The world of Silk Roads
A British Museum exhibition
This photo shows a small bronze buddha figure, beautifully preserved. It is the first object we meet on our journey through the Silk Road exhibition at London’s British Museum, and in a way it tells the whole story behind this event, the story of a vibrant interconnected world that spanned almost two millenia. This buddha is not just a drop in the ocean of exceptional artefacts gathered together here, rather it is the ocean in a drop.
It was probably made in the Swat Valley, in present-day Pakistan, where Buddhism and its art and sculpture flourished for just under a thousand years between approximately 200 BCE and 800 CE. This piece was probably made in the late 500s. Interestingly, it was unearthed 5000 kilometres away on the tiny Swedish island of Helgo near buildings dated to 800 CE. Its discovery dramatically broadened our understanding of the Silk Road, demonstrating a complex network of many roads that stretched from East to West and that branched off to the north and south. We usually speak of THE Silk Road, but there was not just one, there were many. The treasures these roads have yielded to us speak of a deeply connected human world in which diversity was explored with an open mind and elements of other cultures incorporated into one’s own.
In the first phases of the history of the Silk Road the spread and influence of Buddhism was dominant. Buddhist thought and culture was spread by tradesmen travelling from central Asia to northern China, and from there to Korea and to Japan. It inspired changes in local cultures and customs exemplified by the gradual switch from burials to cremation, illustrated by this urn, and it gave rise to countless paintings and sculptures that are quite exquisite and refined.
Buddhist scriptures were translated into the various languages spoken along the route: Khotanese and Chinese in particular. And the Dun huang caves on the Silk Road north of Tibet on the edge of the Takla Makan desert, were first discovered around a hundred years ago and have proved a treasure-trove of Buddhist texts and art such as this beautiful tapestry of a standing buddha.
Over time many other influences prevailed along the Silk Route. Zoroastrianism and Islam both spread along this east-west axis, as did Christianity. And the road branched south to Egypt and Ethiopia, and north to Scandinavia. It reached as far west as Rome and Moorish Spain.
The excellent condition of the artefacts on display belies their age and the conditions in which they may have been found. Their perfection also stands in contrast to the experience of travelling this ancient route, crossing deserts and mountain passes, thick forests and wide gushing rivers, not to mention states that were at war. It struck me that to be a travelling tradesman in those days, bartering things for silk and introducing exotic objects to far-off lands, was a serious adventure that would have tested both body and mind over and over again. I marvel at all the effort involved in producing, transporting and selling even a small figurine like the bronze buddha. He appears peaceful and serene but emerges from a vast and complex world that was both dynamic and dangerous.
For details of the exhibition: https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/silk-roads
See my book Discovering Buddhism for the history of how Buddhism spread throughout Asia: https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/religion-beliefs/discovering-buddhism