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| Wednesday, 13 October 2004 |
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From Xi'an to Kasghar on the old Silk Road by Derrick Schokman Being beguiled by the Silk Road is nothing new. Ever since Marco Polo first told the story of his visit to the court of Kubla Khan in 13th century China, this trade route has inspired generations of writers and storytellers, and is now a growing tourist attraction.
It is an important part of the history of cultural interaction between the Orient and the Occident. When the Romans developed a taste for Chinese silk, travelling merchants begun to sell their wares to a chain of markets across Central Asia, giving birth to this ancient trade route. Beginning at Xi'an, capital of China during the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD), the old Silk Road proceeds to Fort Jiayugan at the end of the Great Wall and on to Dunhuang, the "Sand City" of Marco Polo. The most difficult part of this ancient trade route was from Dunhuang through the landlocked Chinese province of Sinkiang, a mountain girt wilderness where the heart is pure desert. It proceeds along the northern periphery of the Taklamakan desert, linking the oasis towns of Turfan, Korla, Kuqa and Aksu with Kasghar on the border of present Pakistan. The most important merchantdise that travelled this route may have been silk. There were, however, other things too - ideas, faiths and technologies which travelled alongside the merchantdise. The Silk Road was a vital conduit along which cultural innovations and the technical inventions of China leaked out to the West - paper money, printing, gunpowder and a meritocratic civil service, the very building blocks of modern Europe. And going the other way from North India was Buddhism which transformed China the Far East. Buddhism The Big Goose Pagoda in Xi'an was built by Emperor Gaozong in 652 to honour the great Chinese Buddhist traveller and translator Xu'an Zang.Xuan went to India on a literary quest for authentic Sanskrit Buddhist texts, and returned with a rich load of Buddhist scriptures which he translated into Chinese. The Pagoda has some splendidly carved images of the Buddha. In the hills South-East of Dunhuang is one of the richest sources of Buddhist art. Frescoes and sculptures abound in the hundreds of cave shrines nearly 2000 years old. Giant Tang Buddhas may be seen undamaged in their multi-ringed haloes and mandorlas. Oasis town Our next stop is Turfan, the most interesting Oasis town along the Northern periphery of the Taklamakan. The climate there is so hot in Summer that they say you can boil an egg by burying it in the sand. In winter it is the coldest spot in China. In this rainless land one is surprised to come across lush crops of wheat, maize,cotton and vegetables. The seedless grapes of Turfan are famous throughout China. Fertility is maintained by more than 400 man-made subterranean water courses, which are supplied by underground springs from the nearby "Flaming Mountains", so called because the wind-eroded red earth lights up like a fire when the sun catches it. In these mountains may be seen the ruins of Ganchang, a provincial capital of the 6th and 7th centuries, which seems to have stood midstream between Eastern and Western cultures. There are stupas, Persian-type tombs, ruins of Christian and Manichean monasteries, and Buddhist sculptures that bear Greek influence. It is believed that some 50,000 people occupied this city. In the "Flaming Mountains" at Bezeklik is another Buddhist Cave Centre, carved out between the 4th and 14th centuries. Frescoes and life-sized painted Stucco Buddha images were found when the caves were excavated at the beginning of the 20th century.
In Turfan itself there is the Suleiman Mosque and Emin Minaret, commissioned by Emil Hoja in 1777, and designed by a Uighur architect. It is made of unglazed mud bricks in the Afghan style. The Uighurs who have settled in this area are Muslims of Turkic origin, like the Uzbeks, Kazaks and Kirgiz who occupied the heart of the silk Road - a lost Turkic nation which never united. Muslims Present day tours of this region are no longer arduous, dangerous and slow-moving. There are no more camel caravans. Today most people travel by Land Rover, or by a combination of bus and train. From Turfan, along the foot of the Tian Shan or "Heavenly Mountains", the Silk Road is paved all 800 miles to Kashgar. The Sunday Market in Kashgar is one of the largest in Central Asia. The Bazaar in central square is renowned for its daggers, jade, pottery and rugs. The Aidkah Mosque built in 1442 is famed for its Friday afternoon prayers, which are attended by some 10,000 devotees who come in by the truckload. There is also the beautiful Apak Hoja Tomb, build by Emperor Quianlong in memory of a favourite concubine whose body, it is said, did not decompose on death. This mausoleum is therefore alternatively referred to as the Tomb of the Fragrant concubine. Our travelogue ends here, but the old Silk Road continued from Kashgar over the Terek Pass to Samarakand, or by way of the Wakhan Corridor past the Hindu Kush to Balk and Merv and on to Constantinople via Syria and Baghdad. South of the Hindu Kush the fertile Bamiyan Valley had a long association with trade, but it is best known for the two giant Buddha images carved in its sandstone cliffs. These images attracted pilgrims for 1400 years until the Taliban destroyed them in 2001. **** Back **** |
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