This book presents four well-researched articles that throw light on some of the major themes in the history of the ancient Silk Road. The first two papers by Dr Kenneth H. J. Gardiner, based on Chinese and Latin sources and material evidence, tell the remarkable story of trade and diplomacy between Han China and the Roman Empire. Papers by Professors Sang Hyun KIM, a pioneering scholar of Korean Buddhism and Pankaj N. Mohan who published widely on Korea’s cultural linkages with its neighbours in East and South Asia, demonstrate that the Eastern Sector of the Silk Road, commencing from Gyeongju, the capital of the early Korean state of Silla, served for several centuries as an important channel of exchange of religion, philosophy and art, Their papers enable us to understand how Shamanism and Buddhist culture of Silk Road spread to the Korean peninsula in the sixth and seventh centuries and contributed to the development of Korean civilization.
received his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 1964, and two years later he joined the Faculty of Asian Studies, the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra as a lecturer in Early Chinese and Korean history. He retired from the position of Senior Lecturer at ANU in 1992.
