Maharaja said:
Bear in mind that Buddhism often forms co-existent complexes with native cultures. For example the Shinto-Buddhist complex in Japan and the Buddhist-[Chinese folk religion] complex in China. So when you say that Buddhism had disappeared in India, in reality it had formed a similar complex, albiet one dominated by 'orthadox' Hindu schools.
Buddhism is a very accommodating religion--which is partially why China adopted it so readily. While Buddhism deeply pervaded later Hinduism, Hinduism still reasserted itself as the main religion; this is something that didn't happen in China.
Oriental Despot said:
China wasn't a soft target, and their civilization wasn't just coming at this time. In fact by the time of Alexander, Chinese culture already had a lifespan that stretched back further into history than any other - Jewish culture is maybe its only surviving peer. We're talking about a civilization that has its historic roots in the 12th century BCE, and likely was already long established before its written history begins. Not only had the Chinese developed their own distinct civilization at this point, but it retained characteristics that outlasted those of other ancient cultures - Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mycenae, Minoa, Medes, Harappa; all the great Bronze Age cultures collapsed and underwent enormous changes, but Chinese civilization endured. Look at the art, architecture, and religion of the Zhou or the Shang; Chinese styles are remarkably unchanged a few thousand years later, and the ancestor worship of the prehistoric Chinese still dominates their traditional customs.
The Chinese weren't underdeveloped in comparison to the Indians; more like they were peers, along with Greece and Near East. They were all sites of an Iron Age renaissance that ushered in revolutionary advances throughout the world. Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Sun Tzu predate the greatest philosophers of the western tradition, but both of these intellectual explosions were roughly contemporary, India and Persia experienced their own about this time as well (ie Siddhartha Gautama, Zoroaster.) Chinese culture was highly advanced, and had its own state religion (Confucianism) which wasn't simply pushed aside by 'fancy' Indian ideas. Confucianism remained the most popular state religion throughout Northeast Asia until the early modern period.
Indian philosophical thought and Chinese were mutually influential. In fact the similarities between Buddhism and Taoism are so strong that when Buddhism was first introduced to China, the Chinese mistook it for a foreign Taoist sect. Earlier you said that Buddhism never had a strong following in China until the 6th century, but Buddhism was being taught in China in the first century BCE. By the first century CE the Han Emperors were sponsoring Buddhist lectures in their court, there was already a Sangha in China, and the most popular sutras had been translated from Sanskrit to Chinese. The fact that Buddhism caught the attention of the Emperors suggests that it had already had a strong following. Part of the reason why Buddhism caught on so quickly in China was not because the Chinese were a soft target for imported culture, it was because Buddhism was highly compatible with long established Chinese belief systems.
Yes, China did have a lasting culture. It also had a comparatively small amount of invasions by foreign cultures. Indeed, China's lasting culture is a testament to its lack of neighbouring cultures to displace it.
After the Period of Disunion, a guiding force was particularly welcome in the troubled and warring China, and Buddhism, with its emphasis on personal salvation and otherworldliness, was a new life for many Chinese. It was also very similar to present Chinese beliefs, and this was a reason for, rather than a consequence of, its readied acceptance. For both reasons, it was adopted far more easily than by the followers of Zoroaster and Mohammed.
China's culture was not on a par with Greece or India anywhere near the game's period. One of Greece's most impressive achievements was its 'classical' period of intellectual outpouring by the fifth century BC, where art, philosophy, and literary works made huge strides. India's 'classical' period, where it made similar achievements, is regarded as being during the Gupta Empire--the fourth century AD--and China's was during the Tang Empire--the seventh century AD. At this point, Buddhism became common enough in China at this period to rival Daoism, and one of the main reasons for the Chinese 'Golden Age' was the influx of great Buddhist thought. The Chinese didn't go on long pilgrimages through the steppe or expand their control towards India for no reason; India was the source of their new found cultural outburst, and they saw it as an ideal to emulate. They had been far less sophisticated than India, and ardently adopted India's more developed culture.
Before this time, China had achieved a great empire, and it had produced significant philosophers, but this didn't mean it had achieved the all round proliferation of culture that the 'classical' age brought. Persia achieved the biggest empire of its time, and it had its own great philosophers, but it wasn't in any 'Golden Age' of cultural outpouring. Indeed, India, Persia, Greece, and China all created new religions and philosophies in the 'Axial Age', but only Greece achieved the 'classical' creativity in art, literature, science, or philosophy.
Until the Tang dynasty, China was less developed than India, and this was why it marvelled so much at Indian culture.
Maharaja said:
While this gives the impression that China was simply recieving culture, my own experience with history makes me think that no relationship is ever one way - Indian recorded history has never been maintained with as much regularity as in China - thus im sure China gave as good as it got, and this has simply not been as fully recorded.
There is a reason China seemed like the receiving culture: it was it. When cultures merge, the one that becomes predominant is the one most appealing (whether from sophistication such as technology, appealing ideas, or threat against not accepting), and/or the one that started as most predominant. Sometimes merging cultures are fairly balanced and they both adapt equally, but this is rare. When Christianity spread, it may have acquired bits from native cultures, but it affected them more than they did it. Look at the homogeneous beliefs and worship that it spread right across Europe. Islam did the same, as did Greek culture. Before the Hellenistic age, Greek culture was minimally affected by others. Meanwhile, Sicily and Macedon lost almost all of their native culture, and the Etruscans and Rome drew hugely from the Greeks. Celtic culture became the dominant across most of Europe, as did the later Germans. The early civilizations of India and China gave more to their immediate neighbours than they received, thus making Hinduism predominant in the former and Confucianism in the latter. The discovery of the New World is perhaps the most absolute example. How much native American culture pervades our everyday lives?
If your experience tells you that cultures shared equally, then it has missed something huge. With India, written accounts (which are easily good enough to show cultural acquisitions) aren't the only way of seeing how much came from China. Archaeology and cultural legacies are similarly useful, and none of them indicate a cultural adoption on the scale that China received.
Maharaja said:
Your point is: China and India influenced one another, but less than the Islamic civilizations, and less than the Greeks. My point is: China and India influneced one another, but less than the Islamic civilizations and more than the Greeks. This is the impression I am left with after years of interest in the subject - furthermore Greece as an acendant classical civilization covered a relatively small amount of history compared to a sustained contact between China and India that has essentially lasted from the beggining of the silk trade and the spread of Buddhism into the Tarim Basin, right up to late medieval Indian history.
When I said that India drew more from Greece and Islam than from China, I was talking about their periods of influence. During the Hellenistic Age, Greek influence on India was far greater than Chinese. It was part of a pattern of hybrid cultures in India that were formed from Western peoples, including the Indo-Scythians, the Indo-Parthians, and the Indo-Sassanids. All of them had clear links with their native cultures. Due to India's position as a centre of trade, a valuable territory for foreigners, and a vulnerable neighbour of the steppe, Northwest India was almost always under the sphere of influence of a non-Indian power, and its culture was heavily influenced by these. Northwest India was an eclectic culture, but it never as close to Chinese culture as it was to other South Asian cultures. Indeed, South Asia (which includes India and Persia) is classed as one geographical entity because of its close cultural connections. East Indian contact with the rest of the world relied on Northwest India, and both shared cultural influences. East India perpetuated Indian culture, while Northwest India's eclectic mix kept the rest of India in contact with foreign culture. Northwest India was the part of India most influenced by Chinese culture, and it was still influenced by it less than by other South Asian cultures.
Oriental Despot said:
Also, for anyone who's following this argument and just to clarify - when I talk about India's 'Sphere of Influence' I'm referring to something historians call the Indosphere
..just to prove I'm not pulling all this out of my ass, but out of someone else's - someone with a degree!
It covers this area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:...ltural_zone.svg
You might notice that southwestern China is highlighted as an area that was heavily influenced by Indian culture, while nothing west of Pakistan and Afghanistan is.
And in case you're wondering, this map would correspond to the game's timeframe. There were already major Indian influences in most of these places during the games timespan and in all of these places (except Mauritius) by the first couple of centuries CE (ie Indianized states such as Chenla, which covered most of Southeast Asia, and Srivijaya covering most of the Indonesian archipelago - it's called Indonesia for a reason.)
As you can see from the map, Indian culture extended farther into Persia than into China. Indo-China was under Indian influence (although less than East Persia), but, like Indonesia, it got its prefix for a reason: India affected it and its culture far more than China did. Almost all Indo-Chinese peoples (with the exception of the Vietnamese, who were on the far side of Indo-China and did a lot of trading with China) are regarded as primarily Indianized, with little Chinese influence. While the area looks like it should be part of China, it had two geographical boundaries: a thin strip of mountainous land between the Himalayas and the China Sea; and a change of climate zones from temperate to tropical. The latter was a barrier it didn't have between it and India, and a lack of climate barriers makes the transfer of peoples and culture far easier (it always has).
The Sinosphere (China's equivalent) was restricted to the north and east of the Himalayas (see
Sinosphere ). This division has always been, and China's history has been built around it. Until the introduction of steppe nomads, China was almost wholly cut off from the rest of Eurasia, and even then, with the Silk Road that steppe nomads permitted, China was still removed from western culture. From Britain to India around 500 BC, a related language, a related ethnicity, and a shared knowledge of technology such as iron working had appeared. From the Mediterranean to India, a trend of states that were numerous, large, urbanized, and densely populated had appeared, yet China lagged significantly. After this period, and the stimulation of cultures that the trade from the steppe brought, China rapidly caught up, but the geographical division between China and the rest of the world had already been made clear. China's lag in sophistication meant that it valued all contact it got with Westward peoples, and it this contributed to its ardent adoption of Indian culture. In the Tang and Song periods, when it became the most sophisticated culture in the world, its connection with the rest of Eurasia weakened, and it began to become more isolationist again. China's culture is far more xenophobic than elsewhere, and it had very few invasions from neighbouring states; both points are results of its isolation from other societies.
