Reading section 23

[Footnote 430: Dâna, śîla, kshânti, vîrya, dhyâna, prajñâ.]

[Footnote 431: Maitrî, karunâ, muditâ, upekshâ.]

[Footnote 432: The Kâraṇḍavyûha teaches a somewhat similar doctrine of creative emanations. Avalokita, Brahmâ, Śiva, Vishṇu and others all are evolved from the original Buddha spirit and proceed to evolve the world.]

[Footnote 433: The use of this word, as a name for the residence of Vairocana, seems to be peculiar to our author.]

[Footnote 434: This term may include Śivaite ascetics as well as Buddhist monks.]

[Footnote 435: See further discussion in Kern's edition, p. 16.]

[Footnote 436: As are the Panchpirs in modern India.]

[Footnote 437: Garbha. Up. 1 and 3, especially the phrase asmin pancâtmake śarîre. Piṇḍa Up. 2. Bhinne pancâtmake dehe. Mahâ Nâr. Up. 23. Sa vâ esha purushaḥ pancadhâ pancâtmâ.]

[Footnote 438: See Kern, "Over de Vermenging van Civaisme en Buddhisme op Jâva" in _Vers. en Meded. der Kon. Akad. van Wet. Afd. Lett_. 3 _R. 5 Deel_, 1888.

For the Sutasomajâtaka see Speyer's translation of the Jâtakamâlâ, pp. 291-313, with his notes and references. It is No. 537 in the Pali Collection of Jâtakas.]

[Footnote 439: See Nanjio Cat. Nos. 137, 138.]

[Footnote 440: Gotama, Kassapa, Konâgamana and Kakusandha.]

[Footnote 441: About 950-1050 A.D. Fergusson, _Hist. of Indian Architecture_, II. p. 141.]

[Footnote 442: See Knebel, "Recherches préparatoires concernant Krishna et les bas reliefs des temples de Java" in _Tijdschrift_, LI. 1909, pp. 97-174.]

[Footnote 443: In Camboja the result seems to have been double. Pali Buddhism entered from Siam and ultimately conquered all other forms of religion, but for some time Mahayanist Buddhism, which was older in Camboja, revived and received Court patronage.]

[Footnote 444: Chap. 37.]

[Footnote 445: "Bijdrage tot de Kennis van het Mahâyâna opJava" in _Bijd. tot de Taal Lund en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, 1901 and 1902.]

[Footnote 446: This use of advaya and advayavâdin strengthens the suspicion that the origins of the Advaita philosophy are to be sought in Buddhism.]

[Footnote 447: It uses the word trikâya but expressly defines it as meaning Kâya, vâk and citta.]

[Footnote 448: In a passage which is not translated from the Sanskrit and may therefore reflect the religious condition of Java.]

[Footnote 449: So too in the Sutasoma Jâtaka Amoghasiddhi is said to be Vishṇu.]

[Footnote 450: See Juynboll in _Bijdragen tot de Taal Land en Volkenkunde van Ned.-Indië_, 1908, pp. 412-420.]

[Footnote 451: Veth, _Java_, vol. IV. p. 154. The whole chapter contains much information about the Hindu elements in modern Javanese religion.]

[Footnote 452: See Veth, _l.c._ and _ngelmoe_ in _Encycl. van Nederlandsch-Indië. _]

[Footnote 453: Also to some extent in Lombok. The Balinese were formerly the ruling class in this island and are still found there in considerable numbers.]

[Footnote 454: It has even been suggested that hinduized Malays carried some faint traces of Indian religion to Madagascar. See _T'oung Pao_ 1906, p. 93, where Zanahari is explained as Yang ( = God in Malay) Hari.]

[Footnote 455: Groeneveldt, pp. 19, 58, 59.]

[Footnote 456: This word appears to be the Sanskrit area, an image for worship.]

[Footnote 457: _E.g._ Van Eerde, "Hindu Javaansche en Balische Eeredienst" in _Bijd. T.L. en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, 1910. I visited Bali in 1911.]

[Footnote 458: See Pleyte, _Indonesian Art_, 1901, especially the seven-headed figure in plate XVI said to be Krishna.]

CHAPTER XLI

CENTRAL ASIA

1

The term Central Asia is here used to denote the Tarim basin, without rigidly excluding neighbouring countries such as the Oxus region and Badakshan. This basin is a depression surrounded on three sides by high mountains: only on the east is the barrier dividing it from China relatively low. The water of the whole area discharges through the many branched Tarim river into Lake Lobnor. This so-called lake is now merely a flooded morass and the basin is a desert with occasional oases lying chiefly near its edges. The fertile portions were formerly more considerable but a quarter of a century ago this remote and lonely region interested no one but a few sportsmen and geographers. The results of recent exploration have been important and surprising. The arid sands have yielded not only ruins, statues and frescoes but whole libraries written in a dozen languages. The value of such discoveries for the general history of Asia is clear and they are of capital importance for our special subject, since during many centuries the Tarim region and its neighbouring lands were centres and highways for Buddhism and possibly the scene of many changes whose origin is now obscure. But I am unfortunate in having to discuss Central Asian Buddhism before scholars have had time to publish or even catalogue completely the store of material collected and the reader must remember that the statements in this chapter are at best tentative and incomplete. They will certainly be supplemented and probably corrected as year by year new documents and works of art are made known.

Tarim, in watery metaphor, is not so much a basin as a pool in a tidal river flowing alternately to and from the sea. We can imagine that in such a pool creatures of very different provenance might be found together. So currents both from east to west and from west to east passed through the Tarim, leaving behind whatever could live there: Chinese administration and civilization from the east: Iranians from the west, bearing with them in the stream fragments that had drifted from Asia Minor and Byzantium, while still other currents brought Hindus and Tibetans from the south.

One feature of special interest in the history of the Tarim is that it was in touch with Bactria and the regions conquered by Alexander and through them with western art and thought. Another is that its inhabitants included not only Iranian tribes but the speakers of an Aryan language hitherto unknown, whose presence so far east may oblige us to revise our views about the history of the Aryan race. A third characteristic is that from the dawn of history to the middle ages warlike nomads were continually passing through the country. All these people, whether we call them Iranians, Turks or Mongols had the same peculiarity: they had little culture of their own but they picked up and transported the ideas of others. The most remarkable example of this is the introduction of Islam into Europe and India. Nothing quite so striking happened in earlier ages, yet tribes similar to the Turks brought Manichæism and Nestorian Christianity into China and played no small part in the introduction of Buddhism.

A brief catalogue of the languages represented in the manuscripts and inscriptions discovered will give a safe if only provisional idea of the many influences at work in Central Asia and its importance as a receiving and distributing centre. The number of tongues simultaneously in use for popular or learned purposes was remarkably large. To say nothing of great polyglot libraries like Tun-huang, a small collection at Toyog is reported as containing Indian, Manichæan, Syriac, Sogdian, Uigur and Chinese books. The writing materials employed were various like the idioms and include imported palm leaves, birch bark, plates of wood or bamboo, leather and paper, which last was in use from the first century A.D. onwards. In this dry atmosphere all enjoyed singular longevity.

Numerous Sanskrit writings have been found, all dealing with religious or quasi religious subjects, as medicine and grammar were then considered to be. Relatively modern Mahayanist literature is abundant but greater interest attaches to portions of an otherwise lost Sanskrit canon which agree in substance though not verbally with the corresponding passages in the Pali Canon and are apparently the original text from which much of the Chinese Tripitaka was translated. The manuscripts hitherto published include Sûtras from the Samyukta and Ekottara Agamas, a considerable part of the Dharmapada, and the Prâtimoksha of the Sarvâstivâdin school. Fa-Hsien states that the monks of Central Asia were all students of the language of India and even in the seventh century Hsüan Chuang tells us the same of Kucha. Portions of a Sanskrit grammar have been found near Turfan and in the earlier period at any rate Sanskrit was probably understood in polite and learned society. Some palm leaves from Ming-Ŏi contain fragments of two Buddhist religious dramas, one of which is the Sâriputra-prakaraṇa of Aśvaghosha. The handwriting is believed to date from the epoch of Kanishka so that we have here the oldest known Sanskrit manuscripts, as well as the oldest specimens of Indian dramatic art[459]. They are written like the Indian classical dramas in Sanskrit and various forms of Prâkrit. The latter represent hitherto unknown stages in the development of Indian dialects and some of them are closely allied to the language of Aśoka's inscriptions. Another Prâkrit text is the version of the Dharmapada written in Kharoshṭhî characters and discovered by the Dutreuil de Rhins mission near Khotan[460], and numerous official documents in this language and alphabet have been brought home by Stein from the same region. It is probable that they are approximately coeval with the Kushan dynasty in India and the use of an Indian vernacular as well as of Sanskrit in Central Asia shows that the connection between the two countries was not due merely to the introduction of Buddhism.

Besides these hitherto unknown forms of Prâkrit, Central Asia has astonished the learned world with two new languages, both written in a special variety of the Brahmi alphabet called Central Asian Gupta. One is sometimes called Nordarisch and is regarded by some authorities as the language of the Śakas whose incursions into India appear to have begun about the second century B.C. and by others as the language of the Kushans and of Kanishka's Empire. It is stated that the basis of the language is Iranian but strongly influenced by Indian idioms[461]. Many translations of Mahayanist literature (for instance the Suvarṇaprabhâsa, Vajracchedikâ and Aparimitâyus Sûtras) were made into it and it appears to have been spoken principally in the southern part of the Tarim basin[462]. The other new language was spoken principally on its northern edge and has been called Tokharian, which name implies that it was the tongue of the Tokhars or Indoscyths[463]. But there is no proof of this and it is safer to speak of it as the language of Kucha or Kuchanese. It exists in two different dialects known as A and B whose geographical distribution is uncertain but numerous official documents dated in the first half of the seventh century show that it was the ordinary speech of Kucha and Turfan. It was also a literary language and among the many translations discovered are versions in it of the Dharmapada and Vinaya. It is extremely interesting to find that this language spoken by the early and perhaps original inhabitants of Kucha not only belongs to the Aryan family but is related more nearly to the western than the eastern branch. It cannot be classed in the Indo-Iranian group but shows perplexing affinities to Latin, Greek, Keltic, Slavonic and Armenian[464]. It is possible that it influenced Chinese Buddhist literature[465].

Besides the "Nordarisch" mentioned above which was written in Brahmi, three other Iranian languages have left literary remains in Central Asia, all written in an alphabet of Aramaic origin. Two of them apparently represent the speech of south-western Persia under the Sassanids, and of north-western Persia under the Arsacids. The texts preserved in both are Manichæan but the third Iranian language, or Sogdian, has a more varied literary content and offers Buddhist, Manichæan and Christian texts, apparently in that chronological order. It was originally the language of the region round Samarkand but acquired an international character for it was used by merchants throughout the Tarim basin and spread even to China. Some Christian texts in Syriac have also been found.

The Orkhon inscriptions exhibit an old Turkish dialect written in the characters commonly called Runes and this Runic alphabet is used in manuscripts found at Tun-huang and Miran but those hitherto published are not Buddhist. But another Turkish dialect written in the Uigur alphabet, which is derived from the Syriac, was (like Sogdian) extensively used for Buddhist, Manichæan and Christian literature. The name Uigur is perhaps more correctly applied to the alphabet than the language[466] which appears to have been the literary form of the various Turkish idioms spoken north and south of the Tien-shan. The use of this dialect for Buddhist literature spread considerably when the Uigurs broke the power of Tibet in the Tarim basin about 860 and founded a kingdom themselves: it extended into China and lasted long, for Sûtras in Uigur were printed at Peking in 1330 and Uigur manuscripts copied in the reign of K'ang Hsi (1662-1723) are reported from a monastery near Suchow[467]. I am informed that a variety of this alphabet written in vertical columns is still used in some parts of Kansu where a Turkish dialect is spoken. Though Turkish was used by Buddhists in both the east and west of the Tarim basin, it appears to have been introduced into Khotan only after the Moslim conquest. Another Semitic script, hitherto unknown and found only in a fragmentary form, is believed to be the writing of the White Huns or Hephthalites.

As the Tibetans were the predominant power in the Tarim basin from at least the middle of the eighth until the middle of the ninth century, it is not surprising that great stores of Tibetan manuscripts have been found in the regions of Khotan, Miran and Tun-huang. In Turfan, as lying more to the north, traces of Tibetan influence, though not absent, are fewer. The documents discovered must be anterior to the ninth century and comprise numerous official and business papers as well as Buddhist translations[468]. They are of great importance for the history of the Tibetan language and also indicate that at the period when they were written Buddhism at most shared with the Bön religion the allegiance of the Tibetans. No Manichæan or Christian translations in Tibetan have yet been discovered.

Vast numbers of Chinese texts both religious and secular are preserved in all the principal centres and offer many points of interest among which two may be noticed. Firstly the posts on the old military frontier near Tun-huang have furnished a series of dated documents ranging from 98 B.C. to 153 A.D.[469] There is therefore no difficulty in admitting that there was intercourse between China and Central Asia at this period. Secondly, some documents of the T'ang dynasty are Manichæan, with an admixture of Buddhist and Taoist ideas[470].

The religious monuments of Central Asia comprise stupas, caves and covered buildings used as temples or vihâras. Buddhist, Manichæan and Christian edifices have been discovered but apparently no shrines of the Zoroastrian religion, though it had many adherents in these regions, and though representations of Hindu deities have been found, Hinduism is not known to have existed apart from Buddhism[471]. Caves decorated for Buddhist worship are found not only in the Tarim basin but at Tun-huang on the frontier of China proper, near Ta-t'ung-fu in northern Shensi, and in the defile of Lung-mên in the province of Ho-nan. The general scheme and style of these caves are similar, but while in the last two, as in most Indian caves, the figures and ornaments are true sculpture, in the caves of Tun-huang and the Tarim not only is the wall prepared for frescoes, but even the figures are executed in stucco. This form of decoration was congenial to Central Asia for the images which embellished the temple walls were moulded in the same fashion. Temples and caves were sometimes combined, for instance at Bäzäklik where many edifices were erected on a terrace in front of a series of caves excavated in a mountain corner. Few roofed buildings are well preserved but it seems certain that some were high quadrilateral structures, crowned by a dome of a shape found in Persia, and that others had barrel-shaped roofs, apparently resembling the chaityas of Ter and Chezarla[472]. Le Coq states that this type of architecture is also found in Persia[473]. The commonest type of temple was a hall having at its further end a cella, with a passage behind to allow of circumambulation. Such halls were frequently enlarged by the addition of side rooms and sometimes a shrine was enclosed by several rectangular courts[474].

Many stupas have been found either by themselves or in combination with other buildings. The one which is best preserved (or at any rate reproduced in greatest detail)[475] is the Stupa of Rawak. It is set in a quadrangle bounded by a wall which was ornamented on both its inner and outer face by a series of gigantic statues in coloured stucco. The dome is set upon a rectangular base disposed in three stories and this arrangement is said to characterize all the stupas of Turkestan as well as those of the Kabul valley and adjacent regions.

This architecture appears to owe nothing to China but to include both Indian (especially Gandharan) and Persian elements. Many of its remarkable features, if not common elsewhere, are at least widely scattered. Thus some of the caves at Ming-Ŏi have dome-like roofs ornamented with a pattern composed of squares within squares, set at an angle with each other. A similar ornamentation is reported from Pandrenthan in Kashmir and from Bamian[476].

The antiquities of Central Asia include frescoes executed on the walls of caves and buildings, and paintings on silk paper[477]. The origin and affinities of this art are still the subject of investigation and any discussion of them would lead me too far from my immediate subject. But a few statements can be made with some confidence. The influence of Gandhara is plain in architecture, sculpture, and painting. The oldest works may be described as simply Gandharan but this early style is followed by another which shows a development both in technique and in mythology. It doubtless represents Indian Buddhist art as modified by local painters and sculptors. Thus in the Turfan frescoes the drapery and composition are Indian but the faces are eastern asiatic. Sometimes however they represent a race with red hair and blue eyes.

On the whole the paintings testify to the invasion of Far Eastern art by the ideas and designs of Indian Buddhism rather than to an equal combination of Indian and Chinese influence but in some forms of decoration, particularly that employed in the Khan's palace at Idiqutshähri[478], Chinese style is predominant. It may be too that the early pre-buddhist styles of painting in China and Central Asia were similar. In the seventh century a Khotan artist called Wei-ch'ih Po-chih-na migrated to China, where both he and his son Wei-ch'ih I-sêng acquired considerable fame.

Persian influence also is manifest in many paintings. A striking instance may be seen in two plates published by Stein[479] apparently representing the same Boddhisattva. In one he is of the familiar Indian type: the other seems at first sight a miniature of some Persian prince, black-bearded and high-booted, but the figure has four arms. As might be expected, it is the Manichæan paintings which are least Indian in character. They represent a "lost late antique school[480]" which often recalls Byzantine art and was perhaps the parent of mediæval Persian miniature painting.

The paintings of Central Asia resemble its manuscripts. It is impossible to look through any collection of them without feeling that currents of art and civilization flowing from neighbouring and even from distant lands have met and mingled in this basin. As the reader turns over the albums of Stein, Grünwedel or Le Coq he is haunted by strange reminiscences and resemblances, and wonders if they are merely coincidences or whether the pedigrees of these pictured gods and men really stretch across time and space to far off origins. Here are coins and seals of Hellenic design, nude athletes that might adorn a Greek vase, figures that recall Egypt, Byzantium or the Bayeux tapestry, with others that might pass for Christian ecclesiastics; Chinese sages, Kṛishṇa dancing to the sound of his flute, frescoes that might be copied from Ajanta, winged youths to be styled cupids or cherubs according to our mood[481].

Stein mentions[482] that he discovered a Buddhist monastery in the terminal marshes of the Helmund in the Persian province of Seistan, containing paintings of a Hellenistic type which show "for the first time _in situ_ the Iranian link of the chain which connects the Græco-Buddhist art of extreme north-west India with the Buddhist art of Central Asia and the Far East."

Central Asian art is somewhat wanting in spontaneity. Except when painting portraits (which are many) the artists do not seem to go to nature or even their own imagination and visions. They seem concerned to reproduce some religious scene not as they saw it but as it was represented by Indian or other artists.

2

Only one side of Central Asian history can be written with any completeness, namely its relations with China. Of these some account with dates can be given, thanks to the Chinese annals which incidentally supply valuable information about earlier periods. But unfortunately these relations were often interrupted and also the political record does not always furnish the data which are of most importance for the history of Buddhism. Still there is no better framework available for arranging our data. But even were our information much fuller, we should probably find the history of Central Asia scrappy and disconnected. Its cities were united by no bond of common blood or language, nor can any one of them have had a continuous development in institutions, letters or art. These were imported in a mature form and more or less assimilated in a precocious Augustan age, only to be overwhelmed in some catastrophe which, if not merely destructive, at least brought the ideas and baggage of another race.

It was under the Emperor Wu-ti (140-87 B.C.) of the Han dynasty that the Chinese first penetrated into the Tarim basin. They had heard that the Hsiung-nu, of whose growing power they were afraid, had driven the Yüeh-chih westwards and they therefore despatched an envoy named Chang Ch'ien in the hope of inducing the Yüeh-chih to co-operate with them against the common enemy. Chang Ch'ien made two adventurous expeditions, and visited the Yüeh-chih in their new home somewhere on the Oxus. His mission failed to attain its immediate political object but indirectly had important results, for it revealed to China that the nations on the Oxus were in touch with India on one hand and with the more mysterious west on the other. Henceforth it was her aim to keep open the trade route leading westwards from the extremity of the modern Kansu province to Kashgar, Khotan and the countries with which those cities communicated. Far from wishing to isolate herself or exclude foreigners, her chief desire was to keep the road to the west open, and although there were times when the flood of Buddhism which swept along this road alarmed the more conservative classes, yet for many centuries everything that came in the way of merchandize, art, literature, and religion was eagerly received. The chief hindrance to this intercourse was the hostility of the wild tribes who pillaged caravans and blocked the route, and throughout the whole stretch of recorded history the Chinese used the same method to weaken them and keep the door open, namely to create or utilize a quarrel between two tribes. The Empire allied itself with one in order to crush the second and that being done, proceeded to deal with its former ally.