enlightenment (nirvana).
Buddhism spread from Northern India to China 500 years after the life of the historical
Buddha (b. 563 BC). We have two major strands of Buddhism in CA. The Hinayana
Buddhism, which encourages monastic life, spread until the 7th century in CA. And the
teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, each believer can become a Buddha through
compassion and observation of vows and will be reborn in the Pure Lands. Compassionate
Buddhisattva was very important, these creatures could go to nirvana but decided to stay in
suffering for the good of humanity until all beings have achieved enlightenment as well.
About the cultural exchanges and how Buddhism has influenced these exchanges in CA.
The first known presence of Chinese silk in Bactria around ca. 1500 BC, this is the evidence
of early trade routes. It was these trade routes that actually facilitated also the inter-cultural
exchange and the spread of Buddhism beyond the borders of India but also knowledge,
ideas, so not only goods. Buddhism flourished in Bactria under the Kushans, also imported
into the Tarim Basin
Zoroastrian, Buddhism and Islam flourished and co-existed up until the second half of the
8th century. Neither the seizure of the Kushan empire by the Zoroastrian Sasanians, nor its
subjugation by the Hephtalites (north of the Hindu Kush, 350-550 AD) could destroy the
Buddhist tradition in Bactria. Buddhism has very deep roots in the region.
Buddhism flourished once more during the Turkic conquest: e.g. Bamiyan Buddha statues
(4th-5th c. AD) & Adzhina-Tepe (7th-8th c. AD). But the Arab conquest (mid 7th c. AD) and
gradual conversion of the population to Islam led to the gradual decline and cessation of the
Buddhist tradition in Central Asia. After approx the 8th
century we don't have any archeological records of active
buddhist practices in CA.
The Kushans empire
The Kushans empire probably had the biggest impact on
the spread of buddhism and protection of Buddhist sites.
There is no significant body of Kushan literature. The
Kushans are known as Yuezhi in Chinese chronicles. Many
3rd-century and later sources use the Kushans Empire to
describe the region of Bactria (Tokharistan).
,The importance of Bactria, economically as well as politically, developed under:
- Persian Achaemenid Empire (6th-3rd c. BC)
- Greco-Bactrian period ( 3rd -1st c. BC)
- the Kushan Empire (1st c. BC-3rd c. AD)
The economic stability, the existence of trade routes and the existence of political structure
were the main forces that led to the genesis of a unique Bactrian civilization, with artistic
styles, architectural, and spiritual manifestation deriving from Iranian Zoroastrian, Hellenistic,
and Kushan Buddhist traditions. The stability of the rule also secured the security of the
trading routes. An Empire cannot thrive only because of a military force or army and
some craftsmen, it is a whole system of economic stability that plays a significant
role.
The political, economic and social stability in the Kushan Empire (“cordial foreign
relations”) caused a smooth flow of material commodities along the trade routes. Their
success as a Kushan state was crucial for the success of the Silk Roads network.
We also have intensified architectural and irrigational development in the Early Kushan
period, control shifts from the Greeks to the Kushans, improving all these kinds of
infrastructures leads to an increase of food supply. Which led to the possibility of trade,
which attracted new people to the empire so more cultural exchange occurred because they
came from different regions and brought their own traditions. On the crossroads of the rivers
and oases cultural exchange takes place, where the goods are stored, where the karavans
have to rest and pay taxes to pass the river. Rivers and oases across the vast empires also
become hubs for cultural exchange. Nowadays a lot of archaeological findings are there,
because there are very few written sources of the Kushans.
During this period (around the year 0), there is a shift from a nomadic to a sedentary state. In
this period there is a concentration of urban centres that become sedentary, people remain
as a result of increasing trade relations. They remain and get settled where they can profit
from the trade that starts existing.
Part of the wealth of this empire is generated through tolls or other fees charged to
merchants who were moving Han/China exports out of the Tarim Basin (nowadays
Xinchang) through Kushan territory. This kind of movement of exchanges of goods and
crafts also results in a need to make these people pay for what they want to sell/trade, which
leads to an increase of a different social layer which is sedentary and profits from the
exchange and increase the urban fabric settlements.
The Kushan Empire is one of the first examples of how the stimulation of trade
through political and economic stability leads to the prosperity of the cities through
which trade passes.
Coins as a artefact can shed a lot of light about:
- the languages used
- the level of economic exchanges
- where these coins were minted
- what is represented on them
, - The material of the coins
The Bactrian script on coins (in Greek letters) to proclaim power throughout the region.
Bactrian is an Aryan Language, which is an extinct eastern Iranian dialect which was widely
spoken in the region, official language of the Kushans and the Hephtalites (White Huns).
The most prosperous period of the Kushans was
under King Kanishka (c. 127-153 AD), during the
Kanishkan Era the Kushans were called the Great
Kushans.
Zoroastrian (fire sacrificing) and Buddhist
(Buddha) deities on the coins show how these
two religions co-existed under the Kushans.
Same king represent with two different
What also happens under Kanishka is the spread
of Mahayana Buddhism across Central Asia
through a more accessible language (by rewriting
of Buddhist Sutra) by merchants and monks along
the Silk Roads leads to a spread of religious ideas
and texts and communication.
What is our evidence to interpret these
exchanges?
Buddhist trading post along the Oxus (southern Uzbekistan / northern Afghanistan), Kampyr
Tepa, which can be dated from the 4th c. BC. The city merged as an enlarged border
crossing point, in which the goods coming from Sogdiana to Northern Afghanistan. The city
was created in the river basin, a very green area because of the river Oxus. The houses
belong to the people who did the weighing of the goods. These people and other
administrators lived in the inner part of the city. While the area surrounding the city was used
for storage of goods and animals.
The double avlos, a horn instrument with a double
pipe, was widely spread throughout Eastern Asia
and Ancient Greece. The Greeks used them in their
performances of tragedies and in military music, and
it has few analogues in Central Asia.
The lute-like instrument resembling a guitar is not
typical for the historic and cultural regions of Central
Asia of that time. We can find traces of a similar
instrument in Eastern Turkestan (in Khotan, in
particular). The barrel-like drum is undoubtedly of
Indian origin. → This attests for long distance
cultural exchanges in Buddhist settings.
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