The Spread of Buddhism

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM IN SERINDIA:

BUDDHISM AMONG IRANIANS, TOCHARIANS AND

TURKS BEFORE THE 13TH CENTURY

Xavier Tremblay (Köln)

1. Definition of the Subject

The term “Serindia”, coined by Aurel Stein, combines Northwestern

Afghanistan, and the former Soviet and Chinese Turkestans. This

area, though it was united by the coexistence of Iranian and Indian

in uence between the beginning of the Christian era and the period

of Islamicisation, in fact encompassed four geographically and ecologi-

cally distinct areas:

1. The partly desertlike eastern fringe of Western Iran, with the
   provinces of Margiana around Merv (now in Turkmenistan, near Mary)
   and Aria around Herat. It is probable that Parthian, a Western Iranian
   language, was spoken in Margiana up to the sixth century AD when
   the province was persianised.


2. The mountainous Hindukush and Turkestan ranges, in which
   almost every valley had its own language (as it is still often the case
   now). Two regions were prominent:
   Bactria between the Hindukush and the Iron Gate, along the middle
   course of the Oxus (approximately from the con uence of the Panj and
   the Kokcha to the western boundary of Afghanistan) and along the
   Bactres, Xulm and Qunduz rivers in the south, and the Wax, Ka r-
   nigan and Surxan rivers in the north. The Bactrian dynasties, that is the
   Kuas (from Kun; 120 BC–233 AD), and after a period of Sassanian
   occupation (233–ca. 375 AD), the Chionites and Kidarites (360–480 AD)
   and  nally the Hephthalites (480–560), whom the Türks defeated and
   eventually vassalised, constituted mighty empires dominating Northern
   India and, at least during the Hephthalite Empire, Central Asia.^1

(^1) Brough 1965 (whose theory of a Kua dominion upon the Tarim form rests on
insuf cient evidence, but who pointed aptly to wide-ranging in uence); Kuwayama 1989;
Grenet 1996. The whole Bactrian chronology is matter of dispute with datings diverg-
ing sometimes more than one hundred years. I follow Enoki 1969, 1970; Grenet 1996,
p. 371 n. 17; 2002, pp. 205–209; 220f. A Sassanian occupation of Bactria already in
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