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!