The Peoples and their Religions of the Central Asia before the 9th Century

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

After the 10th century (abbr. cent.) the Uigurians were pervaded all over in the southern roads of the Taklamakan desert as well as in the northern, and after the 11th cent. they became almost all the Islams.1. Before the 9th cent., at least since the middle of the 1st cent. A.D. the people in the northern roads had been mostly Romans of European race, whose language was a kind of the Italo-Celtic.They lived from the westward to the eastward, in (1) Kuma (now Aksu), in (2) Kucha, in (3) Wu-lei, in (4) Karashar, in (5) Turfan (Kara-khoja). Among them, Kucha was the largest country, around its capital there remain some 500 Buddhist cave temples, decorated with the frescos and the ceiling paintings of gorgeous colour, and their main subjects are the legend and the former birth stories of the Buddha Šakyamuni; the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas and the other deities of the Mahayana Buddhism are not found until the beginning of the 8th cent. Therefore, we may regard that the main current of the Buddhism in Kucha and the environs had been the Hinayana, especially the sarvastivada, though even in the earlier time the Mahayana Buddhism had been somewhat prevalent at Kucha, considering the facts that some priests with the surname Po (the Chinese surname for the natives of Kucha who belonged to the white coloured race) had come to China during the time of the 3rd and the 4th cent. and initiated the Mahayana Buddhism, and moreover, the renowned Kumarajlva from Kucha translated several principal Mahayana texts at Ch'ang-an during in 402-413.2. As for the southern roads the countries or oasis-sites were from the westward to the eastward, (1) Guma (the ancient P'i-shan), next (2) Khotan, within the country, we find three important sites, i.e. (3) Uzuntati, (4) Rawak (including Dandan-uiliq), (5) Khadalik; then (6) Niya, (7) Endere, (8) Cherchen, (9) Charklik (shan-shan, the last capital of Lou-lan), (10) Miran (perhaps the 2nd capital of Lou-Ian), (11) Kuhani (the first capital of Lou-lan, situated on the northern bank of the ancient Lob-nor). The people of the southern roads, at least since the 3rd cent. B.C., had been mostly the Eastern Iranians of the Indo-European race, speaking the Eastern Iranian language. The Tibetans had lived a little since the ancient times, but they had scarcely effected on the development of the culture. Since the 8th cent., the Tibetans became somewhat powerful, but after the 11th cent. the Uigurians overthrew the formers. The religion of the Eastern Iranians and Tibetans in the southern roads was the Buddhism, especially after the 2nd cent., the Mahayana. Khotan had been a centre of the Mahayana Buddhism, from where the principal texts of the middle and the later Mahayana had been introduced into China and translated. And moreover, many Skt. Buddhist texts had been translated into Khotanese (i.e. Eastern Iranian) and remain now.According to the Chinese historical documents there lived some of the Zoroastrians and also of the Nestrians during those times in the southern roads, but afterwards they had all gone out.