In recreating a past long since vanished we are, in a sense, creating whole new worlds within the mind’s eye—partly authentic in nature, and partly fashioned from the stuff of antiquarian embellishment. In his book Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics, Edward H. Schafer describes both the historical fact and literary fancy of the T’ang period in Ancient China, particularly as it relates to Chinese interactions with exotic peoples and the shifting fortune of foreign commerce or trade in exotic goods. In this work Schafer, much like Richard Foltz in “A Refuge of Heretics: Nestorians and Manichaeans on the Silk Road”, highlights how contemporary pressures (political, religious, and economic) at times led to far less amicable relationships between the T’ang and their foreign guests—evidenced at one far extreme by accounts depicting the massacres of foreign merchant communities at both Yangzhou and Guangzhou (760 CE and 878-879 CE respectively). More common would be the routine interrogation of new trade envoys, or the curtailing of foreign agency by various laws or edicts—as in the case of Emperor Wuzong’s short-lived outlawing of foreign religions in 845 CE [Foltz], or the 779 CE edict compelling Uighurs living in the capital to wear their “native costume” and which “forbade them from trying to ‘lure’ Chinese women into becoming their wives or concubines [Schafer]. It was not merely foreigners themselves but foreign customs and foreign religions that were to be held suspect. In such context the foreigner’s place was seen to be distinctly separate from that of their Chinese contemporaries, with foreign merchants and envoys segregated into smaller communities with strict limits on both trade and interaction with local Chinese. In speaking of far off realms, Schafer notes that “it was readily believed that spirits and monsters waited at every turn in the mountain trail and lurked beneath every tropical wave”. More telling is Schafer’s observation that “people and goods from abroad naturally partook of this dangerous enchantment” and that, in the minds of many Chinese, “it is probable that exotic goods were still invested with the aroma of uncertain magic and perilous witchery”. Such misconceptions and romanticisms might easily fall into the category of what Western scholars would later call ‘Orientalism’. Is it any wonder then that things foreign or wondrous might be deemed as suspect? In the modern context, one can see how images of the dangerous ‘other’ have been used to mobilize a variety of xenophobic responses—ranging from the banning of particular forms of religious garb to the segregation and persecution of various minority communities. On the other side of the spectrum are accounts of Chinese fascination with foreign fashions, artistic styles, cuisines, and exotic trade goods—seen in poetic accounts of Iranian waitresses, or in the Chinese appreciation of the works of painters such as Yen Li-te or Yü-ch‘ih-i-seng. Schafer also explains that it was common for foreigners to be depicted in native costume “with their curious features emphasized”, as with a caricature. In the case of exotic tributes there exists both the official record and the literary report of wondrous items, such weird and lovely objects, Schafer describes as having “the glamour of wares that existed nowhere on land or sea…brummagem of the mind and tinsel of imagination”. Occurring in the literature of the 9^th century CE, such wondrous items recall the exotic tributes of a time centuries past, now the stuff of pale memory and embellished recollection amidst a declining T’ang Empire. One might see the scholar Su-O as attempting to recreate or evoke an age long past in his 876 CE work Assorted Compilations from Tu-Yang. In their nostalgia, writers such as Su-O provide compelling accounts of “imaginary gifts, which in turn feed the imagination”. In such tales, one might argue, that which is foreign is less scapegoated than marveled at—as in the case of “magic shining beans”, “dragon horn hairpin”, or “fire-jade”. Such literature alludes to a greater depth lying beneath the veneer of mere surface appearances, wherein fantastic tribute or exotic objets d’art might offer whole worlds of adventure, whereby one might find oneself in a decided encounter with most ‘interesting times’.

Information or intelligence is critical if those in power are to be both well-informed and fully capable of enacting those policies and processes that will reflect proper governance. Perhaps nowhere in the lives of a common people is this better reflected than in those inevitable concerns regarding both ‘death and taxes’. In “The Lushan Rebellion and its Aftermath (755-960)”, Chapter 6 of her book The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600, Valerie Hansen astutely notes that the “[…] the Tang dynasty lost most of its power in 755, the year of the An Lushan rebellion”. If one follows Hansen’s line of reasoning, then one may view this period as one marked by both loss and fragmentation, whereby Emperor Xuanzong and his successors were forced to cede power away from the central authority of the Emperor and towards regional military commanders. These provincial powers became responsible for both local armies and their funding, paid not by a centralized Imperial government but by local taxes. Taxation, difficult even in the very best of times, was further compounded by a lack of tri-annual (land and population) census data which Hansen argues “wrecked the equal-field system”, in that “the government no longer maintained any records concerning the landholdings or output of any individual cultivator”. Individual taxation could no longer be representational (with tri-annual reallocations made) but, rather, simply reflected a part-share within a larger regional quota, with individual tax burdens assigned at the whim of government officials and taxes collected twice-yearly. The overall economic effect proved profound. As Hansen points out, “after the rebellion, the tax base of the empire was less than one-third of what it had been”, with far less flowing into the Imperial coffers. Defence, a matter of life and death, no doubt suffered under a divided, decentralized, and defunded China.  As an aside, one need only look to the recent controversies within our own country surrounding the temporary suspension of the long-form census or the willful purging of huge amounts of archived scientific and statistical data by the previous federal government to see how the loss of information held by a government in power can have unforeseen effects both subtle and far-reaching. One of the poems of the period, written by Bai Juyi, reflects the reality of unfair government privilege. In this poem, a palace marketing system—whereby the price of goods flowing into the palace might be set by palace eunuchs, regardless of the fair market price—is used by two officials to cheat an old charcoal-seller out of an entire cart of charcoal for a mere pittance. Again, this burden was not equally shared by all. Buddhist clergy and monasteries who were themselves tax exempt were viewed by some as posing a burden on an already strained economy—so much so that the year 845 saw an attempt by the Emperor to suppress Buddhism, by returning the clergy to the laity and in confiscating or re-purposing monastic wealth and properties. One may well view this moment as analogous to the blatant ‘cash grab’ seen with confiscation of Catholic wealth by the English monarch King Henry VIII. The indigenous Chinese conception of death was itself not free from material concern, with one’s spirit traveling to the Underworld “in one’s own body”, and enduring the physical torments of Hell. Hansen highlights a shift in Chinese Buddhist culture, whereby charitable contributions or offerings to the living Buddhist community (and not to one’s dead ancestor) that the greater merit might be accumulated towards the benefit of one’s departed kin. This proved a key alternate funding model for monastic communities.

Transmission cannot occur without first there being contact or a meeting of minds. Such encounters may happen face-to-face—the words or gestures of a teacher acting like a well-thrown stone, finding its mark and leaving tell-tale ripples upon one’s mind-stream. Such moments of sparsa may also bring with them a deep and abiding sense of the sacred. In her work The Buddhist Holy Land author Sally Wriggins astutely comments upon the journey of Chinese monk Xuanzang who, in the 7^th century CE, made the pilgrimage to India famously documented in his work Great Tang Records on the Western Regions. Both Xuanzang’s and Wriggins’ writings prove poignant, illustrating how the past can also speak to the present.

Each shrine and stupa encountered by Xuanzang would come with their own story.  One such example, located near Jetavana monastery, was said to mark the place where the Buddha had performed miraculous healings (of both a sick monk and of once blinded criminals). Another marks the place where the Buddha was said to have proved mastery over both fire and water and to have performed “an even more popular miracle…that of the Buddha multiplying himself thousands of times”. Tales of such miraculous occurrences, though quite common in later South Asian hagiographies, no doubt did much to further enhance the popularity of early Buddhism following the death (parinirvana) of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. One might well argue that the true bones of the Buddha are not those fabled ashen relics of his burnt body but the very shrines and stupas scattered throughout Asia and the world. Similarly, it may be argued that the teachings themselves form the very marrow of the Buddha.

The sites, symbols, and stories encountered on his pilgrimage are reported to have had a profound effect upon Xuanzang, who is said to have fallen to ground and wept upon seeing the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. The life of the Buddha and the transmission (and translation) of the Buddhist teachings are not abstract stories but contextual narratives, bound by the very strata of historical time and space. Sites serve to anchor stories, particularly in an ancient world where literacy was rare and artistic representation and its associated symbols often served to anchor narrative and facilitate instruction. In recalling the lighting of small oil lamps within Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya or the famed statuary of Sarnath we perform a sort of mental pilgrimage alongside Xuanzang and those who followed.

As Valerie Hansen points out in her work China’s Religious Landscape, there was great concern that Buddhism within China be authentic. The historical journey by Xuanzang to obtain such Indian authenticity should be seen as less a concern involving a most harmonious path (wuwei) than one of incalculable risk and unforeseen reward. It is in this spirit that Xuanzang, following in the footsteps of Faxian, began his pilgrimage. The Buddhist religion, offered a more optimistic alternative regarding both impermanence and the afterlife–no longer a bleak, judiciary affair involving eternal imprisonment for many. It was not the mere bones of the Buddha that Xuanzang brought back with him to China but the Buddha’s very marrow—teachings that liberate.