History of Central Asia

The Establishment of the Jurchen Empire The Jurchen were a Tungusic Manchu people whose homeland was in northern Manchuria and the adjacent region of southeastern Siberia across the Amur River. They were for­est dwellers whom the Khitans conscripted for their ritual hunts....

The remainder of the Umayyad period over the ensuing years of the first half of the eighth century saw a bewildering frequent change of alliances as even more powers entered the fray for control of West Turkistan and the Silk Route. Through a review of the main events, it will...

The Initial Military Drive across Northern India In 1148, Ala-ud-Din of the nomadic Guzz Turks from the mountains of Afghanistan conquered the region of Ghur in eastern Iran, which gave its name to his Ghurid Empire (1148 – 1215). He proceeded to take Bactria from the...

This bibliography, compiled in 1996, contains materials for supplementing "The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire" from the previous Berzin Archives website with further parts on the Mongol and Post-Mongol Periods.]...

Kalachakra texts have molded their description of cycles of history, such as their containing a future Armageddon battle against non-Indic invaders and the dawning of a new golden age, to fit the structure of its meditation practice.

With an eye toward countering the growing Chinese presence and influence in the Central Asian Islamic Republics such as Uzbekistan, there has been a need to re-establish the historical links between the Tibetan, Mongolian and Central Asian Turkic peoples.

Buddhism spread to West Turkistan (the present-day former Soviet Islamic republics of Central Asia) in the 1st century BCE and was present there, at various times, until the mid-18th century.

Buddhism flourished along the Silk Route in East Turkistan (present-day Xinjiang in the People’s Republic of China) from the 1st century BCE until the 14th century CE and is present even today among the Kalmyk Mongols in the north of the province.

The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE) was the first Arab empire in the Middle East. It was the first Muslim empire to interact with Buddhists in parts of Central Asia and the western regions of the Indian subcontinent.

People know of the Muslim concept of jihad or holy war or the Crusades of Christianity, but do not usually view Buddhism as having anything similar. A careful examination of the Buddhist texts, however, particularly “The Kalachakra Tantra” literature, reveals both external and...