Danhaung: Past ot Present?

After the Chinese took control of Dunhaung and drove out the Xiongnu, it became major town and trade hub, as it split the silk road into the northern and southern routes, and all convoys going east to west had to eventually pass from it, or vice versa for convoys coming from west to east which would meet arrive at Dunhaung from either routes. Ofcourse, trade meant merchants, and merchants traveled from distant lands, carrying different beliefs and traditions. Thus, Daunhuang soon became a center for different practices and religions of the time. By the early fifth century, a cliff near the town became home to many temples, excavated as temples.

During the next centuries, Daunhaung changed hands frequently and it experienced many different rulers, with them many different beliefs and practices, which are evident in the different arts in the caves. Different rulers also meant different socio-political situations for its inhabitants. This made Danhaung a diverse community, with different spoken languages and arts.

The officials and aristocracy developed like their neighbors a fondness for steppe riding and falconry. They would spend their time on horses’ back with their hunting dogs and falcons on their arms. They also spent their time drinking wine either from distant lands of now Iran or local wines, which they developed after merchants and travelers, brought with them grape seeds from the west. Drinking gave way to a certain life styles including games and singing, or probably better referred to as partying. It even seemed that drinking took its toll on the social fabrics of the community and lead to social corruptness and misbehaviors. Its really interesting to imagine how similar they could have been to us, and our modern society!!!! Apology letters for being too drunk and having acted out seems to have been very popular among them! Just as it is now with modern ways o communication which carry the same essence as the apology letters. It seems that they even had social clubs for different purposes and gatherings. Like any religious community, most had close relations with their Buddhist priest and monastery. There is also little known of the children at Daunhuang, but there are some detailes explaining the way they dressed, daughters wore same dresses as their mothers, except with different colors robes and ribbons.

An interesting part of everyday life on the Silk Road and at Daunhuang seems to be music and dancing. It seems that music was a big part of everyday life of individuals and that there were various musical instruments which invited dancing to social gatherings or just everyday life. Makes you wonder that they were not much different than we are today!!! Except ofcourse the obvious differences in cultural activities, bus as human beings, it seems that our everyday lives, in essence is not much different, may be more modern and more activities now… but all together we had the same ideas!!!

REbirth or ETERNAL damnation?

I think the narrative of Buddha's life is more than a simple historical tale or a story of how he came to be known as the "Awakened One". The rides he takes into the city are, at least I believe, a very important part of the story. I think story of his life, resembles his transcendence. His father, the king had kept him with in the castle walls for 29 years and had attempted his best to keep the old and sick away from the public eye. And it is with these trips that Siddhartha learns about old age, sickness and death. Thus, he finally vies to search for liberation from all suffering, or what he later refers to attain nirvana. I think the story is a symbol for his teachings. It signifies that no matter hoe hard one tries to ignore the sad and dark realities of life, it will not make them go away.

The king attempted to shield his son from all the darkness of the real world by keeping him in with in the walls, which probably could be resembled for a barrier between ignorance and reality. I think Buddha's teachings are aimed at breaking this barrier and to aim in achieving liberation from suffering, which can only be attained true enlightenment and pursuit of truth. In the end all of it leads to living a good and ethical life, for one is judged in recarnation according to his previous life and deeds.

Recarnation and rebirth are, I think the most intriguing and probably most controversial in compared to other religions. It is interesting to compare it to doctrines of other monotheistic religions, which dictate that one is judged in the after life according to his actions, and will either suffer eternal damnation or eternal peace in heaven. However, the idea of recarnation aims at guiding individuals to be ethical and live a goood life fore the sake of their life here on earth, rather than ignoring their physical life on kingdom of men and aspire for eternal life in kingdom of god. And, I think in this simple comparison one sees how much more practical is the idea of recarnation and living a goood life for the sake of this life rather than live in fear of eternal damnation and striving for eternal peace regardless of the consequences of your actions in following dogmas that supposedly guarantee your place in heaven.

I think Buddhist teachings, as far as any religion, are most practical in living a good life. They aim at teaching the individual ethics and understanding to live a good life. It guides the individual to aspire for a ethical life and responsibility to all creations in this life and not give hope of peace and prosperity in some other life. Also, I think recarnation embodies the true essence of nature, it is in constant mode of continuation.

Zartosht

I found the mystery in Avestan and Pahlavi texts to be very surprising. That even many parsi priests donot completely understand their holy texts, but yet their tradition and culture has endured for more than 3 millennia!

What amazed me when I was going through the article was the close links between Zorastrianism and other later monotheistic religions. It was very interesting to realize certain practices and rituals, and even certain dogmas and doctrines, of monotheistic religions were originally practiced by Zorastrianism.

One of the major doctrines or rather stories that all monotheistic religions share with Zorastrianism is the Judgement day. They all profess that a savior will come to rid of earth all the wickedness and evil!!! In fact where in Christianity Jesus descends on earth from the heavens and in Islam the last Imam would come back to challenge all evils on earth, In Zorastrianism; Soashyant, Zartosht’s son would be born from the seed of him kept in a lake and a virgin mother!!! (interestingly enough almost the same way Jesus came to being). Even praying 5 times a day, which is one of the 5 pillars of Islam, seems to have originated with Zorastrianism.

I find this interesting because all monotheistic religions, or at least their followers believe their religion to be higher than others and hold their religious doctrines as universal, compared to others. But, its very ironic that they should realize majority of their stories, dogmas and religious doctrines originated with an ancient religion, which they probably referred to as primitive and magic oriented. Even if not the same, their practices are awful similar If not the same, than most probably different adaptations of them.

I know this might be a very ignorant argument, but its most definitely an interesting one!!

Religion...

As much as we like it to be and hope that it remains in the private household, religion has gradually penetrated and helped lay the very foundations of today’s society. The concept of the secularist state, separating the two spheres of state and religion is a fairly new concept. This is of course when put in comparison to religious history, which predates the modern state by not few but many centuries. I guess my point here is vaguely that, the modern and secular state attempts to separate religion from the public sphere and reduce it to a private matter with little success. Of course in secular democracies like the United States, religion and state have been completely separated in hope that religion will remain a private matter and limit in its influence on both the state and society. But what we do not realize is that religion has long been a major influence on culture, values and beliefs of humans. In fact, it has been a major force in laying the fabrics of societal relations and cultural practices that have evolved into the modern society. One cannot simply ignore religion’s part in the evolution of society through the ages. In fact, religion takes a much bigger part of our history and culture compare to influences of modern society and modern concept such as secularism. My point here is that, religion had intertwined itself into foundations of society long before the belief that it should be separated and reduced to a private matter. Modern secular democracies like Untied States attempt to limit religion’s influence on politics and matters of public life, but I believe they are unable to detract it from fabrics of society, been sewn long before and evolved as culture and tradition, anytime soon.

I have gone on and on over my point above, but still haven’t touched upon what I believe religion is? I think in the simplest terms, religion for me is the manifestation of human mind in an attempt to explain what seems to be alien to him. It probably began whit trying to explain a supernatural phenomenon such as something as simple of a thunderstorm. Religion and its function grow alongside human evolution. Religion transpired into a human need to believe into something greater than itself, to believe in a higher being responsible for all that was out of their hands, from famine to prosperity. As the human needs grew, so did religion! In my opinion, it worked as supply and demand. As long as there was, a need to believe there was a form of belief, a kind of religion supplied to satisfy that need. Therefore, as humans evolved and so did their needs, religion too evolved and became more complex. It encompassed many deities and gods o satisfy different needs. Until humans reached a stage in their evolution that, they departed with the complex polytheistic beliefs and felt a need in one, all encompassing and knowing, God; to satisfy their needs and for a general guideline for all to live by.

In a few terms, religion is the manifestation of the human mind in satisfying its needs and aspirations. The need to believe into something greater than himself. The need to look for what it feels it cannot gain by humane means and aspirations. The ignorance that he does not define his destiny, that source of all his greatness and what he is able to achieve does not come from him but a higher source. That instead of believing in his capacity to achieve greatness, he feels the need to pray and hope for help from a higher source.

Trade of Religions

I was intrigued by the fact that one of the major commodities being traded along the Silk Road was religion. It was interesting that the Silk Road acted not only as a trade route for exotic objects from distant lands, but also as a cultural bridge between societies. It is fascinating to see how a religion was carried so far from its origin, attracted so many followers in distant lands that even spoke a different language than the original religious texts, which had to be translated. And built temples to worship close by many other temples of different religions. I personally would have never guessed that a Zoroastrian temple could be found so far from its origin, in what would become Persia, in the East as far as Duanhaung in China.

The Sogdians were fascinating people. Having been conquered by Alexander the great, they recovered and dominated trading along the Silk Road for centuries. They traded all sort of exotics from West to East. They are even considered to be responsible for introducing paper-making to Europe. But what intrigues me the most is how successful they became in both trading along the Silk Road and in transmitting culture and technology from West eastwards and back. They were mainly responsible for spreading Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Buddhism along the Silk Road. Whats interesting about this is that their spread had caused a lot of confusion in the East. Manichaeism was based on Iranian traditions with additions of Buddhism and Christianity. So, it caused a lot of confusion with locals practicing Buddhism in a Manichean temple. It is actually funny that group of pious old women were practicing Buddhism in Manichean temple. What is more intriguing than a group of women believing Mani to be Buddha, is the traditions practices by Manicheans. Its rather interesting to know that people practiced vegetarianism that far back. Plus the traditions and beliefs they had is amazing!!! Mani actually believed that reproduction would deteriorate man. That humans possessed light particles and that reproduction would divide them sparsely among their descendents!!! How they aimed at continuing their religion or even their people, no one would know.

Something worth to mention is that the Sogdians were so effective in both spreading their trade and religion that long after they lost domination of the trading routes, Manichaeism continued to exist in far regions of China!

Hou Hanshu

source:http://paper-republic.org/lucasklein/footnotes/

All in all, I think the Hou Hanshu could be considered as a historical writing. I personally believe historical writings to be close to what Fan Ye gathered in Hou Hanshu writings. Historical writings usually have historical events (wars, raids, peace treaties, rebellions, migrations, …) and their corresponding dates. It would probably include names of important individuals during those events, their responsibilities, personalities and outcome of their roles in each event too. Also, it probably includes excerpts and reports of officials about certain events or the everyday interactions of people in towns, villages, cities. Oh, and personal accounts of those involved in journals or papers of generals, soldiers, travelers and so on. And judging based on the great details Fan ye provides, the events and dates he outlines and excerpts he took from various reports and journals of those involved, its kind of obvious that you could consider Hou Hanshu as a historical piece of writing, or at least I would!!!!

I was really amazed by the extent of details in which Fan Ye described the different kingdoms. It kind of amazing how they used to have so much information about different kingdoms in distant lands. I think the number of households, individuals, those able to bear arms and … all constitute ethnographic descriptions. I understand ethnography to be a descriptive study of social life and culture of a specific group based on what they actually do on everyday basis and how they live their lives. Or at least I think that’s what ethnography is!!! What I got from it all is that I felt Fan Ye was really offering a genuine description of the accounts he had of the different kingdoms and I didn’t sense any bias in his descriptions. I guess except when he was describing the Roman Empire, which I felt, he was really romanticizing them too much. Especially after he described them as honest and tall and like the people of middle kingdom (China). And then he goes on and on about how great they are… their governance…. Their food supply… their prices…. The dresses they were… and… !!!

The first thing that comes to mind about the silk road is the vision of a long road stretching from east to west Asia and to Europe, packed with travelers, caravans and merchants trading exotic and valuable goods. However, it is interesting to find out that although the Silk Road stretched along great plains; covering vast deserts, tall mountains and deep oceans, it rarely saw one person or even caravans travelling the full length of the road. In fact, the Silk Road was a series of roads and paths connecting major towns and acted as trading routs between them. From theses series of roads, goods exchanged hands and made their way from the Far East to Europe.

In fact, even the name ‘Silk Road’ is deceiving. One might mistakenly believe the sole good traded along the road was silk, however the road took its name after Rome expressed great desire in Chinese silk. But, soon after all sort of exotic goods and luxuries were traded along the Silk Road. It not only acted as the means for trading between towns, but also became the tool in exchange of cultures between great civilizations. In my opinion, it could even be considered the first step towards globalization.

If you glance at a map, The Silk Road resembles a long highway and a long but easy travel for any journeyman. However, it was the setbacks, challenges and difficult terrains that romanticized this great journey. A traveler faced vast desert plains, great mountains, and wild rivers to pass. To add to that a journeyman had to endure long winters and blazing summers, probably in one travel. Excerpts from Marco Polo best describe the travel along the Silk Road. He describes the deserts as so vast that it would take one year to travel from one end to the other. I think the most interesting part of Marco Polo’s excerpts is in how he describes the difficulties of finding water and restoring them.

I believe the greatest wonder of the Silk Road was the oasis towns and Bazaars spread along the road. These towns were home not only to exotic luxuries from far corners of the known world but they were also center to cultures of different civilizations along the silk road. In my opinion the Silk road was the stepping stone for both globalization and multiculturalism.