IRANIAN CULTURAL IMPACT Cultural and Cosmological Impact of Iranian Civilization in Vietnam and Peninsular Areas of Southeast Asia
By Shahab Setudeh-Nejad
Sasanid Iran (CE
226-651) played a leading role in the enrichment of the culture and
metamorphoses of Vietnam and other Southeast Asian states in particular
along the peninsular coasts of the Indo-Chinese zone of maritime trade.
History of contacts
between the Iranian world and the Far East dates from the reign of
Mithradates II the Great (123 BCE -- 87 BCE), when in 115 BCE, this
monarch of the Parthian Dynasty (258 BCE -- CE 226) received an envoy
from the emperor of China [Ghirshman 1971:69]. The arrival of caravans
of goods from Western Central Asia to the oases of the Tarim Basin and
other overland trade routes of the 'Silk Road' as far as Chinese
Turkestan resulted in much intercourse between China and its tributary
states with Western Asia [Arberry 1953:25].
By the third century CE,
Parthian Empire's trade routes were extended in the maritime ports of
Southeast Asia as far as the Malay Peninsula's international port of Tun-sun,
where the Iranian merchants had established settlements with no less
than 500 residents [Wheatley 1964:47]. Their activities extended to the
Indo-Chinese port of Tonking as such accounts on sea trade activities of
the Parthians were recorded by K'ang T'ai, Wu dynasty's envoy to the
kingdom of Funan in the delta of the Mekong in the first period of the
third century of the Christian era.
China had been prevented
by Parthia to receive envoys from Byzantium through Iranian territory
and was also denied direct access to the Mediterranean trade on
geopolitical considerations. As such the Chinese in pursuit of an
alternative trade route away from Central-Asian overland routes under
Parthian control were keeping an eye on Parthia's trade expansion on the
maritime routes of Southeast Asia [Wolters 1970:20,22,25].
Around this time, a
technical innovation in the shipbuilding industry of the Persian Gulf
resulted in the construction of vessels with a rig that accommodated the
ships to sail nearer the wind. The knowledge of this innovative
development spread along the shores of the Indian Ocean and further East
[Wheatley 1964:34] at a time when the Sasanian dynasty replaced the
Parthians in Iran, and a more intensified period of Iranian cultural
presence became felt in Southeast Asia as the Sasanids monopolized the
maritime trade of the Far Eastern routes after the fourth century CE,
having made profitable treaties with the Chinese who referred in their
historical records to the ships of the 'Posse', or the Iranian
trade. The Iranians were the "carriers" of this trade [Moorhead
1965:59] and many vessels traveled from southern China to Vietnam, and
the Malay Pennisula in the direction of India, Roman Orient and Western
Asia. China's Southern Dynasties (420-589) was involved in these
transactions with the Sasanids [Wolters 1970:1].
Under these
circumstances, Iranian ships with up to seven sails carrying as many as
700 seamen and "a thousand metric tons of cargo" were plying in the
Indian Ocean in the direction of sea routes further East [Quaritch Wales
1965:41]. Vietnam was a major trade destination for the Iranian ships
and many of their merchants were established in the ports of Nam-Viet
[Schafer 1967:180], as there was extensive intercourse between Sasanid
Iran and Vietnam [Buttinger 1958:244] as late as the Chinese T'ang era
when Iranian merchants established settlements in Canton and other
Chinese ports as well [Schafer 1976:28].
Indeed, there is
evidence to show that Sasanid Iran exerted strong influences in Vietnam,
China and elsewhere in Southeast Asian world. These influences were
partly inspired by the golden age of Sasanian civilization which
coincided with the reign of Kuusru Anushirwan (531-579) in Iran. Under
this Sasanin king, better known as "Anushirwan The Just", Iranian
culture and metamorphosis spread to the Far East. Anushirwan attracted
numerous scholars and artisans to his court whose splendor and luxury
"were unsurpassed by that of any dynasty in the world's history" [Sykes
1963:465]. Anushirwan promoted the establishment of universities, where
scholars from India, Greece and Asia Minor indulged in various studies
on medicine, agriculture and sciences.
His court was a center
of East-West conferences of philosophers from various parts of the
world. Champa kingdom CE 150-1471 located east of Cambodia in southern
area of Vietnam neighbouring Annam benefited from the reign of Khusru
Anushirwan and the presence of Iranian settlers. As Schafer has pointed
out Sasanian cosmology was known to the Chams who had compiled the 'Book
of Anushirwan', a cosmological work which is said to be "sacred to the
Chams" [Schafer 1967:270, 325]. Schafer has further clarified that in
contemporary Vietnam, an Islamized people who reside in the villages of
the south, called "Orang Bani" claim descendancy from "Noursavan", who
was their first king; a name which is interpreted to be a term of
reference to Sasanid Anushirwan the Just of Iran [Schafer 1967:11].
There is also a recorded tradition for the exchange of correspondence
between the Khagan of Tibet and Anushirwan who received a letter from
the Khagan, and direct contact of Tibetan court nobles with the Sasanian
dynasty. In this respect, imperial Sasanian impact on Tibetan court
culture has been recognized in the adoption of Sasanian style robes by
the Tibetan nobles [Flood 1991:31].
Iranian cosmology in the
Sasanian period was a doctrine which centered on Mazdean interpretations
of the Zoroastrian faith. It was a philosophical metamorphosis which
"supported the power of the ruler, regarded as just king who preserved
harmony between the different classes of society" [Hourani 1991:9]. In
this context, Anushirwan's character appealed to the Oriental rulers who
recognized his reign to symbolize strength and justice. It is
noteworthy that long before the transmission of Sasanian cultural
impact, Vietnam had been receptive to Indo-Iranian and kin-Iranian
influences entering her shores as early as the first century CE, when
Indo-Scythian Buddhist monks reached here to propagate the Mahayana
doctrine.
By the end of the second
century CE, K'ang Seng-hui, the famed Sogdian monk reached Vietnam from
China and introduced his teachings and translations of Central
Asian-impulsed Buddhist scriptures [Nguyen 1993:98]. Mahayana Buddhism
as a syncretic religious system was associated with higher learnings in
philosophy and arts, and it is conceivable that the Indo-Scythians, and
Sogdians and other Central-Asiatic peoples of Zoroastrian cultural orbit
had exerted influences on Buddhism some of which had also been adopted
by the Vietnamese aristocrats who welcomed Mahayanist traditions at a
time when the Parthian Empire was increasing its commercial presence
along Southeast Asian coasts. Moreover, Sogdiana from where K'ang
Seng-hui hailed was a Western Central-Asian state whose merchants had
established settlements in the Far East since the pre-Christian Era in
places as far as Mongolia and China [Frye 1963:235]. The discovery of
Sogdian inscriptions in Inner Tibet and in Western Himalayas [Flood
1991:32] and the spread of its kin-Iranian cultural sphere in Southeast
Asia are among the cultural factors in support of the argument for the
impact of the diffusion of Partho-Sasanid culture and cosmology in
Southeast Asia.
I-tsing (I-Ching), a
Chinese Buddhist pilgrim monk who was aboard a Iranian ship in 671 CE,
just a few years after the end of Sasanid Era, has provided an
interesting account of the routes taken by the vessel on its way to Sre
Vijaya where he intended to stay. According to I-tsing, the Iranian
ship left a Chinese port toward Annam in northern Vietnam and then
proceeded to Sri Vijaya. As I-tsing has clarified, the voyage could
involve sailing directly or around the coasts of Cambodia, Siam, and the
MalayPeninsula [Majumdar 1986:27-8]. Thus, from I-tsing's report we
have a vivid picture of the maritime trade of "the ships of Posse" in
Indochina as well as the directions through which cultural and
cosmologicalsphere of Sasanid Iran reached Southeast Asian ports of
southern Vietnam under Champa rule.
Nowadays archaeological
finds around the peninsular areas of Southeast Asia have also shed light
on the extent of Sasanian presence which also confirms the accuracy of
I-tsing's accounts. Discovery of Sasanian coins in the southern coast
of Siam (Thailand) at Yarang in the Pattani area, which date from the
fifth century CE [Srisuchat 1990:28], and two silver coins of the
Abbasid Dynasty (CE 750-1258) at the Merbok estuary near the city state
of Tan-Tan in the Malay Peninsula [Wheatley 1964:75], and another find
of a Sasanian cabochon at Oc Eo port of Funan, situated in the lower
valley of the Mekong [Myers; Trewin 1988:138] are further testimony to a
significant role of the Iranian world in the trade and cultural
enhancements of the states along the peninsular regions of Southeast
Asia.
Iranian sea-borne trade
in Southeast Asia was maintained until after the eighth century in the
very same routes as before. In CE 771, a famous passenger whose ship
was escorted by 35 Iranian vessels to Sri Vijaya on its way to China was
no other than Vajrabodi the Buddhist master of the Tantric sect [Majumdar
1986:28]. Between CE 670 to 673, Sasanid princes and court nobles of
Iranian who had survived the Muslim conquest of their country took
refuge in Central Asian states loyal to Sasanian dynasty and from its
overland routes arrived in China, having, thus "initiated a new wave of
Iranian influences" in China [Ghirshman 1971:92], and laid the
foundations of "Sino-Persian" arts some of which "caught the fancy of
the Nara court" further East in the Islands of Japan [Hayashi
1975:85,88,96-8, 129]. Indeed the extent of this rich cultural impact
from the direction of Sasanian civilization to the Far East was
symbolized in the ninth century CE by the Chinese Wang Chien who wrote:
"The families of Lo-yang learn Iranian music". Inside Iran after the
rise of the Abbasids, indigenous traditions in arts, crafts and other
cultural achievements of the Sasanides were retained to such an extent
that the Abbasid rule became known as the "neo-Sasanian Empire" [Hayashi
1975:85,97]. Altogether since the age of sea trade expansion of Parthian empire in South East Asiauntil the reign of Sasanid Khusru Anushirwan, Indochinese peoples were already familiar with cultural symbols of the Iranian world, which at the time of Anushirwan's era reached its zenith in Cham-Viet areas of Southeast Asia thanks to this monarch's cosmopolitan visions and his 'justice', which took firm roots in Cham cosmology un 'The Book of Anushirwant', and later on also in the Malay Peninsula where references to the Justice of Anushirwan can be found in the literary heritage of Malaysia in 'Sejara Melayu' [Brown 1970:5], where the mention of 'Raja Nushirwan Adil' probably denotes the Malay term for 'Anushirwan The Just'.
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