ASIA, CENTRAL

ASIA, CENTRAL. The mention of Central Asian foodways usually conjures up competing images of nomadic and sedentary lifestyles. In one, the roving sheep-herder astride a brawny steed, between base camp and mountain pasture, clutches a leather pouch of fermented milk. The other vision includes the long-beard in his colorful robe and headdress, enjoying perfumed pilaf in a tranquil teahouse. While scholars quibble over cultural and physical boundaries of Central Asia, culinary cultures of the region represent an intriguing mix of steppe and settlement, highlands and lowlands, Turkic and Iranian.

Culinary Culture and Geographic Setting

Generally speaking, hospitality is the defining feature of this underpublicized cuisine. For all the ethnic and geographic variations in Central Asia, the food of the region exhibits more homogeneity than disparity. Basic methods of preparation, main ingredients, common dishes, and predominant cultural traditions of Islam all reflect the enriching exchange along the heart of the storied Silk Road. The regional larder consists of mutton, rice, cumin, coriander, cilantro, dill, nuts, tea, dried fruits, and yogurt, distinguishing it from Chinese and European fare. Meal preparation is often conducted outside over fire, with cast-iron cauldrons (kazan) for frying, simmering, and steaming; open-flame braziers for grilling; and tandir ovens for roasting meats and baking breads. Customary dishes throughout the region include soups and stews, pilafs, noodles, steamed dumplings, grilled meats on skewers, flatbread, savory pastries, and halvah.

The geographical limits of Central Asia, once called Turkistan, include the Soviet successor states (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan), and Xinjiang in northwest China. Others do not hesitate to add other Turkic-language areas, like the Caucasus, Turkey, and parts of Siberia, while some embrace Mongolia, Iran, Afghanistan, northern India, Pakistan, and even Tibet in the Central Asian cultural orbit.

The thriving culture of Iran was the primary influence on Central Asian society, with later Arabic and Mongol contributions. One hundred and fifty years of Russian power and fifty years of intensive Chinese subjugation of the region have considerably altered the foodways. Well-documented Soviet problems of collectivization and distribution homogenized local diets. The turbulent history of Xinjiang continues, with Chinese migrants and laborers, particularly from Sichuan, flooding the region after the 1960s, dropping the Turkic Uighur population from roughly 75 percent to less than 50 percent. In China proper, Uighur cuisine is segregated and disparagingly referred to as Muslim food.

Diet and Foodstuffs

Greek humoral theory, as propagated by ibn Sina of the eleventh century, still affects the diet of millions in the region. Combined with traditional Chinese thought, Central Asians consider food to have either "hot" or "cold" (Farsi, sardi or garmi ) qualities, serving both medicinal and nutritive functions. Three meals a day are standard, each including tea and flatbread (nan or naan ). The largest meal is usually taken in the evening.

The spirited bazaars of Central Asia—part marketplace, part carnival, and part town square—capture the Silk Road mystique. Aromatic spices take center stage, though only cumin, red and black pepper, and coriander seeds are used in abundance. Herbs of distinction include cilantro, dill, parsley, and celeriac leaves. Seasoning is generally mild, but sauces, relishes, and even whole peppers are added for punch. Other flavor enhancers are white grape vinegar and fermented milk products. Rendered sheep fat is the general cooking oil, though vegetable oil and cottonseed oil are widely used. Olive oil and butter are not traditional cooking fats.

The Asian sun sweetens market produce. Delicious tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, and eggplants comprise the basic vegetables. The area also offers unique varieties of pungent green radishes (turup), yellow carrots (actually turnips), and a prodigious selection of pumpkin and squash. Dolma, meaning "stuffed" in Turkish, may be created from any vegetable—cabbage, grape leaves, peppers, tomatoes, and so forth—by hollowing it out or wrapping it around a filling. Spring fruits traditionally include grapes, apricots, strawberries, cherries, figs, and peaches. The tree harvest in autumn brings apples, quinces, persimmons, and pears. Winter delivers lemons, mandarins, pomegranates, and smooth-skinned melons. Melon slices are also sun-dried and braided into long ropes to take their place alongside dried apricots, figs, dates, and raisins.

Core Cuisine

Meat and rice. Lamb and mutton, mainly fatty-tailed sheep, are the favorite protein of Central Asians. The fat, which imparts a sweet and rich quality to a dish, is valued more than the meat itself. Beef and chicken are consumed in substantial quantities, and horse, camel, and goat are not uncommon. Fish, though not eschewed, is rarely available, and Islamic dietary law forbids pork. Shashlyk (shish kebab), the standard street food, is prepared with beef, mutton, or minced meat and served with flatbread and lightly pickled onions. A kebab of fresh sheep liver and tail fat is a true luxury. While Westerners forget their charcuterie traditions, no part of an animal in Central Asia is ever wasted. There are still dishes made of lungs, intestines, and sheep's head and trotters.

Pilaf (palov) epitomizes Central Asian cuisine. A ceremonial dish for guests and family days, pilaf is so ubiquitous that there is sometimes a mistaken impression that it is their only dish. Meat, onions, and carrots are sautéed, then simmered to a broth, and covered with rice. Raisins, barberries, chickpeas, or dried fruit may be added for variety. Cumin is often the sole spice, while turmeric is added on special occasions for its golden color. Similar to an American barbecue, pilaf preparation is considered a manly challenge. Working with only a woklike kazan and spatula (kapkir), an oshpaz, master pilaf chef, can serve up to a thousand people from a single cauldron, making him much in demand for festivals and weddings.

Bread and noodles. Flatbread is baked daily at home or in communal ovens. Bread is considered holy and accompanies each meal. Most baked goods are made with wheat flour, though mung bean and corn flour are used also. Some flatbreads are topped with onions, pieces of sheep's fat, or even meat. Others are glazed with kalonji, anise, poppy, or sesame seeds. In Xinjiang the round plump breads astoundingly resemble New York City bagels. Katlama, related to the Indian paratha, is flaky unleavened bread cooked on a skillet.

The steppe nomads have added flour and dough to their soups for centuries. A dish of square flat noodles topped with boiled meat is called beshbarmak in Kazak-Kyrgyz areas. From farther east come steamed dumplings, manty (Korean mandoo ), vying with pilaf for the national dish in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Chinese Turkistan. Uighurs have mastered hand-pulled noodles, common in Korea and China proper. Made with only soft wheat, water, and salt, the transformation of a ball of dough into noodle threads in a matter of minutes is both compelling performance art and a dying culinary method.

A casing of dough with a typical filling of fatty mutton and onions becomes a number of other dishes simply by varying the cooking technique. If the dough is fried, the dish is called belyashi (Kazan Tartar) or chebureki (Crimean Tartar). The Turkish borek, also a fried savory pastry, may be related to the Slavic pirog, piroshki, and pierogi. Baked in a tandir, the dish is called samsa (Uzbek) or sambusa (Tajik), like Indian samosa. Steamed manty or hoshan (Kazak) are usually topped with a sauce of tomatoes, potatoes, and diced mutton. Smaller boiled versions of manty are chuchvara, pelmeni (Siberian), tushbera (Tajik), and joshpara (Farsi).

Hospitality and Traditions

Meals and customs. Central Asian cookery often requires great sacrifices on the part of the host. The Uzbek adage "Mehmon otanda ulugh" (the guest is greater than the father) remains accurate for most of the Muslim East. Generally, guests remove their shoes before entering the house and are seated at a low table (takhta) or on the floor with a kurpacha, or cushion. Diners gather around a dastarkhan (literally, tablecloth), which is an enormous assortment of food offered to the honored guest. On some occasions, men and women are separated. Special meals are eaten commensally by hand and can last for several hours with multiple courses and endless cups (piala) of tea. Though most of the region embraces Islam, alcohol is widely accepted in the successor states.

In addition to the ever-present pilaf, some distinct dishes are served during Islamic holidays. Navrus, the Muslim New Year, corresponds to the spring equinox. Halim, wheat porridge, is prepared from boiled meat and wheat grains, seasoned with black pepper and cinnamon. A children's favorite, nishalda, popular during Ramadan, is made with whipped egg whites, sugar, and licorice flavoring. Sumalak, symbolic of friendship and tolerance, is among the most traditional dishes. Prepared only by women, overnight, wheat sprouts are blended with oil, flour, and sugar and cooked on low heat. Eid-ul-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan with three days of feasting.

Tea and dessert. Freshly made green tea, the drink of hospitality, complements every meal. Teatime, which may occur at the slightest cause, often includes flatbread, sweets, fruits, and pastries. Dried fruit with nuts—walnuts, pistachios, and almonds—is also a perfect accompaniment. Black tea is common in the Russian regions. Both teas are served with sugar, milk, salt, butter, or even fruit preserves. Uzbeks have a custom called shapirish, whereby the hostess returns the first two cups back into the teapot to stir the infusion. Thus the tea is described as going from mud (loy) to tea (choy) to wine (moy).

As sugar cane originated in India, sweets are a gift from the south, via Iran. This tradition produces tea sweets such chakchak, fried dough with honey; urama, fried spiraled strips of dough with powdered sugar; sugar-coated almonds; and novvot, crystallized sugar. More familiar halvah and paklava are also common desserts. Sharbat is fruit juice that migrated to Europe as frozen sherbet.

Food available outside the home includes street food and that from cafés, modern restaurants, and the traditional chai-khana (tearoom). Ideally near a poplar-lined stream or in a cool courtyard orchard, it is a gathering place for fraternity and socializing. The chai-khana in many ways functions like a community center and helps preserve certain aspects of Central Asian identity obscured by colonial powers.

Regional Variations and Specialties

The cuisines of Central Asia may be divided into three overlapping groups: Tajiks, Turks, and nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes. However simplistic, this categorization provides a more coherent approach to understanding the culinary cultures of Central Asia than organization along the arbitrary national boundaries. Numerous subcuisines from other ethnic minorities, such as Koreans, Tartars, Dungans (Chinese Muslims), Slavs, and Germans add to the culinary diversity of the area.

Sedentary cuisine. The Iranian-Tajik influence extends from Tajikistan and southern Uzbekistan to Iran and Afghanistan and beyond to northern Pakistan and Jammu-Kashmir in India. These cuisines employ more vegetables and legumes, resort to complex seasonings, and boast elaborate sweets. Years of civil strife in Tajikistan and Afghanistan have devastated food supplies and interrupted traditional foodways. Generally, the farther away from the nomadic steppe, the more complex the spice blends and seasoning of the dishes. In Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, an unusual dish is tuhum barak, an egg-filled ravioli flavored with sesame-seed oil. Tamerlane and his entourage of craftspeople from Samarkand, cooks included, brought the meat-eating tradition to India along with many fruits, particularly the melon and grape. The descendants of these cooks—the Wazas—are the master chefs of Kashmir.

The Turkic group of languages claims roughly 125 million speakers and stretches from Siberia to the Balkans. Uzbeks and Uighurs, as settled Turks, favor pilafs, noodles, and stews. Since the oasis civilization is a middle ground, literally and figuratively, between the Iranian courtly cuisine and the pastoral nomads, their food has become most representative of Central Asian cuisine. In Uzbekistan, moshkichiri and moshhurda are common meat and mung bean gruels. Dimlama is braised meat and vegetables cooked in a pot sealed with dough. Its origins may be tied to dumpukht in Farsi, signifying food cooked in its own steam, shortened also in India to dum, as in dum-aloo. Apricot seeds are specially treated and roasted in ash to produce an exceptional snack. Because of linguistic ties, Azerbaijan and Turkey are often included in Central Asian culinary culture, as these countries share roots, not to mention cooking methods and many dishes, with the Eurasian nomads.

Nomadic cuisine. Of all the Central Asian peoples, none has experienced such dramatic cultural upheaval due to colonization, industrialization, and urbanization as have the nomads. The traditional meal of steppe and highlands was meat on occasion, milk products, and the stray onion. As Turkmenistan is mostly desert, vegetable and grain cultivation is challenging. Chorek (flatbread), gruel, and tea remain typical for most meals.

In Soviet times the Turkmen, Kazaks, and Kyrgyz were forcefully settled into dreary apartment blocks. Separated from the land and their herds, the nomads adopted many Russian or Uzbek foods and customs. Kazaks and Kyrgyz claim as national dishes beshbarmak and kumys, fermented mare's milk. Horsemeat sausage (kazy), when served with cold noodles, is called naryn. Barley, wheat, and millet are quite common; from them comes dzarma, fermented barley flour. Boso, or fermented millet, and boorsak, a ritual dish made from small pieces of deep-fat-fried dough, are also found in Tibet by the same name. When the Uighurs and Dungans fled China in the late nineteenth century, they brought laghman, other noodle dishes, and spicy peppers that were quickly embraced by the Kazaks and Kyrgyz.

The diminished state of traditional foodways in Central Asia is often decried, particularly when judging the cuisine through the distorting prism of Western restaurant culture. These Eurasian civilizations were completely transformed during the colonial experience. However, the trend of globalization triggers entrenchment of cultural heritage and local foodways. As borders open, outside interest is countered with a pronounced revival and demonstration of ethnic identity. If domestic traditions and hospitality persevere, the Central Asian culinary arts and its foodways are bound to flourish.

See also China; Iran; Islam; Middle East; Noodles of Asia; Rice; Russia; Tea.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arsel, Semahat, ed. Timeless Tastes: Turkish Culinary Culture. Istanbul: Vehbi Kooc Vakfi: DiVan, 1996.

Dunn, Ross E. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Frye, Richard N. The Heritage of Central Asia from Antiquity to the Turkish Expansion. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 1996.

Makhmudov, Karim. Uzbekskie bliuda (Uzbek dishes). Tashkent: Uzbekistan, 1982.

Pokhlebkin, V. V. Kukhni zakavkazskikh i sredneaziatskikh narodov (Cuisine of the Caucasus and Central Asia). Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 1997.

Pokhlebkin, V. V. Sobranie Izbrannykh Proizvedenii: Natsional'nye Kukhni Nashikh Narodov: Povarennaia Kniga (Collected works: National cuisines of our people: Recipes). Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 1996.

Zubaida, Sami, and Richard Trapper, eds. Culinary Cultures of the Middle East. London: Tauris, 1994.

Glenn R. Mack

Proverbial Land of Milk and Honey

Although God did not mention Central Asia when promising Moses a "good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey," the region certainly fits the description. The Eurasian herders, having domesticated sheep and goats roughly ten thousand years ago, realized that milk, in addition to the meat and wool of their flocks, was essential to their survival. The pastoralists took advantage of microbiology to improve the flavor of fresh milk, make it more digestible and nutritious, and increase its shelf life. The resulting dairy product is determined by controlling the action of bacteria, enzyme, or yeast. Milk, either fresh or skimmed of cream, may be of several sources—ewe, goat, cow, camel, mare, and dri (yak). The first step is simply separating fresh cream from the milk to make a soured clotted cream, or kaimak, enjoyed with flatbread and honey. The honey is imbued with a marvelous flavor due to the nectar gathered from cotton and grape blossoms and the varied mountain valley flowers, grasses, and trees.

Fresh milk quickly sours through fermentation in warm conditions, essentially the same bacterial process employed for pickles, olives, or sourdough bread. Yogurt (katyk) is used in soups, beverages, and even doughs to add a pleasant sourness, with the lactic acid produced by bacteria breaking down the milk sugar. With reduced lactose, the cultured products become more digestible for most Central Asians, who, along with 70 percent of the world, have a dairy intolerance. Fermented camel milk is shubat, and agaran is its cream. Mixing katyk and water creates a refreshing salty drink, ayran or chalop (Kyr), similar to the Indian lassi. Drained yogurt results in suzma, a fresh curd cheese eaten plain, in salads, or with soups and main courses as a garnish. Adding a rennet enzyme to milk makes panir or soft cheese, unaged, white, and rindless.

Kumys, fermented camel's or mare's milk, made famous by numerous Western travelers, including Marco Polo, has been subjected to both bacterial and yeast fermentation. Caucasian kefir is made with a similar process. Kumys or ayrag (Mongolian), primarily made with mare's milk, is the mildly alcoholic drink (up to 4 or 5 percent) of the nomads and may also be slightly fizzy with carbonic acid. Saba is a Kazak leather sack for making kumys that imparts a smoky, earthy quality. Refusing an offer of kumys may cause offense. Mare's milk has four times more vitamin C than cow's milk, aiding a pastoral diet scarce in fruits and vegetables. The remaining milk or whey from kumys or suzma is salted and sun-dried, formed into balls or bricks, and called qurut or qurt. This form, which is eaten often as a snack, lasts the winter months and may be added to soups or reconstituted as a drink.

CENTRAL ASIA

The notion of "Central Asia" for Russia was the result of a gradual, often haphazard advance southward during the country's history. The region has been called different terms in the past and it was not until the twentieth century that one saw the term "Central Asia and Kazakhstan" noted. Politically, it still is often restricted to the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. However, from a cultural perspective, "Central Asia" often encompasses a broader territorial range, that includes Afghanistan, Xinjiang (China), and the Northwest Territories of Pakistan.

Historically, Central Asia has often been called the last colonial holding of the Russian Empire, a possession acquired during the famed "Great Game" struggle with the British Empire. The region of what is today Kazakhstan was incorporated into the Russian empire as early as the eighteenth century, when the Tsarist government signed treaties with the various nomadic hordes that controlled the vast swaths of steppe territory. The purpose of these agreements was to allow Russian agricultural settlements to develop and, more important, to permit a secure trade route to the Russian holdings in eastern Siberia and the Far East. Indeed, the cities that currently exist in southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan—Orenburg, Omsk, Tomsk, Semi-palatinsk, Pavlodar—were initially developed as "fortress towns" to protect the fur trade to and from the Far East.

Farther south, the conquest took more time. Early Russian forays into Central Asia took place in the sixteenth century, when Muscovy traders established contacts with the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva. However, relations were minimal for the next two centuries. It was not until the 1800s that tensions along the southern border prompted Russian military units to step up their activities. On one hand, the regional khanates were accused of kidnapping Russian settlers farther north and selling them into slavery. More significantly, Russia found itself in competition with the British Empire over control of the larger region between their empires south of Russia and north of India.

Consequently, Russian military units methodically captured one city after another in the 1850s and 1860s, with the fall of Tashkent and Bukhara in 1865 and 1868, respectively, being key events. By the 1870s, the region was either under direct Russian rule or controlled by two Russian protectorates—Bukhara and Khiva. While there were periodic anti-Russian revolts, none were significant enough to threaten stability in the region.

Central Asia was important to Russia for several reasons. First, it became a core supplier of raw materials. Not only were food and livestock important commodities in the region, but so were exportable industrial products. Minerals, coal, and timber from the northern parts of the region and cotton from the central and southern parts were integrated into the Russian economy. In particular, the shortage of cotton on the international market caused by the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) prompted Russian officials to expand cotton production in Central Asia for domestic use and for international trade purposes.

Second, Central Asia was strategically important. As noted, Russia found it was competing with Great Britain over South Asian possessions in what was often dubbed "the Great Game." As Russia expanded its control over the steppes of Kazakhstan and into the settled regions of Turkestan, attention was directed southward. It was not until the negotiated border agreement of 1895 that Russia and Great Britain came to terms with their respective holdings in Asia-Russian territory being what is today "Central Asia," and British territory being the regions of Pakistan and India. Afghanistan was seen as a "neutral buffer state," albeit under British influence.

Within the Russian-controlled region of Central Asia, major settlements in the north included the strategic Orenburg, Pavlodar, and Semi-palatinsk. Further south, the cities of Vernyy, Pishpek, and Tashkent were critical. Some of these cities, such as Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khiva, were ancient cities with large indigenous populations. Others were Russian–dominated settlements. Railway lines connected all of these cities by the early twentieth century, making it easier for Russians to travel through the region.

The Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War were periods of great turmoil in Central Asia. It was not until 1922 that the Red Army forces under General Frunze were able to quell all significant opposition to the regime-both "White Army" forces and nationalist movements representing indigenous groups. The last "Basmachi" incursion into Central Asia took place in 1936, by which time the region was firmly in Soviet hands.

Throughout the Soviet period, Central Asia remained a source of raw materials. A more sinister usage of Central Asia for the Soviet state was the creation of detention camps within the Gulag system. Located in the western regions of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—around the Aral Sea—these camps held thousands of political prisoners through the 1980s. In addition, Central Asia remained a "destination of exile" for other political dissidents who were forced to move from Russia proper. Indeed, this "tradition" predated the Soviet era. Under Josef Stalin, entire ethnic groups were deported to Central Asia, especially in the 1940s. Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Volga German, and others were sent to Central Asia as they were suspected of being Nazi sympathizers during World War II. Koreans that traditionally lived in the Soviet Union near the Korean peninsula were also deported to Central Asia in the 1950s. It was not until the 1980s that many of these peoples were able to return to their native lands.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the independent states of Central Asia have remained important to Russia. For much of the 1990s, indeed, Russian leaders considered it part of their "Near Abroad." Even in the early twenty–first century, there is a sense that Central Asia is part of the Russian national security interest region. Trade relations, although decreasing since the Soviet era, remain significant. Energy transfer routes often pass through Russia and many communication links are still northward. There is also a cultural link that is somewhat important to Russia. Several million Russians continue to live in Central Asia, particularly in Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. While this was often deemed a source of potential conflict, it is more the case that Russians living in Central Asia will become less attached to Russia proper as time passes.

One interesting trend that has taken place since the early 1990s is the change in nomenclature in the region. In Turkmenistan, for example, the city of Krasnovodsk has been renamed Turkmenbashi (after the current Turkmen president). In Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic, there have been some changes of names for mountains (Pik Somoni instead of Pik Kommunizm in Tajikistan) and regions ("wiloyat" instead of "oblast"). One finds the most significant name changes in Kazakhstan. Semipalatinsk has been renamed Semei, Alma–Ata has been renamed Almaty, and Akmola has been renamed Astana, to name a few. This sort of "cosmetic change" is important in the development of regional identities and is expected to continue. In addition, the use of Russian language and the Cyrillic alphabet are decreasing, further noting a cultural distancing from Russia.

Ultimately, Central Asia remains important to Russia, but in a limited way. Central Asian countries have increased their ties to other countries, such as China, Turkey, and the United States. In addition, as energy exports from Central Asia increase, Russia will find itself sharing influence in the region.

See also: basmachis; colonial expansion; gulag; kazakhstan and kazakhs; islam; kyrgyzstan and kyrgyz; near abroad; tajikistan and tajiks; turkenistan and turkmen; uzbekistan and uzbeks

bibliography

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Allworth, Edward, ed. (1994). Central Asia: 130 Years of Russia Dominance, A Historical Overview. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bennigsen, Alexandre, and Wimbush, S. Enders. (1985). Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide. London: C. Hurst and Company.

Grousset, Rene. (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, tr. Naomi Walford. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Hopkirk, Peter. (1994). The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia. New York: Kodansha International.

Khalid, Adeeb. (1998). The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: The University of California Press.

Olcott, Martha Brill. (1996). Central Asia's New States: Independence, Foreign Policy, and Regional Security. Washington, DC: USIP Press.

Oliker, Olga, and Szayana, Thomas S., eds. (2003). Fault-lines of Conflict in Central Asia and the South Caucasus: Implications for the U.S. Army. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

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Roy, Olivier. (2000). The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations. New York: NYU Press.

Roger Kangas

CENTRAL ASIA

Unlike most regions of the world, there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes "Central Asia." The region will be defined in this entry as constituting the network of oasis towns comprising the ancient Silk Road, stretching from Afghanistan to Dunhuang. The grasslands inhabited by nomadic peoples to the north, and the Tibetan highlands to the south—together commonly referred to as Inner Asia—have separate histories and will be treated elsewhere in entries on Tibet and Mongolia.

A natural dividing point between western and eastern Central Asia is Kashgar, the westernmost city in the Tarim basin. Located at the western edge of what is today the People's Republic of China, this city serves as a logical boundary for discussions of this region in both ancient and modern times.

Western Central Asia

The earliest evidence of a Buddhist presence in this region dates from the time of King AŚoka (mid-third century b.c.e.), who left inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic at Qandahar and Laghman (both in modern Afghanistan). Though not specifically Buddhist in content—AsŚoka's explicit discussions of Buddhism are restricted to a relatively small area in and around the territory of ancient Magadha—they do provide concrete evidence that Afghanistan had come under the control of a Buddhist ruler.

In the territory of Gandhāra (northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan) and Bactria (northern Afghanistan and southern Uzbekistan), Buddhist temple complexes excavated at Airtam, Kara-tepe, Fayaz-tepe, and Dalverzin-tepe (in some cases accompanied by inscriptions by their donors) offer testimony to the importance of Buddhism in the region during the Kushan period (ca. late first to third centuries c.e.) and possibly before (Rhie). Even farther to the west, excavations in the Merv oasis (the easternmost part of ancient Parthia in modern Turkmenistan) have yielded archaeological remains of Buddhist temples, as well as Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit dating from the fourth to the sixth centuries, including a vinaya text belonging to the Sarvāstivada school (Utz). Monasteries excavated at Adzhina-tepe and other sites in southern Tadjikistan provide evidence of the survival of Buddhism in the region down to at least the eighth century (Stavisky).

Afghanistan has also been the site of two spectacular manuscript finds in recent years (though the precise spots of the discoveries are not known): the British Library collection, dating from the first century c.e. (Salomon 1999 and 2000), and the Schøyen Collection, containing texts from the second to seventh centuries c.e. (Braarvig et al. 2000 and 2002). The British Library manuscripts include both canonical scriptures (possibly associated with the Dharmaguptaka school) and local compositions; the Schøyen collection includes a number of well-known MahĀyĀna scriptures. The fact that all of these texts are written in Prakrit or Sanskrit rather than translated into local vernaculars (with the exception of a fragmentary text in Bactrian, whose precise nature is uncertain) is typical of those few Buddhist texts found throughout the region, where Buddhists seem to have been content to read and transmit their scriptures in the "church languages" of India (Nattier).

In contrast to the territories of Gandhāra, Bactria, and eastern Parthia, where Buddhism flourished for many centuries, in the territory of ancient Sogdiana (northern Uzbekistan) Buddhist motifs appear only as minor elements in non-Buddhist artistic productions, confirming the reports of Chinese travelers that attest to almost no Buddhist presence in the region. Though several figures of Sogdian ancestry played key roles as missionaries and translators during the formative period of Chinese Buddhism (if the Chinese ethnikon Kang does indeed correspond to Sogdian, about which there is some controversy), and though one Buddhist site may now have been identified in Sogdiana (Stavisky), at present it appears that Sogdian Buddhism was essentially an expatriate phenomenon. Other parts of western Central Asia, such as Ferghana and Khwarezm, seem to have had little or no Buddhist population at all.

Buddhists in Gandhāra appear to have flourished during the first century c.e. under the patronage of the Sakas (referred to in Indian sources as Śakas), an Iranian-speaking people whose sponsorship of Buddhist donations is well attested in inscriptions, and who are mentioned in the British Library fragments by name. Under the Kushan (Sanskrit, KuṢāṇa) dynasty (ca. late first to third centuries c.e.) Buddhism continued to receive significant support as well. Legends of the conversion of the Kushan ruler Kanishka (Sanskrit, KaniṢka) to Buddhism, however, are probably no more than that, for no inscription describes him as a Buddhist (or even as making a donation to a Buddhist community) and the justly famous images of the Buddha on his coins comprise a distinct minority in a vast sea of Iranian, Greek, and Indian deities. Recent archaeological findings, which point to a drop in trade between Bactria and Sogdiana during the Kushan period, suggest that, rather than providing a conduit for the transmission of Buddhism to East Asia, the Kushans may instead have erected a barrier on their eastern frontier (Naymark). If this is the case, it would explain the silence of Chinese sources concerning Kanishka and his successors, and it would suggest that it may have been their Saka predecessors rather than the Kushans themselves who facilitated the initial diffusion of Buddhism to eastern Central Asia and China.

It has sometimes been suggested that the invasion of the Hephthalite Huns (late fifth to early sixth centuries c.e.) dealt a serious blow to Buddhism in western Central Asia, but accounts by Chinese travelers, such as Songyun (early sixth century) and Xuanzang (ca. 600–664), report that Buddhism continued to prosper despite the damage done during the Hephthalite conquest. Xuanzang singles out the Lokottaravāda branch of the MahĀsĀṂghika school as being particularly influential at BĀmiyĀn, where two colossal Buddha statues (fifty-three and thirty-five meters in height), destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, may have expressed the distinct buddhological views of this school.

A more significant threat to the fate of Buddhism in the region was the long-term expansion of Islam. Beginning in the seventh century, western Central Asia began to experience significant Arab incursions, and by the end of the tenth century, Buddhism had largely disappeared even in Gandhāra itself (Stavisky).

Eastern Central Asia

A Buddhist presence in northern China is documented in historical and literary sources beginning in the middle of the first century c.e., and on this basis scholars have inferred that Buddhists must have passed through eastern Central Asia—that is, the territory of the Tarim basin (modern Xinjiang in the People's Republic of China)—no later than the beginning of the first millennium c.e. Despite the proximity of this area, which would later host several flourishing Buddhist city-states, records of the initial phase of Buddhist teaching and translation activity in China do not mention the presence of missionaries from eastern Central Asia (nor for that matter from India itself), but instead from western Central Asian territories such as Parthia, Sogdiana, and the Kushan realm (Zürcher).

The earliest evidence of a Buddhist presence in the Tarim basin—aside from a manuscript of the Dharmapada (in Gāndhārī language and KharoṢṭh script) found near Khotan, which has been assigned to the second century c.e. but may have been imported from elsewhere—dates from approximately two centuries later. A cache of civil documents written in the Gāndhārī language and the Kharosth script from the kingdom known to the Chinese as Shanshan (centered at Miran, in the southeastern part of this region) has been dated to the early third century c.e., and it attests to the existence of an incipient Buddhist sanṄgha, though apparently without any full-time and celibate clergy.

By the fourth century c.e. a significant Buddhist presence had been established in the Tokharian-speaking city-states of Kucha and Agni on the northeastern route, where the Sarvāstivāda school was especially prominent. Buddhism flourished under royal patronage and numerous monasteries and convents were founded. A substantial number of texts in Sanskrit were imported and subsequently copied locally, most of them of Sarvāstivāda affiliation. In contrast to the standard practice in western Central Asia, however, Buddhists in the Tarim basin began to translate scriptures into their own vernacular languages around the beginning of the sixth century c.e. The Tokharians appear to have been the first to make this move, and texts in both Agnean (Tokharian A) and Kuchean (Tokharian B) dating to around 500 to 700 c.e. have been discovered. This local literature continues to be mainly Sarvāstivāda in content; among cultic figures, the future Buddha Maitreya appears to have been an object of special interest.

Despite the conversion to the Mahāyāna of KumarĀjĪva (350–409/413 c.e., a native of Kucha and later a famous translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese), few followed his lead, and non-Mahāyāna teachings remained the norm in Kucha and Agni until at least the seventh century. In the kingdom of Khotan (in the southwestern Tarim basin), by contrast, Mahāyāna traditions found an early and fervent following. The ascendancy of the Mahāyāna is reported already in Faxian's travel report (early fifth century) and The Book of Zambasta, an anthology of Buddhist texts recast in Khotanese poetry (early eighth century), which makes it clear that Mahāyāna Buddhism was preferred.

With the fall of the Uygur kingdom in Mongolia in 842 c.e., Turkic-speaking peoples began to pour into the Tokharian territories of the northeast (though some non-Uygur Turks had preceded them). Initially they adopted local Sarvāstivāda traditions, sometimes in combination with Manichaean traditions brought with them from Mongolia. With the growth of Chinese influence, however, the Uygurs increasingly drew on Chinese Mahāyāna scriptures and practices. Most of later Uygur literature—including such famous works as the SuvarṆaprabhĀsottama-sŪtra, the Lotus SŪtra (SaddharmapuṆ2ḌarĪka-sŪtra), and the Vimalakīrtinirdesśa—is translated from the Chinese (Elverskog).

Buddhism continued to flourish in eastern Central Asia down to the beginning of the eleventh century, when the Muslim conquest of Khotan in 1004 signaled the beginning of the end of Buddhist dominance in the region. These territories are today populated almost entirely by Turkic-speaking Muslims, who have little knowledge of the flourishing Buddhist cultures that preceded them.

See also:Central Asia, Buddhist Art in; Gāndhārīl Buddhist Literature in; Islam and Buddhism; Mainstream Buddhist Schools; Persecutions; Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda

Bibliography

Braarvig, Jens; Hartmann, Jens-Uwe; Kazunobu Matsuda; and Sander, Lore; eds. Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Vol. 1. Oslo, Norway: Hermes, 2000.

Braarvig, Jens; Harrison, Paul; Hartmann, Jens-Uwe; Kazunobu Matsuda; and Sander, Lore; eds. Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Vol. 2. Oslo, Norway: Hermes, 2002.

Elverskog, Johan. Uygur Buddhist Literature. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1997.

McRae, John R., and Nattier, Jan, eds. Buddhism across Boundaries: Chinese Buddhism and the Western Regions. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

Mémoires de la Delegation Archeologique Française en Afghanistan. Paris: De Boccard, 1928 (and subsequent volumes in the series).

Nattier, Jan. "Church Language and Vernacular Language in Central Asian Buddhism." Numen 37, no. 2 (1990): 195–219.

Naymark, Aleksandr. "Sogdiana, Its Christians and Byzantium: A Study of Artistic and Cultural Connections in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages." Ph.D. diss. Indiana University, 2001.

Rhie, Marylin Martin. Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1999.

Rosenfield, John. Dynastic Arts of the Kushans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.

Salomon, Richard. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.

Salomon, Richard. A Gāndhārī Version of the Rhinoceros Sūtra: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragment 5B. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.

Sims-Williams, Nicholas. New Light on Ancient Afghanistan: The Decipherment of Bactrian. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1997.

Stavisky, Boris. "The Fate of Buddhism in Middle Asia." Silk Road Art and Archaeology 3 (1993–1994): 113–142.

Utz, David. "Arsak, Parthian Buddhists, and 'Iranian' Buddhism." In Buddhism across Boundaries: Chinese Buddhism and the Western Regions, ed. John R. McRae and Jan Nattier. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

Zürcher, Erik. "Han Buddhism and the Western Region." In Thought and Law in Qin and Han China: Studies Dedicated to Anthony Hulsewé on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. W. L. Idema and E. Zürcher. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1990.

Jan Nattier

CENTRAL ASIA

Long before geographers named the region "Central Asia," it had become known by the name of "Turkestan" (land of the Turks) among peoples in the surrounding region. Bordered on the north and east by the plains of southern Siberia and the deserts of western China, and on the west and south by the Caspian Sea and the Pamir mountain chain, this area had gradually become the domain largely of Turkic-speaking peoples. Their principalities (khanates) had thrived economically as long as the Silk Road commerce had carried precious goods through their region from China to the Middle East and Europe. Their Muslim religious schools had for a time in the Middle Ages been centers of learning as well as piety. But by the nineteenth century, little remained of those good times. Trade had dwindled, leaving only the farming in the oasis areas (mainly by Uzbeks) and livestock raising by pastoral nomads (principally Kazakh and Kirgiz) to sustain economic well-being. The small Turkic states fought sporadic wars among themselves, using the meager resources of their peoples to maintain their poorly equipped armies and to pay for the backing of allied nomadic tribes. Until the mid-nineteenth century, no Western empire threatened their independence.

the russian conquest

That threat became a reality with the expansion of the Russian Empire. For centuries the empire had moved toward the east and south onto the European and Asian steppes (plains) in territories previously controlled by nomadic tribes. Its primary goal, similar to that of the United States in the nineteenth century on its western Great Plains, was to subjugate the unruly nomads beyond its control and to exploit the resources of the steppe. Troops came first, and then came settlers to cultivate the fertile land. This process of Russian conquest encountered little effective opposition. By the 1860s, the border between the empire and Turkic peoples had reached the northern region of Central Asia. In the following decade, military leaders attacked the forces of the Turkic principalities. This move, which was initially the decision of frontier commanders, received the backing of the government when victory appeared certain. By 1875, Russian troops had defeated all the opposing armies. The largest area became the Russian governor-generalship of Turkestan, with its capital in the city of Tashkent. Two principalities (Bukhara and Khiva) became protectorates of the Russian Empire. Their rulers remained in power, but were under the control of Russian advisers.

Russian conquest of Central Asia provoked the opposition of the British Empire. Its diplomatic sphere extended beyond its Indian colony into Afghanistan and Persia, just south of Turkestan. Russian and British agents competed for influence among the tribes in these lands in secret operations baptized by observers as the "Great Game." This struggle for empire was finally settled in the early years of the twentieth century. The 1907 diplomatic agreement between the two empires delimited their spheres of influence, and confirmed the formal borders separating Turkestan from Persia and Afghanistan (now the southern borders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan).

Turkestan resembled in many ways an overseas colony of other Western empires. Until railroads reached its territory late in the nineteenth century, the deserts that separated it from European Russia made transportation and communication as difficult as though an ocean lay between these lands. The Russian army officers who became the first colonial officials there had as little knowledge of their subject peoples as European officials in newly conquered Asian and African colonies. They assumed the Muslim population to be deeply hostile toward the presence of "infidels," and believed as well that the way of life of the various peoples, settled as well as nomadic, was backward, even "barbaric," as measured by the standards of Western civilization.

In the opinion of some officials, colonial rule required stern policies of military occupation and close surveillance to prevent Muslim rebellion.

Others argued that the empire's primary obligation was to encourage these subject peoples to acquire the economic skills useful to a market (capitalist) economy and to accept their responsibilities and rights as citizens in a multiethnic, centralized empire. This divergence of views remained unresolved as long as the empire endured; the problems that it created contributed to the outbreak of the major uprising that occurred in Turkestan in 1916.

russian colonial reforms

Even the most ardent supporters of the progressive integration of Turkestan into the empire recognized that its peoples would remain ethnically and religiously unique. The Central Asian colony was inhabited by a population speaking Turkic dialects and deeply committed to the Muslim faith. The empire's laws made religious toleration a fundamental right of its peoples. Local Islamic authorities were stripped of the power to punish violators of religious laws, but the empire's laws required protection of every Muslim's right to worship. Pilgrimage to holy sites, including Mecca, was permissible; Muslim religious schools continued to flourish. Some of Russia's empire-builders there believed that Islam was no obstacle to peaceful rule.

In the long run, these reformers expected the benefits of their colonial rule to win the backing of the population. Their domination put an end to the local wars among the khanates, and stopped the periodic raids by nomads on the settled population. Agricultural production expanded rapidly. The most important crop became a new variety of cotton, imported by Russian agronomists from the southeastern United States and rapidly adopted by the local farmers. They sold their crop to the cotton mills of Russia, readily accessible after the turn of the twentieth century when rail lines finally crossed the desert to Turkestan. Turkestan's economy became heavily dependent on the sale of this commodity, and Russian authorities were convinced that the colony was finally becoming a profitable undertaking. One senior government official (borrowing from a British prime minister's description of India) called Turkestan the "jewel in the crown" of the Russian Empire. By then, education officials, in the hopes of encouraging the population to adapt to Russian culture, had established a small number of state-run bilingual schools offering elementary education in Russian and Uzbek (or Kazakh) languages.

Turkestan farming prospered, but so too did Muslim practices. The railroad took cotton north to Russia, but also opened the way for many thousands of pilgrims to travel rapidly and safely each year to the Arabian holy places. A few subjects collaborated with the Russian rulers and adopted a Western style of life. Most families kept the old traditions. In the late imperial period, the seclusion of Muslim women became even more pervasive and strict than in the past with the gradual spread, among townspeople and even villagers, of public use of the total body veil (the paranji).

the revolt of 1916

Russian military officers remained in charge of the region. They claimed that their presence was indispensable to the security of Russian rule, pointing to occasional unrest among their subjects as evidence that the Muslim population continued to be opposed to the empire. They called for mass colonization by Russian farmers of fertile areas, in the belief that only when a large number of Russian settlers had made Turkestan their home would real integration of Turkestan within the empire be possible. Some officials warned that the seizure of land by a massive influx of pioneers would provoke a major rebellion, especially among the nomadic tribes, but their advice was ignored. In 1900 Tsar Nicholas II himself authorized Russian colonization in Turkestan. By 1914, European-style farm villages had appeared wherever pioneers had moved in, taking legally or by force pastureland of the nomads.

In the summer of 1916, the Russian government called up the male population of Turkestan for labor service in the war against the German and Austrian empires. Its reckless action triggered protest demonstrations, attacks on Russian settlers, and finally a major uprising among the nomadic tribes. Before Russian troops and militia could repress the rebellion, thousands of Russians lost their lives. The authorities' brutal repression caused many more deaths among the Turkestan nomadic tribes. Ethnic hostility, already stirred up by the colonization campaign, became the cause for recurrent attacks by Russians on nomads, and by natives against Russians. Even before the 1917 Revolution brought down the Russian Empire, the consequences of Russia's failed colonial mission there had, in the words of one Russian official, "destroyed this jewel of the Russian state."

See alsoColonies; Imperialism; Russia.

bibliography

Bacon, Elizabeth E. Central Asia under Russian Rule: A Study in Cultural Change. Ithaca, N.Y., 1966. An inquiry into the impact of Russian rule on the way of life of Turkestan peoples

Brower, Daniel. Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire. London, 2003. Study of Russian colonial ideology and policies in Turkestan.

Khalid, Adeeb. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998. A thoughtful inquiry into Muslim efforts to reform Turkestan's society.

Meyer, Karl E., and Shareen Blair Brysac. Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia. Washington, D.C., 1999. Dramatic story of Russian-British contest in Central Asia.

Pierce, Richard A. Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917: A Study in Colonial Rule. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1960. A survey of imperial rule in Turkestan.

Daniel R. Brower