The Historical Connotation and Contemporary Enlightenment of the Silk Road Featuring Peace and Mutual Benefit

By Li Liming

Xi'an Academy of Social Sciences

Part One,the Silk Road and the Spirit of the Silk Road

The traditional sense of the Silk Road(SR)refers to the Chinese land trade routes through Central Asia to South Asia,West Asia,Europe and North Africa.This ancient channel connects European and Asian continents,having two to three thousand years history,spanning seven thousand kilometers long,evolving the overlapping functions,and enriching its connotations gradually.In as early as China’s Han and Tang Dynasties,it became the carrier of extensive East-West economic,political,cultural,religious,folk art,science and technology exchanges,and gave birth along the SR to the prosperity and development of many ancient states and cities,promoted the interactive communication between different cultural bodies,promoted ethnic integration in node-cities along the Road,and became a major wonder of history of human civilization development and history of cultural exchange.The SR is not only a grand corridor crossing through the world's geography and culture,but also a high magnetic field attracting the most heterogeneous culture interaction.Trading with each other,equal exchanges,unknown customs and habits,mutual learning become the most typical of the SR cultural landscape.The SR with rich connotation,of course,not only has the significance from the material perspective,but also has spiritual value,so we might call this value the SR spirit.

The SR is so magnificent in the dimensions of time,space and aspects that no power can own and monopolize it.For thousands of years,there are both the sand regions and local wars along the SR,and economy and trade,personnel exchanges,and cultural exchanges take numerous twists and turns,but never stop.Cross-regional and cross cultural exchanges,based on commodity trading and independent choices,always highlight a theme of peace and mutual benefit.The SR concept is not an economic entity,but an existing exchanges network of mutual exchange of needed products and mutual learning by different nationalities and cultural bodies.It facilitates those ancient cities and states along the Road to get rid of closeness and enforce opening so as to enter into a wider range of exchanges of material,energy,information,etc.Traders,monks,craftsmen,artists along the SR take a long journey to realize their own values,therefore,human inventions get spread far away,cities become prosperous and developed,different ethnic cultural affinities are created,and the history of cultural exchanges and personnel exchanges among countries carry on along the Road.

The SR spirit is a structured and hierarchical system,we can from three aspects of individuals,nations and world read its contents.From the perspective of those traders,monks,craftsmen and army men of the frontier laboring along the SR,the SR spirit is firmness and indomitability,building up wealth,glorious pursuit of life.From the perspective of cities and states,the spirit is to open exchanges,broaden sources of income,and seek development opportunities.From the world perspective,economic and trade,and cultural exchanges along the SR share ideas and experiences of peaceful and mutual benefit,mutual exchanges by different nationalities and nations,and embody Oriental wisdom regarding peaceful relations,open communication,and win-win cooperation among different civilizations in large regions.This meritorious service,open communication,peaceful and mutual benefit value and concept constitute the SR spirit.

The SR camel-bell sounding had gone,after the SR on land,China again built the Maritime SR to East Asia and Southeast Asia,and the Southwest SR.However,after witnessing ups and downs,the traditional desert and grassland SR begins seeing vitality due to the new demand and,from now to the foreseeable future,the SR is being turned into three-dimensional transnational channel networks composed of high speed,high-speed train,aviation,pipeline,and the Internet,delivery of goods is much wider than the range of silk,porcelain,tea,spices and herbs;but the constant themes of open communication,mutual learning and consistent aspirations for peaceful and mutual benefit remain intact.When we look back at the SR history,we can get such a revelation:human civilizations get richer and more colorful because of diversity,different civilizations attain prosperity and development because of mutual exchanges and learning,the world becomes inclusive because of understanding,and tranquil and stable because of peace and mutual benefit.

Part Two,a Millennium-witness to the Ancient City Changan

Our feet are on a magical land.Xi'an anciently is named Changan,which is the birth place of China’s ancient civilization,Xi'an is China's Millennium ancient capital,and the capital's history can be traced back to three thousand years ago.Xi'an’s surrounding mountain range goes from West to East and forms the Chinese civilization corridor with Zhou,Qin,Han and Tang dynasties as the backbone,and later the Silk Roads met in this ancient city,thus,becoming the cradle of China's ancient civilization and the East magnetic pole for East-West cultural exchange.Especially by the prosperous Han and Tang Dynasties,as the heart of an Empire City and the SR starting point,the ancient Changan’s self-confidence and openness won a bulk of wealth and the source of culture creation,a strong power to absorb and a strong function to digest became a notable feature of this large node city.Changan in the Tang Dynasty witnessed large-scale international trade fairs,crops,gold,wool,treasures,spices,jade,glassware from the west were here distributed while silk,ironware,grain,lacquer ware,tea,porcelain to the west were loaded for shipment,a lot of envoys,merchants,monks,artists going between East and West stayed in Changan,those non-Han ethnic clothing,food,music,horses,etc.became unique scenery in this ancient metropolis.

Not only in the aspect of folk life,but also in the aspect of palaces culture,Changan also became extraordinary splendor because of exchange and learning.In Chinese Sui and Tang Dynasties,dance and music significantly absorbed Indian music and Islamic music,murals massively incorporated the western material and technique;from the perspective of religion,Buddhism,Manichaeism,Zoroastrianism,Islam,Nestorianism spread to Changan and radiated to various neighboring communities,especially the introduction of Buddhism,which profoundly changed and enriched China culture pattern,gradually laying the Chinese three-in-one cultural ideology based on Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism.Now,wherever one goes in Xi'an,from the Daming Palace to the Grand and the Little Wild Goose Pagoda,from Famen Temple to the Huajue Lane Mosque,from the unearthed three-color camel to Polo diagram on murals,one can feel the wonders by ancient cultural exchange and inclusive creation.

Changan becomes broad and profound due to absorbing all-dimensionally like an Ocean gathering water from all rivers,and respected due to friendly exchanges,Xi'an city up to today still inherits friendly openness.Xuan Zang travelled to the West,took back a large number of Buddhist scriptures from India,Changan city had three large translation courts,and became a gathering place for senior monks because of the translation work,and this gave birth to big sects of Northern Buddhism,hence,Changan developed into second home of Buddhism and a head source of many denominations.Jian Zhen travelled Eastward to Japan,not only became the early initiator of Japanese religion,but also brought to Japan a number of Buddhist classics,as well as drugs,art,having produced a far-reaching impact on Japanese medicine,sculpture,art and architecture.In Asia,the history of Sino-Japanese exchanges can be termed cultural transplantation miracle.During the Han and Tang periods,Japan first absorbed and then adopted comprehensive introduction of the Chinese material civilization,system civilization,spiritual civilization achievements from Changan,thus,completing the thousand-year jump from hunting and collecting stone civilization to the farming civilization and feudal system,so the construction of Japanese culture shaped on the bases of learning.Since the normalization of diplomatic relations in the 1970's between China and Japan,many Japanese politicians and cultural scholars come to Xi'an,and Xi'an becomes a Japan art and culture pilgrimage.Changan Millennium witness is:cultural exchanges and mutual learning are the driving force to promote creation and progress,peaceful exchanges among different countries and regions are the key for development and prosperity.

Part Three,Asian Peace Appeal Today

The last century is the period of Asian bad luck,and the period of weakness and war with ups and downs,and some ancient civilizations also became colony and semi-colony of the Western powers,and only after arduous resistance,Asian countries have become independent,but independent and poor nation states.From the end of the last century to the beginning of this new century,Asian countries have chosen reform and innovation for development,now Asia has become a world most promising,most vibrant fast-growing region.Peace and development have become the Asian demand,its most rational choice is that the Asian countries as a community of destiny,should shape a community of interests,a community of responsibility and a community of development,so as to jointly build a new"Asian century".However,it is obvious that the Asian countries,due to their different development stages,development orientations and specific interests,also produce the corresponding contradictions and conflicts.How to use the wisdom to maintain peace and development of Asia and to promote the Asian security and the welfare of people is the challenge of courage and wisdom the Asian countries face.

The process of globalization strengthens the interdependence between Asia and the world,and among all countries in Asia,multi-polarization pattern provides selective conditions of independent development for Asian countries.Asian people can manage Asia well and use Asian"cultural"intelligence to solve the problems in Asia,which should become a firm belief of Asian countries.

From the perspective of chronicles,various countries have entered the same period;from the perspective of social forms,they are at rather different stages of social development;from the perspective of cultural form,they maintain the existing survival and development path of specialty because of their culture.This suggests to us that,various countries can be strong or weak,but their type of culture has no distinction;their development can be slow or fast,but their understanding and tolerance are a prerequisite for peace and mutual benefit.

Part Four,Global Routes and Oriental Wisdom

In Xi'an,there are some folk proverbs,which precipitate with concepts of equal exchanges and mutual accommodation,and mutual inclusiveness,such as"friendship can carry far away but not awe-inspiration",and"get unfair,make a reverse",which have different approaches but equally satisfactory results as"keeping harmony without following blindly"and"do not do to others what you do not have others do to you"advocated by ancient Chinese philosophers and sages.Perhaps,it is the Chinese multi-ethnic coexistence conditions for thousands of years and the values compared between war and peace that Chinese view harmony as the world standard behavior for human survival,"Precious harmony"is a typical Chinese-type value proposition.Saying that geographical location is better than an opportunity while harmony is better than geographical location,Mencius thinks that a harmonious relationship among people is the advanced value,application of this proposition to Asian peaceful exchanges can give a person a kind of foresight enlightenment.

In the 1950s,the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence was first proposed by China,India and Burma,which reflects the oriental wisdom and philosophy that attaches importance to people coexistence and pursues harmony,and a rational choice on the basis of profound traditional culture and the bitter memory of history.Now China has put forward"proximity,honesty,benefit and inclusiveness"diplomatic policy to neighbors,which is the Chinese unique expression form of subliming words with deep meaning to refer to its doctrine to get along with its neighbors.Now,Asian countries along the ancient SR on land and Maritime SR conduct frequent exchanges.

The SR spirit of peaceful and mutual benefit,and open exchanges as well as the effective function of mutual exchanges and mutual learning will emerge again.Peace is the premise for mutual benefit and mutual benefit is the support for peace,Asia needs a common security,comprehensive security,cooperative security,and sustainable security mechanism to maintain peace,and guarantee equality and mutual benefit for all countries.Mutual benefit needs to proceed from the desire of mutual trust,mutual accommodation,mutual honesty,and mutual benefit,realize win win cooperation,then make conditions for peace and development.

"Many voices in one world;one aspiration in many presences".The world becomes enriched due to diversity,developed due to exchanges,and beautiful due to peace and warmness.Facing the theme of twenty-first Century Asian peace and development,we both trace the origins,and take a long-term view from height,and hope to use the oriental wisdom to find the path of harmonious development for Asia.