"This first and only English translation of Rong Xinjiang's The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges Between East and West is a collection of 28 papers on the history of the Silk Road and the interactions among the peoples and cultures of East and Central Asia, including the so-called Western Regions in modern-day Xinjiang. Each paper is a masterly study that combines information obtained from historical records with excavated materials, such as manuscripts, inscriptions and artefacts. The new materials primarily come from north-western China, including sites in the regions of Dunhuang, Turfan, Kucha, and Khotan. The book contains a wealth of original insights into nearly every aspect of the complex history of this region"--
The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges Between East and West, originally written in Chinese by Rong Xinjiang and now translated into English, provides insights into previously unresolved issues concerning the interactions among the societies, economies, religions and cultures of the “Western Regions”, and beyond, during the first millennium.
| Preface |
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ix | |
| Editor's Acknowledgements |
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xxiii | |
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List of Figures, Maps and Tables |
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xxv | |
| Translators |
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xxix | |
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1 The Silk Road and Ancient Xinjiang |
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3 | (13) |
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2 The Anxi Protectorate and the Silk Road in the Tang Period, with a Focus on the Documents Excavated at Turfan |
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16 | (21) |
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3 Beiting on the Silk Road (7th-ioth Centuries) |
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37 | (16) |
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4 The City of Tongwan in the History of Sino-Western Communications in the Medieval Period |
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53 | (13) |
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5 Gaochang in the Second Half of the 5th Century and Its Relations with the Rouran Qaghanate and the Kingdoms of the Western Regions |
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66 | (27) |
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PART 2 Cultural Exchange and Interaction |
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6 Persian and Chinese: The Integration of Two Cultures in the Tang Dynasty |
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93 | (31) |
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7 New Evidence on the History of Contacts between the Tang Dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate: Yang Liangyao's Embassy |
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124 | (28) |
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8 Cultural Contacts between China and India from the Late Tang to the Early Song in Light of the Dunhuang Manuscripts |
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152 | (35) |
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9 Historical Evidence for Cultural Exchanges between the Tang and Silla: The Inscription for the Meditation Cloister at the Dayun Monastery in Haizhou |
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187 | (27) |
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10 Diplomatic Relations in East Asia in the 8th Century and Japanese Embassies to Tang China |
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214 | (11) |
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11 The Official Reception of Japanese Envoys during the Tang Dynasty as Seen from the Epitaph of I no Manari |
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225 | (18) |
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PART 3 The Westward Spread of Chinese Culture |
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12 The Network of Chinese Buddhist Monasteries in the Western Regions under Tang Control |
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243 | (12) |
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13 The Circulation of Chinese Texts in the Region of Kucha in the Tang Dynasty: The German Turfan Collection |
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255 | (17) |
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14 The Transmission of Chan Buddhism to the Western Regions in the Tang Dynasty |
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272 | (21) |
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15 The "Lanting xu" in the Western Regions |
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293 | (23) |
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16 The Transmission of Wang Xizhi's "Shang xiang Huang Qi tie" in the Western Regions |
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316 | (15) |
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17 Reception and Rejection: The Transmission of Chinese Texts into the Western Regions during the Tang Dynasty |
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331 | (28) |
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PART 4 Contributions to China of Foreign Material Culture |
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18 Sogdian Merchants and Sogdian Culture on the Silk Road |
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359 | (17) |
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19 Currency on the Silk Road and the Sogdian Merchants |
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376 | (12) |
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20 The Life of a Sogdian Leader on the Silk Road - A Rough Summary of the Images on Shi Jun's Sarcophagus |
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388 | (24) |
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21 Khotanese Felt and Sogdian Silver: Foreign Gifts to Buddhist Monasteries in 9th and 10th Century Dunhuang |
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412 | (23) |
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22 The Exchange of Silk Textiles between Dunhuang and Khotan during the 10th Century |
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435 | (26) |
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PART 5 The Transmission of the Three Foreign Religions |
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23 The Colophon of the Manuscript of the Golden Light Sutra Excavated in Turfan and the Transmission of Zoroastrianism to Gaochang |
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461 | (29) |
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24 Buddhist Images or Zoroastrian Deities? Religious Syncretism on the Silk Road as Seen from Khotan |
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490 | (22) |
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25 Further Discussion of the Mixing of Religions on the Silk Road: A New View of the Buddhist Murals in Khotan |
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512 | (5) |
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26 Jingjiao Christians as Heretics in the Eyes of Buddhists and Daoists of the Tang Dynasty |
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517 | (25) |
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27 The Authenticity of Some Jingjiao Texts from Dunhuang |
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542 | (31) |
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28 The Western Regions: The Last Paradise of Manichaeism |
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573 | (12) |
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| Epilogue |
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585 | (2) |
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| Appendix: Converting Chinese Dates into Western Dates |
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587 | (6) |
| Bibliography |
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593 | (79) |
| Index |
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672 | |
Rong Xinjiang is the Boya Chair Professor in the Department of History at Peking University. He has made outstanding contributions in the fields of the history of Sino-Western cultural exchanges, the Silk Road, the Chinese history during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the history of Central Asia, as well as Dunhuang and Turfan studies. He has published hundreds of articles and monographs, some of which have also appeared in English, including Eighteen Lectures on Dunhuang (Brill, 2013). In 2021, he was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
Sally K Church, Ph.D. (1992), Harvard University, is an Affiliated Researcher and a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, and a Research Associate at the Needham Research Institute. She publishes on China's historical involvement in maritime and overland communications.
Professor Imre Galambos is a specialist in Chinese manuscripts. He obtained his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, with a dissertation on early Chinese writing. After graduation, he joined the International Dunhuang Project (IDP) at the British Library and began to work on the Dunhuang manuscripts. After ten years, he took up a teaching post at the University of Cambridge, where he is now Professor of Chinese. He has written extensively on the manuscripts excavated from sites along the historical Silk Roads.
