Xuanzang was right. An Indic florescence had spread Sanskrit language, Indian art and Brahmin and Buddhist religions right across east Asia from as early as the Bactrian Greek kings, with their Shiva and Krishna coins. The spread of this Indosphere had intensified under the influence of a Hindu dynasty in northern India, the Guptas,* but their glory was short-lived. It was their downfall, smashed by invading Huns in the 480s, that dispersed their court of priests, missionaries, merchants and artists not just within India but also west to Afghanistan, east to the islands and mainland of south-east Asia and north to Tibet, China and Japan. Now it was Taizong’s contemporary and member of the Pallava family, Narasimhavarman, nicknamed Mahamalla or Great Wrestler, who conquered much of southern India and Sri Lanka. He also built a port at Mahabalipuram, from which merchants and missionaries spread Indic culture through east Asia. His capital at Kanchipuram was visited by Xuanzang.
The Indic culture flowed east and west. In Afghanistan, the Bamiyan Buddhas, seen by Xuanzang, had just been completed. To the east, Khmers and Malays learned Sanskrit as the language of power and sanctity; kings titled themselves in Sanskrit and Tamil. Buddhism arrived first with merchants, and Hinduism followed. The first Sanskrit inscription, found at Vo Canh (Vietnam), was the work of an Indic king from around 250; in 400, parts of Borneo were ruled by a Brahmin raja, Rajendra Mulwarman, who erected pillars inscribed in Sanskrit and boasted of the arrival of Shaivite Brahmins from India. An Indian prince, Kaundinya, was said to have married a Cambodian queen called Soma to found an Indianized kingdom of Funan that ruled much of the south-eastern mainland during the Tang era. Around 717, a Javanese prince named Sanjaya, a Shaivite Brahmin, founded the Mataram raj in Java, based around a
Buddhism now reached Japan. In 552, Korean envoys arrived in Japan bearing a statue of Buddha. A powerful kingdom was developing there, encouraged by contacts with Tang China. The ruling Yamato family claimed descent from the sun goddess Amaterasu in unbroken succession since 660 BC, but this was entirely dynastic myth. The real as opposed to legendary dynasty emerged now in the sixth century AD as the ruling clan in central Japan mediating between the people and the gods: their title
When Xuanzang returned to Chang’an leading a caravan bearing 500 trunks full of treasures (though an elephant, gift of an Indian ruler, had fallen off a cliff), Taizong said, ‘Welcome back after seventeen years, Xuanzang, but you never asked permission to go.’ Taizong forgave the insubordination and invited him to be his minister. Xuanzang declined. ‘It would be like taking a boat out of water,’ he replied, ‘not only ceasing to be useful but it would just rot away …’ Instead the emperor made the traveller his blood brother and rewarded him with his own monastery (which still stands in Xi’an – the Great Pagoda of the Wild Goose). Buddhist monasteries became wealthy, though Taizong limited their riches. Ideas flowed both ways: in 635, a Christian monk, Rabban Olopun, arrived from Constantinople and was welcomed by Taizong, who explained, ‘Right principles have no invariable location,’ and ordered the building of the first church in China.
Yet Taizong remained a soldier, even into his last years, leading his troops into battle and ordering that his beloved steeds be sculpted for his tomb. He spent his last years trying to subdue the three Korean kingdoms in the east and the western Turks in central Asia. His Turkish wars had saved the new shah Yazdgard from the Turks, little realizing that to the south another nomadic army was gathering.
THE FAMILY OF MUHAMMAD
In 630, Muhammad, Prophet of the Believers of Medina, led his army south against Mecca, where he negotiated with his relatives. The cannibalistic Hind was not impressed, tormenting her husband by crying, ‘Kill this fat greasy bladder of lard.’ Instead Abu Sufyan negotiated a peaceful handover of Mecca.
Muhammad kissed the Kaaba but smashed the idols around it. Abu Sufyan was a pragmatist and later converted. Muhammad needed him: he married his daughter Ramla and hired his son Muawiya as secretary.
