The eastward migration of Sogdian people from Central Asia in the period between the Han and Tang is an important component of the interaction between East and West in the early medieval period. From their native lands, the Sogdians moved into the Tarim basin and China, on the one hand introducing elements of the Persian religious system into China and on the other absorbing elements of Buddhist and Han Chinese culture. Because of this, the culture of the Sogdian émigrés is even richer than the culture found in the original Sogdian territories. Furthermore, the wide distribution of Sogdian émigrés brought them into contact with many different ethnic groups and gave rise to different kinds of cultural interactions. These contact and interaction provide us with a wealth of material for the study of religious, cultural, and artistic change. The Sogdians and their culture are of the Persian type. Although Manichaeism (which originated in Persia), Nestorian Christianity (known in China as jingjiao), and Buddhism from India were all transmitted into Sogdiana, the official religion of the Sogdians was Zoroastrianism (called xianjiao in China), which also arose in Persian territory. During its long-term development, Zoroastrian beliefs influenced law, ritual, architecture, and customs extending into many aspects of daily life. The Sogdians were a mercantile people, their trading caravans were organized by leaders called s'rtp'w in Sogdian and sabao in Chinese. With their movement eastward across Asia, they gradually established settlements in the main cities and towns. In this way, they left many remains along the Silk Road as they traveled from Sogdiana to China. Following their eastward movement came Zoroastrian beliefs and other related cultural elements, including artists and religious imagery, which this paper addresses.
Images are a form of artistic expression that has traveled to different regions following people's movements. Some Zoroastrian imagery may have been brought to China directly from original Sogdian territories, but for the most part it was likely to have been produced by Sogdian émigrés. First I will discuss Sogdian artists in China, especially the Northern Qi artist Cao Zhongda. Zhang Yanyuan, Tang dynasty author of the Lidai minghua ji, referred to Cao Zhongda's Buddhist paintings as the “Cao style,” characterized by closely pleated garments clinging to the body as though they had just emerged from water. Many scholars consider the recently excavated Northern Qi Buddhist sculptures from the Longxing Temple site in Qingzhou to be evidence of this style, but the description refers to painting, not sculpture. Cao Zhongdawas a native of the Central Asian kingdom of Cao, located south of the Nami (Zeravsan) River, about one hundred kilometers from the Sogdian metropolis of Samarkand in the Kang Kingdom. Thus it might be expected that Cao Zhongda should have been influenced by Zoroastrian art. Therefore we should pay attention to existing Sogdian mural paintings, such as figures in the scenes of feasting at Pyanjikent and Balaleke Tepe, in which the clothing of the figures displays a close pattern of folds that can be related to the “Cao style.” Historical texts record that Cao Zhongda's miraculous images of the western countries were highly regarded in the Northern Qi capital of Ye. During his lifetime Ye had a strong non-Chinese flavor. Sogdian artists captured the fancy of the Northern Qi rulers, and the Emperor Houzhu even incorporated Zoroastrian rituals into traditional court ceremonial observances. From the activities of the foreign community at the capital, we can imagine that in other areas there may have been even more foreign artists and sculptors at work. A Northern Qi stone funerary couch discovered previously in the Anyang area is carved with Zoroastrian imagery and is likely to be the work of a Sogdian artist at Ye. Just as Sogdian music influenced that of the Sui and Tang period (as
