Sogdiana and Silk Road Trade

INDIA, THE INDIAN OCEAN BASIN, and EAST ASIA HIST 1301 | History Sogdiana and Silk Road Trade Sogdiana was a region whose history dates back to the fifth century BCE. It was located in what is now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, east of the Sasanian Empire and west of Tang China. Primarily inhabited by itinerant communities, Sogdiana was ruled by several empires and kingdoms in antiquity, ranging from the Kushan Empire to Alexander the Great, the Achaemenid Persians, and the Hellenistic successor kingdoms. The area thus turned into a melting pot of cultures. Indeed, Greek scholarship flourished in Sogdiana under the Seleucids and subsequently the breakaway kingdoms of the Bactrian and Sogdian monarchs, inspiring later Islamic rulers to hire intellectuals from the region. The central Asian Kushan Empire played a crucial role in maintaining stability in the region that linked the eastern and western termini of the Silk Roads. The Sogdians gained control of many important oasis cities following the collapse of Kushan in 375 CE, notably Bukhara and Samarkand (both in presentday Uzbekistan), from which they controlled commerce in the area for hundreds of years. Despite the fact that Sogdiana was never able to unite into a single polity and was instead nearly always governed by bigger nations, the region's extensive exposure to many cultures resulted in a bilingual populace of traders and expert artisans. With the help of these characteristics, the Sogdians were able to rule over their share of the Silk Roads from citystates like Panjikent (in Tajikistan). Their rule was so successful that Sogdiana rose to become the richest nation in central Asia. Large, ornate buildings with interior paintings depicting armoured cavalry engaged in combat have been unearthed during archaeological excavations of the Panjikent palace complex. These findings amply demonstrate the Sasanid military aristocracy's impact on Sogdian culture. The period between the fourth and the eighth century CE saw Sogdiana at the height of its prosperity and power. The Sogdians were a group of people that lived in patchwork oasis villages and city-states within bigger kingdoms. They traded a lot with the Romans to the west, and with the Chinese and steppe nomads to the east. Rich Chinese river ports like Dunhuang and Chang'an were home to Sogdian populations that traded Chinese silk and manufactured goods for leather and animal items. During this time, the Sogdians were also skilled cultural transmitters. For instance, Sogdian traders and merchants contributed to the spread of Buddhism outside of South Asia as early as the fourth century. By the sixth century, Sogdians had travelled throughout Europe over the Silk Roads, carrying with them the Nestorianism branch of Christianity, which originated in Syria and Asia Minor and held that Jesus was two different people. Manichaeism, a dualistic ideology of virtue and evil that originated in the Sasanid Empire and included Buddhism, Christianity, and Persian Zoroastrianism, was also introduced by the Sogdians. Up to the advent of Islam, the main opposition to Catholic Christianity in Late Antiquity was manichaeism. Along the way, Sogdian traders formed partnerships with a number of the peoples they came across in the west, such as nomadic Turk clans who embraced both Manicheanism and Sogdian, the language of the Silk Roads until Persian took its place in the seventh century. However, by the ninth century, the Islamic caliphate was gaining ground and had taken control of portions of Sogdiana, including Samarkand. This was because the caliphate saw an opportunity to control the Silk Roads that ran across central Asia. Many Sogdian tradesmen and merchants converted to Islam as a result of the spread of Muslim culture throughout the region. They saw benefits such as trustworthy agreements among Muslims to protect commodities transported via the Silk Roads. The Muslim dominion of the uprising Abbasid caliphs, who had deposed their Umayyad predecessors by mid-century, had reached Tang China, whose armies they had fought at the Battle of Talas River in 751. The response of the disobedient Tang general An Lushan makes the fight significant in the history of Sogdiana, notwithstanding its importance in stopping Abbasid progress eastward. An's true origins remain unknown, although historical evidence points to a Turkic-speaking mother and a Sogdian father as his adoptive parents. He quickly became well-known in the Tang army as an interpreter in the military marketplaces that dotted the Silk Roads. An's combative demeanour made him unpopular, but by the 730s, he had gained Emperor Xuanzong's favour and became involved in court affairs. An became close friends with the emperor, but after the Tang empire was defeated at Talas River, he rebelled against it out of dread for his own life in the event that the emperor passed away. The Lushan uprising determined the end of the Tang dynasty's influence in central Asia, since it forced the Tang to leave the area. The tale of An serves as another reminder of how intertwined the premodern world was. The Abbasid Caliphate dominated over much of Sogdiana by the end of the ninth century, and Sogdian groups overseas increasingly integrated, even in China. Even so, sources from the Arab, Byzantine, Chinese, and Armenian languages call Sogdians the "great traders of Inner Asia," and evidence of their continued commercial interactions even after they were assimilated into the Islamic world can be found in the graffiti left by caravanners in India and the Sogdian loanwords that have entered Turkish language. The arrival of the Mongols in the thirteenth century upset the dual Muslim/Chinese rule over the Silk Roads, which had started in the ninth century. From the middle of the thirteenth century, the Chagatai Khanate, commanded by the second son of Chinggis Khan, Chagatai, and his heirs, ruled over central Asia until Timur, a Turkic commander, gained control in 1363 and established his capital at Samarkand, the former Sogdian centre of the Silk Roads.