The Light of Kucha (Caucasian Buddhist kingdom's contribution)

In this third part of travels on the Chinese Silk Road, Nishy Wijewardane reveals the remarkable Buddhist legacy of the Kingdom of Kucha, northern Taklamakan Desert, Xinjiang.

Just a day before leaving Colombo for Central Asia, a book I ordered months earlier arrived through the post, much to my delight. It contained rare photographs of extraordinarily beautiful 3-5th C AD Buddhist cave murals from a remote corner of China's vast Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The exhilarating photographs depicted exquisite renditions of the Jataka Tales in colours alien to murals in Sri Lanka. As the pages turned, my mind (which had contemplated this location for years) was already there and it was clear where the rest of me would go, if indeed it could.

The bleak, dusty settlement of Kucha, an oasis town, lies on the northern end of the Taklamakan desert amidst vast river beds, bone dry for centuries (see Sunday Times, February 5, “Timeless Taklamakan”). It is, like many places I visited in this little known region, a pale shadow of its wondrous past. Gone are the two 30 metre high Buddha statutes that had flanked the town's entrance in the 7th century and bore its fame. However, from about 2nd C AD, the independent Kingdom of Kucha had embraced Buddhism.

This attraction strengthened due to the prodigious activities of its great Buddhist monk-scholar and translator, Kumarajiva (344-413 AD). Kumarajiva (“mature-youth” in Sanskrit), of an Indian Brahmin father, Kumara, who was married by a Kuchaen King to his daughter, Jiva, was to command an epoch-making influence on Chinese Buddhist thought. A prodigy, he was taught the theories of Mahayana Buddhism by no less than a prince, Suryasoma of Yarkand, in another kingdom I had visited south of Kashgar. This itself illustrates the remarkable presence of several Buddhist kingdoms, with rich interactions, that populated this Xinjiang landscape in the first millennia.

Young Kumarajiva’s wisdom and reputation as a translator soon emanated to all corners (causing his forced removal, ironically as a prize of war, to the Chinese imperial court in 383 AD); based in Kucha, his birthplace, it is said he eventually commanded a translation team of nearly 3000 ! He is renowned for his systematic translations of the Sanskrit Mahayana sutras that flowed down the Silk Road into Chinese, enabling millions to gain a meaningful, rather than mechanical, understanding of Buddhism.

Infused by such thoughts emanating from far off Gandhara (today Swat Valley, Pakistan, see Sunday Times June 5, 2005 “Grandeur of Gandhara”), over mountains and deserts, through the minds of traders, monks and others, as well as by varied influences from Persia, Kucha grew. It straddled the Northern Silk Road that had emerged from the Karakoram mountains at Kashgar (which I had followed) and ran 1500 kilometres towards Urumchi (Xinjiang’s current capital) and then southwards to the Mogao Caves. Thought and art thus flourished in this outpost thousands of kilometres from the sea; reflecting on their solitude, the monk-artisans of Kucha set out harnessing these into extraordinary imagery.

Along with this artistic expansion, the kingdom's musical culture gained considerable currency, a veritable Vienna of the East. That well known monk-traveller Xuanzang (602?-664 AD)) praised Kucha’s orchestral music as the “best in the world”. Not surprisingly, Kuchaen musicians were, like Kumarajiva, forcibly co-opted to the music loving Tang imperial Chinese court. It is remarkable that the music of the most famous lute player of the period, Po Ming-ta, a Kuchaen, is still played in Japan (“Trill of the Spring Warbler”) while Kucha’s music is believed to have formed the very roots of Chinese music today.

By strange coincidence, as I wandered along Kucha's dusty main street one evening, musicians were playing traditional music at a small gathering. What I heard was unbelievable: the music reaching my ears was no different from that which accompanies ceremonial occasions and processions in Sri Lanka. On closer inspection, the musicians were playing the flute, drums and cymbals. (I had once encountered the same music high up the Karakoram passes, indicating, probably, a Buddhist connection). It would seem that some customary vestige of the past was very much alive, even if religious practices were perhaps not.

As if this were not extraordinary enough, what had especially intrigued me was the very origin of the Kuchaens. Though deep in China, they were in fact a part of a Caucasian human migration that originated in the Caucasus and Anatoliya, Europe and around 3000 BC led to the peopling of today’s Turkmenistan. Then, around 2000 BC, these Indo-European people migrated southwards and entered the central Tarim Basin, introducing a Bronze Age.

hey were the forefathers of the Tocharians, the indigenous inhabitants of the famed Loulan region of middle China, but their linguistic roots lay in the European family of languages (itself said to be partially rooted in Asia). Around 1000 BC, evidence of the Tocharians' direct trade with China proper has been found.

As the first centuries AD dawned at Kucha, specifically, the Tocharian society that emerged had developed a highly refined Indo-Persian mixed culture which then embraced Buddhism by 2nd C AD. The contributions of the Tocharians and their forefathers to the region appear significant despite the technological and cultural prowess that developed within China; besides domestication of pasture animals, they brought knowledge of the stirrup/bridle (revolutionizing war by making man stable on horseback), and the light chariot. Indeed, amongst the most rewarding of my time in Xinjiang was the chance to finally see its unique 4000 year old "European" (Caucasian) mummies (as detailed next week).

At an ungodly hour and under a dark, desert night sky, I arrived in Kucha, following a long train journey from Kashgar (detailed last week). As with many oasis towns scattered around the rim of the Taklamakan Desert, this was a rather forlorn place, with sparse and grubby accommodation. The following morning, short of sleep and breakfast, I set out locating and negotiating my transport to the Kizil Caves that had been in my mind for some years. No one spoke any English, but eventually a Uighur lady understood my intentions and commanded a car and we agreed on a modest fare. To my surprise, but also concern, she suddenly decided to accompany me after an animated conversation with the driver. I had preferred a 1:1 body-count for reasons of security and being outnumbered raised some worrying possibilities in an unknown landscape. My concern was to be wholly unfounded; she soon stopped the taxi at a gathering morning roadside market to buy bread, radishes and fruit which she graciously shared and we set off to the sounds of a rather uplifting Chinese music tape.

Shortly out of Kucha, the tarred road disappeared. A dirt track took over which undulated through a moonscape, punctuated by innumerable ridges and geological formations. Soon these too vanished and we travelled many hours on a featureless, dusty, stone plateau devoid of life and features. I was perplexed as to how my local driver could follow a "road", let alone know where he was heading; a sense of uncertainty at being abandoned in this terrain came over me. Eventually, we re-encountered a dirt road and, rounding a bend, the desert plateau yielded a gorge where pockets of greenery, offshoots of water, could be seen. Slowly, a series of pockmarked high ridges with embedded caves came into my view. Below them were a marked off entrance complex, a sign of authority in a landscape which had no signs otherwise, and here we stopped.

After negotiating my entrance fee which varied uncertainly (I did habitually, if needlessly, declare that I am neither Japanese nor American to lower the fee - almost everything in China being negotiable), I was accompanied by a friendly young female guide and we slowly climbed up the cliff to the Kizil Caves. All photographic equipment had to be jettisoned, to my lasting regret, but already artificial light had decayed what remained of the delicate murals. Today, rather obtrusive balconies have been constructed to reach each cave ledge as the 400 odd excavated caves on this 800+ foot cliff face are dug at different levels (in the old days, rope ladders were used).

It is hard to capture the sensation of entering the Kizil Caves. A narrow opening high up on the cliff face took me into a dark, cool cave. A chamber, hand-cut 20 feet into the cliff and about 13 ft in width with a sloping concave roof, typified the caves here. As my eyes acclimatized to the darkness and the narrow shaft of blinding white light piercing it from the entrance, wondrous colours and images began slowly to emerge around me. Beautiful, sometimes fragmented, coloured images of the Buddha in various forms, detailed scenes from individual Jataka Tales, exquisite animal and flower motifs, a bewildering array of decorative patterns... were meticulously hand painted on the walls. The colour schemes were enchanting; the glorious lapis lazuli blues from crushed lapis sediments brought by unknown hands from distant valleys in Afghanistan, jade greens from malachite stone reminiscent of Khotan’s minerals (China’s best jade source), blacks, whites and earthy ochres more symbolic of Indian Ajanta Caves...but all well visualized, coordinated and painstakingly painted.

Stylistically too, one could ascertain Indian, Iranian, Afghan, Sogdian, Gandharan and to a lesser extent Chinese hands that had orchestrated these murals, as Kucha's social heritage had bestowed; such styles varied across caves and centuries. Ahead of me, occasionally, lay the pitiful remains of a crumbling Buddha statue, the central and often only relic in a cave, but in its time the focus of worship. In some caves, behind the central statute, a second chamber was present. The pilgrim, having made his or her initial worship in the main cave lit by candles, would then walk around clockwise and encounter a reclining Buddha in the second chamber.

It was truly a world within a world, and the potency of this carefully created atmosphere pervaded all sense of time as I stood there transfixed. One dangled in time, centuries rolled back regardless, the silence absolute and the darkness – in whichever cave I stood – seemingly devouring me, endlessly. The painted Buddhas watched, and waited their aeons. In Cave No. 1, as I crouched in torchlight in the dark, narrow rear chamber beside a crumbling 15 foot reclining Buddha, exquisitely painted flying apsaras (flying nymphs, favourite companions of musicians) on the cave roof began to float eerily, such was the power and angle of the paintings. It was simply as if they were present, hovering above me while watching over the Buddha.

In other caves, a dazzlingly simple, almost comical, lapis blue elephant could be seen; circles of white wild geese in a blue sky perambulated around a crescent moon. Animal paintings of Lumbini-like scenes (depicting a lusher Kucha to the arid region of today) were punctuated by (Chinese?) symbols for moon and sun gods, as monk-artists of different periods integrated objects of religious and practical concern of the societies outside the cave in the Taklamakan. Special tantric caves, depicting sexual scenes had also been excavated - a reminder that Kucha had come under Tibetan rule. In another cave, my imagination danced akin to the flickering candles that would have illuminated it for the painters; I could almost smell the incense, fruits and flowers that would have been present a millennia and a half ago.

These were moments, weeks, to treasure alone. The only earthly distraction was my guide, attempting some rehearsed phrase on the cave and Buddhism...and ushering me on, whether to the next cave or plane one did not know.

I pondered over how these caves came into being. After their initial excavation by hand, panels inserted into the crumbling walls were smeared with mixtures of clay, animal hair, straw and vegetable remains, to which binding agents such as apricot juice or animal glue were added. These were smoothened and a stucco (lime and gypsum) base overlaid. The difficulties in arriving at this stage were enormous given the loose rock, location and poor illumination. Then, the monk artisans who were often commissioned by rich nobles, passing dignitaries, combined donations of poor farmers or religious travellers, would have set to work, sketching in their compositions or using a ponce technique over years of intensive labour.

One wonders about their thoughts and discussions, their frustrations, how their days would have passed...(My mind then recollected a timeless moment far away in Bhutan, when in a similar scene in 1994, I was privy to monks meticulously drawing thangkas in a room, while another strummed a musical instrument to harmonise their thoughts). The caves expanded in number as their generous benefactors grew...and by the same token, with the onset of Islam in the 8-9th C AD, fell into neglect and oblivion, under a blanket of fine Taklamakan dust. It seems that the curtain had closed.

At least nine centuries later, around 1880, the Kizil Caves were uncovered by the intrepid German archaeologist Albert Grunweld. He began the first systematic investigations that were later to be conducted by excited German, Russian, British and Japanese teams before the onset of World War I. In due course, several prized murals and artifacts were chiselled off the walls and carted to the museums of Berlin, London and Petersburg, where they may be seen today, some lost to Allied bombings. Across the Kizil complex, these gaping patches are a poignant reminder of a different era of excavation and a source of controversy. Yet, in as much as this was blatant tomb robbery, it has spawned new research on this extraordinary heritage and, in the last fifty years, instigated the Chinese Government to further their own protection and knowledge of a little known unique world heritage.

My time in Kucha was limited, but I also travelled to other enchanting sites. At Subashi (5-6 C AD), the sprawling desert ruins - once home to 100 temples and described by Xuanzang as “so beautiful that they seemed to belong to another world” -spanned many kilometres, reminding me of Palmyra, Syria, a similar Silk Road city. Climbing a huge terraced stupa, I was suddenly aware that where once there was a teeming city, I was now the sole visitor (apart from my driver below) as far as the eye could see on this vast Taklamakan plain.

With such a heritage, it is my earnest hope that China will also preserve the local and geographic ambience surrounding these sites, especially at Kizil, and not cocoon these treasures of Xinjiang in an infrastructurally modern or touristically "sound" manner. To do so will remove the very essence and sanctity that the Kuchaen monks had created so painstakingly and which has lasted till recently.

Thanks TigerLikesRooster.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

The Clan Of Ina - Haplopgroup B

"The other major branch that left Africa, the Northern one, is represented by macro-haplogroup N. It has a lower bound of 43,000–53,000 yrs BP, and spread into at least three main clusters. The first cluster comprises haplogroups X and A, with only a shared mutation between them and different geographic distributions (A is widespread in Asia, X is mainly restricted to Europe). The second cluster groups minor haplogroups W, I, and N1b (each of which is present in low frequencies in Europe, the Near East, and the Caucasus). The last cluster radiated around 39,000–52,000 yrs BP and gave rise to four major ancestral clusters: Two of them, B and F, derive from N through a common ancestor with most Europeans - phylogenetic node R [3]. The others originated haplogroups J, T, H, V, K, and U, which expanded from the Near East-Caucasus area. [4]"

"Haplogroup B expanded from Central Asia to Eastern Asia, reaching Japan and the Southeastern Pacific Archipelagos. And, unlike previously believed, it is also found in some Siberian populations. [3, 5, 6]. From there, a substantial number of Ina's descendants then reached North America, either with the other colonists around 13,000 yrs BP via the Bering land bridge, or in a sea-borne colonization along the coast (or both)."

I believe this Clan' Ina' is the Jomon/Ainu, the Lapita and the source of all the 'Caucasian-like' skulls discovered in the Americas.

You got it! Lapis lazuli is the basis for blue pigment around the world. And its major source in the pre-modern world was Afghanistan, transported throughout by caravan and prized by some of the greatest artists and craftsmen of antiquity.

Just days ago, I think, someone posted an article here about how the Europeans are trying to stop the blue pigments in their monuments from turning yellow(lapis is sulfur-based and as it decays it loses its blue-green chromophore).

In its day, lapis was more valuable than gold, at least in Europe. If you saw a depiction of the Virgin Mary in a chapel or cathedral in blue and gold, you knew you were in a rich community.

From there, a substantial number of Ina's descendants then reached North America, either with the other colonists around 13,000 yrs BP via the Bering land bridge, or in a sea-borne colonization along the coast (or both)."

I believe this Clan' Ina' is the Jomon/Ainu, the Lapita and the source of all the 'Caucasian-like' skulls discovered in the Americas.

I would favor the Bering land bridge for haplogroup B. The distribution in the western US seems to favor the interior more than the coast. Current thoughts on the coastal migration seem to favor haplogroup A and one of the Ds (the one from On Your Knees Cave.

But the day is still young.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.