Western and Eastern Cultural Exchange

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Background. The prosperity of China during the Tang dynasty (618-907) may be partially attributed to the development of the Silk Road and other land and water routes to the West as early as the Han period (206 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.). By 649 China controlled Kucha and Khotan in Central Asia and was beginning to conquer Korea (then known as Great Silla). By that time the Chinese had also established relations with Japan, as well as Funan and Champa in Southeast Asia. Between 629 and 645 the great Chinese theologian Xuanzang traveled in India and then brought home the texts of Mahayana Buddhism as well as Buddhist culture. By the middle of the eighth century, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeanism, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam had all arrived in China from the Near East and were established in Chang’an, the capital of the Tang dynasty. Prince Shotoku of Nara, Japan, sent his first embassy, led by Ono-no-Imoko, to China in 607. The prince sent another the following year and a third in 614. Between 630 and 838, Japan sent thirteen missions to China, each with several hundred people—including monks, officials, painters, musicians, doctors, and students—thus establishing a cultural bridge between the two countries. Many Japanese visitors, including the Nara monks Saicho (767-822), Kukai (774-835), and Ennin (flourished 838-847), as well as Kamakura monk Dogen (1200-1253), visited China and took Chinese literature and artwork back to Japan. Eisai (1141-1215), a Heian monk, returned to Japan with tea in 1191. Among the most distinguished Japanese visitors to China was Kibi-no-Mabi, who went to China in 717 and spent seventeen years at Chang’an. He went back to Japan with the art of embroidery, the biwa (a four-stringed lute), and the game of go (Chinese chess). After his return home, he invented kana, which employs simplified Chinese characters phonetically to represent sounds in Japanese that are similar to the Chinese words the characters signify.

Western and Eastern Cultural Exchange

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Music. The main instruments used to play the duobuyue (multinational) music of the Tang period all developed from instruments that had been brought to China from Persia, India, and Egypt. Some parts of the music itself are Indian, Central Asian, Korean, and Uighur. Da Qin Jingjiao liuxing Zhongguobei (The Popular Chinese Melo-dies of Nestorianism of the Great Qin), discovered at an excavation near Xian in 1625, and other so-called Nestorian hymn scripts discovered at the Dunhuang Cave in 1900 were brought to China from Persia during the eighth century. The arrival in China of the Nestorian Christian hymn, which influenced Daoist music, is the first instance of Sino-Western musical exchange. During the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties a Chinese two-stringed lute evolved from a Muslim three-stringed instrument. Around 1260-1263 a pipe organ was imported from the West via Central Asia to be used only for palace feasts. Western missionaries introduced the piano and the Western stave and scale to China. Musical exchanges with Japan, Korea, India, and Thailand were common. “Nishang yuyi” (Rainbow and Feather Dress), composed by Tang emperor Xuanzong (ruled 712-756), is a version of an Indian Brahman melody. The music for the Tang-era dance pozhenyue (breaking battle array) was lost in China but preserved in Japan, where it was taken by Litian Zhenren. In 716 a twenty-two-year-old Japanese student named Jiebei Zhenbei took home to Nara a piece of music for a brass band, writings on how to compose band music, and ten volumes of Yongle yaolu (The Important Record of Yongle), a collection of important music from the Yongle reign. Japanese official Tenyuan Zhenmin, who was sent to Tang China in 835, spent several years taking lute lessons in Chang’an and Yangzhou. Upon his departure for Japan his teacher in Chang’an sent him two lutes and ten volumes of music, including Piba zhudiaozi pin (Various Types of Lute Melody). In the imperial warehouse at Nara many Chinese musical instruments that have disappeared in China were preserved. Volume 347 of Da Ribenshi (Great Japanese History) recorded information about various forms of Chinese music. Various kinds of music were imported by Japan, where the Japanese government encouraged musicians to study and play it. Japanese palace-feast music includes Chinese and Korean elements. Chinese music also greatly impacted medieval Japanese pastoral music. The popular Japanese “Ming and Qing Music” was based on Chinese melodies imported into Japan during those dynasties (1368-1644 and 1644-1912).

Dance and Acrobatics. Tang dances included many from the West. For example, fulinwu (stroking forest) was from the Byzantine Empire. Many Chinese acrobatic routines were introduced into Central Asia, Korea, and Japan. Tangwuhui (The Record of Tang Dance), a Japanese book that has been lost, is said to have recorded more than fifty dance, magic, and acrobatic routines. Nanzhao (Yunnan) and Burma sent dance teams to the Tang court to present their dances, and there was a dance called piaoguoyue (Burma music) in southwestern China. Various lion dances were performed in China, Korea, and Japan and influenced each other.

Arts and Architecture: The West. The Tang capital of Chang’an was well known in the West. It was called KhomdanyKhamdan, or Kamdan by the Arabs, Khoubdan by the Byzantines, and Kumdan by the Syrians. The influence of Manichaeanism may be seen in a Tang bronze mirror decorated in a “lion and grape” design that was popular for a short time before the suppression of foreign religions in 843-845. By the early fourteenth century, Iranian artists had been profoundly influenced by Chinese arts. Persian painters began to paint in the Chinese ink-and-wash style. Later painters in the Near East imitated Chinese paintings of flowers, birds, and animals. Chinese designs of dragons, phoenixes, and unicorns became popular decorations in Persian paintings, buildings, and rugs. Design elements such as the flying goose, the cloud and storm, curved lines, the keyhole, the heart shape, the apple (symbolizing peace), the peach (symbolizing longevity), and the yin-yang symbol also appeared in Persian artworks.

Arts and Architecture: The East. During the eighth century, Tang arts and architecture flourished at the Japanese city of Nara. The Horyuji Buddhist temple of Nara, built circa 670, was constructed in the Chinese architectural style of that period. Chinese architectural influence in Japan is also apparent in the Kondo (Golden Hall) of the Toshodaiji, which was founded around 759 by the Chinese monk Ganjin (Jianzhen in Chinese), who went to Japan in 754. The Kondo has the solidity, symmetry, and grandeur of Tang architectural style. As in China, the shape of the heavy roofs and the system of brackets supporting the roofs of the Buddhist temples at Nara contribute greatly to the aesthetics of the building. The Shinto shrines of Heian, Japan, were mostly influenced by Chinese architectural style as well. The great Tang Buddhist bronzes have all been lost, but they are thought to have resembled those in the Nara temples. The most ambitious Nara temple is the Todaiji, which was designed to rival the great Chinese foundations. It contained a remarkable imperial repository of about ten thousand objects, many of them from China. A “Feather Lady” portrayed on a screen loved by a Japanese emperor is identical to the typical opulent female sculpture excavated from Tang tombs. One of the Japanese imperial treasures, The Imperial Portrait of the Sainted Prince De, was enormously influenced by Tang figure painting. Song paintings imported by Japan continued to influence Japanese artists. During the thirteenth century the paintings of Fa Chang were exhibited in Japan, and the Japanese called him the “Great Benefactor of Painting.” The Jianfosi (Temple of the Healthy Buddha) in Chang’an was influenced by the Indian sikhara, or tower of stone. The influence of Indian style may also be seen in the Treasure Pagoda of the Foguang Shizheng (Temple of Buddhist Light) on the Wutaishan (Mountain of Five Terraces)

in Shanxi Province. Wu Daozi (circa 688 - 758) used a shadow technique in his paintings that Chinese painters learned from Indian artists.

Ceramics and Textiles. The shapes and motifs of Tang ceramics reveal strong foreign influences. Chinese stoneware adapted the shape of the Hellenistic amphora. The Tang rhyton (a drinking vessel shaped like an animal or an animal head) was often a copy of an old Persian shape, and many Tang burial figures have a Persian appearance. In 851 The Story of China and India, a book in Arabic by an unknown author, probably of Basra, informed its readers about the quality of Chinese pottery. The shape of the Tang circular bottle appeared in the blue-glazed pottery of Parthian Persia and Syria. Fragments of white ware from China have been found in Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. Egyptians, Iranians, Iraqis, and Syrians all learned to make Chinese-style porcelain. Chinese phoenix pictures were copied on Persian ceramics. A Japanese scholar, Sanshang Cinan, named the ocean route from China to western Asia the “Porcelain Road.” By the Song dynasty Chinese porcelain was exported to more countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Italy. Among Tang textile products, one called “white brocade of Gaoli” was obviously of Korean origin. During the Song dynasty Chinese silk textile products were widely exported to places such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, the Philip-pines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Tanzania, Morocco, and Europe.

Language and Literature. The written language of Japan developed from Chinese characters. In 712 the Japanese book Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) was written partly in Chinese script and partly in Chinese characters used phonetically. In 720 the Japanese Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan) was written in pure Chinese characters. In 751 Kaifuso (Fond Recollections of Poetry) collected 120 poems written by Japanese in Chinese over the previous seventy-five years. They mostly resembled copybook exercises of Chinese literary forms. The fame of the renowned Tang-era poet Bai Juyi (772-846) reached Korea and Japan. Foreigners in Chang’an paid large sums of money for copies of his poems. The Japanese emperor Saga (768-842) had Bai’s works stored in the imperial secretariat. In Japan, Bai continues to enjoy immense popularity. In Kyoto he is honored during the annual Gion Festival. A shrine dedicated to him is included in the traditional parade, depicting him in a debate with a Buddhist priest. In 905 a Chinese scholar of Japan compiled Kokinshu (Ancient and Modern Collection), an anthology of Japanese poems, and in 1020 Izumi Shikibu, a female Japanese writer of Heian, published Honcho Monzui (Chinese Prose by Japanese).