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ANCİENT NEAR EAST AND WEST ASIA
Influences of the silk road in ancient china
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In today’s world Asia is an economic power house due to the two largest and most populated countries in the world, China and India. “In the thousand years from 500 to 1500, Asia was an astonishing, connected and creative place. It had the five largest cities in the world, all at the heart of great empires. A few, such as Delhi, Beijing and Istanbul remain major cities today” (Gordon. Pg. Vii). The history shows that these two countries have always been the centre of attention and desired by many invaders for wealth and power. This essay will give a rough idea about how these countries came to be but the major theme will be “The Silk Road” and how it connected Asia with the rest of the world, Mediterranean to northeast Africa and Europe. This essay will briefly explain how these “interconnectedness” between different parts of Asia influenced each other economically, religiously, politically and culturally.
Asia produced money and credit that traders knew and accepted from the Middle East to China. The Silk Road got its name from the famous Chinese silk trade among its major trading partners. A few centuries before Buddhist monk Xuanzang’s arrival at Issy Kul (now Kirghizstan), silk had became a universally accepted currency between China and the nomads west and north of the great wall. Silk was so important, because of the ecological differences between agriculture of China and the grasslands of the nomads to the west. The steppe nomads raised horses and their cattle were constantly demanded by the Chinese elites; China raised grain and only China produced silk. These four items became the main reasons for war between these two regions. China wanted horses and cattle and nomad wanted grain and silk; so they constantly...
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...erms doing businesses with other Islamic nations. Some of these rulers including Almish also thought that The Kaliph, the civil and religious leader of the Muslim states would help them economically. In the time of Islam ruling Indian architecture took a new shape. At that time “use of shapes” (instead of natural forms) and marble, for decoration was introduced. Taj Mahal in Agra and Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi are some of the great buildings that are still standing to this day.
“Buddhism and Islam arose and spread along Asia’s far-flung trade routes so did luxury goods, such as silk, pearls, spices and medicines” (Gordon, pg. Vii). The Silk Road and religions became the most important passageways for technological, cultural, and commercial exchanges between China and India. This “interconnectedness” helped developing the great civilizations of both China and India.
As shown contextually in document 5, Asia was replacing their barter and tax payment from goods and services to silver. Such a change requires and very large supply and circulation of said precious metal. China was willing to pay a lot for said metal as its new economic system depended on it. In order to cash in on this potential gold rush, for lack of a better word, european nations sought elsewhere for a supply of silver they could control, ultimately leading to the colonization of the Americas and military conquests of isles like the Phillipines and Indonesia. The pattern of the silver trade shifted as Europeans now expanded it to reach more of the western hemisphere by establishing mines in Brazil and other areas. Documents 1 and 3 showcase in detail how connected the west and east now became because of the silver trade, which previously resided in Asia predominantly. Silver went from the mines in the east (Japan) and sometimes isles (Philippines), to the colonies, and ultimately China after the chinese merchant ships would travel to said colonies and pick up the silver. Such an increased connected between the west and east is seen again post-Renaissance. As Europe is going through a revival, it seeks wealth elsewhere, like european nations in the later centuries. Europe begins expeditions and forges relationships with eastern nations
As new ideas traveled main trade routes, such as the Silk Road and the Mediterranean, the effects of such were felt through an influx of contact between countries due to increased desire for new information and countries gaining a larger presence on the world stage. This phenomenon can also be seen through the lens of cultural exchange that took place during this same time period in Eurasia. A major component of the Eurasian trade networks, such as the Silk Road and Indian Ocean, was that they fostered interregional contacts that had ceased to previously exist. When a country had a desire for study or technology, they earned more respect on the global stage. This can be further examined by looking at Marco Polo’s voyage into Asia.
During the time 600C.E-1450 C.E the Silk Road went through major changes while maintaining ingenuity. Changes and continuities interactions included cultural knowledge (changes in art, architecture and technology), political control (the impact the leader had on the Silk Road), culture diffusion (continuities in religion that spread and the impact) and trade (continuities of luxury items). Although there were many continuities, the changes of the Silk Road outweighed the continuities.
India and China’s geography helped them spread their religion to other areas. India’s religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, spread to other regions. The trade that was created due to each civilizations’ geography not only traded regions’ goods with one another, but their religion as well. According to World History: A Pattern of Interaction, Hinduism spread to Nepal and south to Sri Lanka and Borneo. A majority of the spread of Indian religion was due to Buddhist merchants and monks that converted people along the route of the Silk Road. China is similar to India’s religions, as the Chinese region believed in Buddhism because of the conversions of religion that had occurred
In the early part of the 15th century C.E., a massive fleet of Chinese ships went on a series of seven voyages under the direction of Admiral Zheng He (The Ming Dynasty: Exploration to Isolation). For approximately 30 years, China sailed it's ships around Southeast Asia, India, and even East Africa trading exotic goods and reportedly establishing political alliances (Viviano). In addition, many estimate the Chinese flagship as being about 4.5 times larger than a European ship of the time period (Hadingham). These accounts of Zheng He's voyages can be used to argue that China in the early 15th century was the equal or possibly even superior to Europeans in terms of technology, navigation, trade, and it's political scope. Despite these voyages tremendous success, a faction of Confu...
Although Siddhartha Gotama spread the religion of Buddhism in India, his teaching had a great impact on other countries. Buddhist first made their way to China via the silk route; this was a network of caravan tracts that linked China to the rest of central Asia to the Mediterranean region. Buddhist monks also made their way into China with Buddhist scriptures and Buddhist art in their possession. This is the first time that Buddhism made a substantial impact on the Chinese. Quickly many Chinese began to convert to the new religion that was brought into china.
Throughout all of the above evidence, a common theme is demonstrated. Daily life was influenced by religion and philosophies in both India and China. Religion and philosophies affected
Stewart Gordon is an expert historian who specializes in Asian history. He is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan and has authored three different books on Asia. Gordon’s When Asia Was The World uses the narratives of several different men to explore The Golden Age of medieval Asia. The fact that this book is based on the travels and experiences of the everyday lives of real people gives the reader a feeling of actually experiencing the history. Gordon’s work reveals to the reader that while the Europeans were trapped in the dark ages, Asia was prosperous, bursting with culture, and widely connected by trade. This book serves to teach readers about the varieties of cultures, social practices, and religions that sprang from and spread out from ancient Asia itself and shows just how far Asia was ahead of the rest of the world
Pomeranz Kenneth. (2002) Beyond the East-West binary: Resituating the development paths in the eighteenth century world. The Journal of Asian Studies 61 (2) 539-590. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2700300
The Mongols influenced the world in many great ways, one of them was their vast trade system. They relied quite heavily on trade, not only to gain resources, but also to get their inventions and objects to the Europeans and then hopefully spread from there. The Mongols enhanced the trading system by composing the “Silk Road”. The Silk Road was a path/road that the Mongols had control of and it was a trade route that many travelers and traders took. Along the Silk Road, the main resource that was traded was silk, hence the name “Silk Road.” The
The Old World system was mainly Asia-centric. European states were far behind the Asian and Middle Eastern ones. According to the article of Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod which is named “The World System in the Thirteenth Century: Dead-End or Precursor”, beside the world system there were subsystems which were not “depending on each other for common survival in the thirteenth century”. There were three big circuits: Westers European, Middle Eastern, Far Eastern. “At that times the strongest centres and circuits were located in the Middle East and Asia. In contrast the European circuit was an upstart newcomer that for several early centuries was only tangentially and weakly linked to the core of the world system as it had developed between the eight and eleventh centuries.” As she mentioned, Europe joined the advanced world system of that time after 11th century, yet till 15th century it was not so effective. Although the states in east were developed, this did not reflect to political arena. Every state was powerful in its own niche and as a result of this there was not a hierarchical form of political balance. These states could be thought as pockets. Nature of this system was production. As Janet L. Abu-Lughod mentioned “the production of primary and manufactured goods was not only sufficient to meet local needs but, beyond that, the needs for export as well. Then, the way of function of this system can be understood: trade. Trade was the main economic activity of the Old System. Trade was mostly depending on exchange of goods. In spite of this, Chinese merchants were using paper money like a credit card and Arabic dinar was the dollar of that time. All of these show us that the trade was also Asia-centric. The popular trade ways were through Middle East and Asia. Beside the economic side, trade was integrating cities and societies.
The Silk Road was brought about around 200 B.C.E as a trading route from Western Rome to the Han Dynasty. Innumerable diverse patterns of interaction have taken place since then, coming to a halt around 1450 C.E. These changes and continuities generally revolved around products, cultural expression, and religion.
Xuanzang was a highly educated Buddhist monk from China, who in 629 C.E. made the long and treacherous journey along the Silk Road to India. His main objectives in his sixteen years away from home were fundamentally religious; he only wanted to study more complete scriptures to answer questions he had, which he deemed unsolvable in his own country. It is important to understand Xuanzang’s own position within the Chinese society and the type of situation it was in: Chinese Buddhists had many disagreements
Eurasian trade when conditions along the Silk Road were unfavorable. For this reason, the geographical context of the Silk Road must be thought of in the broadest possible terms, including sea rout...
The Mughals took what was ‘Indian’, developed by the Delhi Sultanate and surrounding Hindu kingdoms that were consolidated into the Mughal Empire throughout its reign, and made it their own, creating whole new areas of study and development in the kingdom. One of the most majestic and famous results of this is the Taj Mahal, recognised by people all throughout the world as a true product of the Mughal Dynasty and proof of the Mughals wealth and ingenuity, combining traditional Indian and Persian architecture and as a result creating something so beautiful it is considered one of the world’s greatest wonders.