Rich history of erstwhile riches

Rajnish Wattas

Advertisement

Growing up on college text books, one always believed that the centre of gravity of world history lay in the West, more specifically, Western Europe. Common worldview always held the globe tilting towards the awesome achievements and advancements of the Western world and the East seen as mostly backwards, mired in strife, poverty and wars — except perhaps for India and China during the 16th century. Under the British rule, with Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education whatever pride in our ancient national heritage was left, too, was erased.

Ironically, the strife-torn world of Middle East, great cities of Syria, Iraq — now engulfed in sectarian and religious wars and  becoming theatres of Western power play — were once upon a time great centres of learning, culture, literature, scholarship and  pulsating hubs of world trade.

While other histories put the Mediterranean at the centre of the story, Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads places it as the, ‘Western end of a transcontinental trade with Asia in silks, spices, slaves and ideas.’ This is the central point of this extremely well-researched, ambitious magnum opus of nearly 600-plus pages.

World histories generally tend to be classified in chronological orders and structured according to geographies, empires, rulers and wars, etc. However, this unique work takes the central premise that trade routes (primarily the ancient Silk Routes and its off-shoots) across the world were the real growth arteries.

‘The Silk Roads of the title are the arteries along which people, goods, ideas, religions, disease and many other things have flowed.’ Although the term Silk Route was coined only in the 19th century, historical routes between China and the Mediterranean Sea running through what have today tragically become some of the world’s most disturbed conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan have long been trodden   before documented history.

India’s history changed dramatically with the invasions of  Mongols and the subsequent rise of the Mughal Empire, which really happened as an off-shoot of the Silk Road syndrome. As Central Asia was the land where the best horses were bred, their swiftness and prowess enabled the Mongols to invade India and constantly pose great threats to the adjoining Persian Empire. Contrary to the common ‘barbaric’ perception of the mighty Mongols, Genghis Khan at least allowed his retinue to practice whatever  religious beliefs they wanted and viewed with respect not only Muslims but also Christians and idolaters.

However, along with empire building, Alexander’s campaign in the East, ‘brought Greek culture to the Indus valley, as a result of which the Buddha was given form — and a recognisably Greek form at that — and Buddhist sculpture, so familiar today, became popular.’ Therefore, along with conquests came cross-fertilisation of ideas, cultures like a healthy by-product.  And the sweep of the book, starting from Alexander’s campaigns, goes right up to the recent global churnings and the famous revival of the Silk Road project by China recently.       

The enormous research done by Frankopan unearths amazing, lesser-known facts. For instance, it’s not usually realised that Greek was in daily use in the Indian subcontinent for more than 100 years after Alexander’s death. Some of edicts issued by Mauryan ruler Ashoka the Great were made with parallel Greek translations.

Similarly in northern Afghanisthan, maxims from the Oracle of Delphi were carved on to a monument including: ‘As a child, be well behaved/ As a youth, be well controlled/ As an adult, be just/ As one dying, be without pain.’  

So widespread was slavery in the Mediterranean and the Arabic world that even today, ‘all over Italy when people meet they say “sciavo” from venetian dialect. “ciao” as it is more commonly spelt, does not meet “hello”; it means  I am your slave.’

‘In the 8th-9th centuries, prospects in the marshes of Italy, central Europe and Scandinavia didn’t look enough promising for men to make a name and money.’ They were drawn to the Muslim world of Baghdad and centres of learning like Bukhara, Merv and Ghazni. Also there were materials and texts on science, math, astronomy written in Sanskrit, translated by Arabic scholars.

Another brilliant book on world history by Niall Ferguson Civilization: The West and the Rest too explains the emergence of the West over the ancient centres of prosperity and culture due to its superior naval power and the scientific development of gun powder and muskets. Also, Britain’s empire building was helped by the fact that it had no land borders to defend and could therefore spend on building a powerful navy to create the ‘Ocean Silk routes’ that allowed it an edge over France and Germany or the Dutch.

By the 16th century, Europe with riches excavated from America, the ability to pay for luxury goods from Asia, such as spices like pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, that transformed the bland food stuffs and for their medicinal value —rose dramatically.

Coming to a more contemporary history, Frankopan reveals that during the World War II, Germany committed the folly of invading Russia primarily for wheat and other grains in case of a naval blockade on its Mediterranean coast. This eventually changed the course of the War and led to the Allied victory.

Frankopan asserts that the age of the West is at crossroads, if not an end. And perhaps he is right. Recently, the first cargo train from China to Iran completed its 6,462-mile journey from Zhejiang province just south of Shanghai in China to Tehran. The trip took just 14 days, a full 30 days shorter than the maritime voyage from Shanghai’s port to the Iranian port at Bandar Abbas.

Notwithstanding the excellent research and the grand canvas of the book — one wishes that the text in the initial chapters dealing with early stages of world history was less dense, and the baffling names of tribes, rulers and places — quite unfamiliar to a lay person — were written in a more reader-friendly style. Also maps of the ancient world are scanty, leaving the reader disconnected with the present names of the places.

But make no mistake. The Silk Roads are rising again.