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Footsteps on the Silk Route
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Chennai-ites were taken on a voyage of discovery along the Silk Route by Dr. Rajeshwari Ghose, who threw light on the religio-cultural exchanges between the civilisations of China and India in the ancient period.
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FOR THE cognoscenti of this burgeoning metropolis savouring the influences of globalisation, China is synonymous with its culinary delights and Feng Shui. But, recently, the Prakriti Foundation treated them to an altogether exotic experience by hosting an illustrated talk "In the Footsteps of the Buddha — An Iconic Journey from India to China" by Dr. Rajeshwari Ghose. She literally took the audience on a voyage of discovery, traversing the legendary Silk Route, which was the artery of trade and religio-cultural exchanges between China and Rome and other civilisations in the ancient period.
It is impossible to focus on any cultural encounter outside its historical setting. The early centuries of the Christian era were marked by cross-cultural exchanges across Asia. Buddhism had fanned out to other regions, including China, from India where it originated even by the first century A.D. She provided the backdrop to the theme by touching on the migration of people, goods and ideas during the 3rd-8th Centuries A.D. across the Silk Route. This was a period before nation-states developed, when travellers, traders and missionaries were agents of socio-cultural influence and change. The geographical zone of the theme pertains to modern China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
A specialist in the history of religion and sacred arts, Dr. Ghose after retiring from the University of Hong Kong where she served as Associate Professor, lectures and continues her research and has several books to her credit. She organised an international exhibition on Buddhist art in Hong Kong, edited and published a catalogue on the occasion and has contributed to the South East Asia Section of the catalogue "The Magic of the Gods" published by the Museum of Indian Art, Berlin, Germany.
The focus of her lecture was on 236 Buddhist caves at Kizil in the Kucha Prefecture of the Uighur Autonomous Region in the area of Xinjiang (old Sinkiang and before that Chinese Turkistan) in the present day People's Republic of China. The Silk Route used to run from Changan (Xian) to Rome extending for 5000 miles, forking into two roads, the northern and the southern skirting the Taklamakan desert and mountainous terrain, merging into one again at Kashgar. There were several by-lanes from the Silk Road leading to India through the passes in the Himalayan mountain range. The majority of these caves were Viharas (monk's living quarters) and these do not have murals. Only the Chaityas (places of worship) among them have paintings. There are 80 Chaityas of which 57 are in a fairly good state of preservation.
With the aid of transparencies, Dr. Ghose showed the influence of the art of Gandhara (classical Greco-Roman), Mathura, Amaravathi and Ajanta on the Kizil paintings. The art of Kizil is hybrid and eclectic combining different Buddhist art styles and also that of Sassanian Iran, fusing with the indigenous Central Asian traditions. The Bahmiyan (Indo-Sassanian), for example, influenced the Kizil art. The final stage, during the 7-8th Centuries, was predominantly influenced by the styles originating from the Tang Dynasty of China.
She pointed to the diffusion of Buddhism along the Silk Route and how trade partly prospered because of the elaborate rites introduced into the practice of Buddhism in Central Asia. The Stupas (icons) were wrapped with reams of silk on festive occasions thereby giving impetus to the silk trade in China. Another classic example was the use of bright blue colour in the Kizil paintings for which lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone, was used. This mineral used to be mined at Badakshan in Afghanistan and when this trade route was disrupted the blue colour vanished from the paintings of Kizil.
Dr. Ghose concluded her talk with a specific iconographic example of the Parinirvana (the great extinction or demise of the Buddha) scene in Kizil. The depiction of this reclining Buddha was almost an obsession both in paintings and large sculptures in stucco to portray the scene of his demise. She related this iconic depiction to the prevalence of the Mulasarvastivadin school in this region. What is interesting is that certain anecdotes that are depicted as narrative paintings in Kizil are known only in the Chinese and the Tibetan versions of the stories occurring in the Mulasarvastivadin Vinaya texts. The literary influence seems to be Chinese but the characters involved in these narratives are depicted wearing Indian style clothing and the theme is set in India.
An interesting aside mentioned by her was the building of the Great Wall of China to keep the "barbarians" (as alien cultures were then referred) from the west out for preserving the Imperial culture, which did not work. By the 4th Century A.D., Buddhism was well established in China. During the 4-5th Centuries the translation of a corpus of 300 Sanskrit Buddhist texts (Mahayana) into Chinese was undertaken at an institute established in Changan at the instance of Kumarajiva, which led to the emergence of many unique Chinese Buddhist schools of which Chan or Zen is better known throughout the world. Cultural encounters over the ages have never been a one-way traffic and Buddhism from India in its encounter with the Imperial culture influenced it and adapted itself to it till it transformed into a unique tradition, which is amply reflected in literature and art.
SUDHAKSHINA RANGASWAMI
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