Before there was tourism, there was pilgrimage. One writer’s 40,000-mile journey through Bolivia, Mongolia and Iraq reveals the ritual’s enduring transformational power.
Silk Road, also called Silk Route, ancient trade route, linking China with the West, that carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China. Silk went westward, and wools, gold, and silver went east. China also received Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism (from India) via the Silk Road. Originating at Xi’an (Sian), the 4,000-mile (6,400-km) road, actually a caravan tract, followed the Great Wall of China to the northwest, bypassed the Takla Makan Desert, climbed the Pamirs (mountains), crossed Afghanistan, and went on to the Levant; from there the merchandise was shipped across the Mediterranean Sea. Few
You may wonder why the Buddha is so often depicted as chubby and laughing. The Laughing Buddha is understood as a particular Buddha who is not the Buddha