Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Kushans
The peaceable Yuezhi finally came into their own in the 1st century BC
when their descendants, the Kushan dynasty, converted to Buddhism.
The Kushan empire (250 BC-AD 226) grew to control northern India,
Afghanistan and Sogdiana from its base at Kapisa, near modern-day Ba-
gram in Afghanistan. At its height in the first three centuries after Christ,
it was one of the world's four superpowers, alongside Rome, China and
Parthia.
Vigorous trade on the Silk Road helped fuel and spread Kushan and
Buddhist culture. The rich Kushan coinage bears testament to the Silk
Road's lively religious ferment, with coins bearing images of Greek, Ro-
man, Buddhist, Persian and Hindu deities.
The art of the empire further fused Persian imperial imagery, Bud-
dhist iconography and Roman realism to create what is now called
Gandharan art. The fusion of styles was carried over the mountains to
the furthest corners of Transoxiana, Tibet, Kashmir and the Tarim Basin,
where it became termed as Serindian art. Indian, Tibetan and Chinese
art were permanently affected and the spread of Buddhism changed the
face and soul of Asia.
Sassanids, Huns & Sogdians
The Silk Road's first flower faded by about 200 AD, as the Chinese,
Roman, Parthian and Kushan empires went into decline. As the climate
along the middle section of the Silk Road became drier, Central Asian no-
mads increasingly sought wealth by plundering, taxing and conquering
their settled neighbours. The Persian Sassanids (Sassanians) lost their
Inner Asian possessions in the 4th century to the Huns, who ruled a vast
area of Central Asia at the same time that Attila was scourging Europe.
The Huns were followed south across the Syr-Darya by the western
Turks, who in 559 made an alliance with the Sassanids and ousted the
Huns. The western Turks were a branch of the so-called Kök Turks or
Blue Turks, whose ancestral homelands were in southern Siberia.
Historical
Reads
The Great Game,
Peter Hopkirk
The Empire of the
Steppes,
Renee Grousset
Central Asia,
Gavin Hambly
Do a search for
'Central Asia' at
www.loc.gov/
exhibits/empire
for wonderful old
photos of Central
Asia from the
Prokudin-Gorskii
collection.
DRAGON HORSES
Central Asia has been famed for its horses for millennia. The earliet Silk Road excur-
sions into the region were designed to bring back the famous 'blood-sweating' (due to
parasites or skin infection) horses of Fergana to help Han China ight nomadic tribes
harassing its northern frontier. Much of the highly coveted silk that made its way into
Central Asia and beyond originally came from the trade of teeds that the Chinese
believed were descended from dragons.
440-568
The Hephthalites
(White Huns) migrate
from the Altai region to
occupy Transoxiana,
Bactria, Khorasan,
and eastern Persia,
conquering the
Kushans and eventually
carving the Buddhas at
Bamiyan.
630
Chinese Buddhist pil-
grim xuan Zang travels
to India via Issyk-Köl,
Tashkent, Samarkand,
Balkh and Bamiyan
in search of Buddhist
texts. En route he visits
the summer capital
of the Blue Turks at
Tokmak, Kyrgyzstan.
642-712
Arab conquest of
Central Asia by General
Qutaybah ibn Muslim
brings Islam to the
region. Central Asia is
called Mawarannahr
in Arabic - the 'land
Beyond the River'.
719
The Sogdians under
their ruler Devastich
stage a major revolt
against Arab rule.
Devastich lees to the
mountains of northern
Tajikistan but the Arabs
catch and crucify him
three years later.
