Travel Notes. Uzbekistan - Japan: at the origins of friendship

In 1988 in Nara city, on the territory of the ancient capital, the Japanese opened a World-wide exhibition named The Great Silk Route leads to Nara. For the first time Uzbekistan has an opportunity to participate in such a large forum. Uzbekistan,at the instance of the organizers allotted three magnificent Buddhist statues, which were found in a Buddhist temple of the ancient city Dalvarzeen-tepa (Shurchinksiy region, Surhandarya province). These discoveries were examined with great interest they are the outstanding works of ancient Buddhist art. Hundreds of similar exhibits were brought from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan. All this proves once more that Central Asia was an important center of development of Buddhism.

At that time,being in Japan for 50 days I admired the outstanding historical monuments of architecture of Nara, Kyoto, Nikko, Osaka, as well as the modern skyscrapers of Tokyo, Yokogama, Nagoya and other cities. I was attracted particularly by the numerous museums. The most interesting among them are the specialized museums of rice, ceramics, ancient dwellings of the Japanese and Buddhist sculpture. The two latter museums were more attractive than the others. In my homeland I was a participant of the excavations of three Buddhist temples and a monastery myself. The three exhibits that I brought were the sculptures of the Buddha and Bodhisattva. In these museums one could see the diversity of shapes in ceramic vessels, bronze mirrors, miniature women's jewellery, in the method of making small and large Buddhist characters.

I managed to examine the Emperor's Treasury in Nara. I was amazed by the ancient,possibly of the Hpoque of early Middle Ages, silk cloth from Sogd, as well as the ceramic vessel from Bukhara and some items and jewellery from Baktria. These things are, of course,not casual. They were undoubtedly brought from Central Asia by the merchants or the acolytes of Buddhist temples as gifts to the Emperor. I dedicated all my free from the exhibition time to the Nara city. I walked along its narrow streets with a guidebook in my hands and noticed with surprise that the old houses and the walls enclosing them resembled ours in Samarkand,Khorezm or Fergana valley. They were smooth as pahsa (porcelain clay). I encountered felled houses the emptiness of which was filled with adobe bricks. Sometimes I was mistaken for the Japanese and invited to the house for a cup of the aromatic Japanese tea. When I saw our Uzbek sandal (the Japanese call it kotatsu) in one of the rooms, I was very surprised. Sandal (or kotatsu) is an ancient heater, which is put on the floor or cut into it. A small table, usually trellised and covered with a quilt is placed above it. People sitting around the table warm up their legs under this quilt. I returned to the exhibition office and began to convince our interpreter Araki-san that kotatsu came to Japan from Uzbekistan, she argued that this invention belongs to the Japanese. This way we did not prove anything to each other and were both left with our own opinion.

I went to Japan seven times after that and each time I noticed much in common not only in the anthropology and character of the Japanese and Uzbeks but also in the spoken language. A few years ago Mrs. Noriko Magosaki, the wife of the Ambassador of Japan in Uzbekistan once appeared on Uzbek television speaking Uzbek language. She mentioned that she met certain difficulties when studying the similarities of the Uzbek and Japanese languages. However many emotional turns of speech in both the languages such as: negation, polite form of address, assumption often coincide. She demonstrated her book The Grammatical similarities and differences between the Japanese and Uzbek language, which was published in Tashkent in 1996.

I can note with pride that the exhibition in Nara initiated a friendship between the scientists of Uzbekistan and Japan. During the 6 months of the exhibition the tourists, pupils and students, scientists had time to examine the exhibits. On completion of the exhibition the professor of the Soko University, an amazing person, Mr. Kyudzo Kato proposed to organize a joint expedition for the excavations of a Buddhist temple in Dalvarzin-tepa. After the approval of this idea the Institute of Art Knowledge of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan concluded a long-term contract of cooperation. For a few years already the Uzbek scientists in concord with the scientists of the Center for studying the great Silk Route (Kamakura city), the museum of the East (Tokyo city) and Institute of Archeology (Kashihara city) have studied the remains of a Buddhist temple as well as the locations of the king's palace the original capital of the Kushan Empire. Apart from the excavations the scientists have visited all the architectural monuments of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, Shahrisyabz, Termez and Fergana Valley.

They familiarized themselves with the nature of these places, the ethnography,the customs of local people. Scientific papers, monographs and magazines were written based on the gathered material. Professor Takayasu Higuchy was the first person to familiarize the Japanese with the Central Asian Buddhist art. Thanks to the works of our friends Kyudzo Kato, Ikuo Hiroyama, Kadzumi Tanabe, Kazuya Yamauchy, Kenzo Kavasaki (post-graduate student of the Institute of Art Knowledge in Uzbekistan, now candidate of science) the Japanese people received reliable information about the ancient history of Uzbekistan and the modern life of the cities.

Next year (2005) a large exhibition will be held in 6 cities of Japan. During 18 months we will demonstrate once again the history, art, ethnography of the nations of Central Asia in the period from I century AD to XVI century. By Bahodir Turgunov.

Research officer of the scientific-research Institue of Art Knowledge of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan, head of Uzbek-Japanese expedition archaeologist. The editorial staff thanks for the given material and photographs the tourist firm Karavan Saray.