The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s1: I
The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s1
- Language
- English
I
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*Relations with China and Tibet*
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THE tenacity of the Chinese government in holding on to the most distant possessions of the empire has been exemplified in recent times by the recovery of Kāshgaria and Yunnan from Muhammadan powers, and of Kulja from the Russians. The history of the seventh and eighth centuries offers many illustrations of the same characteristic, and exhibits China as making the most determined efforts to exercise influence in, and assert suzerainty over, the countries on the northern frontier of India.
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In the first half of the sixth century the power of China in the 'Western countries' had vanished, and the Ephthalites, or White Huns, ruled a vast empire, which included Kāshgaria—the 'Four Garrisons' of Chinese writers—Kashmīr,¹ and Gandhāra, the region near Peshāwar.
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¹ Ki-pin, which term was usually understood to mean Kashmīr by Chinese writers of the sixth century, in the time of the Wei dynasty (Chavannes, *Song Yun*, p. 37).
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About the year 565 ('between 563 and 567') the Ephthalite dominion passed into the hands of the Western Turks and Persians; but the grasp of the latter power on the provinces south of the Oxus soon relaxed, and the Turks became the heirs of the Ephthalites in the whole of their territory as far as the Indus. Accordingly, in A.D. 630, when Hiuen Tsang was on his way to India, his safety was assured by passports granted by Tong-she-hū, the 'Kazan', or supreme chief of the Western Turks, which guaranteed him protection as far as Kapisa.²
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² Ki-pin, which ordinarily meant Kapiśa, the country to the north of the Kābul river, for Chinese writers of the seventh century, in the time of the T'ang dynasty.
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In the same year the pilgrim’s powerful protector was assassinated, and the Chinese, under the guidance of the emperor T'ai-tsung, the second prince of the Tang dynasty, inflicted upon the Northern or Eastern Turks a defeat so decisive that the vanquished became slaves to the Chinese for fifty years.
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When relieved from fear of the Northern Turks, the Chinese were able to turn their arms against the western tribes, and in the years 640–8 succeeded in occupying Turfān, Kara-shahr, and Kuchā, thus securing the northern road of communication between the East and West.
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At this time Tibet was under the rule of the famous king, Srong-tsan-Gampo (acc. A. D. 629), who founded Lhāsa in A. D. 639, introduced Buddhism into his country, and, with the help of Indian scholars, devised the Tibetan alphabet.¹ While still very young he married Bhrikuti, a daughter of the king of Nepāl, and two years later, in A. D. 641, he succeeded with much difficulty in winning by his victories the hand of the princess Wen-cheng, daughter of the Chinese emperor, T'ai-tsung. Both these ladies being zealous Buddhists, converted their young husband, and so determined the whole course of Tibetan history. The Church has not been slow to recognize the merit of its patrons. The king has been deified as an incarnation of Buddha, Avalokitesvara, the Saviour, while his Nepalese consort is revered as the ‘Green Tārā’ and the Chinese princess as the ‘White Tārā’. The Chinese marriage secured the maintenance of friendly relations between Tibet and China during the life of Srong-tsan-Gampo, which ended, according to most authorities, in or about A. D. 698, but may possibly have come to a close several years earlier. In consequence, the Chinese envoys, in the years 643–5, when on their way to the court of Harsha, were able to pass through Tibet and its dependency Nepāl as allied countries, and both those kingdoms willingly sent troops to rescue Wang-Hiuen-tse from the troubles into which he fell after Harsha’s death.¹
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¹ The Tibetan alphabet really is that of Khotan, learned by Thon-mi Sambhota in Kashmir from a learned Brahman of Khotan (*Ep. Ind.*, xi, 266; Hoernle, *Manuscript Remains of Buddhist Literature from E. Turkestan*, Clarendon Press, 1916, p. xvii). According to tradition, Khotan came under Tibetan rule in the seventh century.
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¹ Sarat Chandra Dās (*J.A.S.B.*, vol. i, pt. i (1881), pp. 217–22); Waddell, *The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism* (1895), pp. 20–4. The dates of the Tibetan historians for the birth of Srong-tsan Gampo range from A. D. 600 to 617, but the latter date seems to be correct, and is accepted by M. L. de Milloué. That author states that Srong-tsan Gampo married both the Nepalese and Chinese princesses between A. D. 628 and 631. Waddell and Sarat Chandra Dās agree on the date 641 (L. de Milloué, *Bod-Youl ou Tibet*, Paris, 1906, pp. 139, 164–6). The Chinese pretend that they defeated the Tibetans, but the emperor would never have given the princess in marriage to a defeated enemy. Chinese authors habitually represent defeats as victories. There is a good sketch of Tibetan history by Sir R. Temple in *Ind. Ant.*, 1916, pp. 38–41, 47, being part of an article ‘Outlines of Indo-Chinese History’, which is important.
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The work of subduing the Turks, begun by the emperor T‘ai-tsung, was continued by his successor Kao-tsung (649–83), and, by the year 659, China was nominally mistress of the entire territory of the Western Turks, which was then formally annexed. In 661–5 China enjoyed unparalleled prestige, and had reached a height of glory never again attained. Kapisa (Ki-pin) was a province of the empire, and the imperial retinue included ambassadors from Udyāna, or the Suwāt valley, and from all the countries extending from Persia to Korea.
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But this magnificent extension of the empire did not last long. A terrible defeat inflicted by the Tibetans in 670 deprived China of Kāshgaria, or the ‘Four Garrisons’, which remained in the hands of the victors until A. D. 692, when the province was recovered by the Chinese.
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Between 682 and 691 the Northern Turks had regained a good deal of the power which had been shattered by the defeat of 630, and even exercised a certain amount of control over the western tribes. But internal dissension was at all times the bane of the Central Asian nations, and the Chinese well knew how to take advantage of the national failing. They intervened in the tribal quarrels, with the support of the Uigurs and Karluks, with such effect that in 744 the Uigurs established themselves on the Orkhon in the eastern part of the Turkish territory; while, on the west, the Karluks gradually occupied the country of the Ten Tribes, and took possession of Tokmak and Talas, the former residences of the Turkish chiefs, to the west of Lake Issyk-kūl.
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Between 665 and 715 the government of China was unable to interfere effectually in the affairs of the countries between the Jaxartes (Syr Daryā) and the Indus ; the southern route to the west through Kāshgaria having been closed by the Tibetans, and the roads over the Hindū Kush blocked by the conquests of Kotaiba, the Arab general, who was busily engaged in spreading the religion of the Prophet throughout Central Asia.
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The accession of the emperor Hiuen-tsung, in 713, marks a revival of Chinese activity ; and determined efforts were made by means of both diplomacy and arms to keep open the Pāmīr passes, and to check the ambition of the Arabs and Tibetans, who sometimes combined. In 719, Samarkand and other kingdoms invoked the aid of China against the armies of Islam ; while the Arab leaders sought to obtain the co-operation of the minor states on the Indian borderland. The chiefs of Udyāna (Suwāt), Khottal (west of Badakshān), and Chitrāl, having refused to listen to Muslim blandishments, were rewarded by the emperor of China with letters patent conferring on each the title of king ; and a similar honour was bestowed upon the rulers of Yasin (Little Po-lu), Zabulistan (Ghaznī), Kapisa, and Kashmīr. China made every effort to organize these frontier kingdoms, so as to form an effective barrier against both Arabs and Tibetans. Chandrāpīda, king of Kashmīr, received investiture as king from the emperor in 720, and his brother Muktāpīda-Lalitāditya was similarly honoured in 733.
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A few years later—in 744 and 747—Chinese influence had been so far extended that the emperor granted titles to the king of Tabaristān, south of the Caspian. In the latter year a Chinese army crossed the Pāmīrs, in spite of all difficulties, and reduced the king of Yasin to subjection.
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But, as in the seventh century, so in the eighth, the Chinese dominion over the western countries was short-lived, and was shattered by a disastrous defeat inflicted in 751 on the Chinese general Sien-chi by the Arabs, who were aided by the Karluk tribes. Indirectly this disaster had an important consequence for European civilization. The art of making paper, up to that time a monopoly of remote China, was introduced into Samarkand by Chinese prisoners, and so became known to Europe, with results familiar to all.¹
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¹ [^1] The foregoing account of the relations of China with the states on the northern frontier of India is chiefly derived from the learned and valuable work by Professor Chavannes, *Documents sur les Toukiue (Turcs) Occidentaux*, St. Pétersbourg, 1903. For the geography, see the map in that work, or Stanford's map appended to vol. ii of Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*. Sir M. A. Stein also treats of the relations of China with the frontier countries of India in the early chapters of *Ancient Khotan*, 1907.
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During the long reign of Thi-(or Khri-)srong-de-tsan (*A.D.* 743–789)² the development of Buddhism in Tibet was encouraged with a zeal which did not shrink from persecution of the adherents of the rival indigenous Bon (or Pon) religion. The Indian sages, Sānta-rakshita and Padma-sambhava, were invited to court, and with their aid a system of clerical government was instituted, which survives to this day as Lamaism. The work of Thi-srong-de-tsan was continued and carried further by King Ralpachan (*A. D.* 816–38), but his successor, Langdarma, hated Buddhism, and did his best to extirpate it. A Lama avenged the wrongs of his co-religionists by assassinating the king, *A. D.* 842. During the eleventh century (*A.D.* 1013 and 1038), Buddhist missionaries from Magadha securely re-established Buddhism as the official and predominant religion of Tibet.³
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² [^2] The dates in the text are those given by Sarat Chandra Dās and Waddell (*Encycl. Brit.*, 11th ed.). M. de Milloué (pp. 165, 166) gives 740–86.
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³ [^3] Sarat Chandra Dās (*J.A.S.B.*, vol. l, part i (1881), pp. 224–38); Waddell, *The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism*, p. 24; Lévi, *Le Népal*, II, 177, 178. The dates in the text are those of Lévi. M. de Milloué differs widely, assigning the reign of Langdarma to the years 899–902 (*op. cit.*, pp. 170, 171).
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In the reign of Ralpachan a severe struggle with China took place, which was terminated by a peace recorded (822) in bilingual inscriptions at Lhāsa. In subsequent ages Tibetan relations with the Chinese empire varied much from time to time, but whatever they might be, they did not concern India. The final attainment of supremacy by China over Tibet was deferred until 1751. Since that date the Chinese government has always endeavoured to keep Europeans out of Tibet, and has generally succeeded in doing so. Tibetan affairs, consequently, long remained completely apart from Indian history. Contact between the politics of India and those of China had ceased in the eighth century,¹ owing to the growth of Tibetan power at that time. It was not renewed until the conquest of Upper Burma in 1885, which made the Indian and Chinese empires conterminous. In these latter days, Tibet, which had been a dependency of China in greater or less degree for several centuries, has again come within the purview of the Indian government, and its affairs have been the subject of Anglo-Chinese diplomacy.²
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¹ 'Vers 760, la perte du pays de Ko-long sépare définitivement les Chinois de l'Inde' (Lévi, *Le Népal*, ii, 175).
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² 'The strange story of our dealings with Tibet and its ruler ends with the offer of the Dalai Lama to send us assistance in the Great War of 1914' (*A Historical Geography of the British Dependencies*, vol. vii, India, pt. ii, by P. E. Roberts, Clarendon Press, 1920, p. 575).