The Silk Road and the Rise and Fall of Cultures

The Silk Road itself was a labyrinth of trackways that began with the Gansu corridor in western China. It then skirted north and south of the arid Tarim Basin, before reaching the crossroads that lay in the valleys of the Syr Dar’ya and Amu Dar’ya Rivers as they flowed north to the Aral Sea. Here it was possible to strike south into Afghanistan and India or to continue in a westerly direction, south of the Caspian Sea, to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
This route was an ancient one, followed, it seems, by early farmers trekking east, who founded settlements in the Tarim oases during the third millennium B.C.E. There, in the dry wastes, are 4,000-year-old cemeteries containing the remains of fair-skinned people with European features, interred with woven plaid textiles, sprigs of ephedra (a hallucinatory plant), and trousers and boots. Their descendants in all probability spoke Tocharian, an Indo-European language. It was along this route that knowledge of bronze working and the chariot reached China.
The Silk Road was a conduit for the arrival of Buddhist teachings in China and ultimately Korea and Japan. At Mogao, east of the Taklamakan Desert, are some of the finest Buddhist shrines anywhere. The Chinese Han dynasty’s establishment of peaceful conditions in the second century B.C.E., always problematical where steppe horsemen might intervene, promoted the development of states along the eastern stepping stones of the Silk Road. When the archaeologist-explorers Sven Hedin and Sir Aurel Stein reached the deserts of far western China a century ago, they encountered the remains of walled cities, roads, even ancient vineyards. Letters and royal orders on wood and leather have survived, in an Indian script dating to the third century C.E. These illuminate the kingdoms of Shan-shan, Sogdiana, and Hotan and their oasis cities at Niya, Endere, Panjikent, and Lou-lan.
The crossroads of Asia, where the routes south into India bisect the Silk Road south of the Aral Sea, have seen the rise and fall of many civilizations. Under the rule of Cyrus the Great (ruled c. 585–c. 529 B.C.E.), the Achaemenid empire of Persia expanded east, incorporating the Indus Valley as its 20th province during the reign of Darius the Great in the early fifth century B.C.E. Achaemenid rule came to an end with the defeat of Darius III at the hands of Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela (modern Iraq) in 331 B.C.E., setting in motion the beginning of the Greek control of this region. Under Seleucus Nicator (356–281 B.C.E.), one of Alexander’s generals and ruler of the former Persian Empire, Greek influence was profoundly felt through the foundation of cities, the construction of temples, and the minting of coins bearing the images of many Bactrian Greek kings. At Ay Khanum in Afghanistan and Sirkap in Pakistan are cities that match their contemporaries in Greece itself.
This powerful wave of Hellenistic influence can be seen in the Gandharan art style as well as in theaters and mausoleums, for example, at Ay Khanum. However, the Seleucid empire was on the wane by the mid-second century B.C.E., and from its remnants arose the Parthians in the region southeast of the Caspian Sea. They briefly held sway over the great center of Merv (modern Mary in Turkmenistan), reaching down into the Indus Valley. The Kushans, however, were to exert a major influence in this area. Moving west from China, these initially nomadic groups settled south of the Aral Sea by the end of the second century B.C.E., and under a line of potent rulers beginning with Kujula Kadphises, they came to rule a large empire south into India, with a capital at Purusapura (modern Peshawar). King Kanishka, who took the title devaputra, or son of god, showed a deep interest in Hinduism. By 200 C.E., Persian power resurfaced with the Sasanid dynasty under Ardashir I (224–241). Sassanian control of the strategic Merv Oasis and this central part of the Silk Road provided a welcome element of stability. By the third century C.E., a Christian monastery was founded at Merv.
From the fifth century C.E., however, the Sassanians came under mounting pressure from the Hephthalite Huns to the east, a people of shadowy origins, whose prowess as mounted cavalrymen and archers was feared. After the defeat and death of their king, Firuz, in 484, the Sassanians paid tribute in coinage to the Hephthalites, largely to keep the peace on their eastern frontier, until the reign of Khosrow I in the mid-sixth century C.E. Hephthalite territory at this juncture included Tokharistan and much of Afghanistan. They conquered Sogdiana in 509 and extended their authority as far east as Urumqi in northwest China. By 520, they controlled this area and in India came up against the western frontiers of the Gupta empire under King Bhuhagupta. Under their own king, Toramana, the Hephthalites seized the Punjab, Kashmir, and Rajputana; Toramana’s successor, Mihirakula, established his capital at Sakala (modern Sialkot in Pakistan). He was a devotee of Siva, and this was a period of devastation for the venerable Buddhist monasteries in Pakistan and India, many of which were sacked and destroyed. The last Hephthalite king, Yudhishthira, ruled until about 670, when he was replaced by the Turkish dynasty known as the Shahi.