CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE EAST IN MEDIEVAL TIMES

Everything points to the condusion that those
centuries which were centuries of disaster and
retrogression in Europe, were comparatively an
age of progress in Middle Asia eastward into
China, —H. G. WELLS

No period in Eastern history has been, perhaps, treated
with greater indifference than that of Asia during the Mid-
dle Ages. The corresponding age in Europe has been compa-
ratively well studied by scholars. But even in such a brief
survey as ours we should not overlock the medieval period
as a whole in our continent. Vast as the field may be, we shall
find before we close this chapter that our exploration has not
been futile, On the contrary we shall have added to our
knowledge of human history some connected information
about an important, though obscure, period. Chronologi-
cally, we shall roughly cover in this chapter the same millen-
nium (500-1500) as we did in the last chapter. Politically,
this will include an account of the Tang (618-907), Sung
(960-1280), and Yuan (1280-1368) dynasties (to mention
only the most important) in China, the pre-Mughal Muslim
and Hindu dynasties of India, and the momentous move-
ments of peoples like the Mongols and Turks.

We have earlier indicated the nature of Han and Tang
rule in the great age of Buddhism in Asia. Though China