China - S Heritage On Old Silk Road PDF

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road
Author(s): Audrey Ronning Topping

Source: World Policy Journal, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Winter, 2008/2009), pp. 152-166
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40210132
Accessed: 30-05-2018 17:53 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
World Policy Journal
This content downloaded from 188.142.229.225 on Wed, 30 May 2018 17:53:46 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
PORTFOLIO
Audrey Ronning Topping is a journalist and photographer who has reported from China for leading publ
including The National Geographic and The New York Times. Her six books include Dawn Wakes in th
The Splendors of Tibet, and the memoir Charlie s World.
China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road

Audrey Ronning Topping
DUNHUANG, CHINA- The pre-dawn could find the stirrups, I was riding adrift
sky was still dark. In a second I would through
reach time, space, and sand in a camel
the point of no return. Should I jump off caravan along the legendary Silk Road.
my camel now or hang on for dear life? I As the sun slowly reddened the misty
could hear the groans of my fellow riders skyasabove the dunes I was rocking in
their two-humped Bactrian camels grunted rhythm with my lumbering camel, dream-
and rose, back legs first, from their kneeling
ing I was a character in the Chinese epic
position on the rough sands of the Gobi novel The Journey to the West, first published
desert. White knuckles clutched the horn more than 400 years ago. Ahead I could
of the wooden saddle balanced between two see my hero, the pilgrim Xuanzang who,
furry humps and suddenly, before my feet around 645AD, brought Buddhist scriptures
Photographs by Audrey Ronning Topping
© 2008 World Policy Institute 153
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
from Indiabefore
to Ellis Island,
the in marathonsacred
murals,
huang painted by Buddhist monks on the walls
temple-caves. of
Alof
was Fa-hsien, the
the nearby grottoes. monk
wrote the firstDunhuang was account
originally established as o
cities that a flourished
frontier outpost of the Chinese empire byfo
in the the Han dynasty Emperor
Kingdom of Wudi in lllBC.
Kho
Buddhist civilization
It was strategically situated at the western al
In his end of the Hexi Corridorcame
footsteps between Mongolia M
by the and
British Tibet, flanked by the
archaeoloTaklamakan and
carrying a Gobi Deserts in what was then known
shovel. Theseas
only a Chinese Turkistan. Today,
fraction of after the
a millenni- an
the new China is
um of neglect, the Magao begin
Grottoes are be-
yet another ing restored, and the archaeological site is
indication o
a significantattracting millions
member of Chinese, enjoying of
nations. their newfound wealth and freedom to ex-
My mirage was suddenly shattered as plore their cultural patrimony.
my camel lurched into a sharp climb up China's fast-growing economy and rising
Mingsha Mountain. And into reality rode living standards have stirred a renewed na-
my husband, Top, daughter Karen, and tional pride and interest in its ancient cul-
grandson Torin, who marked the fifth tural heritage. At the same time, the new
generation of our family to travel China. post-Mao leadership of China is confident
We were with a caravan of 1 5 American enough in its authority that it can, without
"Friends of Dunhuang," who had recently fear, allow its people to rediscover their na-
arrived by plane from the United States to tion's pre-communist legacy. The spectacu-
explore and help preserve the Mogao Grot- lar opening ceremony of the Olympics in
toes. In the distance, silhouetted on the August 2008 showed the world - in a tech-
ridge, with the sand dunes towering over no-alchemy pageant symbolizing the 5,000
Crescent Lake, were lines of camels bearing years of China's recorded history - that the
hundreds of Chinese tourists who had come "Sleeping Dragon" has awakened with a roar
to Dunhuang in search of their ancestral that is shaking the world. Indeed, as Beijing
roots that had been recorded, centuries more confidently affirms its robust presence
1 54 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
on the servation Institute

global stage, and the Chinese govern-
the
lends ment. They recently launched
legitimacy to an initiative
the c
its intended to preserve history
long-dormant by digitizing
author
status. the artwork enshrined in the caves. The
project could serve as a model for cultural
In practical terms, the Chinese govern-
ment is lending financial support topreservation
conser- globally. After five years of
vationists and scientists embarking planning,
on new a state-of-the-art visitors' center
projects to both preserve and unveilresembling
long- the rippling shapes of the nearby
sandbe
neglected cultural treasures. This may dunes was recently approved by the
one of the great gifts of the ChineseChinese
nationgovernment, which is picking up
to its people, transcending even its 70
growing
percent of the cost.
economic and political muscle. In the early 1920s, after a thousand
The Mogao Grottoes, known byyears the of virtual obscurity, this great museum
Chinese name Mogaoku or "Peerless Caves,"
in the desert was rediscovered by foreign
are honeycombed into a conglomerate sand- They carried away countless
archaeologists.
stone cliff rising from the east banktreasures
of thebefore the Chinese, in 1925, took
administrative control of the area. The
Dunquan River that slips quietly through
a small green valley on
the lip of the Gobi desert.
Some 492 of the original
800 caves preserve a
unique record, spanning
ten centuries of cultural in-
terchange between China
and the West. The Dun-
huang Academy, custodian
of the grottoes since its
founding in 1944, is pio-
neering advanced conserva-
tion techniques in partner-
ship with the Getty Con-
China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road 155
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
Chinese stopped
shortly before the end of his the
life, my fatherpil
of the internal asked his six grown turmoil
children to grant his
Period, the Japanese
last wish: to accompany him on a visit toocc
World War the Peerless
II, Caves hethe
had heard so muchCivil
gles of the about as a child.
communist g
grottoes remained As we wandered through the site closed
we felt
after the Cultural
humbled, as often happens in the Revol
presence
the growth of
of great art. In sizethe econo
and historical breadth,
the Chinese there isgovernment
nothing comparable in the entire
of nationalChinese Buddhist world. Enshrined
pride, in the
belated
serve their grottoes
cultural
is a pantheon of images withheri multi-
tourism. The caves were excavated and a national features and murals depicting a
new stucco facade constructed. myriad of Buddhist divinities and celestial
In 1984, only a trickle of Chinese offi- beings. The caves are a monument to one
cials and a few foreign guests, including myof the world s great religions, but they no
father, Ambassador Chester Ronning, and longer serve as working temples. The his-
family were privileged to see the fabled torical artwork is held in great respect,
caves. My father, born in China in 1894 to but the incense burners are cold and one
American missionary parents, and who latersees only a few discreet signs of worship.
served as a teacher and Canadian diplomat, The art embodies the consistency of
was invited as an "old friend" of Prime Chinese Buddhist development and pro-
Minister Zhou Enlai. In his ninetieth year, foundly illustrates that Dunhuang was a
156 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
China's Heritage on the Old 157

Silk
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
1 58 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09
melting pot where, in the past, many na- The pagoda has since become the icon of
tionalities and religions once lived together. Mogaoku.
The caves represent three stages of Chinese A quarter century later, a mere footnote
history: the Early Period (420-581 ad), cre- in the pages of Mogaoku s long history, I re-
ated during the Liang, Wei, and Zhou dy- turned with my own family to gain spiritual
nasties; the Middle Period (581-907AD) of merits by walking around the famous Bud-
the Sui and Tang dynasties; and the Late dha. The full effect of the grottoes is still be-
Period (907-1 368ad) of the Song, Western yond imagination or description. Over time,
Xia, and Yuan dynasties. they have miraculously survived natural and
Every inch of wall space is covered with man-made catastrophes - earthquakes, land-
vivid murals illustrating jatakas, tales from slides, sand storms, water seepage, pilfering
Buddha's past lives and sto-
rybook scenes of hunting,
farming, and episodic hap-
penings in everyday life. Al-
* * Over time, the grottoes have
most every Buddhist theme survived earthquakes, landslides,
or legend mentioned in the
sutras or manuscripts is il- sand storms, pilfering soldiers,
lustrated in vibrant paint-
and plundering archaeologists. * *
ings comprising a visual en-
cyclopedia of Chinese Bud-
dhist art in content, styles, and techniques. soldiers, and plundering archaeologists. The
Except for two giant Buddhas carved out walls show signs of hollowing, bulking,
of sandstone, the sculptures were all molded peeling, discoloration, and mold that are en-
with local clay mixed with straw, and dangering the sacred, priceless art. Mogaoku
supported by wooden armatures. Many has become a Mecca for pilgrims, artists,
caves are lavishly adorned by tiered, gold- scholars, and tourists eager to be touched by
encrusted ceilings painted in the 10,000 the dawn of civilization. But fame may be
Buddha motifs, with central lotus images the downfall of the fragile caves.
and apsarasy or angels, in flowing gowns
flying dizzily around, scattering flowers Under Siege
above the representations of Buddha. Today, the caves are literally under siege
Minimalism is not the mode of Mogaoku. by well-intentioned visitors arriving at an
When my father visited the grottoes in alarming rate. In 2007, some 550,000
1984, a chair was carried from cave to cave tourists, 90 percent Chinese, jammed into
so he could sit and admire the artwork, the grottoes with flashlights, causing a dan-
but when he saw the Giant Buddha in the gerous increase in carbon dioxide and hu-
Nine-Story Pagoda, he could not resist midity that threatened to overwhelm the
walking clockwise around "The Northern vulnerable paintings. Conservationists fear
Great Image" three times for good luck. that Mogaoku s past may be obliterated for
The 7 5 -foot high Buddha was carved fromthe future by the present. The pressing
the rock face, plastered over, and painted question is this: what are the Chinese will-
during the early period of the Tang Dynasty ing to give up in the interest of preserving
(618-781BC). The Buddha's feet are planted their ancient heritage?
at the cliff base and, nine stories up, his all- Director Fan Jinshi, president of the
seeing eyes peer out at the passing of time.Dunhuang Academy and a respected scholar
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
who has been Roman passionatel influe

Mogaoku for artwork. 45 years, b
art is the culturalDunhuang herita w
but of the the
entire main world. oasi
responsibility," way known
she says a
develop it, versed
and to Centr
spread
world." Ms. to Fan Imperial wants viC
sacred art, towns
but not flouris if it
will be 399AD. in
destroyed As the a t
lenge," she height
says, "is durin to b
greater access ties. with Caravan our r
conserve this from incompara China's
uture now
generations." known
In an effort to to the reduce oasis t
mass tourism, were plans often are m
the entire hundred
Dunhuang trad exp
digitization. nations. The digital The
of the most Persia or important
northern India and back some- c
available a times
searchable
took nine years. Wagons and chariots da
digitally pulled by camels, elephants, yaks, donkeys,
reuniting the p
phies, and oxen, horses, and ponies trekked across
printed texts
caves before Chinese Turkistan
foreign and the Middle East arc
them to laden with precious cargoes, mainly
museums and silks. p
around theBy the time they reached Rome,
world. the price
The p
tion will of silk had risen to its weight in
showcase gold.
Mogao
and illuminate Dunhuan
Caravans also transported gold, silver, lapis
bridge to lazuli, precious
the stones, bronze images,
great civil
and Asia, and as
spices, musical instruments, aexoticmagnanimals
along the Silk Road
such as lions, parrots, and ostriches, and tha
China. Han, rare plantsTibetan,
and fruits. Accompanying M
Central Asian, and
these goods came revolutionary ideas, even
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
knowledge, Bactrian camels with double

and humps, double
books,
gions and art.
eyelids, and mere slits of nostrils to protect
About 300 oasis
them from towns
the sand storms as they skirted
blossomed theinto
dreaded Taklamakan Desert, known as
cosmopo
thriving "the desert of no return."
trading centers
refuges forThefollowers
decline of the Silk Road began in of
the West. the
Among them
late tenth century. Sea trade gained as-
and Nestorian Christian
cendancy, while incessant military and polit-
Christ ical
could conflict slowed
be traffic inland. Nomadic
simulta
divine), as well
tribes battled with as Manich
Chinese and Mongolians
a religion for control. Caravansin
born were attacked by
Persia
and outlawed raiders demanding
at tolls. theGradually, theend
its disciples Chineseruthlessly
rulers lost control of the region. p
Christians in the West. This fabled road has Muslim invasions of the Buddhist cities
for centuries been the route of Chinese sto- began. Many of the oasis towns were aban-
doned. The few local descendents that trace
rytellers relating the tales of wild adventur-
ers, devout pilgrims, regional wars, and their ancestry back 2,000 years, told me
archaeological pirates. It is now 700 years that Muslim soldiers smashed the clay pipes
since a young Marco Polo traveled along of the complex underground irrigation sys-
this road from the West. Today, busloads tem that had supplied the cities with glacial
of tourists arrive from a nearby airport to waters melting from the Tien Shan moun-
view the caves and experience the sacred tains. A slow, but terminal, depopulation of
ambience. some 300 Buddhist cities began. Those na-
During the height of the Silk Road, tives unable to evacuate simply starved to
Dunhuang was a major cosmopolitan junc-death. Sensing the end, the monks of Mo-
tion where caravans from the north inter- gaoku prepared a virtual time capsule of
sected those from Arabia driven by turbaned Buddhist history for posterity. They sealed
traders who walked beside their burdened up tens of thousands of paintings, banners,
camels. In Dunhuang, they quenched theirand manuscript scrolls - many already an-
thirst in the lively cafes and traded their cient - in a secret chamber, now know as
one-humped dromedaries for the stronger the "library cave."
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
The Silk Road was officially abandoned bribed the innocent Taoist priest and sys-
under the Ming Dynasty. By the late nine- tematically removed five crates of relics,
teenth century, Dunhuang had become a loading 24 boxes of manuscripts on pack
remote, dusty town in the wasteland of cen- animals for eventual shipment to England.
tral Asia. Buddhism had been replaced by His greatest prize was the original ninth-
Islam. Cave entrances were covered with century print of the Diamond Sutra, known
sand, while the wooden facades fell into de- as "The Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom
cay. The grottoes would not be rediscovered of the Diamond that Cuts Through Illu-
for nearly 900 years. sion," which teaches the practice of the
avoidance of extremes of mental attachment.
Rediscovery and Rape It was printed from wood blocks, long dis-
Fanciful tales of the Silk Road, however, appeared, on some 16 feet of rolled paper. It
never died. Descendents told of buried bears the exact date, May 11, 868, as well as
cities, rich in treas-
ure. The old ruins
were said to be
haunted by hungry
ghosts and protected
by wrathful demons.
Many men ventured
into the desert seek-
ing their fortune, but
the few who returned
swore that demons in
the swirling sands of
the Taklamakan
Desert foiled their at-
tempts.
On May 26,
1900, a wandering
Taoist priest, Wang
Yuanlu, stumbled upon the grottoes and the name of the man who commissioned
began a well-meaning but ruinous program it. The text itself has been memorized by
of conservation, remnants of which are still monks for millennia and is still chanted in
visible today. By chance, he discovered the Buddhist monasteries. The irreplaceable
bricked-up library cave with its vast hoard value of the original Diamond Sutra lies in
of documents written in a multitude of the fact that it is the earliest-known printed
tongues and scripts. Wang Yuanlu had book in the world. It is currently on display
made one of the most important archaeolog- in the British Museum along with the
ical finds of modern times. The library held Gutenberg Bible, the West's most famous
a recorded history comparable to, but even book - printed some 587 years later.
larger than, the cave where the Dead Sea The Diamond Sutra has long been a
Scrolls were found. bone of contention - much like the Elgin
Seven years later, the first Western Marbles. The Chinese are still outraged by
archaeologist, Sir Aurel Stein, an English- the looting of the library cave. Besides the
man of Hungarian descent, arrived. He ancient manuscripts, hundreds of sacred
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
frescoes wereauthorizing exploration

ripped for scientific re- fro
were seized search.
fromThe weak government had neither
other
fury of the the willChinese
nor the military means to stopand the
scholars, pillaging.
parts of this g
Buddhist antiquities
The haunting question remains: if for- fro
scattered eign archaeologists had not taken the relics,
through museu
countries. The British Museum has refused would they have survived, as they did, as
two requests from the Dunhuang Academy protected museum collections in the West?
to borrow the Diamond Sutra for display onOr would they have faced some greater
special occasions. threat, as happened in the 1930s under
Stein has been called a "robber" and a Chinese official auspices, when some 10,000
"bandit," and by today's standards he can be manuscripts enroute by pack horse to
judged to have violated China's own scholar-Peking from Dunhuang were sold piece by
ly interests by removing these precious piece into the hands of private dealers.
relics on behalf of the British Museum, On May 30, 1925, the archaeological
which paid his expenses. But lest we forget, free-for-all was abruptly stopped by an event
when he arrived, the caves had been horribly that elicited anti-foreign uprisings that
neglected, the ancient cities buried beneath would last for years. In Shanghai, a British
an ocean of sand for centuries. Stein was officer ordered his men to open fire on a
knighted for his "discovery" and for his re- group of rioting students, killing 11,
markable collection of antiques. After Stein, most of whom, it was said, were shot in
other ruthless pirates excavated the lost the back. A great wave of anti-Western hos-
cities, ripping sacred frescoes from the tem-tility swept across China. Foreigners in the
ple walls, beheading stone statues, and grab- interior - including my parents, who were
bing all the statuary, gold, brass, and ivory then teachers in Hubei, and my three older
relics (including textiles and silks) that they siblings - were evacuated to coastal cities.
could load onto their camels. ArchaeologistsOur family managed to escape by junk
often arrived with official papers from the down the Han River where they were
Allied Powers - the victors in World War picked up by an American gunboat that
I - who had imposed their will on Peking,took them down the Yangtze to Shanghai.
By 1930, Silk Road revival.
the In 1995, a glitsy tourist
Chinese h
all foreign hotel was built. Oil and other natural re-
archaeologica
In 1944, sources
the have been Dunhuan
discovered under the
(then the ocean of
Dunhuang sand. And industrial towns are re- Re
was founded, marking t
beginning of academic
, preservation - but the
Japanese invasion at the
outset of World War II,
followed in 1946-49 by
Chinese Civil War, preve
ed any serious conservat
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
efforts.
Had it not been for the
intervention of Prime Min-
ister Zhou Enlai, who or-
dered the Red Army to
protect the Mogao Grot-
toes, they might have been
destroyed during the Cul-
tural Revolution. It was not
until 1987 that the grot-
toes were included in the
first batch of China's im-
portant historical sites by
the United Nations Educa-
tional, Scientific, and Cul-
tural Organization (un-
ESCO), which then warned
the Chinese government
that the caves were in a
precarious situation and re-
quired special protection.
Today, the Getty Conservation Institute, placing the old Buddhist cities. In Dun-
the Mellon Foundation, and the Friends of huang, modern hotels overlook the old open
Dunhuang are partnering with the Chinesemarket, lined with gourmet restaurants and
government to conserve the Mogao Grottoes kiosks selling tea and spices. Abandoned
as a monument of western China as impor- camel carts are for sale along with contem-
tant as Egypt's pyramids or Greece's porary silk paintings of Buddhist deities
Parthenon. copied from the caves.
I was surprised to see a "special price"
On the Brink painting of Mao Zedong hanging beside
Today, because of the renewed interest and an antique scroll of the Han dynasty Em-
government protection of the Mogao Grot- peror Wudi - a tribute to the contrasts and
toes, the city of Dunhuang is also making a tensions in today's China that is balanced
comeback that may be the beginning of a gingerly between communism, capitalism,
and its own imperial history. Another growth rate in the world. Today, the country
cheap plaster bust of Chairman Mao was is flourishing, though still vulnerable. The
incongruously plopped in the midst of ex- economy, though blunted, has ignited a pas-
pensive bronze relics and surrounded by a sionate national pride in the hearts of the
jumble of silks, jade, porcelains, perfumes, Chinese people that is filling the vacuum
musical instruments, coral, and lapis - simi- created by lost religions and ideological
lar to the treasures once carried to Dun- beliefs.
huang by camel caravans from Imperial The government is wisely exploiting the
Rome, India, Persia, Babylon, Arabia, and trend. While China's most prosperous 1 per-
Egypt. Fragments of China's history, dis- cent thrived through centuries of imperial
played like broken shards, are now for sale splendor and strife, war and revolution, the
in the kiosks of Dunhuang's open market. masses struggled for survival. Now hunger
But in the nearby Mogao Grottoes, what re- has been all but eradicated and the Chinese
mains of ten centuries of Buddhist art is people, by the millions, have the means and
glued together and enshrined in the temple the opportunity to visit their nation's grand
caves where one can witness China's history, heritage. Moreover, the Chinese government
in situ. is finally ready to claim responsibility as a
At stake is the vital preservation of one global power and take steps to preserve the
of the oldest civilizations on earth. After a nation's unique history as the only civiliza-
century of humiliation, China in the last tion on the planet that has survived intact
25 years has achieved the highest economic through the ages. •

China - S Heritage On Old Silk Road PDF

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

China - S Heritage On Old Silk Road PDF

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road

Author(s): Audrey Ronning Topping

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road

© 2008 World Policy Institute 153

1 54 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09

on the servation Institute

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road 155

156 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09

China's Heritage on the Old 157

1 58 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road 159

who has been Roman passionatel influe

160 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09

knowledge, Bactrian camels with double

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road 161

162 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road 163

frescoes wereauthorizing exploration

164 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09

China's Heritage on the Old Silk Road 165

166 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2008/09

Вам также может понравиться