While Berthold Laufer's pioneering Sino-Iranica (1919) remains an oft-cited work of scholarship, revealing many important ties between Chinese and Iranian civilizations (among others), a number of insights and problems raised in that highly regarded study have yet to be built upon, even after more than a century. Jeffrey Kotyk's book builds on the seminal research of Laufer and others to offer a new general survey of relations between East and West Asia during much of the first millennium ce. In the years since Sino-Iranica's publication, Kotyk identifies East Asia's interactions with West Asia as remaining understudied relative to those with India and Central Asia. Thus, the present study also looks at the impact of trade from West Asia on the geopolitics and religions of East Asia. The author states that the book's approach is intentionally not exhaustive on the myriad of subjects included, rather it is intended to be a general “readable guidebook” on Sino-Iranian relations (p. 7). Given the wide-ranging nature of this book, this short review is limited to a general analysis alongside a few choice comments.
The content is divided between eight chapters starting with the introduction (chapter 1), which locates the book within existing scholarship. Beginning with the Han envoy Zhang Qian's 張騫 landmark mission to the lands west of China, chapters 2 (China and Parthia) and 3 (Sino-Iranian relations in the Sasanian period) overview a millennium of recorded Sino-Iranian relations, including geopolitics, which gives the reader the necessary chronology and background for the particular case studies in the subsequent chapters. The less-discussed topic of “the Buddhist encounter with Persia” (p. 79) is the subject of chapter 4 (Chinese Buddhists and Persia). The author marshals little-cited descriptions of Persia in Buddhist primary sources, which reflect outsider perceptions of the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism and Persian customs. The next chapter (Iranian religions in China – adaptation and integration) considers the presence of Zoroastrians, Christians, and Manichaeans in Tang China, including that “some ‘occult lore’ also filtered into Buddhism and Daoism” (p. 103). Covering a topic on which the author is already a noted specialist, chapter 6 (Astrology and astral magic) shows the important contribution of “Iranian elements” within the corpus of foreign astrology that circulated in Tang China; this chapter also includes 11 high-quality images.
The book's longest chapter (7, Material and commercial culture) continues the kind of philological investigations characteristic of Sino-Iranica. Kotyk makes particular use of Buddhist sources to show how materials from the Iranian world unintentionally “facilitated the material culture of Buddhism in China” (p. 256). Notably, the author revisits Laufer's case that the Chinese term Bosi 波斯, used during the Tang and for some time thereafter, not only referred to Persia but could also denote a distinct polity in Southeast Asia. Concluding that certain Chinese accounts conflate Sasanian Persia with what the author believes is a separate seafaring nation, Kotyk suggests, “Barus is the optimal candidate for the puzzling seafaring Bosi, who were located somewhere in relation to Pyu in Myanmar…”. Closing the book, chapter 8 (The early accounts of Islam and Arab states in Chinese sources) looks at what happened to East and West Asian relations following the fall of the Sasanians. The chapter also highlights the importance of considering the often-neglected contemporary Chinese accounts of the early rise of Islam.
Throughout, the book makes effective use of primary sources and material objects from Japan, such as a late-ninth-century Japanese bibliography containing titles of works from China not found in any other surviving sources, including Script Forms of the Country of Persia, one fascicle (波斯國字樣一卷) (p. 60). The erstwhile existence of this relatively short work shows that Persian was formally studied in East Asia during the late first millennium ce, though the circulation of such a reference book was probably quite limited. The author also demonstrates a thorough grasp of the relevant secondary literature in Japanese to great effect. Regarding the early eighth century Tongdian's 通典 curious use of the word Hu 胡 (a vague ethnonym that, at times, referred to the Sogdians) to designate the Arabs fighting against Persia (Bosi), Kotyk intriguingly suggests the term there indicated “herders of camels” (p. 264), given general Chinese stereotypes linking the Hu and camels.
On p. 174, a rare textual error should presumably read, “As discussed in Chapter 5” instead of Chapter 6. The single occurrence of the vague and dated “Caucasian phenotype” seemed unnecessary (p. 138). Regarding a Chinese text mentioning a certain “Persian heterodox” (Bosi waidao 波斯外道) that accompanied a Uyghur diplomatic mission, the author presumes “a reference to Manichaeans”, though a Christian reference seems far more likely given the remarkably consistent use of the term Bosi – in both transmitted and manuscript sources – to refer to Christianity instead of Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism. The author, however, seems entirely correct in understanding this particular occurrence of Bosi to denote “a religious group, rather than an ethnic identity” (p. 33). Saeki's oft-repeated dating of a Christian family's arrival in China to 578 ce is criticized as “erroneous” (p. 106, n. 8) but without further explanation. None of these minor critiques, however, detract from the overall quality of this study.
This book is indeed a valuable general guide in the study of relations between East and West Asia. As Laufer and others have already shown, Chinese primary sources “fill in gaps” for many fields beyond just Sinology, and Kotyk's contribution further underscores this reality. The book also highlights the wide-ranging insights that can be gleaned from studying the “Iranian” religions present in Tang China, especially Christianity. The author certainly bolsters the case for the existence of a distinct polity in Southeast Asia that was also called Bosi in Chinese texts, though, to this reviewer, the extent and nature of Persian (Bosi) involvement in the maritime trade of Southeast Asia remains unresolved.
