Buddha-Dharma: Pure and Simple Chapter 1 Introduction 1 2 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road Significant links between China and India, where Buddhism spread, have existed for centuries. It was inevitable that the two regions would be in contact since they represented the largest and most important populations and cultural centers of the eastern part of Eurasia. While the political boundaries, that marked the expanse of empires and kingdoms of both cultural regions, were physically relatively close to one another, there were formidable geological barriers that kept them apart. The highest mountain range on earth, with a number of the world’s large and fast-flowing rivers draining those slopes, were difficult to surmount and ford. The high mountains cast “rain shadows” to the northern interior basins. Without rainfall, the high-pressure systems of summer helped to make these areas some of the hottest and driest places on the planet. These were major challenges to land-based contacts. 1. Cross-Regional Connections in Eurasia The major reason for interaction between distant places was commercial activity driven by consumer demand for items not available locally. Trade flowed from ancient times down rivers to seaports or along hinterland roads often connected to river systems. Each of these methods of transportation required some form of energy. In the days of early Buddhist dissemination, there were only a few sources of this power for moving cargo from one place to another: river currents, ocean winds and tides, as well as humans and animals. There was no other mechanism other than winds, currents, and muscle for travel. While backpack traders were serving local communities, human bodies are not capable of moving large amounts of goods for commercial trade over long distances. The roads were often caravan routes where camels, oxen, and horses each could move Chapter 1 Introduction several hundred pounds of cargo. To make the transport profitable, there were caravans of many animals being moved en masse, laden with goods. Even with large numbers of animals being used to transport goods, it was not an efficient procedure. Caravans could usually only move along a relay system with the merchandise being loaded and unloaded as it was transferred from one trader to another. The process was expensive and slow. Relay did have the advantage of allowing merchants to move back and forth within a limited range of travel and thus remain nearer home and in areas where they understood the languages. It was rare for the same animals and personnel to traverse hundreds of miles. Most caravan merchants traveled back and forth over familiar territory. It was possible for goods and people to accompany the traders but to go over longer distances making use of multiple relay transfers. Thus, in Inner Asia, such trade patterns provided a means for individuals to move from one relay circuit to another and make a journey all the way from China to India. a. Comparisons between Land Routes and Waterways The cheaper and faster medium for commercial travel was water, either rivers or the sea. While a camel might carry as much as three hundred pounds, oceangoing ships could have four hundred tons or more onboard. When sailing across the open sea, ships moved twenty-four hours a day, while animal caravans had to pause each day for rest and food. The ORBIS research project at Stanford University studying how grain was shipped to Rome gives us proof of the difference in cost between land and water. Grain that was more than a few miles from water portage was too expensive to ship. This data shows that this was true throughout the Mediterranean basin. We can only imagine how much expense and 3 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road 4 Russia Buryatia Kazakhstan Chita Tuva Altai Mongolia Kalmykia Inner Mongolia Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Xinjiang Turkmenistan Tajikistan Afghanistan China Iran Mainland China Tibet Pakistan Nepal Bhutan Inner Asia India Fig. 1.1 Inner Asia Inner Asia is a geographic concept commonly used in Western historical studies since the nineteenth century. The dark grey region shown in the map is the geographical area of Inner Asia as defined by the Sinor Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies at Indiana University, USA. Chapter 1 Introduction time would be involved in the transport of goods five thousand miles across land from China to the Mediterranean. In the past, the difficulties of making an income from the limitations of long-distance land travel were explained by the idea of high-value/low-volume items. But this is not the case for sea travel where the opposite was true, low-value/high-volume was the source of much of the wealth. We see this most recently in the artifacts from the shipwreck at Belitung where 60,000 items of mainly low-value ceramics were being sent from the kilns of China to Persia. The ship’s cargo had a relatively small amount of high-value and low-volume cargo, indicating that ships would carry both types of merchandise long distances. Perhaps the best example of a high-value and low-volume product would be aromatic musk where a few ounces had much value since it could be diluted to minute amounts and still be usable. However, the international trading system of hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors with even larger numbers of port personnel was never designed for low volume. b. Seasonal Winds as Energy Source In the pre-industrial age, water current was a major source of energy, since it could provide both flotation and downhill movement. While the sea carried people and goods away from river mouths, the flow of water coming down from the hinterland was a crucial aspect of transport. The rivers were best used to move objects toward the sea, while going against the movement of the water to transport upstream was a much more complicated and expensive venture. Many rivers have a tidal pattern that can reverse the flow and help vessels move for short distances inland. In most cases, animals and humans had to provide the muscle power to take a boat back upstream. The most effective pre-modern transport was one 5 6 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road in which it was possible to combine wind currents and water and that was the advantage of maritime systems of trade. There are water currents in the oceans, but they were secondary to the power of wind for moving vessels long distances in the maritime world. It took centuries for sailors and other observers to gather and pass on information about the nature of the winds that filled the sails of their ships. For example, the observation that a regular yearly pattern of wind blew across the Indian Ocean allowed people to plan and profit from the trade using ships that rode across the sea pushed by the air currents. Today, we refer to this pattern as the monsoon winds that blow for six months west to east and then reverse and go from east to west. For any journey across the open sea, it is crucial to know the speed and location of this energy source. c. Knowledge about Monsoon Winds West Asia seamen were probably the first to know of the yearly cycle of winds between Africa and India. Greek sailors also looked for information about the monsoons and in 120 BCE Hippolus Fig. 1.2 Sculpture of Greek geographer Poseidonius Chapter 1 Introduction is said to have clocked the speed of those winds. Once they had measured the velocity of the seasonal winds across the Indian Ocean, they were able to calculate the use of these energy currents. They discovered that the speed of the wind and the length of the time it blew in one direction was fast enough to make a journey from the Red Sea to the eastern shores of India within the space of time that ships could provide sufficient food and water for those on board. With this data in hand, they had the assurance to set up regular sailing circuits that extended far from the coastline. Knowing the wind speed and regularity, they knew that it was possible to sail from the Horn of Africa across the Indian Ocean to the western coastline of India within the summer monsoon season. The monsoon winds were like “wind rivers’’ that permitted the sailors using them to estimate their landing spots. Since longitude was not yet part of the available information for sea travel, it was easy to lose one’s way on the open sea. However, with the predictable flow of wind from the Red Sea to the Indian shores, navigation required the vessels to hold to latitude 120, which would take them from Africa to the Malabar coast. In one sense, they had to merely remain in the wind and allow it to blow them on its track. The knowledge of the sub-continent described by the Greek geographer Poseidonius (100 BCE) established that the orientation of the landmass was northsouth. That meant that it extended far south of the Persian coastline and one could sail across the Indian Ocean with the comfort of knowing that India was hard to miss. Because the flow was known to reverse and blow at about the same speed in the opposite direction during winter, they could plan to go from the Red Sea to India and return within a year. In this way, Persians, Arabs, Indians, and GrecoRomans made long-distance sailing a reality and helped to drive the maritime trade to new heights of importance for the whole of Eurasia. When Strabo the Roman historian traveled to Southern Egypt in 26 BCE at the beginning of the 7 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road 8 monsoon season, he was told that a hundred or more ships were anchored out at sea waiting for the winds to arrive and carry them to India. The wealth that was being carried back and forth in this fashion was an important element in the trade patterns that developed from ports in India and Sri Lanka that served as entrepôts for the routes going further to Southeast Asia and China. Fig. 1.3 Southwest monsoons From May to October, the southwest monsoons blow across the Indian Ocean. Ships departing from Sri Lanka or Southern India would travel eastwards, making landfall along the Thai-Malay Peninsula. N China Afghanistan Tibet Iran Pakistan Bangladesh Myanmar Red Sea Laos Saudi Arabia Thailand India Vietnam Bay of Bengal Arabian Sea Cambodia Malaysia Indonesia Chapter 1 Introduction d. Impact of Monsoon Pattern on Maritime Activity The monsoon pattern is created by a build-up of pressure over Inner Asia. It is the heat of spring and summer on the Tibetan plateau, when the high-pressure pulls in air, that causes the wind to blow toward India from Africa. Since the source of the attraction is fixed by the location of the high pressure, the direction of the wind is always toward or away from Inner Asia. When the fall brings cooler weather and the pressure begins to lessen, a reverse flow of air moves from the land across the sea. Monsoon annual wind patterns also occur on the east coast of India and the South China Sea. Although the monsoonal winds were a predictable annual occurrence, it was not possible to sail from India to China in one monsoonal season. This made the early ports of Kedah, Jambi, and Melaka important layovers as traders waited for the winds to change. From May to October, the southwest monsoon blows across the Indian Ocean. Ships departing from Sri Lanka or Southern India would travel eastwards, making landfall along the ThaiMalay Peninsula. From October to December the northeast monsoon blows in the opposite direction that allowed Chinese ships to journey to Southeast Asia and beyond. A trading enterprise from India to China based on the various currents of winds over the Indian Ocean and up into the South China Sea could take up to three years to complete. Indian ships could be found crossing over monsoon patterns and making a journey from Africa to trading polities on the Malaya Peninsula. From Sri Lanka to Champa (Vietnam) mercantile enterprise was dominated by Southeast Asian vessels (Kunlun Bo and Djong) and Arabic ships (Dhou). China remained the major destination for trade goods and mercantile exchange east of India. 9 10 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road Maritime activity was based on both short local coastal sailing circuits as well as those depending on a yearly weather calendar when winds could be used to cross long distances of open sea. The coastal circuits were primarily sailed for fishing. Boats that set out from harbors in these instances stayed within sight of landmarks and made their way with daily wind patterns blowing along the shoreline, the water currents caused by tidal flows, and the use of sails to tack into the wind. These strategies were of little use if one wanted to cross the entire sea and be without sight of land for weeks at a time. While the monsoons were Chapter 1 Introduction the force and direction needed to move ships across the open ocean, these winds were not always positive. They could be destructive. For example, the cyclones and typhoons, generated each summer as part of the monsoon season, battered the Bay of Bengal as well as the eastern coast of China. There was no way to predict the storms or to chart their course. Ships caught up in these violent storms were often either sunk or blown beyond their intended routes. In 748 CE, Jianzhen was blown off course by a typhoon and found himself on the southeast coast of Hainan Island rather than Northern Java. Fig. 1.4 Painting of Master Jianzhen’s journey to Japan in the Tang dynasty Depiction portraying the dangerous scene of Master Jianzhen’s ship sailing across the sea. 11 12 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road 2. Reconstructing the History of Trade Despite all the difficulties, the various connections between China and India have been consistently used, with shifting patterns of activity, over the centuries. Ways were found to overcome the challenges, whether on caravan routes or sailing circuits. It is particularly true that the sea trade between the two regions, extending across the Indian Ocean, continues to be of importance into the present century. The large number of ships coming down the Red Sea and sailing around India and Sri Lanka heading to Chinese ports are following the ancient flow of trade. By contrast, the old inner Asian caravan trade and its routes have ceased to be of significance. However, a revival of sorts can be seen in the recent railroad construction between China and Europe that passes through Inner Asia. While trading routes can be found wherever humans existed, it is important to remember that these may thrive for a time, and then with shifting political, cultural, and technological advances, the routes and settlements along them may be abandoned and all we possess of past glories are ruined archaeological remains. This process of the rise and fall of human settlements is an integral part of the data related to the cultural contacts between South, Inner, and East Asia. Fig. 1.5 Aśoka Pillar Inscriptions The earliest writing in India was found on pillars erected by King Aśoka in the fourth century BCE. Chapter 1 Introduction Fig. 1.6 Aśoka Pillar (Bihar, India) 13 14 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road It is a lament that India did not have a strong tradition of written histories and often only Chinese accounts of pilgrims were available for eye-witness descriptions of life and society. Writing and literacy came late to India, our earliest examples being found on the pillars erected by King Aśoka (fourth century BCE). Without written documents, the early days of Buddhism are often described as “prehistory.” The Atlas of Maritime Buddhism seeks to provide one method of uncovering what was happening over the centuries when the written record is silent. In seeking for these data, the research turns away from the approach of event-structured history. Rather, the focus shifts to an attempt of documenting networks and systems of interchange. The physical artifacts that help to signal the presence of unrecorded activity are tombs, religious structures, trade goods, roadways, docks, shipwrecks, kiln sites, debris from mining, settlement remains, cave shelters, silting patterns, shifting river channels, metal objects, art, tools, precious stone jewelry, bricks, anaerobic preserved wood, stone bridges, and any human-altered object. The discovery and interpretation of these signifiers from the past are most often in the hands of archaeologists. A host of other disciplines are increasingly involved in the dating and purpose of such artifacts. Physicists have provided ways of determining the time of firing for bricks so that the brick structures can now have temporal data as well as location. Chemists can tie ceramic shards to specific kilns and clay deposits thousands of miles from where the piece may have been uncovered. Metallurgy has methods for analyzing metal objects into their component elements and even determining the source of the ore that was used to produce the mix. Without a written document we can know the date of construction and map the sources for the components anywhere in the world. This is more accurate information Chapter 1 Introduction than any author was able to pen in written historical documents hundreds of years ago. Cargos from ships that have rested for centuries on the floor of the sea help us to recreate the purpose and itinerary of an ancient voyage. Wooden statues buried in mud along the canals of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam can be dated, with a high degree of certainty as to the age of the local tree that provided the material for carvers, a thousand five hundred years ago. Stone docks that once provided landing for ocean-going ships are being uncovered far inland, indicating the silting that plagues harbors and sometimes renders them useless. Roadways and bridges constructed of stone may be used to map the travel routes of the past. Ancient and sometimes abandoned caravan routes marked by nodes of ruined cities can be plotted in Inner Asia. While we may not have a written record of events, these data from multiple disciplines provide evidence for the activities and movements of people and objects over time. Using tags and markup to link such information across hundreds of miles, we can begin mapping our information and seeing if patterns emerge pointing to the systems that brought people and objects to certain points of longitude and latitude. These traces, the remainders of the past, in many cases still resonate with the present. Human activity of today often occurs in patterns that are consistent with the ancient ones. Travel routes from Europe to Asia, especially the sea lanes, have not shifted significantly. Thus, we can use current knowledge about the journey to compare with descriptions and available information from the ancient past. It is important that our attempt to uncover history avoids seeing all of these traces as isolated entities. Fortunately, there are some written records that can be used to study all of our material data. Our framing should be broad enough to encompass concepts of a flow of people and systemic activities accompanied by products and culture. 15 16 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road Fig. 1.7 The Sailing Manual: Periplus of the Erythraean Sea A sailing manual of navigation and trade in the first century BCE, provided not only a mariner view of ocean travel across the Western Indian Ocean, but also documented the cargo of the ships. Chapter 1 Introduction a. Cargo and Currency Used in Trade Roman records can be of great help in our study of trade across the southern shores of Eurasia. During the time of the infamous Roman Emperor Nero (27 BCE–14 CE) a sailing manual was produced, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, providing a mariner view of ocean travel across the Western Indian Ocean (i.e., the Erythraean Sea). The cargo for the ships can also be documented. Emperor Domitian (81–96 CE) constructed a huge storage facility for black pepper and spices from South India. When the Huns invaded Rome in the fourth century, they were given tribute in exchange for withdrawal. A sizable part of the payment was made up of three thousand pounds of black pepper from South India. It was available because Rome had built warehouses to hold large quantities of such spices. Rome was a consumer economy and did not have much in the way of manufactured goods to exchange with those who carried goods to them from the eastern parts of the continent. They did have gold and silver coins, and these were used to pay for the items being imported. Fig. 1.8 Gold solidus bearing the name of the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I (491–518 CE) Coin unearthed from an ancient tomb of the Northern Wei dynasty in Luoyang, Henan Province. From archaeological findings, the rare ancient Roman gold coins were used as funerary objects by the noble families of China in the past. 17 18 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road The metals were secured from the conquest of Egypt, as well as the Spanish and Illyrian wars. Some have estimated that Rome took home the equivalent of one billion denarii coins. Clearly, the money situation in the kingdom was famed for its amount and liquidity. They had the gold and silver needed to buy large amounts of goods from abroad. In one sense, this was not using coins as currency so much as an export of these metals from Rome in a recognized form that guaranteed the weight and thus the value of each piece. That is why the debasement of the coinage was detrimental to the exchange. When Emperor Vespasian (69–79 CE) used less gold in his coins, it was immediately noted in the trading circles and slowed the trade arriving in Rome. Thus, the face value of coins was of less significance compared to the amount of gold contained in them. In this way, gold becomes an important part of our study. While the metal itself cannot be dated, coins with images of ruling emperors, are a precise way of dealing with temporality. It is the Roman gold coin that provides a surprise for our study. The written comments of the leaders in the Mediterranean kingdom indicate that the export of gold to Asia to buy silk was so great that the treasury of this wealthiest state in the Mediterranean was being depleted. Thus, the presence and absence of Roman gold coins provide a guide for identifying the major trade routes that linked India to Rome. It is striking that only a handful of Roman gold coins have been found in Chinese archeological excavations. Even those that exist are in many cases local inner Asian forgeries. They often appear in tombs where they were used to weigh down the eyelids of the corpses. These coins do not appear to have been used for commerce but were limited to ritual use. While Roman histories cry out against the fact that their sizable treasury is being emptied to send gold coins to Asia for luxury goods, Chapter 1 Introduction China is not the location for those many gold coins. Rather, the archeological process has shown that South India is the main holder of payment from Rome. This alerts us to the fact that caravans across Eurasia were a smaller component than the maritime trade between the two ends of the continent. It was through the ports of the west coast of India that trade flowed across the Indian Ocean and eventually floated down the Nile to Alexandria. Thousands of Roman gold and silver coins have been discovered in South India and the number increases every year with new archaeological excavations. This is one example of bringing together written documentation with known archeological discoveries. In this case, the destination of Roman precious metal can be documented not to China but to India. Rome was very aware of the existence of India. Strabo included it within the Roman oikoumene, the known parts of the world. He said that one could sail to India within a matter of days if the wind was strong enough. The Roman world was known from Spain to India according to Strabo. b. Means of Transportation and Initial Conception of the Silk Road The monsoon trade across the Indian Ocean had its first ports of entry along the west coast of India. It was here that the main direct contacts of India with Africa, Arabia, and Mediterranean regions existed. The size of the trade in the Red Sea was sufficient to attract pirates and this meant that protection was needed. Military outposts lined the route from Berenike to Koptos to fight off robbers from the valuable items being carried to and from the Red Sea ports tied to Indian commerce. Even aboard ships in the sea, there was a need for a fleet of naval vessels to protect the merchandise until the vessels were well out to sea. Emperor 19 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road 20 Fig. 1.9 “Silk Road,” coined in the nineteenth century by Baron von Richthofen Black Sea Caspian Sea Greece Bactria Mediterranean Sea Persia North Africa ea dS Re Saudi Arabia Arabian Initial route Extended route Chapter 1 Introduction Balkh Xi’an China Tibet India Bay of Bengal Sea 21 22 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road Trajan (98–117 CE) provided much of this protection because trade with India was a major part of the economy of the kingdom. Ships loaded with tons of black pepper or other spices represented huge outlays of gold and silver. One report says three ships that were carrying spice had cargo worth twenty-seven pounds of gold. This type of trade could only be done by groups or individuals who possessed large amounts of wealth. The ports on the west coast of India helped to fuel the extension of the trading networks from the Indian Ocean. Goods in these entrepôts were coming and going to China. One way to make that journey was from the coastline of India through Inner Asia to China. Another way was developed into the expansive networks across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast and East Asia. The Inner Asian caravan routes had to go around the Himalayan western expanse crossing over the Pamirs and Tian Shan ranges, before turning east through the Tarim Basin and the Taklamakan. This route covered six hundred miles of desert, where Buddhist travelers reported that they could find the way by following the bones of dead animals that had perished in the crossing. Such was one link: from the Mediterranean through the sea lanes of the Western Indian Ocean before resorting to land routes through Inner Asia. It is a route that has often been overlooked by those who study the socalled “Silk Road” seeing it only as a single land route across Persia to the West. The name Silk Road, coined in the nineteenth century by Baron von Richthofen, was not at first a description of routes stretching across the continent from China to the Mediterranean. He describes it as starting at Balkh, south of the Oxus River and extending to Xi’an. It was through this route that shipments from and to the western shores of India were transported to China. Richthofen was a geographer and his main interest was to provide a map for the German government to lay a Chapter 1 Introduction railroad that would connect China and Europe. Therefore, his first effort was to make a map from China up to Balkh. However, since the object was to have a route all the way to Europe, he expanded his survey to cover the distance from Balkh to the western part of Eurasia. In this way, the Silk Road came to be seen as a route across all of the continent. His work is not so much a description of ancient caravan routes, as it was plotting for a modern rail system. His vision was a railroad stretching from the seaport of Jiaozhou at Qingdao across Eurasia using the modern industrial energy of coal-driven steam engines. In one way, the sea was a competitor to a trans-Eurasian rail system being proposed by Richthofen and he does not give much attention to the maritime. When the idea of the modern rail route was abandoned by his government, he seems to have lost all interest in the Silk Road and never mentioned it again in his writings. It is in the present that the Belt and Road Initiative of Mainland China has brought a new reality to the vision that Richthofen had more than a century ago. The high-speed rail from Mainland China to Europe is, with little fanfare, being established. Our current literature often describes the complex systems of trade with the metaphor of a road just as Richthofen had done. As a result, we now have suggestions of: Silk, Ceramics, Cotton, Spice, Glass, Gems, and even Tea “roads.” If we consider the major items flowing between Asia and Europe, the list of “roads” could be expanded to include: Sandalwood, Cinnamon, Black Pepper, Gold, Silver, Copper, Cloves, Nutmeg, Pearl, Tortoiseshell, Ivory, Diamonds, Sapphires, Camphor, Frankincense, Incense. Each is a valid approach to the archeological and textual records. However, they are merely accounts of how varied items of trade had a presence in the larger complex by which humans exchanged goods. It is also possible to look at the complex array of trails, river 23 24 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road crossings, inscription locations, and monastic remains that marked the multiple pathways of travelers across hinterland roads. Many of these unnamed roads, which are still discernible, indicate that merchants followed a variety of them over time. While we might name a band of roadways by the products that were carried along them, it may be more accurate to say “the Road of Silk Traders” since it was not only the product but also the people who transported it. c. Flow of Trade: Overland Routes, Sailing Circuits, and Shipbuilding Technology The Atlas of Maritime Buddhism is based on the premise that whatever the product, in pre-modern times, merchandise had to move either by land or water. Caravans of animals made their way over land-based transit zones and ships moved by a series of sailing circuits in the sea or followed embankments of rivers. Thus, we could speak of the sea route as a major “road” just as the caravan routes were a type of major “road.” The combination of sea and land routes can be found throughout the systems of trade. The transfer of goods at the west coast of India for transport across the Inner Asian land bridge to China belongs to this category. One of the other great crossings was the Isthmus of Kra, where the Malaysian Peninsula narrows to a significant degree, and it was faster and perhaps safer to unload and carry goods across it than to sail around the peninsula. The subcontinent of India was, in one sense, a large landmass blocking passage from the Indian Ocean to the eastern shores of Eurasia. It does narrow significantly in the south, and traders had a choice to either circumnavigate it and Sri Lanka or cross the southern tip by land from western seaports to eastern ones using bullock carts to haul merchandise. While the land portion of these dual sea-hinterland Chapter 1 Introduction crossings might be extensive, there were economic factors that tended toward sea and river flotation whenever possible. The land travel cost created a situation where the length of the journey passed beyond the point of reasonable profit. That is why it is important to relook at the passage across Persia to the Mediterranean and to understand the mechanism by which such long distances could be used by a commercially viable enterprise. Baron Richthofen accounted for the drop of commerce to Europe across Persia from China in the thirteenth century by the idea that silk production had been introduced to the West and Chinese silk was no longer a monopoly. Had he given more thought to the sea, he would have noted that the volume of trade between Europe and East Asia was still flowing, but on ships from Egypt, Arabia, and Western European maritime empires that bypassed the caravan routes. The volume of textiles alone could not account for the shifts in trading patterns. It is possible to define eras by technological advances. For example, shipbuilding methods were shifting and developing over time. One might speak of the age of the lanteen sail or the square sail ships, for these were crucial factors in the way in which maritime trade was carried out. At Borobudur in Java in the ninth century, depictions of ships carved in stone on the sides of the monument show at least eleven types, and nearly half of them ocean-going. From the third to the eighth centuries, shipwrecks that have been discovered and brought to the surface are much larger than the ones shown in the reliefs of Borobudur. The newly found wrecks could have accommodated up to a thousand passengers. Their construction was without nails, the boards tied into place by fiber from cane or palms. 25 26 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road By the fifth century, when the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Faxian, boarded a vessel in the Bay of Bengal to travel south to Sri Lanka, the technology represented by that ship was sophisticated. His record of the trip tells us that the ship he was on had two hundred people aboard. In addition, he notes that the crew was not local but they had sailed their ship from the western region of the Indian Ocean. That indicates that the craft was of sufficient strength to withstand long journeys over the open sea. The ship was certainly tested during his first voyage because it encountered a fierce storm, probably a cyclone level of wind speed with accompanying high waves. The crew was frightened for their lives as the elements battered their ship. However, he made it through the storm, a testament to the construction of the vessel. This account alerts us to the complex structure that already existed by 400 CE for maritime trade. Merchant seamen Chapter 1 Introduction were making long trips to both the east and west coasts of India from their homelands in Africa, the Arab world, and Persia. They were part of the commercial activity that was taking place in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Nile River, all portals for trade destined for the Mediterranean Sea. As Faxian’s trip continued toward China, he could report that the ship was able to be at sea as long as seventy-five to eighty days. With two hundred people aboard needing water and food supplies for more than two months, plus the tonnage of cargo, the capacity of the ship to accommodate such requirements is an indication of the impressive technological developments available by the fifth century. From the excavated shipwrecks we now know that Faxian was not exaggerating the size of the vessel, since archaeological research for ships of that period provides examples of much larger crafts. Fig. 1.10 Ship carved on the reliefs of Borobudur Sides of the stone monument at Borobudur in Java show at least eleven types of ships. Nearly half of them can be used for the ocean. 27 28 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road d. Shift in Trading Routes: Political, Cultural, and Technological Advances While difficulties were numerous and onerous, ways were found to overcome the challenges of travel, whether on caravan transit routes or sailing circuits. While trading routes can be found wherever humans existed, it is important to remember that these may thrive for a time, and then with shifting political, cultural, and technological advances, the routes and settlements along them may be abandoned and all we possess of past glories are ruined archaeological remains. This process of the rise and fall of human settlements is an integral part of the data related to the cultural contacts between South and East Asia. One of the significant times for changes was in the third century when the Han dynasty fell and brought an end to the trade with Rome that had long been a factor for maritime activity in East Asia. A new set of actors came into the world of commerce, whether on land or sea. In Western Asia, the Sassanians took over the trade once dominated by Rome. Egyptian and African commerce were in the control of the Axum (Ethiopia) traders. After the Han dynasty in China, the Three Kingdom era divided trade. The Wei kingdom in the north still maintained land trade across the Tarim Basin. It was the Wu group in the south who turned toward the sea and set up their commerce through the ports. When they were followed by the Jin dynasty, maritime trade with Óc Eo in the Mekong Delta, Palembang in Sumatra, as well as ports along the Malay peninsula expanded. Thus, in the first centuries of the Common Era, a growing maritime trade by Indian merchants was directed toward Mainland Southeast Asia and the islands of Java and Sumatra, as routes for Chinese commerce. With the fall of Rome, trade with Africa and Rome was no longer the most profitable one, and so India turned to the eastern rather than Chapter 1 Introduction the western markets. It was not until the fifth century when the Persian Sassanids dominated the Western Indian Ocean trade, especially with Sri Lanka, that once again the western market was an equal focus of commercial activity. The success of trading circuits throughout the islands of Southeast Asia was driven by their rich resources of spices and aromatic woods. China was a major player in the area. As trade and wealth flourished, so did piracy in the seas from Malacca to Vietnam. When Jianzhen had been blown off course to Hainan Island, he discovered that the local chieftain made his wealth by capturing one or two merchant ships from the Western Indian Ocean each year and forcing the crews and passengers to labor for him. During that time, that is the Tang dynasty, the Chinese feared the power of these local rulers who pirated the mercantile fleets and damaged trade and profit. The solution was seen to be creating a strong political base among the hundreds of islands scattered throughout the South Seas. The one bright spot was where rulers in Palembang in Sumatra had achieved an organization for a regional government. By recognizing Palembang as the capital of a “kingdom,” the Chinese gave credence to the idea that a kingdom could rule the islands. In this way, the Tang government helped to define a new kingdom that came to be known as Srivijaya. It was a thalassocracy, which is a state dependent on maritime activity through a network of merchant cities. The confederation of thousands of islands and peninsulas jutting out into the sea must have been a loose one. The inhabitants were multi-ethnic and many spent a great deal of their life at sea. Mediterranean states such as Athens and Phoenicia were also called thalassocracies but each was tied to a hinterland and the population was dominantly of one ethnic heritage with a common language. Srivijaya as a kingdom has been doubted by some historians, but the ruling center at Palembang 29 30 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road Fig. 1.11 Chapter 1 Introduction Fig. 1.12 Buddhist sculptures in the Srivijaya style (circa seventh to thirteenth century) Fig. 1.11 Buddha sheltered by nāga hoods Fig. 1.12 Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva statue Fig. 1.13 Maitreya Buddha statue Fig. 1.13 31 32 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road was, without question, a major trading city and exerted influence over the region. Whatever its nature, this identified political entity of Srivijaya lasted for centuries, from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries before it was absorbed under the power of a new group from the eastern portion of Java that shifted the center of control away from Sumatra. Fig. 1.14 Candi Muara Takus (Sumatra) Built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries during the Srivijayan Era, the site is one of the largest and best-preserved ancient Buddhist temple complexes in Sumatra. Chapter 1 Introduction e. Trade Movement along the River Ports, other than those in a transit zone, depend on a hinterland large enough for the production of goods to be shipped and for markets to sell items being imported. In most cases, such ports are located at the mouth of rivers, which move goods by boatloads. The merchant communities at ports and their compatriots operating sailing craft over long distances were different in kind from groups that moved up and down the rivers. The latter depended on a local system of trade, which was limited to the river and its navigation potential. When some form of navigation was possible up the river, the actual centers for a port area might be distant from the coastline. Angkor Wat, Ayutthaya, and Guangzhou are examples of political and population seats of power that are removed from the immediate seaside, but function much like seaports. The advantages of going upriver allowed them to be closer to production centers and, in addition, gave a barrier to such problems as pirates and invasion from the sea. Once the end of the navigable portion of a river was reached, trade depended on roads and animals for transport. The study of rivers from a cultural point of view needs to be expanded. For large and fast-flowing streams, embankment research is required to deal with the fact that culture and society may not be the same on both embankments of a river. The lack of bridges and the limitations of small ferries often kept the two embankments of Indian rivers apart. When we look at the Buddhist sites on Tamil Nadu rivers, Buddhist monastery remains are found going up the northern embankment while large segments of the southern one are nearly devoid of any signs of activity. Differences in embankments of the Indus River are especially the case in the highlands, where the falling altitude makes for rushing water that extends for miles. Travelers coming from the Tarim Basin followed the west 33 34 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road embankment of the river and there were few spans of any kind over the stream. Faxian’s account of crossing the Indus gives us some idea of how difficult it was in the mountains. He reports that when he came to a crossing, it was terrifying. He had to maneuver along a sheer rock cliff going down seven hundred steps cut into the surface leading down to the rushing water. The river had created a deep narrow ravine through which it poured. Because of the narrow divide, a rope had been strung across and strengthened to provide a way for him to cling to it and get over the torrent. There is no way that the caravans could have made it down the hundreds of steps to reach the rope crossing, so it appears he left the main trade routes along the Western embankment of the Indus and took the shortest route eastward to the Ganges, the homeland of the Buddha. Faxian was making use of what was called the “Northern Road” that linked the Bay of Bengal with the Indus and beyond into Inner Asia. This alerts us to the fact that travel on one embankment of a river was preferable to making a hazardous crossing. Many of those who made the trip up the Indus basin stayed on the west embankment, and when the river turned eastward they continued on to cross the mountains into the Tarim Basin. We are more familiar with the accounts of the arrivals of these travelers arriving from the Inner Asia “roads” than with those who traveled via the seaports. Even though the recorded data is limited, it is possible to construct a view of the maritime group by piecing together information found in several different types of data. For example, Chinese government records provide a third-century view of sites such as Óc Eo in the Mekong Delta. Envoys from China from 245 to 250 CE reported visiting this bustling city built on stilts as a response to the yearly flooding of the river during monsoon season. Today, Óc Eo is a quiet thousand- Chapter 1 Introduction Faxian Fig. 1.15 Faxian’s route to India and his return 35 36 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road acre rice field, with only a small museum at one end. One of the exhibits of the museum is an exposed area showing the remains of building sites and streets that lie just below the surface. These artifacts include images that belong to Brahmanism and Buddhism and it gives us some idea of what the Chinese visitors saw so many centuries ago. This geopolitical visit from China was taking place at the same time that caravans were crossing inner Asia from India heading for Chang’an. The port at Óc Eo was connected through a series of canals with waterways that linked the city to a hinterland stretching all the way to Angkor Wat in the northern area of Cambodia. These pages are but a brief summary of the enormity of the trade that existed across Eurasia. As more data become available, our picture of the complex activities over centuries of time becomes clearer. It is assured that the activities from these traders whether by caravan or ship, have been a part of the history of the whole world and the effects are still echoing in present-day culture and society. Chapter 1 Introduction Fig. 1.16 View of Óc Eo (Ba Thê Mountain, Vietnam) A prosperous port in ancient Funan, located in the Mekong Delta region of present-day An Giang Province. Fig. 1.17 Ruins of a port at Óc Eo (An Giang Province, Vietnam) 37 38 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road Fig. 1.18 Fig. 1.19 Fig. 1.20 Chapter 1 Introduction Óc Eo sculptures from the Museum of Vietnamese History (Ho Chi Minh City) Fig. 1.18 Śākyamuni Buddha seated statue Fig. 1.19 Viṣṇu statue Fig. 1.20 Sun God Sūrya statue Fig. 1.21 Durgā statue Fig. 1.21 39 40 The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road Fig. 1.22 Ancient pagoda (Bình Thạnh District, Tây Ninh Province, Vietnam) Built around the eighth century, the pagoda is a well-preserved example of Óc Eo architecture in southern Vietnam. Fig. 1.23 Close-up of pagoda base Fig. 1.24 Close-up of pagoda carvings