.The Silk Roads

Highways of Culture and Commerce

Edited by Vadime Elisseeff

Available from:

UNESCO Publishing / 
Berghahn Books

© 2005 Dr. Caesar Voûte

The following rhetorical question has been raised on several occasions: “Who knows how long it would have taken Buddhism, which originated in India, to   reach Central Asia and China had it not been for the merchants and monks, those early cultural ambassadors, who stopped at the oasis towns and other places on the Silk Road such as Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, Bactra. Kashgar, Khotan, Turpkan,  Donhuang and Thinai (probably Luoyang of today), bearing scriptures, making translations and winning converts?”

Some of the answers can be found in the product of the UNESCO Integral Study of the Silk Roads: Roads of Dialogue Project, consisting of many reports, publications, exhibitions and documentary films and a joint World Tourist Organization/UNESCO program, aiming at helping all of us to understand ourselves better by recognizing ourselves in others. Started in 1988 for a ten-year period, supervised by an International Consultative Committee under the presidency of Professor Vadime Elisseeff and assisted by an International Scientific Committee of the Silk Roads, and by the National Coordinating Committees in over thirty participating countries as well as by many scholars, institutions, groups and national and local authorities, the volume of reports and scientific communications alone fill more than 5,000 pages.

A first overview of the project has been published by UNESCO in 1998 and as a paperback edition in 2000 by Berghahn Books (New York and Oxford) jointly with UNESCO Publishing (Paris), containing a selection of the reports and papers presented between 1990 and 1995 at 25 different Seminars and Colloquiums held during the overland and maritime UNESCO Silk Roads expeditions. All the papers have gradually been indexed and reference to them is presented in the form of a bibliography accessible from the UNESCO Web site on the Internet.

A number of years ago the Japanese TV Asahi and Asahi Shimbun newspaper produced a very interesting TV series on the Silk Roads program strongly focused on history and archaeology, which was widely broadcast abroad. More recently UNESCO Publishing produced and is marketing a lovely video cassette, illustrating mainly present-day life in many of the Central Asian oases.

One of its first and main advisors of the UNESCO Silk Road Project was the Japanese Professor Eiji Hattori. See also his very personal book Letters from the Silk Roads, Thinking at the Crossroads of Civilization, 2000. Of special relevance for the Borobudur studies are the following letters: “The Soul of the Silk Roads” (Letter 1), “The Phantom Kingdom of Srivijaya” (Letter 4), “Reorienting the Cultural World Order” (Letter 7), “Western Logic and Dialogue” (Letter 8),  and “The Dawn of Serenity at Borobudur” (Letter 14).

Under these conditions there is little need to include an extensive description of the Silk Roads here, nor to comment in-depth on their importance for the impact of the manifold encounters between religions, cultures, ethic societies and groups, and socio-political and economic systems. More in particular, the communications, trade and cultural encounters and exchanges along the Silk Roads have had a far-reaching effect on the development of two important world religions, to wit Buddhism and Islam, as discussed by many authors (see Vadime Elisseef, 1998/2000; J. G. de Casparis, 1998/2000 and Amir H. Zekrgoo, 1998/2000). We may limit ourselves, therefore, to recording a number of facts of particular interest to our study related to the meaning and the construction of the Borobudur and to some comments of a more general nature.

The name “Silk Road” to indicate the old more than 5000-mile-long trade route through Central Asia linking China to the Roman and Byzantine empires was first introduced in 1877 by Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen when carrying out his geo-morphological explorations in 1870 to 1872 in Central Asia and China, during which he also paid much attention to many historical aspects. Von Richthofen was also the first to clearly understand that Central Asia not only served as a link in the economic relations between China and the western world, but it also had participated on an equal footing in receiving and giving as well as transmitting the cultural wealth of all those who crossed the Central Asian steppes and deserts, waging war or bringing peace, encouraging trade, propagating religions or simply exploring the region out of curiosity and in search of some special knowledge. At one end of the Silk Road was the Chinese capital of Changan (modern Xian); at the other, Damascus, Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome.

Belonging to the age of romanticism the descriptions of Central Asia provided by von Richthofen give a romantic impression of an immense terra incognita where many wonderful things were to be found. However, we must be careful not to interpret the Silk Road of von Richthofen as a road or highway in the sense we attach to it, and even less as being a single extremely long road. On the contrary, this Silk Road - a better name for it would be that of the Silk Route - consisted of many different more of less parallel roads, which had been known for centuries and even millennia, and which originally followed natural routes and tracks through patches of vegetation where humans and animals could roam and live in the time of the Paleolithic hunter-nomads. 

Furthermore, it was not simply a pattern of East-West silk roads followed by caravans carrying loads to silk from China to Byzantium and Rome, where silk was much in demand. This pattern of roads introduced sedentary and nomadic people to each other and they connected water holes and oases and opened up a kind of dialogue between East and West. We know at present that ever since the Neolithic period quite a number of objects and goods were exchanged between Mesopotamia and the Indian and Chinese territories. Exchange and trade included spices, gems, gold, ivory, works of art, furniture, garments, perfumes, exotic animals and much else such as objects in lapis lazuli, jade, bronze and iron as well as rolls of raw silk and bundles of silk tissues. The goods were as a rule transported by local caravans from one oasis market to the other, and sold by one trader to other, before reaching eventually a final destination far away.

Since ancient times there existed also another international maritime trading route connecting by sea China with insular Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Gulf and Red Sea regions and the eastern Mediterranean, known under the names of “spice route” or “porcelain route”. Gradually we have come to the understanding that this was not a separate and independent international trade route, but that it formed together with the overland Silk Road parts of an integrated network extending between China and neighboring areas in the East and the Roman and Byzantine empires in the West.

These historical routes were not only east-west terrestrial routes but also maritime routes running from east to west and from north to south. On the maritime routes the goods were transported by commercial ships either along the coasts from trading harbor to trading harbor or even directly across the high seas and oceans to distant main harbor sites and trading centers.

Even more important, in the framework of our studies because of its impact on religion, culture and practical techniques, this network of very important overland and maritime routes carried important knowledge concerning medicine, printing, engineering, philosophy and cosmology. Moreover, along these overland and maritime routes, monks and pilgrims traveled side-by-side with merchants, instructing those they met in the secrets of Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism and Islam. Arab conquests in Central Asia and North Africa pushed Christianity back towards Europe and caused various Persian religions to retreat towards China. In particular it is notable that noted that the Chinese Court of the Tang Dynasty welcomed Nestorians, Zoroastrians, Mazdeans and the Manicheans from the seventh century onwards. During almost two millennia, from about 200 BCE to the 15th century CE, the oasis towns of Central Asia witnessed an exchange of cultures that had no precedent in human history. We also knew that similar cultural exchanges took place along the maritime routes.

Travelers in Ancient Times between the 4^th century BCE and the 4^th century CE

One of the first important travelers known by name was Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia (356-323 BCE), who on his famous campaign reached the Indus river and the Pamirs in 326 BCE and who founded more than 70 towns, initiating the Hellenization of several areas. In this respect the Hellenized Gandhara civilization and culture, which developed as a capital crossroads of civilizations in the Balkh region in what is now North Pakistan, is of particular importance. It gave birth to Gandhara art and architecture. Buddhist monks in the Gandhara area, blending Iranian, Hellenic and Buddhist traditions, had a major influence on the development of Mahayana Buddhism and of the Buddhist Vaipulya traditions (Eiji Hattori, 1999; Lokesh Chandra, 1987 and 1995, and Sudarshana Devi Singhal, 1991).

Vadime Elisseeff’s helpful overview of the overland Silk Road through Central Asia (1998/2000) includes a summary of the many travelers who had written testimonies of their travels beginning with Alexander the Great in the 4^th century BCE, who reached the Pamirs in the border region of China. It is interesting to note that this overview is subdivided into a number of separate sections dealing respectively with other Silk Road travelers during ancient times, such as the Greek and Roman geographers until around the 4^th century CE, Buddhist missionaries and pilgrims between the 4^th and 13^th centuries CE, Arab navigators and merchants from the 7^th and 8^th centuries to the fourteenth century CE, Christian embassies and missions between the 13^th and 16^th centuries CE, the major projects that were started in the 19^th century by famous explorers such as Sven Hedin, Bonvalor, Henri d’Orleans, Semenov, Prjevalsky, Roborovsky and Kozlov, and the modern Orient-Occident Major Project (1957-1966). This overview is richly documented with 109 notes and bibliographic references.

 However, with regard to the other Greek and Roman geographers and mainly Chinese travelers in ancient times, we have little data at our disposal in the West, especially when compared with the enormous volume of Chinese documentation (Vadime Elisseeff (1998/2000, loc. cit.).

Thus we know that the Chinese Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24 CE.) in 139 BCE had sent Zhang Qian as an ambassador to the West so explore, without success, possibilities for support against the incursions by a fierce nomadic people, called the Xiongnu, who inhabited what is now Mongolia. However, he discovered a for the Chinese new world with all its variety of goods and populations. Following up on this discovery the second mission of the same Zhang Qian in 106 BCE was organized as an effective trading mission, involving horses in exchanges for silk, which marked the formal beginning of trading relations between China and the west. By 60 BCE, after the Han Dynasty had finally defeated the Xiongnu and expanded its influence to the west, the Chinese inaugurated a policy of official trade along the silk routes. If the Romans soon became smitten with silk (and intrigued by the mysterious Seres, or Silk People of the East, the country of whom they called Serica), the Chinese readily sought Western glassware, jade and silver. They also prized a breed of horse found in the Ferghana Valley, north of modern Afghanistan, famous for its strength and stamina. In the Taklamakan Desert, archaeologists have found Han Dynasty-period coins dating from this time, seals and silks bearing the images of the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes.

In the West, the Greeks and the Romans were the first to mention Serica (China) as the source of silk, and the roads to that mysterious country. Herodotus provided some very scant information in the 5^th century BCE, and in the first century BCE the Greek Strabo, and the Romans Virgil, Horace and Pliny the Elder mentioned this far-away country again. But the best source after Strabo is Ptolemy’s “Geography”, written in the 2^nd century CE.

Buddhist pilgrims and Arab merchants between the 4^th and 13^th centuries CE

The travels along the overland Silk Road through Central Asia of Buddhist Missionaries and Pilgrims have been very significant for the development of Mahayana Buddhism in Central Java. Vadime Elisseeff (1998/2000, loc. cit.), lists the most important of these, mentioning also their accounts and records. They include the Chinese Faxian who traveled in 399 CE via the southern oasis route via Khotan, crossing the Pamirs and reaching Gandharfa, where he followed the Valley of the Ganges as far as the Holy Places, where Shakyamuni about a thousand year earlier had reached Awakening. From there he traveled to Ceylon which was the center of the oldest Buddhist tradition. From there he returned via the sea route and arrived in 414 CE at Ch’ang-kuang (Changguang in Shandong) Faxian left us his “Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms”, which describes the 30+ countries he visited during his many travels.

Another very famous pilgrim was the Chinese Xuanzang, who was also the best known translator of Indian texts into Chinese. He traveled between 629 and 645 CE via the North oasis road, through Turfan, the Pamirs, Samarkand, Bactra, the Valley of the Ganges, the Holy Places and stayed at the famous Nalanda Monastery. His Record of the Western Regions at the Tim of the Tang Dynasty contains a wealth of information.

A third very famous pilgrim was the Chinese Yijing, who traveled between 671 and 695 via the maritime route, first staying at the major Buddhist center of Srivijaya (now Palembang) on Sumatra, going then to Tamralipti near Calcutta and from there to the Buddhist monastery and university of Nalanda, returning home again via the maritime route. His Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practiced in India and the Malay Archipelago contains many bibliographies of important religious personalities as well as numerous translations.

In addition, mention has to be made of several other pilgrims from India and from Samarkand, who traveled along the Silk Roads, translating texts from Sanskrit into Chinese. They included Vajrabodhi (671-741 CE), son of the Royal Preceptor of Kanchi in South India, Subhakarasimha (637-735 CE.) from South India, who like Vajrabodhi had studied Esoteric Mahayana Buddhism in Nalanda monastery, and Amoghavajra (705-774 CE) from Samarkand, who had accompanied his uncle on a trade mission to Java, where he met Vajrabodhi, whose disciple he became. Vajrabodhi landed at Canton in China in 719 CE. Subhakarasimha reached via Central Asia China where he translated together with the Chinese I-hsing the Mahavairocana sutra into Chinese in 724-725 CE. This translated manuscript was obtained by the Chinese Wu-hsing, who himself had been some times between 650 and 680 A.D. in Srivijaya. Furthermore, I-hsing met Wu-hsing in 685 A.D. at Nalanda, while I-hsing himself was in Srivijaya in 672 A.D. and again from 685 to 695 A.D., translating many texts. Amoghavajra arrived at Loyang in China in 720 CE. After the death of Vajrabodhi he went to Ceylon and finally in 746 CE returned to T’ang China. Thus it appears that during the late seventh century, some Indonesian islands were an important centre of Vajrayana. (Eiji Hattori, 1999; Lokesh Chandra, 1987 and 1995, and Sudarshana Devi Singhal, 1991).

In several other chapters of our book readers will encounter some of these Buddhist missionaries and pilgrims. Through its doctrine, Buddhism also conveyed the cultural elements and scientific knowledge of the Indian and Chinese worlds, thus promoting relations between astronomers, mathematicians and geographers, cartography being one of the privileged fields.  It is very unfortunate that only a few fragments of the many geographical texts and maps now remain, the earliest of which dated from 642 CE. These include the now lost works of Jia Dan (801 CE) and Li Jifu (806 to 820 CE).

The Chinese emperors of the 1^st and 2^nd centuries CE dispatched missions to India to obtain more information about Buddhism. These embassies returned with Buddhist texts and art, and soon Buddhist art spread through Central and East Asia as far as Japan. During the 4^th and 5^th centuries CE, when China was politically fractured into several kingdoms, Buddhism became increasingly prevalent, and soon monasteries, stupas and Buddhist grottos became part of the Chinese landscape.
On the eastern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, in the city of Dunhuang, are the Mogao caves. These temples, carved into sandstone hills, house some of the most compelling Chinese depictions of the Buddha. One of the grottos contains pillars crowned with Hellenistic Ionian capitals, just one other indication of the multiculturalism at work in an important Silk Road city. Indeed, the Buddhist sculptures of Dunhuang, made of clay and stucco, were influenced by the art of Gandhara, a region Hellenized after the conquest by Alexander the Great, comprising parts of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, where sculptors created the earliest images of the Buddha by fusing Indian, Iranian and Greco-Roman styles (Henric H. Sorensen, 1998/2000).

Among the Arab Navigators and Merchants one encounters the names of several well-known Arab geographers, cartographers and historians, among which Ibn Fadlan, Masudi Idrisi and Abu’l-Fida are mentioned, including the very famous Arab traveler and geographer Ibn Battuta. However, the themes treated by them are of little direct interest to our specific subject, to wit the spiritual and cultural environment in which the Borobudur was created. Interested readers are therefore referred to Vadime Elisseeff (1998/2000, loc. cit.), and the various bibliographic notes in his publication.

Christian embassies and missions between the 13^th and 16^th centuries CE

An interesting period was that of the Christian Embassies and Missions after the episode of the Mongolian invasions of the mid-13^th century CE, which ultimately resulted in a redistribution of political influences in Europe and Central Asia. Under these circumstances what mattered most for the Roman Catholic pope was to communicate with the nomads of the Central Asian Steppe Empire and to re-establish with the Nestorian communities in Central Asia. Thus the Franciscan monks John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubrouk traveled in the mid-13^th century to the Great Khan of Mongolia

The best known of these Christian travelers was Marco Polo, who crossed Asia along the overland silk road, remained for twenty years in the service of the great Khublai Khan and returned via the maritime route and then via Mesopotamia and Trabzon on the Black Sea to Venice in 1245. His travel records were widely published, and were followed up by a succession of missions, both religious and commercial, resulting in a great number of accounts, notes and memoirs. However, the themes treated by them are again of little direct interest to our specific subject and we may again refer to Vadime Elisseeff (1998/2000, loc. cit.) and his bibliographic notes.

Major Twentieth-Century Exploration Projects

The major Twentieth Century exploration projects started as a matter of fact as early as in the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century geographical explorations with famous explorers such as Sven Hedin, Bonvalor, Henri d’Orleans, Semenov, Prjevalsky, Roborovsky and Kozlov, provided us with enormous amounts of new information, including the discovery of numerous ruins buried beneath the sands of Chinese Turkestan and Inner Mongolia. They also found great treasures of books, manuscripts and various coins. After Sven Hedin the most famous explorer was the Englishman Sir Aurel Stein, a great scholar in geography and archaeology, who undertook three expeditions between 1900 and 1916 and recorded a wealth of information on the region between Kashgar and Dunhuang. Many more exploration missions, including extensive excavations, and the finding of thousands of manuscripts followed in the next two decades (see Vadime Elisseeff (1998/2000, loc. cit.). But work was put to a stop, first by the Sino-Japanese war and than by World War Two.

The period of modern exploration of Central Asia and neighboring areas, this time under UNESCO mandated by the United Nations, started in 1957 as the “Orient-Occident Major Project (1957-1966), which was subdivided into the study of three intercultural routes: the Steppe Route, the Oasis Route and the Maritime Route. Its aims and objectives were different from those of earlier exploration missions in that the gathering of archaeological and historical knowledge of a scientific nature was no longer the first priority. Rather, the purpose of the project was to provide action aimed at reducing the psychological and political obstacles to and improving the conditions for processes of change, and to develop as part of “a vast exchange program” (see Vadime Elisseeff (1998/2000, loc. cit.). This was followed in turn by the UNESCO Project for the Integral Study of the Silks Roads: Roads of Dialogue (1988-1997).

The concept of the project also rests on the specific role of the Silk Roads in which the destiny of so many people and so many communities is involved. A dialogue between cultures means exchanges which are not limited to goods but which also refer to ideas. The very term commerce suggests the exchange of objects as much as that of ideas. The term comprises two meanings: trading, admittedly, but also points of view, discussions, or even deliberations. “The silk trade, under these conditions, serves as a reactive agent and provides topical illustrations in the light of which history can be  viewed not merely in economic but also in political, cultural and religions terms”.

One can observe that the Silk Roads are channels for trade and the transfer of technology, but the latter not always flow at the same pace and towards the same destination. This is also the case with the dissemination of languages and the influence of ideas. We are dealing here with a complex ensemble that is virtually driven by some sort of Brownian movement, the interplay of multiple ideas which can generate new concepts and enrich our perception of history. It makes this integrated study unique in dealing with a network or range of means of communication both in terms of time and space.

If the studies undertaken are further pursued, clarification of the mechanism underlying inter-influences could bring about a better understanding of the components of each culture and greater appreciation of the mutual gifts that result for a secular intermingling of resources. The comprehensive nature of the research involved should remind us permanently of the infinitive complexity of causes and effects.

Among the new knowledge and understanding generated by the UNESCO Silk Roads Project mention should be made of the reassessment of the Indus-Gulf Relations in the light of new evidence (Nilofer Shaikh, 1998/2000). One finds here as early as the Third Millennium BCE a pattern of relations between South and Southwest Asia along land routes and sea routes which would be repeated with more or less similar socio-economic and cultural effects during later millennia and centuries in other parts of Asia, including Insular Southeast Asia. The region saw the emergence of urban civilization at this time, such as at the important proto-historic Indus civilization sites of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. UNESCO is involved in an ambitious project for the safeguarding of the extensive urban ruins of Mohenjo Daro in the Indus Valley, another World Heritage site.

This transformation of the Indus civilization appears to have been brought about by the contacts of the Indus people along the routes that were adopted by them at different times, including an important shift in the trade routes with increasing greater emphasis on the sea routes. Ultimately the Indus people extended their activities in the region of Indian Gujarat in the East to Mesopotamia and other states along the Persian Gulf in the West. This resulted in the establishment of many seaports, enlarged the economic prospects of their material development including trading benefits in a wider region, and caused them to evolve new commercial mechanisms, mentioned in writing in Sumerian and Babylonian commercial and literary documents from the 3^rd millennium BCE and later. This does not include only agricultural and industrial development but also administrative measures such as the promulgation of standard weights and measures, a system of numerical notation and writing, the practice of marking and identifying commercial goods by seals, and the opening of far-flung colonies.

Maritime SE Asia- India trade relations  1^st millennium BCE - 7^th century CE

Another example of the new knowledge and understanding generated by the UNESCO Silk Roads Project is that of new archaeological evidence of early trade between India and South East Asia along the Southern Silk Road (Ian C. Glover, 1998/2000). New evidence is reported from archaeological discoveries in India and in maritime Southeast Asia indicating that forms of international trade had emerged during the first millennium BCE, and that this trade formed an extension in southeastern direction of those first millennium BCE trade relations between India and ancient Rome. At the same this early trade between India and South East Asia along the Southern Silk Road has contributed effectively to the first stages of Indianization of mainland and insular Southeast Asia.

Two comments need to be added to the report by Ian Glover concerning aspects which were not mentioned by him or which he perhaps even did not notice during his research.

In the first place one should note the considerable overlap in time and space of this early India - South East Asia trade with the development of the Kalingan trade networks, which were centered in the period 300 BCE (or even earlier) and the 16th century CE on the Ekamra/Bhubaneswar in India, which extended across the Bay of Bengal and included the Indonesian Archipelago, previously described above. Kalingan mariners, who were surely adept in identifying stars as navigational aids in the high seas, may have transferred their knowledge to the sailors and traders involved in the early India - South East Asia trade.

In the second place, Ian Clover (1998/2000, loc. cit.) mentions evidence concerning the early forms of international trade between India and maritime Southeast Asia based on archaeological discoveries made before and during the 3^rd to 5^th century CE and from the 7^th century CE onward, but none during the 6^th century. This appears to be in good accordance with the supposed considerable reduction in political, social and economic activities and marine communications in the region during the 6^th century as a result of the impact and after effects of the supposed submarine volcanic mega-eruption in Strait Sunda between Sumatra and Java in the years 535/536 CE.

The Indianization of Insular Southeast Asia

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Indianization of insular Southeast Asia has not been a one-time and rather simple process. More and more evidence points to the fact that many different processes took part during different periods in the development of more or less Indianized cultures on the various Indonesian islands.

According to Ian C. Glover (1998/2000, loc. cit.) cultural exchanges, which formed the base for the Indianization processes, occurred simultaneously with the early maritime trade between India and Southeast Asia. Likewise, J. G. de Casparis (1998/2000, loc. cit.) is of the opinion that the expansion of Buddhism into Southeast Asia was narrowly linked to trade relations in which Buddhist traders, who were often rich, took an active part, often accompanied by Buddhist monks and pilgrims. Nandana Chutiwongs (1998/2000), sees also a close linkage between the commercial activities along the trade routes and the diffusion of artistic traditions in Southeast Asia.

It also appears probable that at least two different periods of Indianization and of the expansion of Buddhism can be distinguished in relation to the developments of early maritime trade between India and Southeast Asia, the first dating from approximately the 3^rd century BCE to the 5^th century CE, and the second from the 7^th and the 8^th centuries CE. (Ian Glover, 1998/2000 loc. cit.). These two periods are separated by almost a full century, which we attribute to the impact and political, social and economic after effects of the supposed submarine volcanic mega-eruption in Strait Sunda between Sumatra and Java in the years 535/536 CE (see chapter I, sub-chapters 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7).

It is thereby very remarkable to note that the patterns of expansion of the different dogmas, teachings and forms of  Buddhism during these two different periods not only followed separate patterns in mainland Southeast Asia and insular Southeast Asia, but that the later expansion of Islam and of Christianity followed similar patterns. In the areas where Theravada (Hinayana) Buddhism prevailed in mainland Southeast Asia it resisted during later periods the pressure of Islam (and of Christianity), whereas in the areas where Mahayana Buddhism had prevailed during the seventh century CE and later in insular Southeast Asia it did not resist the Islamic and Christian pressures but disappeared almost completely (de Casparis 1998/2000, loc. cit., and Nandana Chutiwongs 1998/2000, loc. cit.).

According to Lokesh Chandra descendants engaged in foreign trade of a dynasty ruling at Srivijayapuri - the names of whom are unknown to us - would have traveled to Sumatra as early as the 4^th century CE, founding a Srivijaya kingdom, named after Srivijayapuri in present-day Andhra Pradesh in the neighborhood of the Sri-sailam mountain in South India from which they originated. He refers thereby to a Buddhist sutra translated into Chinese in 392 CE which mentions Ch”-ye/Jaya which is Srivijaya. Thus this first Indianized trading kingdom of Srivijaya would have been established between 300 and 392 CE, well before the 535/536 CE submarine volcanic mega-eruption in Strait Sunda. Little is known about them, apart from the fact that Hinayana (Theravada) Buddhism was apparently their main religion. Simultaneously another Indianized kingdom existed during the 3^rd to 5^th centuries CE in West Java, the Hindu Tarumanagara kingdom where also a Buddhist community existed. The Tarumanagara kingdom apparently collapsed as a result of the 535/536 CE submarine volcanic mega-eruption in Strait Sunda.

In the 7^th and 8^th centuries CE, when according to Ian C. Glover (1998/2000) archaeological findings confirm a second period of Indianization and of maritime trade between India and Southeast Asia, prosperous Mahayana Buddhist kingdoms emerge in Central Java, characterized by intensive temple building activities.

Equally important for a better understanding of Borobudur is that other question, dealing with the extent to which the design and construction of the many ancient Hindu and Buddhist sanctuaries and monuments of Central Java are largely the exclusive work of the Javanese themselves. A number of other archaeologists and art historians, however, have expressed an opposite assumption, suggesting that more or less important sources of religious and artistic inspiration and architectural traditions and knowledge, including even some construction techniques, were imported from abroad, in particular from India, from where according to some authors the Shailendra dynasty also originated. Candi Kalasan is an often cited example, since the Kalasan inscription mentions a guru (religious teacher and learned man) who introduced in the Shailendra kingdom the worship of the Buddhist goddess Tara to which the temple of Kalasan is dedicated. This guru was most probably the same one as the guru Kumaraghosa mentioned in the Kelurak inscription as being involved in the foundation of Candi Sewu. That guru came from Gaudidvipa (or Gauda or Gudavisaya), the state of Bengal (Vangala) ruled by Pala kings who especially venerated the goddess Tara. One of her temples, also an important pilgrimage site, was at Nalanda, with which the Shailendra kings maintained close relations [Roy Jordaan, 1997 and Lokesh Chandra 1995).

Some concepts and designs like that of Borobudur could perhaps also stem from Ceylon or from China. Many authors provide overviews of these various questions concerning the origin of the Shailendras and/or the extent of foreign influence on Hindu-Javanese temple architecture. According to those authors who advocate strong foreign influences in the design and construction of the Hindu and Buddhist Javanese temple buildings, these would thus owe their particularity to a highly successful merging and blending of foreign and indigenous religious and cultural concepts.

The role of the Shailendra kings apparently was not limited to simply permitting a state of affairs whereby religious and cultural exchanges were facilitated in an age when missionaries, pilgrims, monks and merchants traveled frequently, wide and far along the overland Silk Road connecting Gandhara in the extreme northwest of India via Central Asia with China and along the maritime Silk and Porcelain Route connecting various parts of India via Ceylon with present-day Cambodia (Fu-Nan and Khmer), Sumatra (Srivijaya), Java (Old Mataram), China and Japan. They probably actively promoted such exchanges by inviting repeatedly at successive periods monks, master builders, silpins (artisans and craftsmen) and artists from abroad to participate in their big religious construction projects in Central Java. They may even have commissioned monasteries at Nalanda (northeast India) or at Abhayagiri (Ceylon) to prepare the design of specific projects like that for the third main phase of Borobudur and of other temples in Central Java, such as Candi Sewu and Prambanan.

A number of authors refer to the use of silpa-sastra, the technical manuals on temple building, arts and technology, which originated in India. Others point out, rightly, that constructions like the Hindu-Buddhist temples in Central Java could not be based uniquely on written texts without active inputs by master builders and craftsmen with personal experience in the matter.

It still leaves us with a number of unanswered questions. One concerns the mechanisms whereby the early Indianization (or Hinduization) took place during a first period between the 3^rd century BCE and the 5^th century CE and later during a second period during the 7^th and early 8^th centuries CE. The second question addresses the mechanisms whereby new religious concepts and new types of architecture, new building techniques and now artistic styles were introduced in Java, culminating in the special Hindu-Buddhist architectural and artistic achievements. Was it by a kind of gradual osmosis, like Daigoro Chihara suggests [Daigoro Chihara, 1996)? Was it through the settlement in coastal areas and at maritime trading points, of Indian merchants, possibly combined with an inter-marriage with the local population? Was it through foreign kings and princes who established in Java local kingdoms, bringing with them noblemen (kshatrya) clergy and monks, artisans and artists, as suggested by the kshatrya theory (Roy Jordaan, 1998)? Or was it through Javanese merchants and pilgrims who traveled to India and brought back home with them to Java their knowledge about Indian religions, Indian culture and India architecture? And from which part or parts of India (or continental Asia) and of Ceylon originated the various elements which contributed so much to this Hindu-Buddhist culture (Daigoro Chihara, 1996, loc. cit.)?

These seem to be academic questions which do not contribute essential knowledge for our understanding of the meaning of Borobudur. The correct answers probably will be that a combination of the different mechanisms played a role in proportions varying with time and with local political, religious and commercial conditions. The Ratu Boko inscription provides evidence that a monastery was constructed on the Ratu Boko plateau to the southeast of Yogyakarta, and that it was named after the Abhayagiri monastery in Ceylon and probably housed Ceylonese monks from this monastery.

This observation finds support in a recent publication by Eiji Hattori who mentions on the authority of Roland Silva, the President of the Cultural Heritage office in Sri Lanka, that a scroll found in the ruins of Abhayagiri in Ceylon shows a lotus-like stupa, which is believed to represent Borobudur. A Buddha statue dug out at the same spot closely resembles the very characteristic Buddha statues at Borobudur (Eiji Hattori, 2000, loc. cit.). 

These observations and other discoveries of inscriptions at or near Borobudur seem to suggest that Sinhalese monks might have been involved in the design and construction of Borobudur, however without being as yet a firm proof for the veracity of such an assumption. Nevertheless they are in good agreement with another recent theory, developed by Roy Jordaan, who assumes that the architectural design for mega-projects like the Prambanan and Mendut temple complexes were prepared at Indian monasteries like at Nalanda, with which, as mentioned previously, the Shailendra kings maintained close relations. From this he concludes that basically neither Borobudur nor Prambanan were Javanese creations, irrespective of the huge amount of work executed during many years by thousands of Javanese artisans and laborers (Roy Jordaan, 1998, loc. cit.). 

The role of the Abhayagiri monastery in Sri Lanka, if proven, could also explain other facts, namely the apparent influence of religious and artistic concepts from Gandhara in northwestern most India, the Pala and Gupta kingdoms in Central and northeastern India, and even of some concepts from Central Asia (via China) and China. It is a well-known fact, mentioned at length by Lokesh Chandra (1987 and 1995, loc. cit.), that the monks of the Abhayagiri monastery maintained extensive contacts with all those areas and that they were open to adopting many new concepts and ideas. One can go even one step further and postulate that the as yet anonymous exceptionally gifted master builder responsible for the third main construction phase of Borobudur was no other than the mythical Gunadharma, who is remembered by tradition and in folks tales, that he was a historical person, and that he was a monk from the Abhayagiri monastery (see Caesar Voûte, 2000).

Much more important is another question. What about the “unique Javanese genius”, invoked by Soekmono and several other scholars, and its role in the creation and further development of the Hindu-Buddhist Javanese arts and architecture? The author is of the opinion that its contribution was essential in providing not only the necessary human and material resources, but even more important in establishing the proper spiritual and cultural environment for a highly successful merging and blending of foreign and indigenous religious and cultural concepts, and also for its specific and unique character. Daigoro Chihara defines this Hindu-Buddhist Javanese character as follows: ‘The golden age of Hindu-Buddhist architecture in Southeast Asia began in the islands with the Hindu-Javanese architecture that blossomed in central Java. In the Kedu plain, the “garden of Java” known for its fine scenic beauty, there unfolds an enormous complex of architectural art centered on the Borobudur group, in which architectural sculpture deriving from the Gupta art of Sarnath in India has been elevated to the realms of pious faith. Moreover, in the Prambanan area one finds a profusion of magnificent religious architecture, such as that of Candi Kalasan, which also exerted considerable influence on the plastic arts of Champa and the Khmers, and it culminates in the complex of Loro Jonggrang....... These edifices are overflowing with an atmosphere and energy no longer possible to create in contemporary society, namely a tranquility marked by optimistic radiance and strength that cannot be detected in the architecture of either the Khmers or Pagan.......’

‘In the complexes of Khmer religious architecture one senses an overpowering display of regal authority in the name of religion that might without exaggeration be even described as obsessive...... The Khmer architecture of the Angkor period leaves an impression distinctly similar to that engendered by the powerful architectonics realized by the Dorians of ancient Greece...... The imposing structural beauty of Angkor Vat is after all the most distinctive feature of Khmer architecture, and its architectonic beauty deserves high praise even in comparison with that of Borobudur. But in contrast to the quietude of Borobudur, there is a sense of movement at Angkor Vat..... one cannot experience here the optimistic radiance that one finds in Java. One feels rather a sense of tension and, at the Bayon, even gloom....’

‘The other architectural ensemble glorifying the golden age in the history of Hindu-Buddhist architecture in Southeast Asia is that of Pagan in Burma....... The strongest impression on visiting the architectural complex at Pagan is above all that left by the atmosphere of religious piety with which it is imbued......’

‘One directly encounters in central Java art itself, in Angkor most decidedly the very structure of architecture, and in Pagan a piety in which art and architecture have quietly coalesced.’ (Daigoro Chihara, 1996, pages 11-13]. Indeed, no better way to express the uniqueness of the Javanese genius which amalgamated indigenous and foreign elements and which shaped the religious developments that were strongly syncretic as well as the arts, the architecture and the culture in ancient Central Java.

References

J. G. de Casparis, 1998/2000, “The Expansion of Buddhism into Southeast Asia (Mainly before A.D. 1000)”, in: Vadime Elisseeff, Editor, 1998, 2000, The Silk Roads. Highways of Culture and Commerce, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 2000, pp.49-68

Lokesh Chandra, 1987, “Borobudur”, Kabar seberang sulating Maphilindo, Nomor Kebudayaan, No. 18, July 1987, Centre for South-East Asian Studies, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia, 1987, pages 1-95;

Lokesh Chandra, 1995, “The Contacts of Abhayagiri of Srilanka with Indonesia in the Eighth Century” (Chapter 2) and “The Shailendras of Java” Chapter 15, in: Lokesh Chandra,  Cultural Horizons of India, Volume 4, pages 10-21 and 205-241. Published by Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1995, Sata-Pitaka Series vol. 381. ISBN 81-85689-44-X.

Daigoro Chihara, 1996,  “Hindu-Buddhist Architecture in Southeast Asia”, Studies in Asian Art and Archaeology (Continuation of Studies in South Asian Culture) edited by Jan Fontein,   Vol. XIX, E.J. Brill, Leiden - New York - Koln, 1996;

Nandana Chutiwongs (1998, 2000), “The Trade Routes and the Diffusion of Artistic Traditions in South and Southeast Asia”, in: Vadime Elisseeff, Editor, 1998, 2000, The Silk Roads. Highways of Culture and Commerce.  Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 2000, pp. 272-287.

Vadime Elisseeff, 1998, 2000, “Approaches   Old and New to the Silk Roads”, in: Vadime Elisseeff, Editor, 1998, 2000, The Silk Roads. Highways of Culture and Commerce, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 2000, pp. 1-26.

Ian C. Glover, 1998, 2000, “The Southern Silk Road. Archaeological Evidence of Early Trade between India and Southeast Asia”, in: Vadime Elisseeff, Editor, 1998, 2000, The Silk Roads. Highways of Culture and Commerce, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 2000, pp. 93-121.

Eiji Hattori, 1999, “The Birth of Mahayana Buddhism in Gandhara - From Clash to Fecundation of Civilizations”, Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations ISCSC, St. Louis, USA, 1999;

Eiji Hattori, 2000, “The Route of Mahayana Buddhism through the Southern sea”, revised and translated version of  the text published in Japanese in the Journal of Comparative Study of Civilizations” no. 2, 1997, Journal for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, No. 5, 2000, pp 19-44.

Eiji Hattori, 2002, “Did the Dragon Cross the Pacific Ocean?”, presented by Prof. Eiji Hattori at a meeting of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations ISCSC at Reitaku University, Japan, in Japanese, Journal for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, Center for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, Reitaku University, Japan, 2002, [[[Mark, can you insert the page numbers from the relevant Japanese photocopy which was added to my package?]]]

Roy E. Jordaan, 1997, “Tara and Nyai Lara Kidul - Images of the Divine Feminine in Java”, Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan University, Nagoya, Vol.  56, 1997, pp. 285-312;

Roy E. Jordaan, 1998, “The Shailendras, the Status of the Ksatriya Theory and the Development of the Hindu-Javanese Temple Construction, BKI (in press);

John Miksic, 1998, “Indonesie: delven in ons oudste verleden” and “Tijdschaal”, in: Geschiedenis van Indonesie. Land, volk en cultuur. Deel 1, Oude geschiedenis, onder redactie van Dr.John Miksic, Nederlandse editie Uitgeverij Uniepers, Abcoude, the Netherlands. 1998, pp. 6-9 and 11-12.

Francois Semah & H.T. Simanjuntak, 1998, “Oudste werktuigen van Indonesie”, in: Geschiedenis van Indonesie. Land, volk en cultuur. Deel 1, Oude geschiedenis, onder redactie van Dr.John Miksic, Nederlandse editie Uitgeverij Uniepers, Abcoude, the Netherlands. 1998, pp. 30-31

Nilofer Shaikh, 1998-2000, “Indus-Gulf Relations. A reassessment in the Light of New Evidence”, “, in: Vadime Elisseeff, Editor, 1998, 2000, The Silk Roads. Highways of Culture and Commerce. Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 2000, pp 81-92.

Sudarshana Devi Singhal, 1991, “Candi Mendut and the Mahavairocana-sutra”, in: Lokesh Chandra (ed.), The Art and Culture of SE Asia. International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1991.

Bambang Soemadio, 1998, “Tijdperken in de Indonesische prehistorie”, in: Geschiedenis van Indonesie. Land, volk en cultuur. Deel 1, Oude geschiedenis, onder redactie van Dr.John Miksic, Nederlandse editie Uitgeverij Uniepers, Abcoude, the Netherlands. 1998, pp. 16-17.

Henrik H. Sorensen, 1998, 2000, “Perspectives on Buddhism in Dunguang during the Tang and Five Dynasties Period”, : Vadime Elisseeff, Editor, 1998, 2000, “The Silk Roads. Highways of Culture and Commerce”, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 2000, pp 27-48.

Jeffrey Sundberg, 2004. "The wilderness monks of the Abhayagirivihara and the origins of Sino-Javanese esoteric Buddhism", Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde, Vol. 160, No. 1 (2004):95-123.

Caesar Voûte, 2000, “Religious, cultural and political developments during the Hindu-Buddhist period in Central and East Java - relations with India and Srilanka - human actors and geological processes and events”, In:Society and Culture in Southeast Asia. Continuities and Changes edited by Lokesh Chandra. International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 2000, pp. 299-344.

Amir H. Zekrgoo, “The Spiritual Identity of the Silk Roads. A Historical Overview of Buddhism and Islam”, in: Vadime Elisseeff, Editor, 1998, 2000, The Silk Roads. Highways of Culture and Commerce, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 2000, pp.318-328.

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