From Monasteries to Mandates: The Political Uses of Buddhism in the Silk Road
Abstract
This paper examines how Silk Road rulers strategically employed Buddhist patronage as a mechanism for political legitimization and territorial control. The study illustrates three interconnected strategies through the examination of Xuanzang’s Great Tang Records on the Western Regions and archaeological evidence, such as donor inscriptions in the Kizil and Kumtura cave monasteries and the monastic-mining complex at Mes Aynak. These strategies include the use of religious art as territorial markers, the economic integration of monastic institutions with trade networks, and the sacralization of kingship through Buddhist cosmology. The evidence shows how Silk Road monarchs used Buddhism to serve as a functional infrastructure for managing multiethnic empires as well as an ideological foundation for universal authority. Even though some stories are romanticized, the historical record emphasizes Buddhism's dual function as spiritual doctrine and political technology.
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