The Southwestern Silk Road in Early Medieval Persian Geograph-ical Literature
Two seminal works of early medieval Persian geography,Hudud al-Ālam:min al-Masriq ilā al-Ma(g)rib and Jām-i Gītī-Numā,offer abundant and insightful observations on the South-western Silk Road.An etymological comparison based on Persian,Arabic,Middle Chinese,Old Bur-mese and Loloish materials shows that three key toponyms in Southwest China listed as t ursul,musa and mānd in the medieval Persian geographical literature,correspond to Pyu states,Nanzhao,and Man states along the Southwestern Silk Road in Tany Dynasty.The relevant records confirm the validity and credibility of the phonetic transcription and comparison mentioned above.In addition to Persian ge-ographical works,by examining a large number of Chinese and Arabic historical documents,it has been demonstrated that,on the one hand,early medieval Persian merchants have been familiar with and in-volved in the trade routes between the Indian Ocean and China's Inner Land via Myanmar and Yunnan at least by the end of the 10th century,and on the other hand,cotton and musk became important goods traded on the Southwestern Silk Road in the medieval times.The record of the Southwestern Silk Road in Persian geographical works mentioned above not only provides a compelling historical and cos-mopolitan evidence for the study of the Southwestern Silk Road,but also helps to understand the medie-val trading activities extending from the coast of Indian Ocean to Southwest China from a unique Persian-ate perspective.It enables the rediscovery of the international status of Southwest China during the Tang Dynasty and contributes to constructing the"New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor"opening to the Indian Ocean.
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