Roads of trade
The name 'Silk Road' was invented in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. In reality it was a shifting network of routes, by land and sea, along which silk, horses, spices, glass, ideas and people moved between China, Central Asia, India, Persia and the Mediterranean.
Chinese contact with the west grew after the Han envoy Zhang Qian's journeys in the 2nd century BCE. In the 1st and 2nd centuries CE the Kushan empire, stretching from Central Asia into northern India, joined much of this network together and supported Buddhist monasteries across it.
Monasteries on the road
Buddhist communities grew in the oasis cities that ringed the Tarim Basin: Khotan in the south, and Kucha, with its cave temples at Kizil, and Turfan in the north. Monasteries offered travellers shelter, and merchants were among the most generous donors.
Many of the first translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese came from these lands: An Shigao from Parthia, Lokakṣema from the Kushan realm, and later Kumārajīva from Kucha.
Why it matters
Buddhism increasingly becomes a transregional religion.
History and tradition
What historians can say
The spread of Buddhism along these routes is documented by archaeology, manuscripts and Chinese records. The earliest firm Chinese reference to Buddhist practice concerns Prince Ying of Chu, who in 65 CE honoured the Buddha alongside Daoist deities, according to the Book of the Later Han.
What Buddhist tradition remembers
A later Chinese legend says Emperor Ming of Han dreamed of a golden figure flying before his palace, and sent envoys west who returned with Buddhist monks and scriptures on a white horse. The White Horse Temple at Luoyang is named after it.