The Silk Road is the name of the ancient silk trade route linking China and Europe mainly through Central Asia (Mair 1998). The Road had a few branches and sub-branches for linking China and other parts of Asia and Europe. Chinese silk went as far as to Rome in the ancient times. One of such branches would link Xian and Myanmar through Yunnan in South China.
Encarta Encyclopedia introduces the beginning of silk trade as follows:
Silk is one of the oldest known textile fibers and, according to Chinese tradition, was used as long ago as the 27th century bc. The silkworm moth was originally a native of China, and for about 30 centuries the gathering and weaving of silk was a secret process, known only to the Chinese. Tradition credits Hsi-ling-shi, the 14-year-old bride of the Emperor Huang Ti, with the discovery of the potential of the cocoon and the invention of the first silk reel. China successfully guarded the secret until ad300, when Japan, and later India, penetrated the secrecy.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008
Till date nobody knows whether the Silk Road had any links to Nepal. Snellgrove (1987: 416) notes that during the reign of Narendradev in Nepal and Harshvardhana (AD 647) in India there was a road linking the Kathmandu valley, Central Tibet and Central Asia: ‘The route from northern India through the Nepal valley, thence to Central Tibet and then on to Central Asia and China was already in use.’
Although Snellgrove (1987) has not mentioned the Silk Road, but his description clearly points to the same fact. However, according to Wang Yao (personal communication), the Professor of Tibetan Studies in Central University of National Minorities of China, Beijing, one branch of the Silk Road bifurcated from Xiling and passed through Lhasa and Sigache. At Sigache it had two sub-branches one of which passed through Kerung to Kathmandu and the other one through Nyalum in Tibet. Professor Wang further added that Kathmandu was called Yangbu ‘small village’ in Tibetan at that time and in Chinese records some 7 or 8 travelers passed through that branch of the Silk Road in the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD).
It is high time to explore the branch of the Silk Road that linked Nepal and Chinese Central Asia through Sigache in Tibet, because during the Lichchhavi period the road may have served not only a people to people cultural link but also a trade link. Now China has reached the top second position in business and it is the richest government in the world, the exploration, rebuilt and revival of the branch of the ancient Silk Road and also exploring for the feasibility of the railway link between Lhasa and Nepal will substantially bust the economic, commercial and cultural ties between the peoples of Nepal and China for their mutual benefit. The revitalization of the branch of the Silk Road may open up historic ties between China and South Asia.
References
Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia. 2009. Microsoft Encarta 1993-2008.
Mair, Victor H. Ed. 1998. The Bronge Age and Early Iron Age peoples of Eastern Central Asia. Vols. I & II. Washington DC and Philadelphia: The Institute for the Study of Man in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania.
Snellgrove, David. 1987. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Vols. I & II. Boston: Shambala.