In the first of a series of articles chronicling recent journeys through Pakistan's ancient Silk Road routes, Nishy Wijewardane travels from the borders of Afghanistan, through the Gandharan plains of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, visiting some historic cities along the way.
The "Silk Road", coined by a German geographer in the 19th century, is the most evocative "highway" the world has yet seen. It derives its name not from a single great road but from a network of well-worn pathways, crossing inhospitable deserts, mountain ranges, steppes, oases and forests that merchant caravans trekked - in relays - over about 2000 years of trade.
The Road could be roughly said to have begun in Dunhuang (in Gansu Province) of middle China and ended in Constantinople (Istanbul) - the bridge between the Orient and Europe; the term "Silk" refers to the primary importance attached by both the East and the West to the discovery of silk in China and the ensuing trade that this fostered.
However, the Silk Road is the sum of much more than this; it became - and still is - an artery for the spread of general trade (be they furs, spices, nuts, fragrances, arms, cloth, gems or leather goods) and particularly art and religious influences, notably Buddhism and Islam. As a result of the complex interaction of these influences, combined with a largely nomadic spirit of much of Central Asia, the lives of the people along the Silk Road, especially historic but also current, remain one of the most fascinating aspects of my travels across this area.
More recent discoveries indicate that this road was highly significant in the spread of human genetic stock and bloodlines from the East to the West. Indeed still more recent discoveries, as this series will later divulge, are pushing back - astonishingly - the spread of human migration from West to East!
In the context of territory covered in my journey, the Silk Road could be broadly traced from Peshawar through Taxila, and up north into Kohistan country. From Chilas, a vital junction since Sogdian times (from 2 C AD), it headed north to Gilgit, Karimabad and finally Sost, then crossed over the high passes of the Khunjerab into Tashkurgan (now China) and descended to Kashgar. (Another strand of the Silk Road deviated at Chilas to Skardu in Baltistan).
From Kashgar, a remote trading town with a living heritage of 2000 years, the Northern and Southern Silk Roads emerged or converged, depending on one's direction of travel. The former and somewhat more hospitable route stretched from Kashgar via Kucha, Aksu and to present day Urumchi (and then south-eastwards to Dunhuang in the heart of China), whereas the Southern Silk Road deviated south of Kashgar, hugging the base of the towering Kunlun mountains of the Tibetan plateau, following the rim of the vast Taklamakan desert expanse, through the historic Buddhist settlements of Yarkand, Khotan, Niya, Miran and towards the mysterious Lop Nor and again Dunhuang.
Today both routes are through remote desert landscapes, but the Southern Silk Road region was perhaps more hospitable climatically in aeons gone by when it was fed by the melt waters of the Tibetan plateau; the rivers have long dried up and the shifting sandstorms, still prevalent, have reclaimed countless ancient settlements. Not for nothing does the Taklamakan mean "Go in and you won't come out".
My wife and I started our journey in Peshawar, an ancient city straddling the borders of war-torn Afghanistan and a somewhat legally quirky region of Pakistan, where law and order is regulated less by formal government authorities and effectively by seven tribal "Agencies", a colonial arrangement.
Historically Peshawar (Purushapura) was within the Afghan sphere of influence and today it remains a city for a complex, shifting potpourri of ethnic groups, dominated by the independent-minded Pashtun group. The town has been active for more than 2000 years, and is still buzzing today; formerly it was renowned as a wonder of the Buddhist world for its 120m stupa topped with 25 copper discs. However, successive armies have taken their toll and by 1900, the British had made Peshawar their frontier headquarters.
Today, Peshawar's fascinating old quarter is dominated by ancient, rickety two-three storey buildings, made of mud, bricks and wood, with elaborate wooden carvings notched on leaning balconies. It is hard to believe that such rickety buildings, which are reminiscent stylistically of those I have seen in Bukhara or Khiva, are capable of standing a day longer.
Bazaars of all sorts run through Peshawar, from the Smugglers' Bazaar to Goldsmiths' and to food bazaars piled high with walnuts, almonds and fruits; innumerable alleyways, some tented, lead from one set of shops to the next. Along these lanes run little boys in skull caps, and an endless good humoured torrent of shoppers, mostly locals.
Running noticeably alongside Peshawar's old streets are ancient electrical transformers on old iron towers, and a crow’s nest of wires dragged out to numerous old buildings giving inhabitants in rickety structures, electricity! In the narrow lanes, one can see colourful hand painted Pakistani lorries, the modern camels of the Silk Road, brimming with goods; intricate decorations adorn them and arrays of bells and other steel tinklers line the edges of their bodywork awaiting movement to ring musically. Drivers and other lorry hands are often seen squatting around their vehicles, either anxiously peering into undersides in search of mechanical problems, drinking tea or seeking refuge underneath from the hot sun.
Despite its attractions, old Peshawar was one place which, in all my worldwide travels, had an eerie sense of uncertainty. Perhaps it was my newness, probably not; at any rate walking with a camera aroused great suspicion and even angry inquiries; this was a town which for all its antiquity shrouded complex modern interests, a centre for drug money and arms smuggling, and one where any interest, even the chance purchase of a fighter aircraft, could be entertained. Bin Laden, it is said, had sought refuge here a few years ago before the war on Afghanistan began; and a few hours away across the Khyber Pass lay Afghanistan itself.
Peshawar is home to one of Pakistan's two important museums for Gandharan art (the other being at Taxila): the Peshawar Museum houses a fine collection of statues and artifacts excavated from numerous Buddhist sites that dot the region. These depict the Buddha and denote numerous Jataka tales in the beautiful dark grey-black schist stone of the region, and in the exquisitely classical Greco-Gandharan style. The Director of the Peshawar Museum, Prof. Ihsan Ali, having generously spent time with us, indicated to us that in the Museum's vaults lie thrice the exhibited artifacts, waiting for public viewing as money and space (and museum extensions) allow.
Taking Professor Ali's advice on important ruins in this Gandharan region, we hastily changed our plans on the spot and made do for an impromptu night in Peshawar. It was memorable on two counts. We dined in an unassuming but recommended local restaurant, "Salateen" where amidst friendly service we were enlightened on a new meaning to "naans", a Pakistani staple, freshly made to a consistency unknown abroad and sprinkled with a delicious concoction of dry seeds. Side dishes of several kinds of tasty chicken and mutton, from tandoori to tikka, and other rich local styles accompanied this.
On the other count, however, we stayed - for the only time on our journey - at what one guide book described as "the one top-end hotel in Pakistan" to experience, the Khan Club, finding the stay pleasant enough but very overrated with an inflated price on a non-existent bill and passable food to match. More important, the next day, with Professor Ali's advice in hand, we hired a taxi to travel north-east out of Peshawar, to two key sites, Charsadda and Takht-I-Bahi.
Little remains on the plains and ridge -like embankments where the 20 hectare citadel of Charsadda ("Lotus City") once stood and thrived in the 6 C BC upto 2 C AD; the mud-baked ground, however, is littered with thousands of fragments of pottery, giving the impression of a recently deserted pottery kiln. A lonely girl, tending some goats, joined me on the remains of what was once a vibrant settlement. Standing on the ridges, with hundreds of small birds making nest pockets on the sides, one can see pleasant green rolling country starting from the dusty base of Charsadda, much the same way perhaps that Alexander the Great saw it around 327BC when he besieged the city.
A few hours away, and a dusty climb up, the monastery complex of Takht-I-Bahi, 2nd century AD, however, presented a different, grand scene. Set atop a mountainous outcrop near the town of Mardan overlooking the plains of northwestern Pakistan, this Kushan period meditation retreat features numerous shrines and Buddhist monastic buildings dotted amongst hilly peaks across a 33 hectare site. Numerous Buddha statues have been found, many cut from the region's dark schist rock, featuring the distinct Indo-Scythian and Greco-Roman styles prevalent in many of the old Gandharan ruins. Excavations here were initiated between 1907 and 1909 under the British and are still ongoing, and Takht-I-Bahi, though lesser known abroad, remains one of Pakistan's most important Gandharan sites.
From the cool hills of Takht-I-Bahi, it is a few hours' drive across the hotter plains of the Indus to Taxila. The scenery is flat and depicts farming country; the occasional mud baked ridge cuts across the countryside. En route, the elegant hillside fortifications of Attock grace one bank of the Indus River.
Taxila, one of the richest archaeological ruins in South Asia, was a metropolis founded by the Bactrian Greeks in the 2nd Century BC and was visited by Alexander the Great in 326 BC when the then King Ambhi of Taxila surrendered to the Greeks. However, upon Alexander's death in 323 BC, the Greek empire began to crumble and Taxila was to become a regional seat of government under the rising Mauryan empire of Chandragupta (311-287BC) whose seat of power was present day Patna, Bihar.
It was Chandragupta's grandson, Emperor Asoka (269-32BC) who embraced Buddhism and propagated the philosophy throughout his empire. However, the Bactrian Greeks were to reemerge in Taxila in the early part of the second century BC, establishing their bases at both Charsadda and Taxila. Greek influence was to wane only by the first century AD as the Kushan Empire strengthened in its place. But the centres of settlement were to comprise three separate sites - Bhir Mound (oldest), Sirkap and Sirsukh - as the official capital was moved from Peshawar to Taxila, then Sirkap and finally Sirsukh by the second century AD. However, by the time the famous Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited Taxila in 630AD, it was deserted (razed by the White Huns or Hepthalites) and was never to regain its glory.
Excavations by Sir John Marshall, a notable Englishman, between 1913 and 1934 revealed Taxila as the meeting point of three major highways, linking India with China, Central Asia and Europe, while benefiting from sea trade from the mouth of the Indus. Of numerous ruins dotted about in the Taxila area, the Dharmarajika Stupa, at 35 m (115 feet) and built by Asoka, is a prominent landmark, being a pleasant donkey ride away from the small Taxila Museum. This museum brings together some of the best artifacts from this sprawling region where Greco-Roman artistic influence in Asia was at its height.
From Gandharan plains around Taxila, we turned northwards to follow (backwards) the Indus River and the Karakoram Highway (-which in turn follows the ancient Silk Road), on our journey to Pakistan's soaring mountains and a very beckoning Hunza Valley. - Next week: Part II
A personal noteIn the spring of 2004, I made my way from the borders of present day Afghanistan and Pakistan, the ancient Gandharan lands around Peshawar, through the upper reaches of Pakistan’s mountainous Northern Areas along the Karakoram “Highway”, following ancient trails used by centuries of Silk Road travellers, and into the heart of China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Province and ultimately to Dunhuang (the ancient gateway to China proper) in Gansu Province.
The travels formed the fourth set of related Silk Road journeys undertaken over 30 years between Constantinople (Istanbul) and now middle China. Having visited in 1999 the Central Asian heartlands belonging to Timurlane, the world’s most feared ruler, and witnessed his glorious Islamic monuments in Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, (earlier Sogdiana, from where a super merchant class arose) and the Ferghana Valley in today’s Uzbekistan - all crucial Silk Road “caravanserais” (staging posts for traders) as well as the regions from which the stories of “A Thousand and One Arabian Nights” draw their inspirations, my wish this spring was to retrace the spread of Buddhism eastwards along the Silk Road.
Despite the sense of foreboding brought on by the aftermath of the Afghanistan war, I hoped to savour something of the rich historical interactions that trade and religion (and warfare) had brought to the diverse lands that lay between Peshawar and Dunhuang, deep inside the belly of China. I also had a longstanding desire to see the ancient settlements (many of Buddhist origin) which were uncovered in China’s vast Taklamakan Desert in the early 1900s by legendary explorer-archaeologists Sir Aurel Stein, Sven Hedin, Albert Grunwedel, Albert von Le Coq and lastly - but first - the great Russian explorer Nikolai Prejevalsky.
These articles hope to offer Sri Lankan readers a flavour of lands not unconnected to the spirit of this country.
