Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Treasure: Silk Road Buddhist burial mound

Thursday, June 6, 2024

Treasure: Silk Road Buddhist burial mound

Buddhist monks sit, admiring a great Buddhist stupa in Sanchi, India (robertharding.com)

A discovery of artifacts, recovered from a 2,000-year-old burial mound, shows off a little-known society’s sophistication and deep connections to the Silk Road (Jordi Salas/Getty Images)

Afghan burial mound carved from solid rock

A discovery of artifacts [reported today, June 6, 2024, on MSN from Popular Mechanics based on Live Science, May 30, 2024], recovered from a 2,000-year-old burial mound (Buddhist stupa), shows off a little-known society’s sophistication and deep connections to the Silk Road (extending into Kucha and onward to China).

The Kangju people lived in Central Asia (southern Kazakhstan) for nearly a millennium, but experts know very little about them.

World famous Buddhist stupa, Sanchi, India

A new discovery of artifacts, recovered from a 2,000-year-old [Buddhist] burial mound (stupa), shows off this little-known society’s sophistication and its deep connections to the ancient Silk Road (not "road" but trade route between East and West).

Featuring a brass mirror from China and a Roman-style brooch, this treasure trove reveals the intimate evidence of the world’s first major attempt at globalization.

[This was by no means the first attempt at globalization because many times in the past, the world was united, connected, and following a global culture, religion, leader known as a world monarch or chakravartin, according to the ancient Vedas and other sources].

Buddhist stupas (burial mounds) are based on ancient North and Central Asian custom.

Tummulus of Bougon, neolithic kurgan, barrow

For around 800 years (from the 4th century BCE to the 4th century CE), a people group known as the Kangju flourished in what is now southern Kazakhstan.

Despite this relatively long reign in Central Asia, the unknowns of this ancient society far outweigh the knowns.

The Buddha was from this general area, ancient Indo-Scythia, Gandhara, Central Asia, now the Stans (Sakastan), which includes the massive area known as Kazakhstan, made infamous by Borat (Sascha Cohen).

Buddhist stupa, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia

Experts know, for example, that the people had Indo-European origins, spoke an Eastern Iranian [Aryan] language, and likely practiced a semi-nomadic [Scythian] way of life — a common choice among people groups in Central Asian and the Eurasian steppe.

Everything else has been slowly pieced together from pottery and other artifacts left behind for someone to eventually find.

Now, a new treasure trove of artifacts (livescience.com) has been discovered in 2,000-year-old burial mounds in the ancient Kangju region.

Kyrgyzstan (The Great Patron of Buddhism)

These items include jewelry, arrowheads, and a large bronze mirror — all of which speak to the Kangju’s sophistication.

Kazakhstan lies at the heart of what would’ve been the ancient Silk Road, and the items reflect the impact of this ancient-world globalization. The mirror, for example, has been traced to the craftsmen of China’s Han Dynasty, which reigned from 206 BCE to 220 CE. Similar mirrors have been found among the discarded detritus of other civilizations along the ancient Silk Road, likely meaning that the woman buried with the mirror was someone of considerable wealth or importance.

Afghan Takht-e Rostam (Gandhara)

However, China wasn’t the Kangju’s only trading partner. The ancient people likely also traded with the Roman Empire and the Kushan Empire, another Central Asian power to the south.

To uncover these items, a team of experts from Ozbekali Zhanibekov University — located in the city of Shymkent along the border with [formerly Buddhist] Uzbekistan — and local government archaeologists traveled to three burial mounds in the oblast (administrative region) of Turkistan.

As is often the case when exploring ancient [Buddhist] ruins, two of the mounds had already been plundered, likely during medieval times. But the third mound still had ancient wonders lying in wait.

An ancient stupa in formerly Buddhist now Islamic Swat Valley of Pakistan (NW India)

Central Asian Buddhist pyramid (yantra, mandala, square stupa, Gandhara (Newsweek, AA1jFN5l)

[See Bones of the Buddha, a documentary that shows the many Buddhist treasures discovered under a burial mound and removed to England, where they sit under a bed of a young man who inherited them from his relative, who discovered them. They were not placed in a museum as priceless treasures because the site they were found did not agree with the popular conception of which current country the Buddha's relics were buried. In fact, according to the ancient texts, the relics were partitioned and buried in eight places, one of them off-planet in a world of devas (ETs). The Buddha was not from Nepal, but that is what we are taught, so sometimes India and Nepal debate where he was raised and where his remains must have been placed. He was raised in ancient Gandhara (modern Bamiyan, Afghanistan, according to Indian historian Dr. Ranajit Pal, but it is known that he was raised in three seasonal capitals, all simply called "Kapilavastu," which Wisdom Quarterly proposes included modern Kabul (the strategic modern capital of Afghanistan) and Mes Aynak (the world's largest unexcavated Buddhist monastic complex and rare earth goldmine).]

Stupas may be ancient features in the Southwest

According to a press release translated from the Kazakh language, experts also found other items — including ornate earrings, a belt buckle, and a Roman brooch — that once again emphasized the mound’s advantageous position along the Silk Road.

The leader of this archeological expedition, Ozbekali Zhanibekov University’s Prof. Aleksandr Podushkin, said that the Yangju were actually comprised of many different people, including the Asian Sarmatians, the Xiongnu, the Kangyu, and the subsequent Saki [Sakai, Saka, Shakya, Shakyian, the Buddha's group] (who were, possibly, the famous Scythians).

Prof. Podushkin has published some 90 articles related the peoples of southern Kazakhstan, and some of his previous work (silkroadfoundation.org) involved analyzing the religious beliefs of the Kangju from artifacts gathered from Ugam Valley, which is also located in the Turkistan region.

Now, these relics will travel to the capital city of Astana and be housed in the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan. As experts like Prof. Podushkin continue to find these hidden treasures, over time, the largely blurry image of this people group of Central Asia should slowly begin to come into focus. More: Archaeologists found stunning treasure buried by a mysterious forgotten tribe