CELIBACY. SeeSexuality
CENTRAL ASIA
Unlike most regions of the world, there is no univer-
sally accepted definition of what constitutes “Central
Asia.” The region will be defined in this entry as con-
stituting the network of oasis towns comprising the
ancient SILKROAD, stretching from Afghanistan to
DUNHUANG. The grasslands inhabited by nomadic
peoples to the north, and the Tibetan highlands to the
south—together commonly referred to as Inner Asia—
have separate histories and will be treated elsewhere in
entries on TIBETand MONGOLIA.
A natural dividing point between western and east-
ern Central Asia is Kashgar, the westernmost city in
the Tarim basin. Located at the western edge of what
is today the People’s Republic of China, this city serves
as a logical boundary for discussions of this region in
both ancient and modern times.
Western Central Asia
The earliest evidence of a Buddhist presence in this
region dates from the time of King AS ́OKA(mid-third
century B.C.E.), who left inscriptions in Greek and
Aramaic at Qandahar and Laghman (both in modern
Afghanistan). Though not specifically Buddhist in
content—As ́oka’s explicit discussions of Buddhism are
restricted to a relatively small area in and around the
territory of ancient Magadha—they do provide con-
crete evidence that Afghanistan had come under the
control of a Buddhist ruler.
In the territory of Gandhara (northern Pakistan and
eastern Afghanistan) and Bactria (northern Afghan-
istan and southern Uzbekistan), Buddhist temple com-
plexes excavated at Airtam, Kara-tepe, Fayaz-tepe, and
Dalverzin-tepe (in some cases accompanied by in-
scriptions by their donors) offer testimony to the im-
portance of Buddhism in the region during the Kushan
period (ca. late first to third centuries C.E.) and possi-
bly before (Rhie). Even farther to the west, excavations
in the Merv oasis (the easternmost part of ancient
Parthia in modern Turkmenistan) have yielded ar-
chaeological remains of Buddhist temples, as well as
Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit dating from the fourth
to the sixth centuries, including a VINAYAtext belong-
ing to the Sarvastivada school (Utz). Monasteries ex-
cavated at Adzhina-tepe and other sites in southern
Tadjikistan provide evidence of the survival of Bud-
dhism in the region down to at least the eighth cen-
tury (Stavisky).
Afghanistan has also been the site of two spectacu-
lar manuscript finds in recent years (though the pre-
cise spots of the discoveries are not known): the British
Library collection, dating from the first century C.E.
(Salomon 1999 and 2000), and the Schøyen Collection,
containing texts from the second to seventh centuries
C.E. (Braarvig et al. 2000 and 2002). The British Library
manuscripts include both canonical scriptures (possi-
bly associated with the DHARMAGUPTAKAschool) and
local compositions; the Schøyen collection includes a
number of well-known MAHAYANAscriptures. The fact
that all of these texts are written in Prakrit or Sanskrit
rather than translated into local vernaculars (with the
exception of a fragmentary text in Bactrian, whose pre-
cise nature is uncertain) is typical of those few Bud-
dhist texts found throughout the region, where
Buddhists seem to have been content to read and trans-
mit their scriptures in the “church languages” of India
(Nattier).
In contrast to the territories of Gandhara, Bactria,
and eastern Parthia, where Buddhism flourished for
many centuries, in the territory of ancient Sogdiana
(northern Uzbekistan) Buddhist motifs appear only as
minor elements in non-Buddhist artistic productions,
confirming the reports of Chinese travelers that attest
to almost no Buddhist presence in the region. Though
several figures of Sogdian ancestry played key roles as
missionaries and translators during the formative pe-
riod of Chinese Buddhism (if the Chinese ethnikon
Kangdoes indeed correspond to Sogdian,about which
there is some controversy), and though one Buddhist
site may now have been identified in Sogdiana
(Stavisky), at present it appears that Sogdian Bud-
dhism was essentially an expatriate phenomenon.
Other parts of western Central Asia, such as Ferghana
and Khwarezm, seem to have had little or no Buddhist
population at all.
Buddhists in Gandhara appear to have flourished
during the first century C.E. under the patronage of
the Sakas (referred to in Indian sources as S ́akas), an
Iranian-speaking people whose sponsorship of Bud-
dhist donations is well attested in inscriptions, and who
are mentioned in the British Library fragments by
name. Under the Kushan (Sanskrit, Kusana) dynasty
(ca. late first to third centuries C.E.) Buddhism contin-
ued to receive significant support as well. Legends of
the conversion of the Kushan ruler Kanishka (Sanskrit,CELIBACY