When the centre of Asia was the centre of the world. The golden age of central Asia
di // pubblicato il 23 Dicembre, 2011
The huge continental area lying between Iran, India and China is today considered backwards and unimportant and its territory, rich in primary sources is disputed by major political powers. The same area starting from the first centuries AD for about a millennium saw a great development of urban centres, a striking cosmopolitanism and the development of trade and culture along the major trade routes.
These trade routes connecting the eastern and the western edge of Eurasian continent are today commonly defined “Silk road”, although silk was just one of the many goods circulating on these routes.
A broad geographical definition of Central Asia may include the five “stans”, or the five republics formerly part of the Soviet union, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Mongolia Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Kashmir, southern Siberia, Xinjiang in western China and Tibet. The region can also be defined by ethnicity being inhabited by Turkic, Eastern Iranian, or Mongolian people. The region was inhabited generally in the north by nomadic shepherds, and in the south by settled agriculturist, even if the aridity and harshness of the territory required advanced irrigation systems to cultivate.
The ancient history of Central Asia is characterized by the relationship and the exchanges between these two groups, in the south often organized in city state along the oasis or in big empires as the Persian or Chinese and in the north arranged in tribal confederation systems.
Around the year 900 eminent scientists, philosophers and innovators of Turkic and Persian ethnicity flourished in Central Asia. Among the most important learning centres were Bukhara and Samarkanda in present days Uzbekistan, Merv in present days Turkmenistan, Herat in present days Afganistan and Kashgar in Present days China. Immense discoveries in geography, mathematics, trigonometry, comparative religion, astronomy, physics, psychology, mineralogy, pharmacology and geology triggered the development of modern science and technology expanding in east Asia, in India and the middle East and favouring the consequent development of medieval Europe.
Evolutionary geology and even Darwinism were anticipated of nearly a millennium, creating a bridge between the great minds of antiquity and of renaissance.
The principal reason why this great development occurred in Central Asia lie in the great circulation of goods, peoples, technology and ideas in the central Asian cities. Papermaking, sericulture and lacquer spread westward from China while glass blowing went westwards from the Middle East through Central Asia. Central Asian had to offer horses, precious stones, metals, jade, grapes and olive oil, which were treasured and massively traded in China.
Together with the merchants a great number of religious travelled along the central Asian routes. Starting from the invasion of Alexander the Great (2nd century BC) Greek settlers spread the cult of Athena, Hercules and other Greek myths in Afghanistan, possibly inspiring the first sculpted human representations of the Buddha in Mathura and Gandhara (Present days Afghanistan). Jewish, Syrian Christian and Manichean communities were founded across the region. Zoroastrianism, with its cult of water and fire as purifying agents and the emphasis on the struggle between good and badis was followed by ancient iranians and is to consider one of the most important faith of the region. Starting from the fifth century BC Buddhist religion spread in the Indian continent and consequently reached Central Asia in whose cities the faith was modified to suit a bigger number of follower (Mahayana Buddhism) and from whose routes it spread all over Eastern Asia. Buddhism expanded its popularity also in areas commonly inhabited by nomadic populations, as Mongolia and Tibet, where the new faith melted to the existing shamanic cults and practices in creating totally new religious systems. In the late 7thcentury, Islamism, a religion born in the middle east and derived from Judaism made many converts in the region, although the melting of religion still existed for several centuries. The presence of such a big number of different cults led to the development of philosophical research and comparative religions.
Following the fluorescence of trade and cults, a huge number of languages and alphabets were used and tested by central Asians, which were, contrarily to the Chinese and Arabs extremely polyglot and intellectually open minded.
Subsequent to the melting of races and ideas, central Asian town saw, starting from the first centuries AD, a great artistic renaissance.
The image of Buddha as a man was created in Gandhara and spread, modifying its features, all over eastern and southern Asia. The first human images of the Buddha bear strong Hellenistic characters, clearly influenced by the Hellenistic settlers’ culture. Gradually, in North India and Central Asia was created a complex pantheon of Buddhist deities and a canon of Buddhist scriptures related to the teachings of Siddharta Gautama Sakyamuni, the founder of original Buddhism (Theravada), subsequently named the “historical Buddha”. The Buddhist teachings were named “Sutra” and were organized in books commonly bearing both the texts and the images of the Buddhist pantheon.
Among the many artistic motives born in Central Asia during the first millennium AD, the most representative is the so called "roundel design". This motif is composed of circular frames resembling to medallions. The frames can enclose many themes (human, animal, vegetal, etc.) even if most commonly the frames enclose animals, especially birds, confronting each other and vegetal themes. In the interstice created by the encounter of four roundels are floral rosette-like motifs, often arranged with zoomorphic ones.
This pattern was the most popular decorative motif especially for textiles, but can also be seen represented in other medium, among which metal wares and paintings. From the 7th century A.D. to the 12th-13th centuries A.D it diffused throughout a wide area extending from Europe to the Far East, spreading consequently even in India and Europe.
The golden age of Central Asia, starting in the first centuries AD, for several reasons gradually faded in the 12th century. Commercial contacts with the big empires as China diminished and the introduction of high local import taxes stifled the free circulation of goods. The complex irrigation system at the base of agriculture declined and many cities were abandoned. Islamic religion developed in orthodoxy and censored the most imaginative scientists, humanists and thinkers. All these factors provoked the state of decadence and backwardness that still characterize the central Asian territory, which nonetheless in its golden age had known the flourishing of one the world’s finest cultural establishments.