In past posts we have discussed the
geographic locations of Anxi 安息(Bukhara), Jibin 罽賓 and
Daqin 大秦(the Levant) during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), showing that
the definitions of these place names changed over time. Anxi, for
example, originally referred to the Parthian empire in the first
centuries CE, but the name in Chinese remained in use for several
more centuries, even after the Parthian state was toppled by the
Sassanians in the early third century. During the Tang Dynasty, Anxi
actually referred to Bukhara. Daqin originally referred to the
eastern part of the Roman empire in the early centuries CE, but later
came to specifically refer to the general geographic area of the
Levant and Syria. It later referred to the Byzantium empire, which
had lost its hold on the Levant.
Here I want to discuss the geographic
location of “Western India” 西天竺
in some Tang sources. The Chinese Tianzhu 天竺
is an approximate transcription of sindhu in
some Central Asian language (it was not derived from
Sanskrit). The name Tianzhu is attested in the Hou Han shu
後漢書 (Book of the
Later Han), the history of the later Han (25–220), states the following:
天竺國，一名身毒，在月氏之東南數千里。俗與月氏同。
The country of
Tianzhu: another name is Shendu. It is located thousands of miles
southeast of the Yuezhi. Their customs are the same as the Yuezhi.
At this point in time, Tianzhu refers to
the territories of the Kuṣāṇa dynasty (1st – 3rd
centuries CE). In a later century, the famous Chinese monk Xuanzang
玄奘 (602–664),
who was proficient in Sanskrit and had studied at Nālanda, rejected
this name for India:
《大唐西域記》卷2：「詳夫天竺之稱，異議糺紛，舊云身毒，或曰賢豆，今從正音，宜云印度。...
印度者，唐言月。月有多名，斯其一稱。」(CBETA,
T51, no. 2087, p. 875, b16-20)
Now with
consideration of the names of Tianzhu, there are numerous disputes on
the matter. It was formerly called Shendu, or otherwise Xiandou [Middle
Chinese: hen duwH]. Now we will follow the correct
pronunciation. It should be called Yindu [Middle Chinese: jinH
duH]. … “Yindu” in Chinese means moon. The moon has many
names. This is one of its appellations.
Xuanzang tried to introduce new
terminology and transcriptions of Indian terms into Chinese, and
while he succeeded to some degree, a lot of the old vocabulary
remained in use. Throughout the Tang Dynasty, the name Tianzhu was
still widely used by Chinese authors. The
Tongdian 通典 (the
Comprehensive Chronicle), compiled in 801 by Du You 杜佑
(735–812), draws upon numerous accounts of Tianzhu. The
Chinese image of India's geography at this point in time had become
rather complex. The Tongdian provides the following details:
天竺，後漢通焉，即前漢時身毒國。初，張騫使大夏，見邛竹杖、蜀布。問曰：「安得此？」大夏國人曰：「吾賈人往身毒國市之。」即天竺也。或云摩伽陀，或云婆羅門。在蔥嶺之南，去月氏東南數千里，地方三萬餘里。其中分為五天竺：一曰中天竺，二曰東天竺，三曰南天竺，四曰西天竺，五曰北天竺，地各數千里，城邑數百。南天竺際大海。北天竺距雪山，四周有山為壁，南面一谷，通為國門。東天竺東際大海，與扶南、林邑鄰接，但隔小海而已。西天竺與罽賓、波斯相接。中天竺據四天竺之閒。國並有王。
The later Han had
contact with Tianzhu, which was the country of Shendu during the
former Han. In the beginning, Zhang Qian [d. 114 BCE] was sent as an
envoy to Daxia [Bactria], where he saw Chinese bamboo staves and
fabrics from Sichuan. He asked, “Where did you get these?” The
men of Daxia said, “Our merchants go to the country of Shendu and
trade for them.” This is referring to Tianzhu. Some call it “Magadha”
or “Brahman”. It is south of the Conglin range [Pamirs]. It is
thousands of miles southeast of the Yuezhi, and its lands are over
thirty-thousand miles. It is divided into “Five Tianzhus”
[Indias]: Central, Eastern, Southern, Western and Northern. Each land
is made up of thousands of miles with hundreds of cities. Southern
India borders a great sea. Northern India meets snowy mountains [the
Himalayas] and is walled in on all four sides by mountains, with a
great valley at its southern face acting as an entryway into the
country.1
Eastern India borders a great sea to its east. It is connected to
Funan and Linyi [Southeast Asian polities] with just a small sea in between [the Bay of Bengal]. Western India
connects to Jibin and Persia. Middle India is positioned between the four
Indias. The countries all have their kings.
The “Five Indias” roughly
correspond to modern geographical regions as follows:
Central India: Bihar and Jharkhand.
Southern India: Odisha (Orissa).
Northern India: Kashmir valley.
Eastern India: Bengal.
Western India: Sindh.
The political landscape of India
described by Du You is simplistic and uninformed as a result of
relying on chronologically disparate sources (the Yuezhi were extinct
long before the Tang Dynasty). A point relevant to the present
discussion is that he states that Western India borders Jibin and
Persia. In the year 801, however, Persia did not exist as a polity
any longer. The Sassanian empire was conquered by the Arabs in the
mid-seventh century.2
Interestingly, Du You was actually aware that Persia no longer
existed. He cites the travelogue, titled simply Jingxing ji 經行記 (Travel Account), of the Chinese author Du Huan 杜環,
who traveled to the Abbasid Caliphate and returned to China in 762:
自被大食滅，至天寶末已百餘年矣。
[Persia] was
destroyed by the Arabs. At the end of the Tianbao reign era
[742–756], it had already been over a century.
We actually have another contemporary
East Asian from the eighth century who attests to the destruction of
Persia by the Arabs. The Korean monk Hyecho 慧超
(704–787) traveled from China to India between 723–729.
His travelogue3
has the following comment:
《遊方記抄》卷1：「從吐火羅國，西行一月，至波斯國。此王先管大𥦽。大𥦽是波斯王放駝戶。於後叛，便殺彼王，自立為主。然今此國，却被大𥦽所吞。」(CBETA,
T51, no. 2089, p. 978, a27-b1)
Traveling for one
month from Tokhara, you arrive in the country of Persia. The king
earlier governed the Arabs. The Arabs raised camels for the Persian
king. Later there was an insurrection and they killed the king,
establishing themselves as rulers. Now this country has been absorbed
by the Arabs.
It is clear that the Chinese by the
mid-eighth century were aware that Persia as a polity had been
eliminated. This is important to bear in mind when we consider the
introduction of Hellenistic astrology into China around the turn of
the ninth century.
The Xin Tang shu 新唐書
(New Book of Tang), the revised record of the Tang
Dynasty compiled in 1060, lists the following text and account in its
bibliographical catalog (fasc. 59):
都利聿斯經，二卷，貞元中，都利術士李彌乾傳自西天竺，有璩公者譯其文
Duli yusi jing.
2 fascicles. In the Zhenyuan period [785–805] the duli
diviner Li Miqian transmitted it from Western India. There was
someone [named] Qu Gong who translated the text.
Although this text is not extant, we
know from its fragments and later astrological manuals that it was a
translation of the work of Dorotheus of Sidon (c. 75), a major
Hellenistic astrologer.
It is curious that the account here states
that Li Miqian hailed from Western India because Dorotheus’ work
was first translated into Pahlavī (Middle Persian) from its original
Greek under the Sassanians between 222–267. Its content was later
expanded sometime between 531–578. This Pahlavī version was
translated into Arabic around the year 800, which was also around the
same time when the Chinese translation was produced (a very curious coincidence).4
So far as I know, there was never a Sanskrit translation of
Dorotheus. Li Miqian was most likely Persian, given his surname Li.
Other ethnically Persian men resident in China during these years
also had the surname Li, such as the court astronomer Li Su 李素
(743–817). Li Su was actually from Guangzhou, but his ancestors came from Persia. He arrived in Chang'an sometime during the Dali
大曆 reign era (766–779).
Li Miqian was clearly Persian and, therefore, most certainly translated Dorotheus from
Pahlavī.
This leads me to wonder why he would
identify himself, or be identified, as hailing from Western India. As
we discussed in an earlier article (see here), Nestorian (East Syrian) Christian
clergymen originally identified themselves as coming from Persia in
the seventh century, but later from around the year 745, when China
was becoming truly aware that Persia no longer existed, started
identifying themselves with Daqin, even though it was under the
domination of the Arabs. In other words, the Nestorian clerics in
China did not want to identify with the Arab Abbasid empire.
In the
case of Li Miqian, we might imagine that he also did not want to identify with the Arab state. Instead, he
chose to identify himself with the vague geographical area of Western
India. We might even imagine him attempting to explain to the Chinese
court through an interpreter that he was not Arab, but actually
Persian, even though the Persian state was long gone. By the time he arrived, the court was well aware this fact. If he were
Sogdian, he would have probably been identified with Samarkand or
Bukhara, and not taken the surname Li.
Of course, I might be mistaken, and, in
fact, he did come from Western India, in which case this leads to
another interesting point: we would have evidence of a practitioner of
Hellenistic astrology originating from the western Indosphere in the
late eighth century.
 |
| Abbasid Caliphate c. 850 (Wikimedia Commons) |
At present, however, I strongly sense that the
expatriates from the Near and Middle East residing in China during
the eighth and early ninth centuries probably did not feel
particularly inclined to identify with the Abbasid Caliphate, which
ruled over territories from the Levant to the borderlands of western
India. There would have been multiple religious, linguistic, ethnic
and political reasons for such sentiments. This still requires further investigation.
The activities of these men in China have become
of increasing interest in my present research. I continually find
more and more evidence that these men transmitted a great deal of
religious lore and practices, as well as scientific knowledge. The
problem, however, is that identifying from where exactly they came is difficult.
In the case of Indians, it is sometimes expressly stated in their biographies that they came from definite places such as Magadha, but Iranians (both Sogdians
and Persians) and Syrians are seldom identified with specific
polities. The Chinese knew the general geographic layout of India
thanks to accounts by figures such as Xuanzang, but their knowledge
of the areas west of India during the Tang was much less detailed.
Notes:
1 Nepal,
which originally just referred to the Kathmandu valley, was
positioned in “Northern India” during the Tang Dynasty. However,
this is most certainly referring to the Kashmir valley. For details
on Nepal in this period see my earlier article:
2 For
a reliable history of the Sassanian empire, see Iranica Online:
3 For
a complete translation see vol. 10 of the “Collected Works of
Korean Buddhism”.
http://www.acmuller.net/kor-bud/collected_works.html.
I do not always agree with this translation. I interpret Hyecho's
accounts of the Near East as recorded hearsay, rather than being a
record of a journey there.
4 David
Pingree, “Classical and Byzantine Astrology in Sassanian Persia,”
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1989): 229.
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