Buddhism was one of the most predominant religions within the East Asian world during the height of Silk Road travel and trade. Monks traveled quite frequently from Chinese and Tibetan cities to spread Buddhist teachings and to further their own spiritual wisdom. One of the major epicenters for the study of religion as well as for the spread of religious values to other local cities was Dunhuang. The Buddhist Mogao cave holds some of the most expansive Buddhist drawing collections prior to the town’s religious decline in the twentieth century. Buddhism has many stories and tales of the Buddha's travels. One of which, the Buddhacarika, follows the Buddha's wanderings through the Gangetic Plains. He traveled from kingdom to kingdom for forty-five years spreading his teachings and accumulating a following. This path he took then became known as the Buddhist pilgrimage.[2][3]
In the tenth century, the ban against Buddhism was lifted by Emperor Taizu as he established the Song Dynasty. Taizu was interested in Buddhist pilgrimages as he desired further pilgrimages westward on top of the allowance for travel to the dharma. With this, a mass influx of Buddhist travel ensued. Some of the largest translations and records of Buddhist texts amounted from his flourishment within the Song Dynasty.[1]
Transformation texts, or popular literature during the time, largely took Buddhist elements. Stories of travels by monks were documented into first and second-hand manuscripts, such as that of the Anonymous Chinese monk. Manuscripts were then passed on from town to town or preserved within sealed caves. It is suggested that Chinese scrolls were typically written on bamboo or wood which would be woven into a scroll. Scrolls have been found in countries as far as Afghanistan and North Pakistan, all of which are written in either Chinese, Tibet, or similar language families from Eastern Asia.[2]
However, Buddhism was only one of the major religions at the time which held high influence over local communities. The spread of Islam across the Silk Road was combated with the spread of Buddhism. Yet, it is important to note that Buddhist and Muslim communities quite often lived side-by-side for centuries. In fact, in contrast to the typical alienation created by two opposing ethnic groups, the two coincided for quite some time. For Buddhism to survive, they created new methodology and astrological systems. Buddhists responded in a much different fashion than their Muslim neighbors, who did not necessarily see Buddhists as a threat to their beliefs or its spread. Monks feared that Islamic values were becoming a threat to their traditions and saw Muslims as more of an enemy as they assimilated many of their own values to those of Buddhist traditions, such as worship to the dharma. Although no Chinese emperor had ever converted from Buddhism to Islam, the distinction of a formal Mongol culture would arise from these tensions, which would allow for Buddhist and Islamic ideals to combine within one regime.[2]
[1] Elverskog 2010.
[2] Van et al. 2011.
[3] Xuanzangs Travels 2016.
Elverskog, Johan. Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.).
Van, Schaik, Sam, et al. “Manuscripts and Travellers: The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth-Century Buddhist Pilgrim,” De Gruyter, Inc. 1 (2011).
Travels of Xuanzang (629-645 CE): https://artsandculture.google.com/story/9gVR3GyICUOmKg (2016)