1702 Pages
    by Routledge

    The areas covering the Silk Roads, the ancient and modern roads from China to the West, including the region of modern Xinjiang, have an enduring and most diverse history. The impact that the political, cultural, and economic exchange on the Silk Roads had on the world cannot be overestimated; this exchange constitutes the first instance of a globalized world. The earliest discoveries from recent archaeological excavations date back almost 4000 years and explorers in the early 20th century evoked a considerable interest in the history of these regions, and the cultural relics they brought back from the oasis towns of the Taklamakan initiated entirely new research fields. For instance, Buddhist studies received a new impact and languages hitherto unknown entered the field of Western research.

    Since the 1990s the International Dunhuang Project of the British Library has attempted to unify all manuscripts, artefacts, and other materials collected from the Silk Roads in a database accessible to the public in order to enhance the visibility of these cultural treasures for researchers and the general public alike. Different aspects of Silk Road studies constitute a research focus at academic institutions all over the world: Central Asian Institutes study the history and the present political and economic situation of the countries that were part of the ancient net of economic and cultural relations, and academic projects, such as the Turfan Research Centre of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, the ‘Buddhist Manuscripts from Ghandara’ project at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, and ‘The Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project’ of the University of Washington, Seattle are primarily concerned with the edition of the manuscripts found on the Silk Roads. Initiatives for a more comprehensive study of the multilayered history of the Silk Roads have been launched at several academic institutions, for instance, at the Buddhist Centre of the University of California Berkeley.

    The collection of articles on the Silk Roads intends to cover the most relevant aspects of studies on the Silk Roads mainly under a historical perspective, but including some material regarding the present situation of the area. It will focus on more recent publications, but occasionally older, but significant publications will also be included.

    1. Ute Wardenga, ‘Ferdinand von Richthofen and the Development of German Geography’, Die Erde: Special Issue "Ferdinand von Richthofen", 138, 2007, 313-332.

    2. B. van Geel et al., ‘Climate Change and the Expansion of the Scythian Culture After 850 BC: A Hypothesis’, Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 2004, 1735-1742.

    3. Klaus Karttunen, ‘Gandhāra and the Greeks’, Evo ṣuyadi: Essays in Honor of Richard Salomon’s 65th Birthday (eds Carol Altman Bromberg, Timothy J. Lenz and Jason Neelis), Bulletin of the Asia Institute 23, 2009, [2013], 131-134.

    4. Ma Yong and Sun Yutang, ‘The Western Regions under the Hsiung-nu and the Han’, in Janós Harmatta, B. N. Puri and G. F. Etemadi (eds), History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. II, Unesco Publishing, 1994, 219-238.

    5. Étienne de la Vaissière,Is There a "Nationality of the Hephtalites"?’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 17, 2003, [2007], 119-132.

    6. Pierre Leriche, ‘Bactria, Land of a Thousand Cities’, in Joe Cribb and Georgina Herrmann, (eds), After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam. Proceedings of the British Academy 133, 2007, 121-153.

    7. Richard N. Freye, ‘Sasanian-Central Asian Trade Relations’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 7, 1993, [1994], 73-77.

    8. I. V. P'iankov, ‘The Ethnic History of the Sakas’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8, 1994, [1996], 37-46.

    9. G. V. Shishkina, ‘Ancient Samarkand: Capital of Soghd’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8 (1994), [1996]. 81-99

    10. Boris I. Marshak, N. N. Negmatov, ‘Sogdiana’, in B. A. Litvinsky, Zhang Guang-da and R. Shabani Samghabadi (eds) History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. III, Unesco Publishing, 1996, p. 237-281

    11. Arnaud Bertrand, ‘Water Management in Jingjue 精絕 Kingdom:

    The Transfer of a Water Tank System from Gandhara to Southern Xinjiang in the

    Third and Fourth Centuries C.E.’, Sino-Platonic Papers 223, 2012, p. 1-66 (+ Appendix which could be left out I believe).

    12. Christopher I. Beckwith, ‘Entrance into Central Asia’, in The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987, paperback edition, with a new afterword, 1993), pp. 11-36.

    13. Prods Octer Skjærvø, ‘Khotan, an Early Center of Buddhism in Chinese Turkistan’, in John R. McRae and Jan Nattler (eds), Buddhism Across BoundariesThe Interplay of Indian, Chinese, and Central Asian Source Materials, Sino-Platonic Papers 222, 2012, 106-141.

    14. Rong Xinjiang, ‘The Relationship of Dunhuang with the Uighur Kingdom in Turfan in the Tenth Century’, in Louis Bazin and Peter Zieme (eds), De Dunhuang a Istanbul: Hommage a James Russell Hamilton (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 275-298.

    15. Moriyasu Takao, ‘The Sha-chou Uigurs and the West-Uigur Kingdom’, Acta Asiatica 78, 2000, 28-48.

    16. Renato Sala, ‘Underground Water Galleries in Middle East and Central Asia: survey of historical documents and archaeological studies’, http://www.lgakz.org/texts/livetexts/8-kareztexteng.pdf, accessed July 8, 2015, 13 p.

    17. B. A. Litvinsky and Zhang Guang-da, ‘Central Asia, The Crossroads of Civilizations’, in B. A. Litvinsky, Zhang Guang-da and R. Shabani Samghabadi (eds), History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. III, Unesco Publishing, 1996, pp. 469-487.

    18. Nicola Di Cosmo, ‘Ancient Inner Asian Nomads: Their Economic Basis and Its Significance in Chinese History’, The Journal of Asian Studies 53, 4, 1994, 1092-1126.

    19. Joseph Fletcher, ‘The Mongols: Ecological and Social Perspectives’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46, 1, 1986, 11-50.

    20. Morris Rossabi, ‘Tabriz and Yuan China’, in Ralph Kauz (ed.), Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009), pp. 97-106.

     

    Volume II:

    Religions on the Silk Roads: Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorianism, and Islam

    21. Pratapaditya Pal, ‘Evidence of Jainism in Afghanistan and Kashmir in Ancient Times’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 21, 2007, [2012], 25-33 + 16 plates.

    22. Valerie Hansen, ‘Religious Life in a Silk Road Community: Niya During the Third and Fourth Centuries’, in John Lagerwey (ed.), Religion and Chinese Society, Vol. 1: Ancient and Medieval China (The Chinese University Press, École Française d’Extrême Orient, 2004), pp. 279-315.

    23. Judith A. Lerner, ‘Aspects of Assimilation: The Funerary Practices and Furnishings of Central Asians in China’, Sino-Platonic Papers 168, 2005.

    24. Frantz Grenet and Zhang Guangda, ‘The Last Refuge of the Sogdian Religion: Dunhuang in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 10, 1996, [1998], 175-186.

    25. Werner Sundermann, ‘Manichaeism’, Encyclopaedia Iranica (Columbia University Center for Iranian Studies, 1996-.).

    26. Werner Sundermann,A Manichaean View on the Resurrection of the Body’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 10, 1996, [1998], 187-194.

    27. C. E. Bosworth, ‘Al-Khārazmī on Various Faiths and Sects, Chiefly Iranian’, in Acta Iranica, Textes et Mémoire, vol. XVI, Iranica Varia: Papers in Honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 10-19.

    28. Jan Vrhovski, ‘Apologeticism in Chinese Nestorian Documents from the Tang Dynasty: Notes on Some Early Traces of Aristotelianism in China’, Asian Studies I, XVII, 2, 2013, 53–70.

    29. Yaakov Elman, ‘The Other in the Mirror: Iranians and Jews View One Another. Questions of Identity, Conversion, and Exogamy in the Fifth-Century Iranian Empire, Part One’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19, 2005, [2009], 15-25.

    30. Yaakov Elman, ‘The Other in the Mirror: Questions of Identity, Conversion, and Exogamy in the Fifth-Century Iranian Empire, Part Two’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 20, 2006, [2010], 25-46.

    31. Jason Neelis, ‘La Vieille Route Reconsidered: Alternative Paths for Early Transmission of Buddhism Beyond the Borderlands of South Asia’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 16, 2002, [2006], 143-164.

    32. Oxkar von Hinüber, ‘Everyday Life in an Ancient Indian Buddhist Monastery’, Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology IX, Soka University, 2006, 3-32.

    33. Daniel Boucher, ‘Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China’, in China at the Crossroads: A Festschrift in Honor of Victor H. Mair. Special Issue of Asia Major, 3rd series, 19, pts. 1-2, 2006, 13-37.

    34. Erik Zürcher, ‘Buddhism Across Boundaries: The Foreign Input’, in John R. McRae and Jan Nattier (eds), Buddhism Across Boundaries: The Interplay of Indian, Chinese, and Central Asian Source Materials, Sino-Platonic Papers 222, 2012, 1-25.

    35. Dorothy C. Wong, ‘The Mapping of Sacred Space: Images of Buddhist Cosmographies in Medieval China’, in Philippe Foret and Andreas Kaplony (eds), The Journey of Maps and Images on the Silk Road (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 51-80.

    36. Stephen F. Teiser, ‘The Local and the Canonical: Pictures of the Wheel of Rebirth in Gansu and Sichuan’, Asia Major 17, 2, 2004, 73-114.

    37. Xinru Liu, ‘A Silk Road Legacy: The Spread of Buddhism and Islam’, Journal of World History, 22, 1, 2011, 55-81.

     

    Volume III:

    Famous travellers on the Silk Road: Generals, Monks, Merchants, and Explorers

    38. Richard N. Frye, ‘The Merchant World of the Sogdians’, in Annette L. Juliano and Judith A. Lerner, ‘Nomads, Traders and Holy Men Along China's Silk Road: papers presented at a symposium held at The Asia Society in New York, November 9-10, 2001, 71-74.

    39. Helen Wang, ‘Textiles as Money on the Silk Road?, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 23, 2013, 165-174.

    40. Max Deeg, ‘Maritime Routes in the Indian Ocean in Early Times According to Chinese Buddhist Texts’, in Ralph Kauz (ed.) Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009), pp. 153-158.

    41. Peter Jackson, ‘Marco Polo and his ''Travels''’, Bulletin of The School Of Oriental And African Studies 61, 1, 1998, 82-101.

    42. Angela Schottenhammer, ‘Transfer of Xiangyao 香藥 from Iran and Arabia to China – A Reinvestigation of Entries in the Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎 (863)’, in Ralph Kauz (ed.) Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009), pp. 117-149.

    43. Yokkaichi Yasuhiro, ‘Chinese and Muslim Diaspora and the Indian Ocean Trade Network Under Mongol Hegemony’, in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.) The East Asian >Mediterranean<: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce and Human Migration, East Asian Maritime History 6 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008), pp. 73-102.

     

    44. John Chaffee, ‘Muslim Merchants and Quanzhou in the Late Yuan-Early Ming: Conjectures on the Ending of the Medieval Muslim Trade Diaspora’, in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian >Mediterranean<: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce and Human Migration, East Asian Maritime History 6 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008), pp. 115-132.

    45. F. W. Mote, ‘Securing China’s Place in the Asian World’, extract from chapter 24 in Imperial China (900-1800) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 612-21.

    46. Roberto F. Weinberg and Owen R. Green, ‚The Central Asiatic (Tibet, Xianjiang, Pamir) Petrological Collections of Sven Hedin (1865-1952) - Swedish Explorer and Adventurer’, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 20, 3, 2002, 297-308.

    47. Aurel Stein, ‘Sir Aurel Stein's Expedition in Central Asia’, The Geographical Journal, 46, 4, 1, 1915, 269-276.

    48. Susan Whitfield, ‘The Prologue’, in Aurel Stein on the Silk Road (Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2004), pp. 9-20.

    49. Zhang Guangda and Rong Xinjiang Rong, ‘A Concise History of the Turfan Oasis and Its Exploration’, Asia Major 11, 2, 1998, 13-36.

    50. Peter Zieme, ‘Albert von le Coc and the Manichaen Studies’, Acta Orientalia 63, 1, 2010, 1-8.

    51. Denis Sinor, ‘Remembering Paul Pelliot, 1878-1945’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 119, 3, 1999, 467-472.

    52. Imre Galambos, ‘Japanese "Spies" Along the Silk Road: British Suspicions Regarding the Second Ōtani Expedition (1908-09)’, Japanese Religions 35, 1 & 2, 33-61.

     

    Volume IV:

    Silk Road Culture: Languages, Art, Material Culture, Archaeology

    Part 1: Language

    53. Takata Tokio, ‘Multilingualism in Tun-huang’, Acta Asiatica 78, 2000, 49-70.

    54. Ronald E. Emmerick, ‘Kothanese and Tumshuquese‘, in Rüdiger Schmitt (ed.), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1989), pp. 204-229.

    55. Rong Xinjiang, ‘The Name of the So-called "Tumshuqese" Language’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19, 2005, [2009], 119-127.

    56. Richard Salomon, ‘Gāndhārī in the Worlds of India, Iran, and Central Asia’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 21, 2007, [2012], 179-192.

    57. Lore Sander, ‘Brāhmi Scripts on the Eastern Silk Roads’, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 11-12, 1986, 159-192.

    58. Mauro Maggi, ‘The Manuscript T III S 16: Its Importance for the History of Khotanese Literature’, in D. Durkin-Meisterernst et. al., Turfan Revisited, (Berlin, 2004), pp. 184-190.

    59. Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, ‘Manichean Script’, Encyclopedia Iranica.

    60. Nicholas Sims-Williams, ‘Towards a New Edition of the Sogdian Ancient Letters: Ancient Letter 1’, in Étienne de la Vassière and Éric Trombert (eds), Les Sogdiens en Chine (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2005), pp. 183-193.

    61. Yoshida Yukata, ‘Buddhist Texts Produced by the Sogdians in China’, in Jens E. Braarvig, Markham J. Geller, Velizar Sadovski and Gebhard Selz (eds), Multilingualism and History of Knowledge (Wien, 2013), pp. 155-179.

    62. Barbara Meisterernst and Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, ‘Some Remarks on the Chinese and Sogdian "Sutra of the Causes and Effects"’, in Dieter Weber (ed.), Languages of Iran: Past and Present, Iranian Studies in memoriam David Neil MacKenzie (Wiesbaden, Harrossowitz Verlag, 2005), pp. 109-127.

    63. Yukiyo Kasai, ‘Multiscripturality in Old Uyghur – Relationship between Scripts and Religions‘, paper especially prepared for this volume.

    64. Masahiro Shogaito, ‘Uighur Influence on Indian Words in Mongolian Buddhist Texts’, in Sven Bretfeld and Jens Wilkens (eds), Indien und Zentralasien: Sprach- und Kulturkontakt, (Wiesbaden, Harrossowitz Verlag, 2003), pp. 119-143.

    65. Liu Yinsheng, ‘A Lingua Franca along the Silk Road: Persian Language in China

    between the 14th and the 16th Century’, in Ralph Kauz (ed.) Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea (Wiesbaden, Harrossowitz Verlag, 2009), pp. 88-95.

    66. Douglas Q Adams, ‘The Position of Tocharian among the Other Indo-European Languages’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 104,3, 1984, 395-402.

    Part 2: Art, Archaeology and Architecture

    67. B. A. Litvinskii and I. R. Pichikian, ‘The Hellenistic Architecture and Art of the Temple of the Oxus’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8, 1994, [1996], 47-66.

    68. Emma C. Bunker, ‘Significant Changes in Iconography and Technology among Ancient China's Northwestern Pastoral Neighbors from the Fourth to the First Century B.C.’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 6, 1992, [1993], 99-115.

    69. G. A. Pugachenkova, ‘The Terra-Cotta Horses of Bactria-Tokharistan: Semantics and Image’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 3, 1989, 15-19.

    70. Giuseppe Vignato, "The Wooden Architecture of the Kizil Caves", Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology, 1, 2006, 11-27.

    71. Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, Ursula Sims-Williams and Werner Sundermann, ‘An Illustrated Parchment Folio from a Middle Persian Manichaean Codex in the Collection of the British Library, Or. 12.452DI3 (Kao.oiii)’, Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 1, 2006, Brepols, 149-156.

    72. Gábor Kósa, ‘Peacocks Under the Jewel Tree – New Hypotheses on the Manischaean Painting of Bezeklik (Cave 38)’, Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 4, 2009, 135-148.

    73. Sören Stark, ‘Some Remarks on the Headgears of the Royal Turks’, Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 4, 2009, 119-133.

    74. Patrick Wertmann, ‘Sogdians in China: An Overview of the Archaeology and Art History of Sogdians in China Based on Tomb Finds and Historical Texts from the 3rd to the 10th Century AD’, paper especially prepared for this volume.

    75. Ellen Johnston Laing,Recent Finds of Western-Related Glassware, Textiles, and Metalwork in Central Asia and China’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 9, 1995, [1997], 1-18.

    76. Zhao Feng and Wang Le, ‘Textiles and Clothing Excavated from the Tomb of Buzak in Khotan’, Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 3, 2008, 171-184.

    77. Sarah E. Fraser, ‘An Introduction to the Material Culture of Dunhuang Buddhism: Putting the Object in Its Place’, Asia Major 17, 1, 2004, 1-13.

    Biography

    Barbara Meisterernst