The overland trade-routes through Iran brought the Chinese into direct touch with Lesser Fu-lin (Syria), and ultimately with Greater Fu-lin (the Byzantine Empire). The vine and other plants with ancient religious associations were imported into China, and the Chinese peach tree reached Europe. With the peach went silk. “It is not impossible,” says Laufer, “that these two gifts were transmitted by the silk-dealers, first to Iran (in the second or first century B.C.), and thence to Armenia, Greece, and Rome (in the first century A.D.).”[26]
As the cuckoos hatched in the nests of hedge-sparrows, meadow-pipits, and wagtails overcome and eject the offspring of their foster-parents, so did the vigorous nomadic peoples who absorbed the elements of ancient civilizations overcome and eject the offspring of their “foster-parents”. The Babylonian Empire perished, and Irania, which had been stimulated by it to adopt civilized conditions of life, became, in turn, the nursery of vigorous states. Recent discoveries have brought to light evidence which shows that the Iranian peoples “once covered an immense territory, extending all over Chinese Turkestan, migrating into China, coming into contact with the Chinese, and exerting a profound influence on nations of other stock, notably Turks and Chinese. The Iranians were the great mediators between the West and the East, conveying the heritage of Hellenistic ideas to central and eastern Asia, and transmitting valuable plants and goods of China to the Mediterranean area.”[27] [[295]]
The laws of supply and demand operated then as now on the trade-routes, which brought communities of regular traders into touch after they had cultivated plants or manufactured articles to offer in exchange for what they received. Before these routes could, however, have hummed with commerce, a considerable advance in civilization had to be achieved. States had to be organized and laws enforced for the protection of property and property owners.
The Iranians, who obtained silk from China, were not the originators of the culture represented by this commodity; they simply stimulated the demand for silk. Chinese civilization dates back to the time when the early prospectors and explorers came into touch with backward peoples, and introduced new modes and conditions of life. These pioneers did not necessarily move along the routes that were ultimately favoured by merchants, nor even those followed by migrating tribes in quest of green pastures. They wandered hither and thither searching for gold and gems and herbs, sowing as they went the seeds of civilization, which did not, however, always fall on good ground. But in those places where the seed took root and the prospects of development were favourable, organized communities gradually grew up with an assured food-supply. This was the case in Shensi province, in which was settled the “little leaven” that ultimately “leavened the whole lump” of northern China. It was after the empire became united under the Tsʼin Dynasty that organized trade with the west assumed great dimensions, and was regularly maintained under assured protection.
Myths as well as herbs and gems and garments were exchanged by traders. With the glittering jewel was carried the religious lore associated with it; with the curative [[296]]herb went many a fable of antiquity. Laufer has shown in his The Diamond how Hellenistic lore connected with that gem crept into Chinese writings. It is consequently possible to trace in the mosaic of Chinese beliefs and mythology certain of the cultural elements that met and blended and were developed on the banks of the Yellow River.
Elixirs and charms were in great demand in all centres of ancient civilizations. It can be held, therefore, that behind the commerce of early times, as behind the early religious systems, lay the haunting dread of death. Gems warded off evil, and imparted vitality to those who possessed them, and curative herbs renewed youth by restoring health. Even the dead were benefited by them. Progress was thus, in a sense, increasing efficiency in the quest of longevity in this world and the next.
In China, as elsewhere, the dread of death, as expressed in the religious system, promoted the arts and crafts; artists, engravers, architects, builders, jewellers, and scribes, as well as priests and traders, were engaged in the unceasing conflict against the all-dreaded enemy of mankind, the God of Death. The incentive that caused men to undertake perilous journeys by land and sea in quest of elixirs, to live laborious lives in workshops and temples, and to grasp at the mythical straws of hope drifted along trade-routes from other lands, was the same as that which sent the Babylonian Gilgamesh to explore the dark tunnel of the Mountain of Mashu and cross the Sea of Death, and it is found on the ninth tablet of the most ancient epic in the world:
Gilgamesh wept bitterly, and he lay stretched out upon the ground.
He cried: “Let me not die like Ea-bani!
Grief hath entered into my body, and