In class today we learned about the Silk Road and its importance in Eurasia. The Silk Road was one of the first major trade routes in the world. It brought goods such as cotton textiles, ivory, and pearls from China to the Mediteranean and many places in between, but it also brought a large cultural influence into China. That cultural influence is the Buddhist religion.
Up until the creation of the Silk Road, in the second century BCE, Buddhism was found primarily in India and some Cen
tral Asian nations. With the creation of this major trade network Chinese merchants began traveling west in order to trade goods with Rome, Egypt, India, and the nations of Central Asia. While they were in India came upon this new religion called Buddhism. It is believed that Buddhism reached China sometime in the first and second century CE. Having heard of this religion many monks throughout the next centuries would traveled the Silk Road to India in order to study Buddhism, they would then return to China and teach others what they had learned. Some of these iffluental monks included Zhu Shixing from the Three Kingdoms (220-280CE), Fa Xian and Kumrajva in the Jin Dynasty (265-420CE), Song Yun and Hui Shang in the Northern Dynasty (420-589CE), and Xuan Zang in the Tang Dynasty (618-907CE).
. ">"Culture of Silk Road." Travel China Guide Travel China Guide.com, 2009. Web. 28 Oct. 2009
Up until the creation of the Silk Road, in the second century BCE, Buddhism was found primarily in India and some Cen
tral Asian nations. With the creation of this major trade network Chinese merchants began traveling west in order to trade goods with Rome, Egypt, India, and the nations of Central Asia. While they were in India came upon this new religion called Buddhism. It is believed that Buddhism reached China sometime in the first and second century CE. Having heard of this religion many monks throughout the next centuries would traveled the Silk Road to India in order to study Buddhism, they would then return to China and teach others what they had learned. Some of these iffluental monks included Zhu Shixing from the Three Kingdoms (220-280CE), Fa Xian and Kumrajva in the Jin Dynasty (265-420CE), Song Yun and Hui Shang in the Northern Dynasty (420-589CE), and Xuan Zang in the Tang Dynasty (618-907CE).. ">"Culture of Silk Road." Travel China Guide Travel China Guide.com, 2009. Web. 28 Oct. 2009
I like how you said that a road built for trade ended up spreading much more than that, a religion. Thank you for posting this, it gave me an idea of what I want to discuss in my post this week.
ReplyDeleteI never realized, although it was very obvious, that the silk road could have such an impact on religion and other ideological things. Before reading this post I guess I really never comprehended how religion spread, we have learned in our history books all throughout our schooling experience that religion just 'spread' and never really explained the mechanisms behind that.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that something so important and major in many people's lifes was adopted through the Silk Road. One would think that religion would be adopted or passed on through generations by family members but instead it was adopted by other cultures to other cultures.
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