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4Roads of Asia
Journey
of a Thousand Li:
a History of
Travelers
The history of the Silk Road is a
history of movement and exchange. It is a history of a traffic in which
enterprising merchants moved goods from one large market town to another.
It is not the history of an actual road made of bricks and pavement like
those for which Rome was famous. Instead, the Silk Road was a general
drift of movement across a series of connected routes. Together these
routes formed a vague artery of exchange through the heart of Asia. The
Silk Road was more of a pattern of movement than a particular track. The
pattern was composed of the chain of individuals who traveled, primarily
for trade, short links of the total route.
Silks moved from China
to the Mediterranean. Purple dyes returned. Ideas and technologies such as
Christianity and the paper-making process also traveled the length of the
route. But few people journeyed the entire distance. Those few who did
provide us with rare glimpses of the workings of exchange across Asia.
From their accounts, we can see the market towns and the landscape between
them. We can read descriptions of the peoples along the route and the
kingdoms, tribes and empires that controlled its sections. The travelers
tell us how caravans were equipped for the journey and what they expected
along the way. They also tell us what was strange and wonderful to them;
what they had never seen before and what they believed
impossible.
Even though long-distance travelers were unusual in the
history of the Silk Road, the small number of travelers who journeyed the
whole length of the route provided us with unique cross-sections of each
era of the Silk Road. By examining the travelers as a group we can traces
changes in the methods of travel, the dangers of travel, the goods
exchanged and the destinations. We can see how political control over the
routes changed and how these changes affected traffic along the route. So
although travelers of the full length of the Silk Road were unusual
compared to the chain of merchants traversing only short links of the
geography, each traveler’s account provides an invaluable link in the
chronological chain of the history of the Silk Road.
The Travelers:
In this project, students will work in pairs to compile a
history of one of the long-distance travelers of the Silk Road. Each of
the travelers gives us evidence of one era of Silk Road history. Taken
together, the travelers’ histories give us a broad understanding of the
Silk Road from its initiation to its fading.
1. Chang Ch’ien (Zhang Qian), 139-115 BCE: a
Han dynasty general whose misadventures in Central Asia led to the Han expansion
into the Tarim Basin and the initiation of trade along the route.
2. Fa Hsien
(Fa Xian), 399-414 CE: a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled west to
find more accurate Buddhist texts, eventually arriving in India. Along the
way he recorded much of what he saw in one of the first written accounts
of the peoples and places along the Silk Road.
3. Hsuan Tsang (Xuanzang), 629-645 CE: perhaps
the most famous Chinese traveler of the Silk Road. Hsuan Tsang, like Fa
Hsien, was a Buddhist monk in search of the true texts of Buddhism. His
travels to India brought him into many adventures. These adventures were
recorded and became a basic document of Chinese foreign policy for many
centuries to come. Later his story became the basis for one of the most
famous of Chinese novels, Journey to the West.
4. Ennin, 842-845 CE: Ennin was a
Japanese Buddhist monk who visited T’ang era China for the same reasons
that Fa Hsien and Hsuan Tsang traveled to India. In the process, he helped
cement Japan’s bond to T’ang era China. In fact today, the best examples
of T’ang dynasty architecture are to be found in Kyoto, the old Japanese
capital modeled on Chang’an.
5. Marco Polo, 1244-1323 CE: the record written by
this most famous European traveler of the Silk Road formed much of Europe’s
impression of East Asia for most of the last millennium.
6. Ibn Batutta, 1325-1354 CE: this irrepressible
Muslim traveler turned his hajj into one of the most impressive solo treks
of human history. Over the course of many years he traveled from the far
west of Africa to China and back, stopping in many countries along the way.
He left wonderful accounts of his travels and of the places which he visited.
7. Cheng Ho (Zheng He), 1405-1433 CE:
China’s most renowned mariner makes clear that the age of the grand overland
travel was coming to a close as the safety of the seas increased. His fleet’s
expeditions to Africa are awe-inspiring to this day.
8. Aurel Stein, 1900-1914 CE: Stein was one of the
famous archaeologists and treasure seekers who reopened the Silk Road in
the imaginations of the Euro-Americans in this century. His accounts allow
us to see the remains of the days of glory as well as the gritty but real
continuation of trade and travel across the old route.
The
Assignment:
For each part of the assignment,
compose a thorough response in a minimum of an extensive
paragraph.
A. Summarize the traveler’s adventure.
B.
Describe the political/historical context of the Silk Road in the
traveler’s time.
C. Explain the motivation for the journey. Was it
encouraged by the state to which the traveler belonged? Why or why not?
What was the individual’s motivation?
D. Describe the mode of
travel in the traveler’s era.
E. Describe what the traveler found
strange and wonderful along their route.
F. Describe what barriers
to movement the traveler encountered, be they political, geographic or
mythologic.
G. Conclude whether this era was one of openness to
cultural exchange or not.
Additional materials:
H.
Produce a map of the journey. Include political entities of the era, the
major trade routes, the traveler’s path, important dates of the journey
and geographic features.
I. Create an image file of ten images
specifically about your traveler. Include citations for the
photographers.
J. Compose a bibliography of seven
sources.
Email Conference Posting:
Each pair’s
research will form a small link in our total history of the Silk Road. For
us as a group to grasp the story from its initiation to its fading, we
must read each of the travelers’ histories. For this, we will use our
email conference to post parts of each traveler’s story, making them
available to the whole group.
L. Sections A, B, C and G will be
submitted, corrected, revised and posted. Also, the maps of each
traveler’s journey will be displayed in the classroom.
M. From the
posted materials students will produce a timeline noting the major events
of Silk Road history.
N. Compare your traveler’s experience to one
other. Write a one page response noting the changes in modes of travel,
routes, equipment, motivations, beliefs and political context.
O.
The email conference will serve as the site for a electronic graded
discussion and evaluation to take place over the course of several days.
The question for discussion will be provided at that time.
Core Readings:
Be sure to read the appropriate sections of
each of these texts for their information on your traveler and time
period:
•Franck & Brownstone, The Silk Road
•Fairbank, China: a New History
•Gernet, A History of Chinese
Civilization
•Groussett, Empires of the Steppes
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