The Spread of Buddhism

78 xavier tremblay

climates. At the time of the Sogdian Ancient Letters^3 (ca. 313/4 AD), one

year could pass before a letter from Central China reached Dunhuang

4 In 399, the Chinese pilgrim Faxian took more than eight

months to travel from Dunhuang to Kashgar. Ancient Letter II says that

no merchant had come from Sogdiana to Luoyang for three years.

However lucrative and historically important the trade along the Silk

Road may have been, we must keep in mind that it was small expedi-

tions of the speculative and adventurous that made the journey. So few

people were involved that almost no services for the traveller (wells,

hostels, caravanserais or the like) were established before the Muslim

period^5. The life of the Chinese monk Xuanzang (602–664) too

recalls how arduous and risky a journey from China to India was. This

clearly indicates also how the history of Buddhism is in each country

must have been separate.

In all Serindian countries Buddhism coexisted with other religions:

Iranian Mazdeism, Turkic “tärism”, and also Nestorian Christianity^6

and Manichaeism.^7 Whereas we have at least indications that in some

areas the Buddhist preaching targeted Mazdeans (see further), no

Buddhist text shows any in uence of Christianity or Manichaeism.

Fussman (1994, pp. 39f.) explains both the statement by Xuanzang that

Buddhism was shrinking in India and the  nal waning of Buddhism

in India through the assumption that Buddhists were at all epochs a

minority. This fact is concealed by the Hindu or Mazdean disregard

for manuscripts and the familial and (for the Hindus) aniconic nature

of their cult, so that they were bound to leave fewer archaeological

vestiges.

Serindia does not occupy in Buddhist studies a place comparable to

Ceylon, Tibet or Japan. This subordinate rank is due to two relatively

(^3) The so-called Sogdian Ancient Letters encompass eight Letters in Sogdian ca. 313/4,
found in a hole in a tower of the Great Wall (edited in Reichelt 1928–1931). They
provide very important information on the Sogdian presence along the eastern end
of the Silk Road.
(^4) For instance, Ancient Letter II, written in June 313 in Guzang , and Ancient Letter
III, written in April 314 (Grenet, Sims-Williams & La Vaissière 1998, pp. 101f.) were
transported by the same caravan. 5
La Vaissière 2002, p. 190.
(^6) About Nestorianism in Asia, see in the  rst instance Gillmann & Klimkeit 1999.
(^7) Manichaeism is an abated religion, founded by Mani (216–277), who insisted on the
puri cation of the devotees by clearing their luminous nature from evil impurity at all
levels (cosmolo gi cal, physical through diets, moral, and so on). Interesting handbooks are
Puech 1949, Tardieu 1981, BeDuhn 2000; a well-done chrestomathy is Gnoli 2003.
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