The Spread of Ideas --

Ideas, like social customs, religious attitudes, and artistic styles, can spread along trade routes and through folk migrations. In both cases, documenting the dissemination of ideas, particularly in preliterate societies, poses a difficult historical problem.

Historians know about some ideas only through the survival of written sources. Other ideas do not depend on writing but are inherent in material objects studied by archaeologists and anthropologists. Customs surrounding the eating of pork are a case in point. Scholars disagree about whether pigs became domestic in only one place, from which the practice of pig keeping spread elsewhere, or whether several peoples hit on the same idea at different times and in different places.

Southeast Asia was an important early center of pig domestication. Anthropological studies tell us that the eating of pork became highly ritualized in this area and that it was sometimes allowed only on ceremonial occasions. On the other side of the Indian Ocean, wild swine were common in the Nile swamps of ancient Egypt. There, too, pigs took on a sacred role, being associated with the evil god Set, and eating them was prohibited. The biblical prohibition on the Israelites’ eating pork, echoed later by the Muslims, probably came from Egypt in the second millennium b. c.e.

In a third locale in eastern Iran, an archaeological site dating from the third millennium b. c.e. provides evidence of another religious taboo relating to pork. Although the area around the site was swampy and home to many wild pigs, not a single pig bone has been found. Yet small pig figurines seem to have been used as symbolic religious offerings, and the later Iranian religion associates the boar with an important god.

What accounts for the apparent connection between domestic pigs and religion in these far-flung areas? There is no way of knowing. It has been hypothesized that pigs were first domesticated in Southeast Asia by people who had no herd animals—sheep, goats, cattle, or horses— and who relied on fish for most of their animal protein. The pig therefore became a special animal to them. The practice of pig herding, along with religious beliefs and rituals associated with the consumption of pork, could conceivably have spread from Southeast Asia along the maritime routes of the Indian Ocean, eventually reaching Iran and Egypt. But no evidence survives to support this hypothesis. In this case, therefore, material evidence can only hint at the spread of religious ideas, leaving the door open for other explanations.

A more certain example of objects’ indicating the spread of an idea is the practice of hammering a carved die onto a piece of precious metal and using the resulting coin as a medium of exchange. From its origin in the Lydian kingdom in Anatolia in the first millennium b. c.e. (see Chapter 5), the idea of trading by means of struck coinage spread rapidly to Europe, North Africa, and India. Was the low-value copper coinage of China, made by pouring molten metal into a mold, also inspired by this practice from far away? It may have been, but it might also derive from indigenous Chinese metalworking.

The Spread of Buddhism

Gandharan Sculpture The art of Gandhara in northwest Pakistan featured Hellenistic styles and techniques borrowed from the cities founded by Alexander the Great in Afghanistan. Though much Gandharan art is Buddhist in spirit, this fourth-century c. e. image of a flower-bearer is strongly Greek in the naturalistic treatment of the head and left arm. (Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)

There is no way to be sure. Theoretically, all that is needed for an idea to spread is a single returning traveler telling about some wonder that he or she saw abroad.

While material objects associated with religious beliefs and rituals are important indicators of the spread of spiritual ideas, written sources deal with the spread of today’s major religions. Buddhism grew to become, with Christianity and Islam (see Chapter 9), one of the most popular and widespread religions in the world. In all three cases, the religious ideas spread without dependency on a single ethnic or kinship group.

King Ashoka, the Mauryan ruler of India, and Kan-ishka, the greatest king of the Kushans of northern Afghanistan, promoted Buddhism between the third century b. c.e. and the second century c. e. However, monks, missionaries, and pilgrims who crisscrossed India, followed the Silk Road, or took ships on the Indian Ocean brought the Buddha’s teachings to Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and ultimately Japan (see Map 8.1).

The Chinese pilgrims Faxian° (died between 418 and 423 C. E.) and Xuanzang° (600-664 c. e.) left written accounts of their travels (see Diversity and Dominance: Travel Accounts of Africa and India). Both followed the Silk Road, through which Buddhism had arrived in China. Along the way they encountered Buddhist communities and monasteries that previous generations of missionaries and pilgrims had established.

Faxian began his trip in the company of a Chinese envoy to an unspecified ruler or people in Central Asia. After traveling from one Buddhist site to another across Afghanistan and India, he reached Sri Lanka, a Buddhist

Faxian (fah-shee-en) Xuanzang (shoo-wen-zahng)

Land, where he lived for two years. He then embarked for China on a merchant ship with two hundred men aboard. A storm drove the ship to Java, which he chose not to describe since it was Hindu rather than Buddhist. After five months ashore, Faxian finally reached China on another ship. The narrative of Xuanzang’s journey two centuries later is quite similar, though he returned to China the way he had come, along the Silk Road.

Less reliable accounts make reference to missionaries traveling to Syria, Egypt, and Macedonia, as well as to Southeast Asia. One of Ashoka’s sons allegedly led a band of missionaries to Sri Lanka. Later, his sister brought a company of nuns there, along with a branch of the sacred Bo tree under which the Buddha had received enlightenment. At the same time, there are reports of other monks traveling to Burma, Thailand, and Sumatra. Ashoka’s missionaries may also have reached Tibet by way of trade routes across the Himalayas. A firmer tradition maintains that in 622 c. e. a minister of the Tibetan king traveled to India to study Buddhism and on his return introduced writing to his homeland.

The different lands that received the story and teachings of the Buddha preserved or adapted them in different ways. Theravada Buddhism, “Teachings of the Elder,” was centered in Sri Lanka. Holding closely to the Buddha’s earliest teachings, it maintained that the goal of religion, available only to monks, is nirvana, the total absence of suffering and the end of the cycle of rebirth (see Chapter 7). This teaching contrasted with Ma-hayana, or “Great Vehicle” Buddhism, which stressed the goal of becoming a bodhisattva, a person who attains

The Spread of Christianity

Stele of Aksum This 70-foot (21-meter) stone is the tallest remnant of a field of stelae, or standing stones, marking the tombs of Aksumite kings. The carvings of doors, windows, and beam ends imitate common features of Aksumite architecture, suggesting that each stele symbolized a multistory royal palace. The largest stelae date from the fourth century c. e. (J. Allan Cash)

Nirvana but chooses to remain in human company to help and guide others.

An offshoot of Mahayana Buddhism stressing ritual prayer and personal guidance by “perfected ones” became dominant in Tibet after the eighth century c. e. In China another offshoot, Chan (called Zen in its Japanese form), focused on meditation and sudden enlightenment. It became one of the dominant sects in China, Korea, and Japan (see Chapter 11).

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Memorial on Buddhism

The post-Roman development of Christianity in Europe is discussed in Chapter 10. The Christian faith enjoyed an earlier spread in Asia and Africa before its confrontation with Islam (described in Chapter 9). Jerusalem in Palestine, Antioch in Syria, and Alexandria in Egypt became centers of Christian authority soon after the crucifixion, but the spread of Christianity to Armenia and Ethiopia illustrates the connections between religion, trade, and imperial politics.

Situated in eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey), Armenia served recurrently as a battleground between Iranian states to the south and east and Mediterranean states to the west. Each imperial power wanted to control this region so close to the frontier where Silk Road traders met their Mediterranean counterparts. In Parthian times, Armenia’s kings favored Zoroastrianism. Armenian not then being a written language, Christianity was known to “only those who were to some degree acquainted with Greek or Syriac learning” and thus able to obtain “some partial inkling of it.”3

The invention of an Armenian alphabet in the early fifth century opened the way to a wider spread of Christianity. The Iranians did not give up domination easily, but within a century the Armenian Apostolic Church had become the center of Armenian cultural life.

Far to the south Christians similarly sought to outflank Iran. The Christian emperors in Constantinople (see Chapter 10) sent missionaries along the Red Sea trade route to seek converts in Yemen and Ethiopia. In the fourth century c. e. a Syrian philosopher traveling with two young relatives sailed to India. On the way back the ship docked at a Red Sea port occupied by Ethiopians from the prosperous kingdom of Aksum. Being then at odds with the Romans, the Ethiopians killed everyone on board except the two boys, Aedisius—who later narrated this story—and Frumentius. Impressed by their learning, the king made the former his cupbearer and the latter his treasurer and secretary.

When the king died, his wife urged Frumentius to govern Aksum on her behalf and that of her infant son, Ezana. As regent Frumentius sought out Roman Christians among the merchants who visited the country and helped them establish Christian communities. When he became king, Ezana, who may have become a Christian, permitted Aedisius and Frumentius to return to Syria. The patriarch of Alexandria, on learning about the progress of Christianity in Aksum, elevated Frumentius to the rank of bishop, though he had not previously been a clergyman, and sent him back to Ethiopia as the first leader of its church.

The patriarch of Alexandria continues today to appoint the head of the Ethiopian Church, but the spread of Christianity into Nubia, the land south of Egypt along the Nile River, proceeded from Ethiopia rather than Egypt. Politically and economically, Ethiopia became a power at the western end of the Indian Ocean trading system, occasionally even extending its influence across the Red Sea and asserting itself in Yemen (see Map 8.1). Ethiopian Christianity developed its own unique features. One popular belief, perhaps deriving from the Ethiopian Jewish community, was that the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred object of the ancient Hebrews (see Chapter 4), had been transferred from Jerusalem to the Ethiopian church of Our Lady of Zion. Another tradition maintains that Christ miraculously dried up a lake to serve as the site for this church, which became the place of coronation for Ethiopia’s rulers.

SUMMARY

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ACE the Test

What factors contributed to the growth of trade along the Silk Road?

How did geography affect Indian Ocean trade routes?

Why did trade begin across the Sahara Desert?

What accounts for the substantial degree of cultural unity in Africa south of the Sahara?

Why do some goods and ideas travel more easily than others?

Occasional contacts across the heart of Asia undoubtedly occurred for many centuries before the Silk Road regularized communication. Cooperative relations between caravan traders and pastoral nomads in the Central Asian grasslands were key to this regularization. The fact that the Parthian rulers of Iran were themselves of nomadic origin played an important role. In later centuries, trans-Asian trade fared best when pastoral peoples dominated either China or Iran or both.

Maritime trade in general is strongly affected by such things as wind patterns, the presence of islands, and good seaports. The monsoon system in particular determined the seasons of trade across the Indian Ocean. In addition, coastal areas that had ample water supplies and easy communications with inland markets and population centers developed different relations with sea traders than did regions where coastal deserts were cut off from the interior by mountains.

If the Sahara Desert is visualized as a sea of sand and rock, the beginnings of trade across its barren wastes bear comparison with similar factors affecting the Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade. Political and economic contacts between pastoral nomads who supply caravan animals played an important role, but trade was also influenced by the location of markets on both the northern and southern sides, as well as the connections those markets had with suppliers and consumers farther away from the desert.

Unlike a real sea, however, the Sahara changed over time from a verdant state to one of exceptional dryness. This change forced cattle-herding peoples who lived in the areas that were drying up to move southward. This movement, in turn, contributed to the widespread migrations of Bantu-speaking peoples. Their shared linguistic and cultural characteristics led to a high degree of cultural similarity despite the fact that the various migrating groups settled in places that were not so close together as to encourage complex political development stretching over large parts of the continent.

The Bantu migrations contrast with contacts made along trade routes in terms of the sorts of cultural characteristics that enjoy wide geographic spread. Migrating in groups, the Bantu were able to maintain their social structures and rituals along with their techniques of agriculture and metal using. Along overland and seaborne trade routes where the number of travelers was comparatively small, on the other hand, the social practices of the merchants had less influence than the goods they carried, which were often highly prized. To be sure, religious missionaries often traveled by caravan or ship, but the doctrines they preached seldom fully replaced earlier religions. The lives of the people they converted often differed greatly from the lives of the missionaries’ own people.