Mahakhitan: A Chinese Buddhist Civilization in India

Thande

Donor
This is a very interesting and original concept. The difficulty is really getting the Khitai into India in the first place in any great numbers, though I guess just having a foreign ruling class in small numbers can have a big impact on India (as with Persian-derived dynasties in OTL).

If Wu Cheng'en is not butterflied away, I wonder what Journey to the West would be like in TTL - the Ming might have more knowledge of India, but on the other hand it might also be distorted by it being filtered through the Kara-Khitai regime.

Is "Rum" basically TTL's term for what in OTL we'd call Greece? It seems like the ERE has fared better than OTL.
Rum is the name used by lots of people at this time (e.g. the Seljuq Turks) to mean what we now call the Byzantine Empire (a name which was never used until after its end). It's simply the word 'Rome' rendered through other languages, though confusingly as you say that mostly ended up being applied to what in OTL is now Greece and Turkey because of where the Byzantines' power base was.
 
How do the Liao administer Sri Lanka owing to the great distance it has from the rest of the Empire?

CKII game mechanism allows for that. x'D Ask paradox.

In a more serious note, I don’t think we can inherit a distant kingdom in India like they do in Europe, we need a pretty strong navy for Liao to own so much oversea territory.

But to gain suzerainty over a small country and give them autonomy in exchange for tribute is okay, I suppose?
 
This is a very interesting and original concept. The difficulty is really getting the Khitai into India in the first place in any great numbers
I think the author has explained in the second update, that it was raiding at first, then some small bands of feudal statelets were set up, and that Khitai didn’t give their India much high regard until The Mongols were knocking on their door. They had to move to Indian if they want to survive.
If Wu Cheng'en is not butterflied away, I wonder what Journey to the West would be like in TTL - the Ming might have more knowledge of India, but on the other hand it might also be distorted by it being filtered through the Kara-Khitai regime.
Yes. The Xiyouji story was based on many old stories that already existed since Yuan Dynasty, as far as story goes it wouldn’t change much. But the Khitan concept of kingship would be highly influenced by Buddhism, which was where their legitimacy came from, they would try to sell a Dharma-king image of themselves. This may in turn affect Ming’s view in Buddha.
Rum is the name used by lots of people at this time (e.g. the Seljuq Turks) to mean what we now call the Byzantine Empire (a name which was never used until after its end). It's simply the word 'Rome' rendered through other languages, though confusingly as you say that mostly ended up being applied to what in OTL is now Greece and Turkey because of where the Byzantines' power base was.

It’s Fulin, actually. Rome > Rum (suffix dropped in Arabic) > Urum (Turkic word can’t start with R) > Furum (Random F in aded in middle Chinese) > Fulin (sound changes in modern Chinese)
 

Thande

Donor
Yes. The Xiyouji story was based on many old stories that already existed since Yuan Dynasty, as far as story goes it wouldn’t change much. But the Khitan concept of kingship would be highly influenced by Buddhism, which was where their legitimacy came from, they would try to sell a Dharma-king image of themselves. This may in turn affect Ming’s view in Buddha.
I'm aware it's a much older story, I was just talking about how Wu depicted India in it might change due to this. Good point about the latter.

It’s Fulin, actually. Rome > Rum (suffix dropped in Arabic) > Urum (Turkic word can’t start with R) > Furum (Random F in aded in middle Chinese) > Fulin (sound changes in modern Chinese)
Indeed, but he was asking specifically about the term Rum. Interesting to see how it gets rendered into Chinese though!
 
It nice to see a tl with lots of Visual elements. Modern architecture in India must look really different if the tempel scetch is an example for the common liao architecture.
 
CKII game mechanism allows for that. x'D Ask paradox.

In a more serious note, I don’t think we can inherit a distant kingdom in India like they do in Europe, we need a pretty strong navy for Liao to own so much oversea territory.

But to gain suzerainty over a small country and give them autonomy in exchange for tribute is okay, I suppose?
Sri Lanka/Ceylon is a fellow Buddhist realm, you could have the king there asking the Khitans for protection (vassalage) against the Hindu Indian kingdoms.
 
I am very interested in this, though I know almost nothing about any of the cultures at play here. However, I think the idea of cultural fusion is a fascinating one, and the ability of "Chinese" (for lack of a better word) culture to adapt and fuse with others around it is really distinct and has a lot of possibilities.
 
This is a highly interesting idea, though the fact that Kara-Khitai has such a low population means that it would surely quickly be India-dominated if it lasts long enough with little real Chinese migration. I would also question how they spread into highly mountainous Himachal and J&K if I didn’t realize that this were a Paradox game.
 
Chapter 4: Shangjing, a Dream of Splendour
Chapter 4: Shangjing, a Dream of Splendour 上京煙雲


This chapter deals with the first phase of Khitan Architectural History, using Shangjing (the Upper Capital, 上京) Balasagun for case study.


This Balasagun is based only on archaeological data that are available to us, but the architectures we will discuss in this passage, many of them never existed in our timeline.


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The picture shows Zhaode Gate, the Upper Capital


The Mahakhitan art, in the course of its migrations, displayed an intriguing case of the “snowball effect”, by absorbing aesthetic and design elements from adjacent civilizations along the way…


Hold on, I find it too dry to write in the manner of an architectural history or urban planning history, so, let’s tell it through a story.


Section One: Liao’s handling of the Qocho Rebellion, has made itself heavily influenced by Qocho Uyghur aesthetics, laying the foundations for the Liao's styles during the Shangjing Period.


In 1133, the Qocho Uyghur Kingdom, which has already become a Liao client state, co-conspired with the Tangut Xixia, and raised a surprising rebellion on the Liao by intercepting its supply line during a Khitan-Tangut border conflict. The Liao States at that time had just completed an expedition on the Kirgiz, and was exhausted. Dashi lead a personal campaign on the rebels, sustained a few wounds by arrow, spent two years, and finally defeated multiple Qocho and Tangut armies. The city of Qocho fell. After the battle, Yelu Dashi, with firm resolves, abolished the Qocho Idiqut State, and created prefectures and counties out of the oasis of Qocho, Beiting, Yiwu, and Agni, making them subjected to the Southern Administration.


The Khitans brought few craftsmen with them in their western expedition, especially the architects. After thoroughly conquering the Qocho, the Liao’s twenty thousand Khitans and Youzhou/Bingzhou Han Chinese were able to rule directly over nearly a million Qocho Uyghurs and Han Chinese of the Western Region. The Liao state recruited the Qocho Uyghurs and the Han Chinese as craftsmen, and filled up the huge gap. This naturally brought forth a Qocho style into the Liao State. Ten years on, when the Liao finally defeated the Karakhanids and Karluks, occupying the entire Chu River valley, and moved their capital to Balasagun, the construction of the new capital was mostly done by Qocho craftsmen.


(Sidenote: In the original timeline, the Qocho Uyghurs always kept a high degree of autonomy, so, IOTL, the Western Liao might not have received such a strong Uyghur influence.)


The Shangjing, or Upper Capital, of Balasagun


In the west bank of the Issyk Kul, or Warm Sea, the city of Balasagun situated in the midst of Chu River Valley, it was one of the capital of the Karakhanid Dynasty prior to Yelu Dashi’s arrival. When Yelu Dashi first came here in the 8th Year of Yanqing (1142), the city has a wall twelve Chinese miles long, a large population, and was a booming hub for merchants and travelers Surrounded by Sogdian and Turkic subjects who surrendered to him, Dashi crossed its threefold arches, and arrived at the middle courtyard covered with fresh rose pedals. However, regarding this “Pearl of the Tobgach Khan”, he made some simple remarks:

Yelu Dashi said:
It’s dark, narrow and cramped, not as free as in a Nabo.

A nabo is a Khitan tent.


Dashi named Balasagun “the Temporary Residence West of the Sea in Suyab Prefecture”, while his eyes were on the Chuy pastures. So, after half month living in the Karakhanid palaces, Dashi lead his court to the east of the river and set up a “Husi Ordu”(虎思斡耳朵), a five-Chinese-mile-long sky-blue city of yurts, and settled there. In the same time, new palaces were being built north of the old city. The old Karakhanid palace was donated to be a temple, that was what to become the Longzang Sangharama (Langzang Qielan 龍藏伽藍), one of the top three Buddhist temples in Shangjing.


The Khitans loved to live in high mansions. With the lack of good wood in the Western Region, the Qocho craftsmen, with their expertise in adobe construction, built a series of palaces with high platforms thirty-Chinese-feet-tall, as the Back Palace of the new complex. The high platforms were quite far from each other, with water flown in to make ponds, decorated with mountain flowers, grass and trees of the north, the visions of the landscape was wide and unobscured. In the nice and fragrant pastures, there were makeshift, mobile “moving palaces” of tents dotting the scene.


These palaces of mixed wood and adobe structure, were covered with glazed brick of five colours, and topped with pavilions. The Liao Empire once took pride in their buildings made of grand wooden structural components, but they had to be shrank and simplified in Balasagun, as the Qocho craftsmen never fully understood how the Sakya Pagoda and Guanyin Pavilion【2】, so touted about by the Khitan and Han Chinese mandarins, were actually built in their hometowns. In the less important buildings, the Qocho craftsmen shifted to the local practice, and replaced the wooden structures with brick vaults.

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Looking south to the direction of the Palace complex from Shangjing Imperial Park

(It’s so tiresome working with a computer, let me try pure hand drawing this time.)


The only building that never compromised in material, structure or scale was the Central Hall of the complex: the Zhaode Dian (昭德殿, Hall of Manifest Virtues). The huge pillars and beams of the Grand Hall has been taken from northern slope of Tianshan Mountains, transported to Balasagun by Kirgiz and Shatuo captives. The old Youzhou Han Chinese mandarins from Ministry of Works, making use of scattered documents and collective memories, just happened to re-create dougongs taller than the height of a man, made with first-grade logs, as well as complex roof beams close to those in Yuanhe Hall in Liao’s Fallen Southern Capital, (that is, Liao’s Nanjing, or OTL Beijing). By the time of the Central Hall’s completion, Yelu Dashi realised that there was no longer hopes to counter-attack and take back his homeland. He now wished to proclaim his legitimacy as the rightful monarch to the Northern Dynasty (as opposed to Jurchen usurpers), by re-creating a magnificent Upper Capital in the west. He promptly renamed the city, from Temporary Residence West of the Sea, to Upper Capital in Suyab Prefecture, consisting of the County of Balasagun and the Country of Suyab River.


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Zhaode Dian, the Hall of Manifest Virtues



With the new palace complete, the job for the next generation was to create a New City Wall twenty five Chinese miles in circumference, enveloping the Balasagun Old City and these houses spread all over the place outside its four gates, it also enveloped the Imperial Palace from three sides.

Between the southwest of the Palace and the Old City, the Emperor Xuanzong, in the Zhuque Era (1174-1187), established an imperial temple, the Daning Temple (大寧寺, Temple of Great Peace). An octagonal brick pagoda, decorated with sky-blue glazed bricks, was built in a style which imitated a wooden structure, situated at the centre of the great temple.


The Daning Temple Pagoda was also entrusted to accomplish a Khitan ambition: to surpass the Burana Tower of the Old City in height, that five-hundred-Chinese-feet-tall minaret of Karakhanid Friday Mosque. Even if the Pagoda sank by over five feet within six years of the its completion due to its soft foundations, with the help of a gigantic Afghan bronze finial cast by Bamiyan craftsmen, it still won the contest in the end. The Old City’s Turkic and Sogdian townsmen were in fact quite displeased: We have already agreed to preach our Khutbah in the name of this idolater Khagan, and then forbidden to climb onto the Minaret for Adhan in case of “peeping into the palaces”, now the Emperor’s new Pagoda have to surpass ours in height, what a majestic ruler!


The children, meanwhile, had long been wondering in and out of the Daning temple to listen to Mettreya’s stories 【1】, and indulging in the beautiful mural on the Vajra Courtyard’s corridors and statues of the mallas and bodhisattvas.





Decade later, the wall of the old city has been overwhelmed by the sprouting stalls and shop houses, now the district was known for being the Grand bazaar of the Suyab West Market. Through the labyrinth of small alleys, at a certain time each day, the Minarets’ calls for prayer and the temples’ bells would echo back and forth. The top level of the Burana tower, which now nobody dared to climb onto, has become a home for the pigeons. When Longzang Sangharama rings its evening belt, fifty thousand grey pigeons would fly pass the skies above the Old City’s labyrinth and the New City’s straightly aligned walled square quarters, making an intriguing circle. A grown up kid raised in the Old City told me, that if you stand on the rooftop of his house, you could see the Imperial Temple in the north, and roof after roof of the Imperial palaces, jade-green and sky-blue in their glaze, slowing fading into a shade of gold.



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The entire Shangjing City was burnt down in the 1st Year of Deyou Reign (1246) of the Wuzong Emperor, three days and three nights after the Qixi Festival. The Mongols breached into the North City from Gate Gongchen (拱辰), and the sons and daughter of Shangjing who were unfortunate enough to survive this were transported eastwards, as slaves, to the more distant homeland of the Liao people, the Mongol Empire’s Kharakhorum.


Two centuries later, in the year Jingyun the 24th (1438), when Mahakhitan’s Duke of Kangzhou lead his army in an Northern Expedition, defeating the last of the Borjigins, and returned to the Chuy homeland, only the snowflakes flying between Daning Pagoda and Burana Tower were there to greet them.
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(In our timeline, the archaeological works on Balasagun has just begun, and only a small inner city has been excavated, with lots of remnant Islamic monasteries in it. The Burana Tower is half collapsed, but still towering over the valley. The aforementioned Khitan palaces, temples and pagodas, they never existed. IOTL the Western Liao Emperors, they might have indeed lived in the Ordu tent city till the end.
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I thought I could finish the Upper and Central Capitals at once, but since I’ve changed to a story-telling narrating style, the next chapter will be on Mahakhitan’s architectural arts in its Northern Indian periods, with the main focus on it Central Capital Tangshi Fu (Taxila) and its stories.


(I’m really exhausted after finishing writing this. Good Night ~)


And so am I, the translator, but it's my favourite chapter, and a rewarding experience. I gonna sleep.

【1】It's actually "Bianwen", or storytelling by temples to popularize Buddhist doctrines. It's stories could sometimes be quite secular, with little Buddhist content.
【2】Both are exemplar Liao architecture IOTL (Fogong_Temple, and Dule_Temple)
 
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This is a highly interesting idea, though the fact that Kara-Khitai has such a low population means that it would surely quickly be India-dominated if it lasts long enough with little real Chinese migration. I would also question how they spread into highly mountainous Himachal and J&K if I didn’t realize that this were a Paradox game.
I once made this analogy:
Two generations later, a Mahakhitan aristocrat's son, with the help of local language transcription, was having a hard time pronouncing the Han Dynasty Laws and Khitan Ritual books and codes, preparing for a civil servant exam, just like a monk in China read his Sanskrit canons.

"Those scriptures from Mahacina are treated as if they are respectable as holy scriptures," the boy told himself, "but it's from a very strange cultural background, to which I can't relate to."

"But they are sustained by an older generation of Han and Khitan nobles, as well as some Song merchants, and we haven't completely cut off from that background."
 
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I once made this analogy:
Two generations later, a Mahakhitan aristocrat's son, with the help of local language transcription, was having a hard time pronouncing the Han Dynasty Laws and Khitan Ritual books and codes, preparing for a civil servant exam, just like a monk in China read his Sanskrit canons.

"Those scriptures from Mahacina are respectable as holy scriptures," the boy told himself, "but it's from a very strange cultural background, to which I can't relate to."

"But they are sustained by an older generation of Han and Khitan nobles, as well as some Song merchants, and we haven't completely cut off from that background."
Faxiang school first introduced Indian Logic and Philosophy to Chinese Buddhist circle, Xuanzang's closest and most eminent student was Kuiji who became recognized as the first patriarch of the Faxiang school. Xuanzang's logic, as described by Kuiji, was often misunderstood by scholars of Chinese Buddhism because they lack the necessary background in Indian logic. Although the school itself did not thrive for a long time, its theories regarding perception, consciousness, karma, rebirth, etc. found their way into the doctrines of other more successful schools. Read Xuanzang's proof of idealism by Eli Franco for more info.
 
I'm assuming you were inspired by this cash grab of a DLC. :p


In any case, subbed. A very fascinating story, and the artwork. :3
 
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Deleted member 67076

Your art is amazing. I really enjoy the work you've put in.
 
Thank you! But I’m only the translator.
The art and the script was done by the author Kara.

Oh, ok. I'll take a look at Kara's site when I have the time, though I don't think I can be relied on as a translator. My Mandarin atrophied pretty badly since high school.
 
What do you guys think of the English language I used?

Are there confusing ways of expression, or details that betray the facts that I’m not a native speaker?
 
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