CROSS-CULTURAL MUSICAL PROCESSES AND RESULTS. MUSIC ALONG THE SILK ROUTE (FROM SECOND CENTURY B.C. TO TENTH CENTURY A. D.)

Abstract

In the late fourth century B.C., Alexander the Great and his troops crossed mid-Asia, occupied central Asia and marched into India, ultimately reaching the border with China. This invasion brought western culture, art and customs to the Orient. About the second century B.C. Emperor Han Wu-di sent his envoy Zhang Qian to the western regions. Zhang led a large diplomatic corps of three hundred dignitaries and succeeded in establishing friendly relations with Sarmak and Afghanistan, Persia, India and other countries in central Asia as far as the Roman Empire. The Han dynasty expanded the frontiers of China into Korea and Manchuria in the north, Indo-China in the south, and westward into Central Asia to the frontiers of Parthian Iran and Kushan India. The flow of cultural elements along the Silk Route continued for many centuries. At that time there had been established in China three roads that were used to transport silk from China to the West. The Desert Silk Route started at Chang-an, ran through Dun-huang and was then divided into two branches: the north and the south. The northern branch continued to Rome and the southern route passed trough Iran and India. In addition to the exchange of commercial items between the civilizations of the east and the west including musical instruments, there were also exchanges of concepts of spiritual matters and the aesthetics of music. The Silk Route brought to China the Graeco-Buddhist art and music of Afghanistan and of Punjab, as well as Indo-Buddhist music and art. The present study attempts to bring to light how the unique structural principles of song-poems were influenced by the airs and popular songs