368 the middle east
Since Fu-lin and China had nothing in common, the link between
them, at least from the Chinese point of view, was trade. Fu-lin may
have had an additional aim, since the Priests of Great Virtue of 719
and 742 could have been Nestorian missionaries.^38
According to Chiu T’ang shu 198:15b, Persia sent ten missions to
the T’ang court from 722 to 747. Eight are recorded. According to
Sung shih 490:20b and Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 339:56b, four Arab mis-
sions offered regional objects from 1054 to 1063. Three missions are
recorded. The statistics are therefore reasonably reliable.
This is the distribution by 20-year periods of the 77 recorded mis-
sions from the Arabs to T’ang and Sung, the 27 missions from the
Persians to T’ang, and the 9 missions from Fu-lin to T’ang and Sung,
113 in all from the Middle East:
607- 626: 1
627- 646: 2
647- 666: 4
667- 686: 6
687- 706: 4
707- 726: 13
727- 746: 9
747- 766: 17
767- 786: 4
787- 806: 2
807- 826: 1
827- 846: 0
847- 866: 0
867- 886: 0
887- 906: 0
907- 926: 0
927- 946: 0
947- 966: 0
967- 986: 9
987- 1006: 11
1007- 1026: 7
1027- 1046: 0
(^38) Priest of Great Virtue is a flexible term, since, as has been seen, it might have
refered to a Zoroastrian priest in 732. See p. 355, note 8.