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Book: The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma by Thant Myint-U
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Authors: Thant Myint-U
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strongly reminiscent of the art of the distant Ordos Desert in Inner Mongolia. There are likely other cultures to be found. Only in 1986 did archaeologists, by chance, discover the hundreds of beautiful and mysterious bronze masks and vessels of an entirely unknown civilization, believed to have flourished more than three thousand years ago, dissimilar to anything Chinese, in what is now Sichuan. Perhaps people in Burma were already, even two or three thousand years ago, aware of the wider world, borrowing ideas and foreign styles, and buying and selling goods from far away.
Sometime in 139 B . C . a Chinese official, Zhang Qian, set off fromthe imperial capital of Changan, then the richest and most powerful place in the entire world, accompanied by his loyal slave Kanfu and over a hundred aides and retainers. They were headed toward the unknown and seemingly endless grasslands to the west, with a mission to find allies against China’s barbarian enemies beyond the Great Wall. Zhang was destined to become one of the greatest explorers of ancient times. After many grueling years of travel and barbarian captivity, he eventually found his way across the desert wastes of the Tarim Basin to what is now Afghanistan, before returning home a hero to the Han court.
He told his mesmerized compatriots about the kingdoms of the Fergana Valley and Bactria, of Persia and Mesopotamia and India, places the Chinese had known nothing about. He told them about Persian wine and the Persian merchants who traveled in ships to faraway places, about the heat and humidity of the lands along the Arabian Sea, and about the war elephants of India. And he told them something startling and unexpected: that in the markets of Bactria, he saw cloth made in the Chinese province of Shu. Shu (or modern Sichuan) is far to the south. Had other Chinese travelers gone west before him? No, he was told, the cloth and the bamboo had come from India. There existed a southerly route, to India and from India to the West. 6
What Zhang Qian and the Han court had stumbled on was what merchants had long known: that there was a profitable traffic in all sorts of goods, from China down through the Irrawaddy Valley across to India and beyond. And the products of the Irrawaddy Valley and surrounding highlands were also traded: ivory and precious stones, gold and silver, the small and sturdy horses of the region, and, perhaps most desired of all, the handsome horns of the rhinoceros, endowed with magical and medicinal properties. 7
Soon there would be more trade, more contact, as ever more urbane Burmese kingdoms profited rather than let themselves be constrained by the valley’s geography. When envoys from the Roman east, perhaps Alexandria, journeyed across the Irrawaddy en route to China in A.D . 97, they were treading well-worn paths. 8 Later, when sailors were able to venture across the high seas, a different route, through the Straits of Malacca, would be the preferred way to the East. But for a brief moment Burma was on the highway of the world. And it was this already sophisticated and well-connected Burma that would reach decisively westward, to India, for inspiration.
FOUR
PIRATES AND PRINCES ALONG THE BAY OF BENGAL
Burma in early modern times—when China and the Islamic world loomed large and when the first Europeans arrived—and the Burmese image today of an all-conquering past
He hath not any army or power by sea, but in the land, for people, dominions, gold and silver, he farre exceeds the power of the Great Turke in treasure and strength.
—Caesar Frederick, a merchant of Venice 1
K ing Bayinnaung, who lived almost five hundred years ago, is the favorite king of Burma’s ruling generals. No one knows what he looked like, but big bronze statues of him, tall and imposing, with a broad-brimmed hat and a long ornamented sword, stare down impassively at passersby in airports, museums, and public parks all around the country. Whereas
Sometime in 139 B . C . a Chinese official, Zhang Qian, set off fromthe imperial capital of Changan, then the richest and most powerful place in the entire world, accompanied by his loyal slave Kanfu and over a hundred aides and retainers. They were headed toward the unknown and seemingly endless grasslands to the west, with a mission to find allies against China’s barbarian enemies beyond the Great Wall. Zhang was destined to become one of the greatest explorers of ancient times. After many grueling years of travel and barbarian captivity, he eventually found his way across the desert wastes of the Tarim Basin to what is now Afghanistan, before returning home a hero to the Han court.
He told his mesmerized compatriots about the kingdoms of the Fergana Valley and Bactria, of Persia and Mesopotamia and India, places the Chinese had known nothing about. He told them about Persian wine and the Persian merchants who traveled in ships to faraway places, about the heat and humidity of the lands along the Arabian Sea, and about the war elephants of India. And he told them something startling and unexpected: that in the markets of Bactria, he saw cloth made in the Chinese province of Shu. Shu (or modern Sichuan) is far to the south. Had other Chinese travelers gone west before him? No, he was told, the cloth and the bamboo had come from India. There existed a southerly route, to India and from India to the West. 6
What Zhang Qian and the Han court had stumbled on was what merchants had long known: that there was a profitable traffic in all sorts of goods, from China down through the Irrawaddy Valley across to India and beyond. And the products of the Irrawaddy Valley and surrounding highlands were also traded: ivory and precious stones, gold and silver, the small and sturdy horses of the region, and, perhaps most desired of all, the handsome horns of the rhinoceros, endowed with magical and medicinal properties. 7
Soon there would be more trade, more contact, as ever more urbane Burmese kingdoms profited rather than let themselves be constrained by the valley’s geography. When envoys from the Roman east, perhaps Alexandria, journeyed across the Irrawaddy en route to China in A.D . 97, they were treading well-worn paths. 8 Later, when sailors were able to venture across the high seas, a different route, through the Straits of Malacca, would be the preferred way to the East. But for a brief moment Burma was on the highway of the world. And it was this already sophisticated and well-connected Burma that would reach decisively westward, to India, for inspiration.
FOUR
PIRATES AND PRINCES ALONG THE BAY OF BENGAL
Burma in early modern times—when China and the Islamic world loomed large and when the first Europeans arrived—and the Burmese image today of an all-conquering past
He hath not any army or power by sea, but in the land, for people, dominions, gold and silver, he farre exceeds the power of the Great Turke in treasure and strength.
—Caesar Frederick, a merchant of Venice 1
K ing Bayinnaung, who lived almost five hundred years ago, is the favorite king of Burma’s ruling generals. No one knows what he looked like, but big bronze statues of him, tall and imposing, with a broad-brimmed hat and a long ornamented sword, stare down impassively at passersby in airports, museums, and public parks all around the country. Whereas
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