The Silk Road and Tang Prosperity

By staff reporter HUO JIANYING

Dance posture with pipa on a Dunhuang mural.

THE dance drama, Along the Silk Road, returned to the Beijing stage for the 2003 Chinese New Year celebrations, to as enthusiastic a reception as when it was first performed 24 years ago. Set in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the drama celebrates the grotto art of Dunhuang and gorgeous Tang finery. With the ancient Silk Road as a backdrop, its stories extol the love, humanity, and friendship of this essentially open era. 

Dramatists are not alone in their contemporary celebrations of the Tang golden age. After five years' painstaking enchasing by 100 master craftsmen, an immense gem-inlaid cameo picturing the Silk Road was recently completed in Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province. At 2 meters high and 60 meters long, it commemorates the 7,000-km long Tang Dynasty Eurasian passage that first enabled Sino-foreign exchanges to take place, and which made such a large contribution to Tang prosperity. The carving depicts 12 scenarios along the way, including the Tang capital Chang'an, regions west of the Yumen Pass, Mediterranean areas, and Rome. The working materials were handpicked from some 30 tons of jade.

Road of Tribulations

The Tang emperor receiving foreign envoys coming to China via the Silk Road at Daming Palace in Chang'an.

Its exact course still unconfirmed, the Silk Road has retained an air of mysticism over past centuries. It was not a planned thoroughfare, having been inadvertently trodden by the caravans of bold Asian and European traders.

It was in 1877 that German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen named it the Silk Road, but trips along it were a far cry from the ease and fluidity its name implies.

In 399 Faxian, a monk of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420), went on a pilgrimage to India in search of Buddhist scriptures at the age of 65. He and his entourage trudged over uncharted mountains and through arid deserts, going astray several times. Some of his number died of illness, and others gave up half way. When Faxian eventually arrived in Sri Lanka, he was alone. It was miraculous that a man in his seventies could survive 35 days and finally emerge from the merciless Taklimakan Desert. On his voyage back to China, Faxian was again incredibly fortunate in surviving 70 days of inclement weather. When he finally set foot on Chinese territory once more, it was in Shandong. He had just turned 80.

Faxian later wrote a book, A Record of Buddhist Countries, but made no mention of his travel experiences. Scholars surmise he wished to avoid reliving his nightmarish journey, but generations later, his adventures gave rise to countless Silk Road fantasies. Journey to the West, one of China's four classics, portrayed the four main characters as weathering rough terrain and escaping the clutches of demons, as well as being enchanted by alien landscapes, before eventually reaching the Western Paradise.

A Road of Prosperity

Various nationalities rubbed shoulders along the Silk Road.

As far back as the Han Dynasty(206 BC- AD 220) it was obvious that the Silk Road would advance China's national strength and bring wealth to its people. Soon after ascending the throne, at a time when the new-born empire was still recovering from an extended period of warfare, Tang Emperor Li Shimin emptied the state coffers and consigned vast amounts of labor towards renovating the Silk Road. After two decades of effort it was fit to travel, and became a still broader channel for economic and cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world. The Tang, with its flourishing economy, developed culture and enlightened government, thus became the most powerful dynasty in Chinese history. Even today, Chinese people are still known as the people of Tang, and the China Towns of San Francisco, New York and London are all known as Tangren Jie -- street of the Tang people -- by local Chinese inhabitants.

The Hexi Corridor was a strategic path along the Silk Road, and the towns along it, like Wuwei, Shandan, Zhangye and Jiuquan, thrived during the Tang Dynasty. Their days of glorious prosperity are long gone, but they were once a heaving convergence of Chinese and foreign merchants. Wuwei, for instance, was a metropolis with a population of hundreds of thousands, and a hub of international trade, abounding with taverns that played music and held dance performances at all times of the day and night. Dazzled by the opulence of these cities, one visiting Arab writer mistook Shandan for the Tang capital, Chang'an.

The capital city was, however, unmistakably large and majestic. Its axis  -- Zhuque Avenue -- was 155 meters wide, and at least 100,000 of its one million population were foreign residents, 100 of whom held senior government posts. Today's Xi'an City, on the site of Chang'an, is just one-eighth the size of the Tang capital. 

Tang prosperity, openness and tolerance of alien civilizations are excellent reasons for its people to idealize this era as the Chinese golden age.

Everlasting Tang Glamour

Travelers along the Silk Road, singing and dancing.

In a junk shop a child hands over a few Kaiyuan Tongbao -- Tang copper coins. After a brief glance, the shopkeeper tosses them into a tray of similarly ancient coppers, and handed over a few yuan. After more than one thousand years, Tang hard currency is still in circulation, and retains a stable par value.

Models in gorgeous Tang costumes parade along a catwalk. Their gowns, of filmy texture, and low-cut and off-the-shoulder design, conform surprisingly well to contemporary fashion trends. The Tang Dynasty was undoubtedly the least repressive of women and their physical deportment than any other period of China's feudal history.  

But the Tang legacy was much more than copper coins and fine garments. Its spiritual and material wealth constitute the very essence of Chinese civilization.

The Zhenguan and Kaiyuan reigns that spanned the mid-7th to mid-8th century represent the zenith of Tang peace and prosperity that rulers and scholars of the succeeding dynasties sought to emulate.

A Roman caravan bound for China.

The Tang Mirror, published in 1086, was compiled by Song historian Fan Zuyu. It is a record of the words and deeds of each Tang emperor, and of corresponding comments and analyses made in an effort to discover what was at the root of the dynasty's success and eventual decline. The Tang Mirror is acclaimed as a classic in the art of monarchical rule, and has been used as a political textbook by emperors since the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398), founder of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), was quoted as saying: If I had to make a choice between a pretty concubine and the Tang Mirror, I would choose the latter.

Certain systems instituted during the Tang were studied and appraised, and after amendment and supplementation, put into operation once more. The Song and Ming taxation systems, and Ming and Qing legal systems, for instance, all evolved from those in force during the Tang. 

As monarchs delved into the Tang Mirror, the ordinary people became keen appreciators  of Tang poems. As regards volume and literary excellence, Chinese poetry reached its pinnacle in the Tang era. Over the centuries 50,000 or so Tang poems have been collected in hand-written, block printed and digital anthologies. It is traditional for Chinese infants to recite Tang poems on learning how to speak, and they are a compulsory feature of primary and middle school textbooks.

In China's 2,000-year feudal period, it was the Tang Dynasty that exerted the greatest influence on the course of the nation's history. It marks the time when China was a world superpower. Tang glory is still a source of inspiration to the Chinese people in their quest for a national renaissance.