Historian Toynbee’s Asian Plateau: Seeing the Rise, Fall and Competition of Civilizations

It is always difficult to distinguish the history and reality of this land in Asia. India and Pakistan parted ways after World War II. Afghanistan is in the midst of internal and external troubles, but it has never given up its efforts to modernize. The big powers behind the scenes are inextricably linked to it... This scene is very similar to history: from Gandhara to Gui Frost, from the Mauryan Dynasty to Sasanian Persia, from Khwarezm to the Mughal Empire, from the Anglo-Russian Great Game to the Cold War, the rise and fall of civilizations and competition has always been a constant topic in this land.

This article is excerpted from Chapter 16 to Chapter 19 of "Journey to the Asian Plateau". It is abridged and reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

"Journey to the Asian Plateau: The Rise and Fall of Civilizations", [English] by Arnold Toynbee, translated by Li Juan, Shanghai People's Publishing House, July 2020

Author丨 Arnold Toyn

Excerpt丨Dong Muzi

Paropami Sadayi

I stand in Istaliv

( lst lif)

Istarif is located on an open-air terrace of a village northwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, with the endless stretch of Koh i Daman to the northeast

(Koh i Daman)

Plains. On the northern horizon stands the snow-covered mountains of the Hindu Kush. The mountains here may not be as high as the Nuristan Canyon in the east, but they are too high that even eagles cannot fly. Perhaps the ancient name of this mountain range is more than just poetic. exaggeration. The Greek version of the ancient name for the Hindu Kush is Paropanisus

, which originally meant a mountain beyond the reach of eagles. Now across the horizon from east to west is Paropamisus. Not far away there is a solitary small mountain range rising from the Goidaman plain, which just pointed out to me Ghorband

(Ghorband)

and Panjhi Er

(Panjshir)

The confluence of two rivers. Either river leads to a mountain pass that can be used by people and donkeys to cross Paropamisus. Therefore, the confluence of these two rivers has always been of great importance until recently, when it gradually declined because the rise of the city of Kabul changed the natural trade routes.

From the 6th century BC, and for at least 14 centuries, the strategic and political center of the world was not Kabul, but the two cities that controlled the confluence of the Ghorband and Panjshir rivers. The city, which stood just northwest of that small mountain range in the plain, was called Kapisakanish by Darius. Today, their abandoned ruins are called Begram. At their peak in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the two cities were the capitals of a vast empire spanning the Amu Darya and Yamuna rivers. The founders of the empire were the Kushans, formerly nomadic people who migrated from Central Asia. Under the protection of the Kushan Empire, Buddhism traveled through the Hindu Kush Mountains, from India to Central Asia and then to China, on a circuitous and arduous journey. However, the Kushan Empire was the successor of the Hellenistic Empire. That is, Bactria, which once belonged to the Seleucid Empire that split from the Macedonian Empire, became independent after the mid-3rd century BC. Around 170 BC, the Yuezhi were defeated by the Xiongnu and moved westward to the Amu Darya River Basin; in 125 BC, they conquered Bactria, which is known as Bactria in Chinese history books. Later, the Dayue clan was divided into five parts, one of which was Kushan. In the middle of the 1st century AD, the Kushan tribe unified the five tribes and established the Kushan Empire. Therefore, the Kushan Empire is called the successor of the Hellenistic Empire in the article.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), a famous British historian, graduated from Oxford University. He successively worked at the University of Oxford, the University of London, the British Foreign Office and other institutions. From 1926, he served as the Minister of the Royal Institute of International Studies. In March 1947, he appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in the United States. Due to his significant academic achievements, he was elected as a member of the British Academy. Toynbee traveled extensively throughout his life and wrote prolifically. He opposed the concept of state supremacy and advocated that civilization is the unit of historical research. He used the phenomenon of human birth, old age, illness and death to explain the rise, fall and death of civilization. He used the unique vision of a philosopher to study human history and civilization from a macro perspective. He has conducted extensive and profound discussions, and used his extraordinary talent for historical narration to describe human history and civilization in detail from the perspective of a historian. A series of works represented by "Historical Research" won him world-wide reputation, and he was hailed as "the greatest historian in modern times".

Therefore, when I stood on the open-air platform of Istariv and looked at the magnificent mountains and rivers, what came to my mind was Alexander the Great, Demetrius and Hermaeus

(Hermaeus)

Hermaeus

(reigned from about 90 to 70 BC)

was Eucratides The last monarch of Eucratid Dynasty

was annexed by the Great Yueshi.

In the 270s BC, Eucratides, who oversaw the area north of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Central Asia, launched a rebellion and became king in Bactria, establishing the Eucratides dynasty.

When the Greeks crossed Southwest Asia from the Dardanelles to Paropamisadai, they first felt that this place seemed familiar. The plains surrounded by mountains reminded them of Eordaea

(Eordaea)

Eordaea was a kingdom in the ancient Macedonian empire. Or Thessaly

(Thessaly)

, Thessaly: a historical region in central and eastern Greece, now an administrative district, and its ancient city area is roughly equivalent to the current area. The prosperous vineyards led them to believe that their god of wine, Dionysus, had conquered this place long before Alexander. Paropamisadai must be Nysa

(Nysa)

, the legendary place of Dionysus. Dionysus, the god of wine in Greek mythology, was the son of Zeus and Semele, the princess of Thebes, and was raised by the nymphs of Nyssa. Dionysus made this his domain, and his later Greek admirers happily followed his example. Alexander founded the Greek colony at Begram. In the 1st century AD, when Greek rule had evaporated elsewhere, Hermaeus, the Greek monarch, still ruled here. It is said that Hermoeus has reconciled with his enemy Kushan on the other side of the mountain. Undoubtedly, his power was insignificant compared to the Kushan Empire, but he was able to control the key points from Central Asia to India, so his goodwill was still valuable to subsequent Kushan rulers. The Kushans, like the Romans, were philhellenes, so a Greek culture fostered by a non-Greek but pro-Greek regime still existed along the banks of the Amu Darya and Yamuna rivers and along the Mediterranean coast after the end of Greek rule. long time.

Dionysus, the god of wine.

Standing on the terrace of Istariv, I imagined Alexander the Great crossing the Hindu Kush and invading Bactria from the plains of Goidaman north; a century and a half later, Bactria Demetrius, the Greek king of Tria, invaded India by the same route, from north to south. Demetrius and his successors introduced Greek arms and coins further than India, and their influence was undoubtedly more lasting than Alexander the Great's brief forays into the western fringes of the Indian subcontinent. The coins of Bactrian Greek conquerors in India, and the Hellenistic art of the Greek Kushan successors of Bactria, are evidence of Greek culture active in distant Paropamisadai and even more distant Gandhara. area, the latter is where the Kabul River merges into the Indus River. For more than fifty years I have been studying this chapter of world history in books and maps. And right here, on the open-air terrace of Istarif, I can take in it all; just one glance is worth fifty years of reading.

Arachosia Corridor

Arachosia

(Arachosia)

, Achaemenid Empire, Seleucid Empire , the Hellenistic name of a province in the eastern part of the Maurya and Parthian empires, which included present-day southeastern Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan and northwest India.

Between the Indus, Amu Darya and Tigris rivers, the magnificent Iranian plains are like a huge fortress, surrounded by mountains like iron walls, and the huge Afghan highlands in the northeast corner become its rock-solid fortress. Base camp. In such a tightly guarded environment, there are only two natural transportation corridors: one winds and twists to the southwest, from Goidaman Plain to Kandahar; the other runs north to south, from Hamu Lake

(Hamun I Helmand)

Hamun Lake is a general term that refers to the shallow lakes that appear seasonally in the deserts of southeastern Iran and adjacent areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pass through Herat and enter the open plains in the basin of the Amu Darya River. A heavy rain in April made us decide to travel around Afghanistan in a clockwise direction so that we could start walking after the mountain roads were dry. So, we set off from the Alahosia Corridor, aiming for the Herat Corridor.

Throughout the ages, these two corridors have been the only way for conquistador armies, migrating nomads and the spread of religion. In the Alachosia Corridor, I seemed to hear the sound of galloping horse hooves still echoing in the valley. My thoughts flew back to that troubled period, when Cyrus's overly large empire fell apart and was unified by the resourceful and conquering Darius. In that life-and-death year, the corridor of Alachosia became a duel ground, with Vivana, the ruler of Alachosia who supported Darius, standing on both sides.

(Vivana)

and Vahyazdata

who claimed his right to the throne of Persia. Vasiyazdatta is already in Fars, the heart of the Persian Empire

(Fars)

Historically, Fars refers to the southern region of ancient Persia, including today's Fars Sri Lanka and nearby provinces.

He proclaimed himself king and rushed his army to the Alahosia Corridor, defeated Vivana, and captured Begram, the southern strategic point across the Hindu Kush Mountains. If this grand strategy succeeded, he would have the entire southeastern region of the Persian Empire. But at the critical moment, Vivana turned the tide for Darius. He prevented the enemy from taking the fort and thwarted a second attack. Then the situation turned around, and the battle in the corridor ended only when Vasiyazdatta's expeditionary force was completely annihilated. In this 13-month war for dominance in Southwest Asia, the above three battles were decisive.

If you stretch your mind back 13 to 14 centuries, you can see Islam entering the Alachosiya Corridor, passing through Ghazni and Kabul, crossing the Hindu Kush Mountain Pass and entering the Amu Darya Basin. Islam was introduced there centuries ago. When the later Islam finally crossed the mountains that the eagle could not fly, and joined the Islam that had arrived earlier, they surrounded the highlands between the Goidaman plain and the Herat Valley. As the years passed, the besieged highlanders of Ghori

transformed from sworn enemies of Islam into passionate advocates and propagators.

Toynbee.

Ghazni is geographically higher than Kabul, and the mountain pass leading from the Kabul River Basin into the Helmand River Basin has a higher altitude. However, on the modern road through Wasak, this watershed is so inconspicuous that we passed it before we even noticed it, and were already entering the Herman River basin, heading towards Ghazni. The walled Ghazni is the present-day citadel, occupying a very special strategic position on the last branch of a mountain range pointing southwest, controlling the southwest exit of two roads along both sides of the mountain range. Modern roads follow the older route further to the northwest, but the location of the minaret, city, palace and tomb of Sultan Mahmud of the Ghazni Empire proves that another old road was the main route in that era. In the southwest of Ghazni, two old roads merge into one under the modern city wall and continue forward through a huge naturally formed deep pit. It is surrounded by two mountain ranges, with the Hazarajat Mountains to the northwest. To the southeast are the Suleiman Mountains. In April, the two mountain ranges were still covered with snow, shining silver on the horizon, in stark contrast to the featureless open plains below us. However, before reaching Mukur

(Mukur)

the plain again compresses into a corridor, with two mountain ranges separating the road to the left and right.

This section of the corridor is the Tanak River Gorge. We tourists heading southwest drove into this canyon before arriving at Mukul, and could not change direction until we saw Kandahar. In fact, the journey took a full day, we were in a Land Rover, and there was a lot of traffic on bridges and culverts along the way. The water flow of the Tanak River is very small. Even if it catches up with the rare heavy rain in April this year, the area it can irrigate cannot exceed a wheat field at your feet. However, as a prime route to the main road, it has two significant advantages that no other river can match. The Tanak River does not cut a canyon. Its upper reaches are so gentle and open that we did not notice when we left the Ghazni River Basin and entered the Tanak River. There is no obvious watershed between the two rivers. It is this mediocrity that makes the Tanak River important. The Ghazni River turns south and becomes a backwater

(Ab i Istadé)

The remaining water flows as tributaries of tributaries and eventually joins the Helmand River in a zigzag way . The mighty Helmand River, and its lovely main tributary the Arghandab, are both more generous irrigators than the Tanak, but not so road-friendly. Precisely because their currents are so huge, they leave little room for roads. Bipeds and Tetrapods can climb up the Arghandab Valley to where the currents are stronger, then cross a pass into the Tanak Valley. But climbing upstream along the Helmand River leads to a dead end, as the highest peaks of the Hazarajat Mountains block the road. But up the mediocre Tanak River you reach Ghazni, the choke point to Kabul, Kabi Sakanish and Bactria. As a thoroughfare, the Tanak River is indeed unique among the many flows in the Helmand River Basin.

The watershed of human beings

Water and mercury are not the only things that flow. The sheep will move, and so will the nomads. Throughout March, Pashtun herdsmen

(called Powindars to the east of the Khyber Pass and Kochi to the west)

have been on the move, like Malaysia Like a salmon swimming upstream, it passes the campus of Peshawar University. They flowed northwest from the plains of Pakistan and India to the highlands of Afghanistan. Today, I met some of them on the road from Mukul to Kandahar. At this time, they should have been moving upwards, but instead they were moving from southwest to northeast. Between the Khyber Pass and the Alahosia Corridor, I had crossed the dividing line between nomadic movements. Nomadic groups converge on the summer pastures of the Hazarajat Mountains from both the southwest and southeast.

We encountered a large team today, including livestock and people. We had to stop the car and let them pass first.

We include livestock not only because they occupy the largest area, but also because they are seriously members of the family. In fact, humans treat them with more consideration than themselves. When it snowed, the ground was wet, many shepherds were barefoot, and their tents were in dilapidated condition. But when the team marched, there were very few people riding animals. In that special team, I was surprised to see a little boy riding on a donkey with a solemn expression. However, it is very common for young camels to be carried by adult camels in baskets. The backs of young walking camels are covered with a quilted coat with a hole for the hairy top of the hump to pass through. Even adult camels are covered with linen coats when they reach high altitudes. The lamb is carried like a baby. The group is so large that it has its own mullah, an old man with a gray beard who also walks with two lambs in his arms. The adult sheep just walked on their own, their tiny hooves making strange pattering sounds on the semi-dry mud.

Suddenly, among a group of children, I seemed to see my granddaughter. She, too, was looking at me eagerly, as if surprised that it took me so long to recognize her. The height, features, eyes, and expressions are exactly the same. Make the little Pashtun girl a little whiter, or dye the little British girl a little darker, and they'll look like twins. Their resemblance is living proof of the unity of the human race, despite its artificial division into distant peoples. As the Bellman

(Bellman)

crew responded, "Pashtuns", "British" and whatnot, we give ourselves and our neighbors These labels are "just conventional symbols."

When did the ancestors of these Gypsy Pashtuns find their way across the Hindu Kush into their current habitat south of the mountains? We speculate that today's Pashtuns originated from successive nomadic invaders, who absorbed some of the Pashto language and local nomadic way of life with each invasion. Are these new invaders driven by those behind them, or are they tempted by the new pastures in front of them? What is certain is that as time went by, the number of nomadic people and livestock in the heart of the Eurasian steppe doubled, and the weaker nomadic tribes were squeezed to the edge of the steppe, and they walked out of the steppe. But even without pressure from behind, a nomadic tribe could be tempted to voluntarily trade steppe for a chain of pastures surrounded by mountains that connects the Amu Darya and Helmand basins.

The English version of Toynbee's masterpiece "A Study in History".

In my clockwise journey around Afghanistan, I have followed the trek of Central Asian nomadic migrants in reverse along this chain of pastures. Crossing Girishk

and Dilaram on the Helmand River

Between the Gobi Desert, we are between the provinces of Diraram and Farah

(Farah)

, crossing the Ghor Mountains

(Ghor)

Six large ranches surrounded by mountains in the southernmost part. In early May, these pastures are filled with grazing camels, goats, and sheep, as well as their owners, or servants. After crossing the open plains of Farah province and once again being surrounded by mountains, we soon found ourselves crossing the huge green circular pastures of Shin Dand

(Shin Dand)

[Letter Dande's Persian name is Sabzawar

(Sabzawar)

, meaning "green riverside meadow"]. Here is an endless plain with mountains receding. The distant blue sky gave no hint of the snow-capped hills lurking to the east. Counterclockwise following the tracks of the Pashtun immigrant group we encountered between Kandahar and Mukul a few days ago, a Central Asian nomadic tribe would have discovered that all the way from the Hari River Gorge to the south and east A land of abundant water and grass.

In the 2nd century BC, under pressure from the Yuezhi, the Serbs were forced to abandon their ancestral camps in the Syr Darya and Amu Darya basins. It was along this road that they finally crossed Herman River Basin, reaching as far as Maharashtra in the southeast

(Maharashtra)

. That morning, on the road from Mukul to Kandahar, what I witnessed was a reenactment of the great migration that changed world history 21 centuries ago.

Kandahar

If you enter today's Kandahar along the Alahosia Corridor from Ghazni and Mukul, you will not understand why this historic city stands here. A few miles after leaving the airport, the road suddenly deviated from the right bank of the Tarnak River, which we had been driving for most of the day, and climbed up to a broad plain filled with fertile fields. Soon it crossed a spectacular irrigation canal that stretched from the opposite side. To the now invisible Tarnak Valley. The water volume of the Tarnak River is too small. There must be other more abundant water systems that nourish this canal, but I can't see it yet. On the horizon to the right is a lower mountain range with a strangely jagged summit.

In front of me was one or two isolated peaks, equally small but more bizarre in shape, rising from the plain. The road was obviously heading towards the mountain peak, but just when it seemed to be within reach, trees suddenly blocked the view. We entered Kandahar along a tree-lined road lined with gardens, and by the time we arrived at our accommodation, I was completely disoriented.

In order to find the direction, I had to go out of the city and walk the road from Kandahar to Grishk. This road is a mile or two from the edge of today's city, and on the way you will find yourself at the foot of the strangely shaped solitary mountain you just saw. You have not seen that mountain since you entered Kandahar from Ghazni. . The mountain looks like an ironclad warship from the late 19th century, with the bow cut into a rammer. The tip of this rammer just touched the road. Along the sharp edge of the rammer, Mughal Emperor Babur dug 40 huge steps, namely Chihil Zina

(Chihil Zina) < /p>

. Chil Zena, meaning forty steps, should be spelled Chil Zena, Chilzina or Chehel Zina. These steps lead to a niche in which the emperor erected monuments recording his conquests in India. Babur's grandson Akaba later added his own inscription. The former King of Afghanistan Amanullah

(Amanullah)

installed another pair of iron railings

(may God bless him)

, tourists can hold on to the railings and climb the steps safely, although they will still be out of breath from exhaustion.

Kabul, Afghanistan

The highest step is located at the gap of the rammer. Standing there, you can have an unobstructed view of the scenery that you missed when you came from Ghazni. Looking back to the northeast, the entire irrigated plain is in full view. The dense woods in the distance indicate a modern town there, and the outline of the ancient city can be seen next to it. Ahmed Shah Abdali, the founder of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the 18th century, built this walled city on this plain. The dome of Ahmed Shah's Mausoleum marks the northeastern corner of the city. Today's city planners have torn down the walls he built, and it's hard to find any remains today along the perimeter of what was once the quadrangle city into Kandahar. However, standing on top of Qilezna, you can see 18th-century Kandahar and 18th-century Jaipur in faraway Rajasthan, both built according to similar rectangles. In Asia, this rigorous urban geometry seems exotic. One can imagine that this might be the work of some Greek architect commissioned by Alexander the Great.

Ahmed Shah’s city of Kandahar stood high on the plains, crowding out previous cities, only to be eliminated in its turn in modern times. Standing on the small platform at the top of the 40 steps, stretch your neck and look to the right along the side of the ship-shaped mountain. There is a decayed mud wall close to the stern of the ship. That must be Ahmed Shah Abda. The former site of Kandahar City before Lee moved the capital here. He ruled the entire territory between Mashhad

(Mashhad)

and Lahore, and thus had the audacity to build his new city in such an exposed position. The old city is surrounded by dangerous mountains and rivers, and it just controls the westward section between the far end of the mountains and the Tarnak River. From where I was, I saw the Tarnak River again. There is just enough space between the river and the mountain to accommodate a city, commanding the road at the foot of the mountain.

Kabul, Afghanistan

After walking down the 40 steps, we visited the city surrounded by ancient mud walls that we just saw from above. In this abandoned city, there is a famous shrine that attracts a large number of pilgrims who come by car. Thanks to them, the road there is open to traffic. Outside the city wall near the 40-step staircase, there is a spring at the foot of the mountain, spraying a patch of green grass along the bottom of a small canyon. The ruins of the base camp inside the city walls prove to us that centuries of hard work must have taken place here. As the steep ridge goes up, the city walls change from mud to stone. The highest point is extremely difficult and dangerous. Even goats cannot climb over it. It is a natural barrier.

The height of the castle proves that it is the ancient ruins of the earliest of the three Kandahar cities, and therefore indirectly proves that the road between the tail of the boat-shaped mountain and the Tarnak River is also very old. This road was built along the bow of the boat-shaped mountain. The modern road from Kandahar to Grishk was also built along it. There is also a monument that proves the long history of this road. The lowest slopes on the northeastern side of the mountain overlook this road, where just days before a stele of the Indian emperor Ashoka had been discovered. It is a bilingual stone tablet, one language is Aramaic

(Aramaic)

, the official language of the fallen Persian empire, and the other is Greek, Seleucid The official language of the dynasty, the Seleucid dynasty was the successor to the Persian Empire in the east. This stele is the most westerly Ashoka stele ever discovered, and its location proves that the territory ceded by Alexander the Great's successor Seleucus the Victor to Asoka's grandfather, Chandragupta, included the entire Ala. Hosea region

(in exchange for 500 war elephants to help Seleucus fight Antigonus)

.

Viewed the panoramic view from Qilezna, visited the ruins of the oldest city of Kandahar, and ascertained the approximate location of the Ashoka Monument

(to prevent damage and re-burial )

After that, it is not difficult to understand why the city of Kandahar is located here. However, even from the excellent observation point on the 40 steps, there is still a situation that can only be shown on the map. On the map, you can see at a glance that the Helmand River, like the Indus River, has a tributary that divides into five rivers, and the location of Kandahar coincides with Multan. It sits in the center of an upside-down delta, just above the point where five tributaries join the main stream. The map is generally accurate, but from the top of the 40 steps, only the Tarnak River accompanying Kandahar can be seen, and it is the most inconspicuous of the five rivers. The Arghandab River

(Arghandab)

is the biggest, because the other four rivers all merge into it and then rush into the Helmand River. However, the Arghandab River is not visible either from the top of the 40 steps or from the plain. Whether viewed from above or below, the northwest horizon is blocked by strangely shaped jagged hills.

That afternoon we broke through this barrier that blocked our view. We headed straight for that nasty little mountain, once again crossing the magnificent irrigation ditches we encountered yesterday, tunneling through the mountains, and passing through numerous locked gates

(darbands)

One of them, Suomen Pass, is an unpredictable mountain cleft that is a typical feature of Iran's mountain scenery. Then we rounded the foot of another mountain with a unique shape, and the green Arghandab Canyon appeared in front of us. Light green crops are intertwined with dark green orchards and groves. The Arghandab River flows through it. The gentle water of the river flows out strips of meandering blue water. The twists and turns of the yellow sand riverbanks complement the river water. .

Arghandab is a charming river. We once watched it from the balcony of Baba Wali Hotel

When young, people can actually fall in love with a river. But if the Arghandab River once appeared in Greek mythology as a water nymph, then in the myth she must not have loved mortals, because all her heart belonged to Etymandus

(Etymandus, Iran The Greek name for the Helmand River in Greek)

. At the Baba Wali Hotel, I watched this little fairy hurrying towards her lover. The next day, at Qala i Bisht

, I saw the Arghandab River pouring into the arms of the Helmand River. When she danced alone, did she ever see those cruel human engineers squeezing out her blood to water the dry Kandahar plain? I think she was probably so preoccupied with her lover that she didn't notice those unauthorized acts. Only the arid plains are grateful for the audacity of those godless engineers who used stolen river water to cover themselves with a green coat.

Editor Zhang Jin

Proofreader Wei Zhuo