The ancients called a remote province in northern Afghanistan, Balkh. The region’s peaks are steeped in mythology, its valleys produced grains and prophets, and its spiritual roots are buried in the darkest recesses of antiquity. Balkh was a kingdom were religious tolerance was commonly practiced.
Exiles of religious or imperial persecution sought refuge behind its remote city walls. The people of Balkh absorbed the teachings of Zoroaster, shared the lessons of the Buddha, and were transformed by Mohammed’s revelations. The artists of Balkh were the first to render images of the Buddha.
Balkh is one of the holiest regions in Afghanistan; a country then known as Bactria. Balkh is the birthplace of the prophet Zoroaster. He played as a child among its fields of wheat, swam in the currents of the Oxus, and promulgated one of the world’s first monotheistic theologies— Zoroastrianism. Balkh’s citizens were the first souls to receive his teachings. They were the last to witness his final breath on Earth.
The province’s dominant feature is a fertile valley hemmed in by the Pamir Mountains in the north and the Hindu-Kush range in the south. Mazar-e-sharif, its principle modern city, resides in the heart of the region. The fabled Oxus (Amu Darya) River, born from glaciers in the Pamirs, runs through the Balkh valley and begins its 1,500-mile journey north to feed the Aral Sea.
The Arrival of Buddhism in Central Asia
Trapusa and Bhallika, two merchant brothers from Balkh, traveling on business in India met the Buddha and made offerings. They were the first laymen to receive the Buddha’s teachings. Only weeks removed from attaining enlightenment, the Buddha expounded the Five Commandments and the Ten Virtues to the brothers. Upon receiving the Buddha’s wisdom they requested objects to bring back with them to Balkh to worship. The Buddha bestowed on them eight strands of his hair and nail clippings.
Upon their return, one brother constructed stuppas across the land, laying the foundation for a Buddhist community that would thrive in Central Asia. Nava Vihara was the most prominent of the early monasteries. It was built in Gandhara, on the northwest side of the Khyber Pass, near present-day Jalalabad.
Nava Vihara became a holy pilgrimage site and the prominent center of higher Buddhist thought in Central Asia for a thousand years. Nava Vihara hosted the relics the Buddha gifted Trapusa and Bhallika after they received his teaching. Buddhist pilgrims descended on the holy site to view those gifts and to receive blessings from an additional potent relic: the Buddha’s skull—housed and guarded in the monastery after the Buddha’s physical departure from earth.
A History of Diversity in Afghanistan
When Alexander marched through Bactria in 329 BCE he wrestled it away from his freshly vanquished foe, the Achaemenid Empire. The progeny of Alexander’s conquering generals, the Seleucids, ruled Persia, Bactria, and Gandhara until the Sakas invaded Bactria in 139 BCE. Around the same period, the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka marched his army out of the Indus River Valley and pushed the Seleucids out of Gandhara.
A steady succession of conquerors invaded the region over the next 900 years. The Tocharians descended upon Bactria out of the Eurasian steppe, assimilating with the remaining Saka population. They established the Kushan Empire during Christ’s lifetime. The Kushans were deposed by the Sassanids of Persia; who re-ignited the Zoroastrian faith in the fire temples of Bactria and Sogdiana.
The Hephthalite Huns burst out of the steppe in the fifth century CE, ripping Sogdiana and Bactria from the weakened reign of the Sassanids. The Arab conquest of Asia, gathering speed by 650 CE, would gradually induce the Sassanids into submission and weaken Hephthalite control of Bactria. But the city-states of Sogdiana and Bactria proved more recalcitrant.
The armies of Islam would cyclically invade and retreat from Bactria over a 100-year span. The Islamic conversion of the hearts and minds of Bactria would occur in phases. But the Islamic shahs of Bactria entertained a degree of autonomy from Baghdad and continued to practice religious tolerance—until the advent of Tamerlane’s empire in 1370 CE.
Islam in Central Asia and Peaceful Coexistence
Bactria was too remote for the Umayyads in Damascus or the Abbasids in Baghdad to maintain an intimate dominance. Bactrians were accustomed to borrowing ideas from different religions, and assimilating new ones. They did not share a proclivity for the rigorous orthodoxies of Persepolis or Mecca.
When the Abbasids gained firm control of Bactria they borrowed from antiquity an administrative system to ensure coexistence—poll taxes. All non-Muslim males were obligated to pay an annual or seasonal poll tax to observe their own religions. Each religion was permitted to maintain existing temples and monasteries. New ones could be built with permission from the local shah or sultan. But evangelizing any non-Muslim doctrines was strictly not tolerated, and proselytizers were tried as heretics.
The conversion of Bactria into an united Islamic kingdom was not the sole cause of Buddhism’s decline in Central Asia. Other factors influenced the fate of Buddhism in Balkh and Bactria. Zoroaster laid a solid foundation of monotheistic principles that transcended the obstacles of culture and language and took root long before Mohammed roamed the Arabian Desert. Like many religious movements before it, Islam traveled in caravans and on foot across Central Asia. Bactrian and Sogdian merchants who converted more for the allure of political and economic stability, transmitted Islam to their contacts throughout the Silk Road.
Author Sunil S.
Exiles of religious or imperial persecution sought refuge behind its remote city walls. The people of Balkh absorbed the teachings of Zoroaster, shared the lessons of the Buddha, and were transformed by Mohammed’s revelations. The artists of Balkh were the first to render images of the Buddha.
Balkh is one of the holiest regions in Afghanistan; a country then known as Bactria. Balkh is the birthplace of the prophet Zoroaster. He played as a child among its fields of wheat, swam in the currents of the Oxus, and promulgated one of the world’s first monotheistic theologies— Zoroastrianism. Balkh’s citizens were the first souls to receive his teachings. They were the last to witness his final breath on Earth.
The province’s dominant feature is a fertile valley hemmed in by the Pamir Mountains in the north and the Hindu-Kush range in the south. Mazar-e-sharif, its principle modern city, resides in the heart of the region. The fabled Oxus (Amu Darya) River, born from glaciers in the Pamirs, runs through the Balkh valley and begins its 1,500-mile journey north to feed the Aral Sea.
The Arrival of Buddhism in Central Asia
Trapusa and Bhallika, two merchant brothers from Balkh, traveling on business in India met the Buddha and made offerings. They were the first laymen to receive the Buddha’s teachings. Only weeks removed from attaining enlightenment, the Buddha expounded the Five Commandments and the Ten Virtues to the brothers. Upon receiving the Buddha’s wisdom they requested objects to bring back with them to Balkh to worship. The Buddha bestowed on them eight strands of his hair and nail clippings.
Upon their return, one brother constructed stuppas across the land, laying the foundation for a Buddhist community that would thrive in Central Asia. Nava Vihara was the most prominent of the early monasteries. It was built in Gandhara, on the northwest side of the Khyber Pass, near present-day Jalalabad.
Nava Vihara became a holy pilgrimage site and the prominent center of higher Buddhist thought in Central Asia for a thousand years. Nava Vihara hosted the relics the Buddha gifted Trapusa and Bhallika after they received his teaching. Buddhist pilgrims descended on the holy site to view those gifts and to receive blessings from an additional potent relic: the Buddha’s skull—housed and guarded in the monastery after the Buddha’s physical departure from earth.
A History of Diversity in Afghanistan
When Alexander marched through Bactria in 329 BCE he wrestled it away from his freshly vanquished foe, the Achaemenid Empire. The progeny of Alexander’s conquering generals, the Seleucids, ruled Persia, Bactria, and Gandhara until the Sakas invaded Bactria in 139 BCE. Around the same period, the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka marched his army out of the Indus River Valley and pushed the Seleucids out of Gandhara.
A steady succession of conquerors invaded the region over the next 900 years. The Tocharians descended upon Bactria out of the Eurasian steppe, assimilating with the remaining Saka population. They established the Kushan Empire during Christ’s lifetime. The Kushans were deposed by the Sassanids of Persia; who re-ignited the Zoroastrian faith in the fire temples of Bactria and Sogdiana.
The Hephthalite Huns burst out of the steppe in the fifth century CE, ripping Sogdiana and Bactria from the weakened reign of the Sassanids. The Arab conquest of Asia, gathering speed by 650 CE, would gradually induce the Sassanids into submission and weaken Hephthalite control of Bactria. But the city-states of Sogdiana and Bactria proved more recalcitrant.
The armies of Islam would cyclically invade and retreat from Bactria over a 100-year span. The Islamic conversion of the hearts and minds of Bactria would occur in phases. But the Islamic shahs of Bactria entertained a degree of autonomy from Baghdad and continued to practice religious tolerance—until the advent of Tamerlane’s empire in 1370 CE.
Islam in Central Asia and Peaceful Coexistence
Bactria was too remote for the Umayyads in Damascus or the Abbasids in Baghdad to maintain an intimate dominance. Bactrians were accustomed to borrowing ideas from different religions, and assimilating new ones. They did not share a proclivity for the rigorous orthodoxies of Persepolis or Mecca.
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When the Abbasids gained firm control of Bactria they borrowed from antiquity an administrative system to ensure coexistence—poll taxes. All non-Muslim males were obligated to pay an annual or seasonal poll tax to observe their own religions. Each religion was permitted to maintain existing temples and monasteries. New ones could be built with permission from the local shah or sultan. But evangelizing any non-Muslim doctrines was strictly not tolerated, and proselytizers were tried as heretics.
The conversion of Bactria into an united Islamic kingdom was not the sole cause of Buddhism’s decline in Central Asia. Other factors influenced the fate of Buddhism in Balkh and Bactria. Zoroaster laid a solid foundation of monotheistic principles that transcended the obstacles of culture and language and took root long before Mohammed roamed the Arabian Desert. Like many religious movements before it, Islam traveled in caravans and on foot across Central Asia. Bactrian and Sogdian merchants who converted more for the allure of political and economic stability, transmitted Islam to their contacts throughout the Silk Road.
Author Sunil S.
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