Transcript Central and Eastern Asia, 400 * 1200 C.E.

Central and Eastern Asia, 400 –
1200 C.E.
I.
The Sui and Tang Empires, 581 – 755 C.E.
A. Reunification under the Sui and Tang
1. The fall of the Han dynasty in China, 220
C.E., left a power vacuum.
2. That vacuum was filled by many small
kingdoms with various political styles.
3. The Sui dynasty was distinctive in that it
had a strong political influence from
Buddhism, Daoism, Nestorian Christianity,
and Islam.
Sui Dynasty
4. The Sui (581 – 681 C.E.) unified
China again since the Han dynasty.
5. Prior to this, China was politically
fragmented.
6. The Sui conducted a lot of
improvements such as the Grand
Canal, which connected the Yellow
River in the north to the Yangzi River in
the south.
The Grand Canal
B. Buddhism and the Tang Empire
1. In 618 C.E., Li Shimin (lee shirmeen) ended Sui rule and created the
Tang Empire.
2. The Tang rulers politically used
Buddhism by expanding westward.
3. They considered themselves to
be bodhisattvas – enlightened
individuals who postpone nirvana to help
others achieve enlightenment.
4. This type of Buddhism is referred
to as Mahayana Buddhism which is
popular in East Asia.
5. Faith in Bodhisattvas allowed the
religion to absorb local gods and
goddesses into Mahayana sainthood.
6. The spread of Buddhism in
Central and East Asia was fostered by
trade and the westward growth of Tang
China.
Tang Dynasty
C. To Chang’an by Land and Sea
1. The Tang emperors located their
capital at Chang’an which connected to the
south via roads and the Grand Canal.
2. Chang’an was also the destination for
ambassadors and students.
3. The purpose was the tributary
system – independent countries
acknowledge the supremacy of the
emperor based in China by sending tribute.
4. During the Tang dynasty, the city
of Chang’an had probably reached to
over a million people.
5. Market roads, major long-distance
roads, caravan routes, sea routes, and
canals all brought people and commerce
toward Chang’an.
Fractured Power in Central Asia and
China, to 907
A. Reaction and Repression
1. By 840 C.E., the Tang Empire
decided to crush the economic influence
of Buddhist monasteries.
2. The deeply rooted Confucius
traditions of China grew weary of “foreign”
influence.
3. Buddhism was pointed to as proof of
this influence.
II.
4. One of the reasons for this
crackdown dealt primarily with the tax
exemptions given to monasteries.
5. As a result, hundreds of thousands
of people had entered monasteries and
nunneries.
6. Tang rulers were also worried
about how Buddhism allowed women to
play a role in politics. This brought into
question the Confucian idea of family.
B. The End of the Tang Empire
1. The Tang decline can be attributed
to (1) the extent of the empire and (2) a
complex tax collection system.
2. The disintegration of the Tang’s
political system led many would be
dictators to chance a takeover.
3. The most devastating uprising was
the Huang Chao rebellion of 879 to 881.
C. The Uigur and Tibetan Empires in
Central Asia
1. The original homeland of the Turks
was in the northern part of modern day
Mongolia.
2. Eventually, they migrated south and
then west to Central Asia and then to
Anatolia.
3. Between the Han and Tang
dynasties, the Turks were in Central Asia.
Turkic Migration
4. One of these Turkic groups who
came to dominate in Central Asia was
the Uigurs.
5. Under the Uigurs, Central Asias’s
great cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and
Tashkent enjoyed a literate culture with
strong ties to both the Islamic world and
China.
6. They adopted the Sogdians’s
syllabic script to the writing of Turkic.
Uigur Empire
7. Tibet at this time was critically
positioned at the meeting point of China,
Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central
Asia.
8. The Tibetans took the Indian alphabet
and learned mathematics, astronomy,
divination, and cultivation from both China
and India.
9. Tibetan kings encouraged the growth
of Buddhist religious establishments.
The Emergence of East Asia, to 1200
A. The Liao and Jin Challenge
1. Immediately after the overthrow of
the last Tang emperor, a new state
emerged in the north called Liao (leeOW).
2. They were made up of an ethnic
group called the Kitan.
3. They established their rule in what is
now Beijing.
III.
Liao
4. In the western part of China,
another state emerged called the
Tangguts.
5. They called themselves the
Tangguts to show their connection with
the former Tang dynasty.
6. They were made up of the Minyak
peoples who are closely related to the
Tibetans to the south.
7. By 960, a new dynasty emerged in
central and southern China known as
the Song.
8. The Song had made an alliance
with the Jurchens destroying the Liao
capital in Mongolia renaming the
dynasty Jin.
9. The Jin turned on the Song
pushing them south of the Yellow River.
Song Dynasty
Song and Jin
B. Essential Partners: Korea, Japan, and
Vietnam
1. Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were
very much like their Song counterparts.
2. Agriculture was the primary
economic activity.
3. These three East Asian cultures
resembled Tang China with a blending
of both Confucian ideas and Buddhist
philosophy.
4. The state of Korea centralized in
668 C.E. when the Silla conquered its
neighbors and brought the Korean
peninsula under its control.
5. When the Tang dynasty fell, so to
did the state of Silla.
6. The peninsula was united under
the ruling house of Koryo (KAW-ree-oh)
in the early 900s.
Korea
7. Like Korea, Japan’s early history
was actually recorded by the Chinese.
8. Japan was politically fragmented
due to geographic reasons similar to
Greece.
9. The Japanese unified sometime in
the 4th or 5th centuries possibly due to
horse-riding warriors from Korea.
Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and
Shikoku
10. Vietnam had contact with the
Chinese as early as the 3rd century
B.C.E.
11. Vietnam itself was split into two
separate kingdoms, Annam and
Champa.
12. The Champa kingdom had more
cultural similarities with India and Malay
then did the Annam people who were
closely linked to the southern Chinese.
Annam and Champa
Map of Central and East Asia