serindia publication

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The Meaning of Serindia

The term Serindia was first coined by Sir Aurel Stein as the name he gave to the cultures which he began to uncover in the Taklamakan desert at the beginning of the 20th century. It delineates the watershed of culture traversed by the silk roads between India and China. Stein took as his inspiration the name of ‘Seres’ given by the Greek historian Pausanias in circa 180 BC to that vast stretch of land which rested at the confluence of India, China and Persia and which served as the conduit for the trade in silk, and equally significantly in the transmission of Buddhism from its northern Indian homeland to all corners of Asia. Geographically, Serindia embraces all of the regions from the Himalayas and Pamirs in the south to the Mongolian steppe in the north, from Dunhuang and Xi’an in the east to the Caspian sea in the west. Culturally, Serindia is everything that has emerged from these regions: from the Graeco-Indian forms of Gandhara to the voluptuous line of the Tang international style. It refers to the graceful and wild lyricism of the Himalayan valleys and plateaus as well as to the bold and direct designs of the desert and steppe.

Serindia Publications…

was established in London in 1976 by Anthony Aris and has published 60 books, mainly in the fields of Tibetan & Himalayan Studies, but also with interests in Central Asia, Asian Art and Traditional Medicine. The list of titles presented on this new website reflects his own personal interests as well as a reverence for editorial and production quality and for the finest of contemporary scholarship. Today, with the rapid advance of the World Wide Web, Serindia Publications, now under the care of Shane Suvikapakornkul in Chicago, is again inspired to pioneer new digital silk roads which will reach out and entice readers to embark on voyages of discovery on what is now the common heritage of all mankind.

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