When Asia Was The World Chapter Summary

From 500 to 1500 CE, Asia was the most powerful economic force on the planet. It was in Asia that mathematicians invented zero and algebra, astronomers learned to track the stars more accurately and invented the astrolabe for navigation, and poets and writers produced literature that is still well thought of today. The history of Asia is a broad subject to cover in just four to five pages. The entire book of Qiu Jin Hailstork’s Interpreting the Asian Past covers the history of Asia. However, Stewart Gordon’s When Asia Was the World does a great job with covering the main aspects of the history of Asia in a simpler way. Each chapter is broken down into different aspects through a series of memoirs. When Asia Was the World explains how religions, philosophy, and science each helped create Asia into the most dominant force in the world.
Many find it surprising that India is the heartland of Buddhism, rather than China. Buddhism became a major religious and cultural institution throughout most of Asia, while it declined in India, the country of its birth. The reformative growth of Hinduism and the Muslim invasions in the Northwest of India causes the decline of Buddhism in India (Hailstork 13). All of the sacred places were thousands of miles away from China. Therefore, it was necessary for one to experience and learn
the Buddhist ways of life in its place of origin, India.
Around 618-631 CE, Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk in China, was determined to learn the great ways of Buddhism. From his journey he brought back books and knowledge of his lessons and findings. Buddha mediated on life as he saw it around him and concluded that people wanted what they did not get and got what they did not want (Gordon 3). He laid out a path of deliverance that required neither hedonistic pleasures nor extreme austerities (Gordon 3). He termed it the Middle Path, which is the ability to avoid the extremes of self-gratification and self-mortification (Hailstork 14). Traveling in search of learning and insight was an intrinsic part of the Middle Path. Xuanzang’s journey corresponded with the vigorous beginning of the Tang dynasty in China (Gordon 17). This led to the influence of China extending not just to the seven watchtowers of Xuanzang’s journey but more than 2,000 miles west of the caravan routes, as well as east to Korea and Japan (Gordon 17). Buddhism effected China in a profound way. Buddhism was looked as an intellectual and spiritual challenge to the typical Chinese attitude of self-sufficiency and self-importance. Buddhism connected China to the outside world through knowledge and wonders.
Around the eleventh century CE, Islam became the second largest religion on the Indian subcontinent (Hailstork 23). But before it swept through Asia, during 620-680 CE, Islam defined admission in the umma (the community of the faithful) by the required behavior of a Muslim, which is a monotheistic statement of faith (Gordon 21). Islam cherished the idea that before God, all Muslim worshippers were equal, regardless of clan, family, or religion (Gordon 21). Islam was a religion of personal belief, community of believers, and an expanding conquer conquest state that included many nonbelievers (Gordon 22).
The great Asian world benefited from two major universalizing religions, Buddhism and Islam. Both religions provided institutional framework with strong opinions on debatable topics. For this reason, it was important that neither Islam nor Buddhism held the dominant position. In 1002-1021 CE, Ibn Sina, a famous philosopher and physician was on his way to prison (Gordon 39). As he spent the next four months in jail, he wrote two significant works that affected the history of Asia. He wrote an allegory on human intellect and a medical treaty. His project brought together the intellectual output of a vast world that included Persia, India, the Middle East, Greece, Egypt, and Rome (Gordon 40). In the ninth and tenth centuries, every breakthrough in science was made by researchers and scholars in Asia. Hindu mathematics produced rapid developments in algebra and trigonometry (Gordon 40). This eventually led to the addition and subtraction of radicals (Gordon 40). These mathematical advances formed the basis for complex, beautiful patterns on Islamic tiles (Gordon 40). There were also advances in navigation, particularly the invention of the astrolabe. Papermaking came from China.
The basic technology passed down the Silk Road into the Middle East with the Abbasids in about 750 CE (Gordon 42). Within a century, paper markets and many paper mills increasingly grew in Baghdad (Gordon 42). According to Interpreting the Asian Past, in addition to paper, goods such as gold, silver, wine, silk, and lacquers from China; pistachio nuts, dates, and saffron powder from Persia; ivory, spices, precious stone from India; and cloth and glass bottles from Egypt were picked up by merchants along the routes of the Silk Road (Hailstork 64). Trade routes flourished all throughout Asia and to the
West. Ibn Sina also established both the basic philosophical framework and the working methods that he carried with him all throughout his life. He believed in direct insight into the rational working of the world around him and used wine, prayer, and directed dreaming to solve questions (Gordon 46). The majority of logical arguments in today’s discussions of “intelligent design” was analyzed and discussed by Ibn Sina (Gordon 56). The questions considered by Ibn Sina are as universal today as they were a millions of years ago. He sparked resolution in thinking. Rationalism and logic became more widespread and set Europe on the path to science and technology. In 1120-1160 CE, a spice trader, named Abraham bin Yiju, grew glorious amounts of spices (Gordon 77). Many of the spices were in demand in the Asian world. He grew tropical plants for medicines and remedies. Similar to Yiju, in 1516 CE, Tome Pires, a Portuguese apothecary, made a fortune dealing with tropical plants (Gordon 157). The governor of Portugal requested that Pires lead the first diplomatic mission to China. The goal of the mission was not to obtain the spices of India, but the gold of Central America (Gordon 158). The spices and medicines moved from tropical sources both east and west. Tropical plants and extracts also moved west along the water routes of Asia. Although the spice trade to Europe was less than one-fourth of the trade to Asia, the Portuguese were shipping nearly one-half of the spices bound for Europe in the 1530’s. Larger quantities of tropical spices began to appear in Europe than previously found in European cookbooks of the sixteenth century (Gordon 159). The growth of spices, medicines, and trade became prosperous as it shifted to the west. Interpreting the Asian Past and When Asia Was the World provides a good understanding on how religious, philosophy, and science each helped create Asia as the dominant force during the Middle Ages. It was also the foundation of the Western Civilization as it’s knowledge and discoveries helped other civilizations grow. Asian wayfarer’s missions to gain knowledge on religious beliefs, insight on philosophy, and scientific discoveries allowed Asia to be “the world.”

Work Cited

Gordon, Stewart. When Asia Was the World. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2009. Print.

Hailstork, Delparto, Neulander, Interpreting The Asian Past 1st ed., 2012, Kendall Hunt

Publishing Company.