SILK ROAD
NOTE-MAKING & SUMMARY
1.
SILK-ROAD-CHINA’S GIFT TO THE
WEST
a. Greek
word ‘Seres” which means ‘the land of silk’.
b. Refers primarily
to the land routes connecting East Asia & Southeast Asia with South Asia,
Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa & South Europe.
c. It was
an ancient network of trade routes btwn Greece & China
d. Established
during the Han Dynasty of China.
e. Linked
World Commerce btwn 130 BCE-1453 CE.
f. It
helped generate trade commerce in a number of diff. kingdoms and empires
g. Helped for
ideas, culture, inventions, & unique product to spread across much settled
world.
h. Venetian
explorer Marco Polo used S.R. to travel from Italy to China, reached Xanadu,
the lavish summer palace of the Mangolian Emperor Kublai Khan.
i.
Fruits, vegetables, livestock, grain, leather
& hides, tools, religious objects, artwork, precious stones, metal, More
importantly Language, culture, religious
beliefs, philosophy & Science.
2.
DEPARTURE FROM RAVU
a. Author
leaves Ravu along with Daniel, an interpreter, &
b. Tsetan,
who was a tourist guide.
c. Lhamo, the lodge owner lady at Ravu, gifts a
long-sleeved sheepskin coat.
d. where it would be very cold. Tsetan knew a
short cut to reach the Mount Kailash.
e. The
journey would be smooth if there was no snow.
3. DROKBAS ON THE WAY.
a. passing through the hills, author sees
individual drokbas (nomad shepherds) looking after their flocks.
b. Both men and women were seen wearing thick
woollen clothes.
c. Drokbas would stop and stare, sometimes waving
to them as they passed.
4. ENCOUNTER
WITH TIBETAN MASTIFFS
a. Tibetan mastiffs were seenaround the nomad’s tents.
b. The
T.M. dogs used by the shepherds.
c. They would
bark furiously and fearlessly.
d. They
would make a chase for 100 meters to the
car.
e. In
earlier days, Tibetan mastiffs became popular in China’s imperial courts as
hunting dogs.
f. They were brought along the Silk Road as a tax
payment from Tibet.
5.
ICE BLOCKS THE ROAD.
a.
Reached to the Valley of
Rivers.
b. The rivers
appear wide and clogged with brilliant white ice.
c. The turn
became sharper & ride bumpier.
d. The turns became sharper and more difficult to
climb.
e. The author got a severe headache.
f. Suddenly
snow started falling and soon blocked the route.
g. height of 5210 metres above sea level.
h. At a height of 5515 metres top of the pass,
marked with a large cairn of rocks.
i. the atmospheric pressure became so low that
Tsetan had to open the lid of the petrol tank to release the evaporated fuel.
6. HOR
a. Vestiges
of the Tethys Ocean bordered Tibet.
b. The great
continental collision lifted it skyward.
c. The Salt
gatherers wearing long sheepskin coats *& salt-crusting boots emerged from
the blindingly white lake.
d. Hor
situated on the shore of Lake Manasarovar, on the old trade route between Lhasa
and Kashmir.
e. Hor was
a grim, miserable place, with no vegetation,
just dust and rocks, full of accumulated
rubbish everywhere.
f. It has
lost the past holy glory.
g. Daniel returns to Lhasa from there.
h. Tsetan got the flat tyre of the car repaired.
7.
STAY AT DARCHEN.
a. By 10.30
pm author reaches to Darchen. It was the end of the road.
b. The
author passes troubled night.
c. Sinuses
filled & chest odd, spent night propping aginst the wall.
d. Tsetan
takes him to Darchen Medical College.
e. The M.C.
appears like a Monastery.
f. The
doctor clad like a Buddhist Monk, not in white coat, examined authors veins at
wrist.
g. Medicine
was a brown envelope stuffed with 15
screws of paper, a 5 day course, contained a brown powder in small, spherical
brown pellets tasting like cinnamon, looked like sheep dung,
h.
Tsetan was a good
Buddhist and believed in life after death.
i. However,
he was worried that the author’s death could affect his business.
8.
THE AUTHOR FINDS A COMPANION IN
NORBU
a. Darchen,
sparsely populated town, dusty, partially
derelict & punctuated by heaps of rubbish
piled around,.
b. Authour
wanted to reach Mount Kailash to do kora.
c. sitting
in the only cafe , looking for someone
who could speak or understand English
d. No
pilgrims, as the season had not yet started.
e. He sees
Norbu, a plump Tibetan working in Beijing at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
reading an English book.
f. Norbu
also wanted to do kora, although he was not a religious person, a practising
Buddhist. So both of them decided to do kora together.
g. Norbu, was wearing a windcheater, worked in Beijing
at the Chinese Academy Of Social Sciences in the Institure of Ethnic
Literature.
h. Norbu
was writing academic papers about KAILASH KORA & IT’S IMPORTANCE IN VARIOUS
WORKS OF BUDDHIST LITERATURE.
i. Author
tags their company as ‘Two academics who have escaped from the Library’
j. Though
the author envisaged making trek in the company of devout believers, had to
satisfy with Norbu.
