Asia

ASIA. - One of the five largest continents of the earth.

I. GEOGRAPHY.

Asia is the vastest of the continents (more than 44 million sq. km.; nearly ½ of the emerged lands, more than 4 times Europe), or rather, perhaps, the major part (52.6%) of the ancient continent, in which it is joined both to Africa (the isthmus of Suez was cut by a canal only in 1869, and the Red Sea can easily be crossed), and even more to Europe, which is often considered a peninsula of it (hence one sometimes speaks of the Eurasian continent), welded to it as it is by a vast land area, from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea.

Every separation here has scarcely more than conventional value, even in historical terms, and moreover that entire area has long belonged to a single political unit. Also to the southeast an articulated and complex island bridge connects Asia to the neighboring southern continent, while to the northeast the two masses of the Old and New World, which the immense expanse of the Pa-

Pacific separates, they draw close to one another first by a broad insular cordon of doubtful attribution (Aleutians), then by a narrow arm of sea (Bering Strait, 92 km.), which, frozen in winter, allows easy passage from A. to America and vice versa. In this way A. enjoys the privilege of being in more or less intimate contact with all parts of the world, among which it occupies a central position.

Bounded by Cape Celiuskin to the N. (77° 42' N.), by Cape Buru to the S. (1° 16' N.), by Cape Baba to the W. (26° 5' E. Greenwich) and by Cape Oriental or Dehnov to the E. (169° 44' W. Greenwich), the trunk of the continent remains entirely within the northern hemisphere.

A. is the part of the world that extends more than any other in the sense of longitudes: over 164° (a little less than half the circuit of the globe). Taking the islands into account, while the extremes in longitude shift but little, the Australasian archipelago carries the southern limit of the continent beyond the Equator: 10° 54' S. (Roti Island, to the SW. of Timor).

A. has a rather massive shape, with a trunk that can, roughly speaking, be likened to a quadrilateral about 6000 thousand km. on a side, and it is, by itself (33.5 million sq. km.), larger than each of the other parts of the world.

Its vastness and continentality are well expressed by the fact that the average distance from the sea is there more than double the corresponding European value (770 km. instead of 340), almost 1/3 of its area is separated from the coasts by over 1000 km. of intervening land space, and there are interior points that lie as far as 2400 km. from them. Nevertheless its outline is relatively rugged. Trunk and articulations stand to one another in a ratio of about 3 to 1 (in surface area), and the latter are represented above all by peninsulas. Of these the three southern ones (Arabia, India and Indochina) are the largest, or among the largest, in the world (several times larger than the Mediterranean ones), while the islands, among which there are likewise conspicuous ones (Borneo, Sumatra, Hondo, Celebes, Java, Luzon), form, together with the former, on the eastern side of the continent, so rich and showy a train of festoons as in no other part of the world. Characteristic is the development assumed, between these festoons and the continental mass, by the peripheral seas, from the Bering Strait to the Australasian Mediterranean (which, with its 7.5 million sq. km., is the largest of the earth's mediterraneans): around some of these seas there have been constituted areas of fervid economic activity among the most densely populated on the globe.

Also as regards relief, A. differs from the other two continents with which it constitutes the Old World. More than the far greater proportions of the mountain systems, of the plateaus, basins, valleys, depressions, glaciers, etc. and the very much greater absolute height of the loftiest peaks (central A. in several places exceeds 8000 m. and touches 8882 on Mt. Everest, Himalaya), what helps to give an idea of the conditions of its morphology is the prevalence of high over low lands. The former, which comprise the highest plateaus of the world and all (except one) of the earth's summits above 7000 m., embrace, by themselves, 2/3 of the surface of the continent, whose average height (960 m.), little less than triple the European one, finds no counterpart in the other parts of the world, when one sets aside Antarctica, which is moreover still imperfectly known. The contrast immediately strikes the eye between a median orographic zone, which represents the continuation of the Alpine arc, and the low plains (northern A.) or the platforms (western and southern A.) that bound it to the N. and to the S. On one side several series of long and interlocking diaphragms continue from the Mediterranean toward the east (Pontic Mts., Taurus, Zagros, Hindu-Kush) as far as the heart of A., where they seem to come together

(Pamir) and then branch out in different directions: to the E. toward Tibet (Himalaya, Transhimalaya, Kuen-lun, Altin-tag) and then, bending to the S., toward Indochina and Indonesia; still further to the E. toward China (Tsing ling), to the N. toward Mongolia and Siberia (Tien-scian, Iablonoi, Stanovoi). On the other, more or less extensive plateaus remain enclosed or are bounded by these ramparts (Anatolia, Armenia, Iran, Tibet, eastern Turkestan, Zungaria, Mongolia, etc.) on one or more of their sides.

Orographic continuity does not always correspond to genetic or structural continuity: in contrast to the great belt of Tertiary foldings to which, for example, the Caucasus and the Himalaya belong, the reliefs that go back to Hercynian folding assume an individuality of their own, as, for example, the ranges that cross Tibet and bound central A. to the N. Likewise different may be the origin and appearance of the plateaus. Of these some correspond to tablelands (of the complex to which Africa and Australia belong): the Deccan and Arabia, both welded to the continent by extensive alluvial zones (respectively the Indo-Gangetic and Mesopotamian low plains); the others result for the most part from ancient folded zones that a long erosion has flattened and leveled, as is, for example, the case of the central section (between Yenisei and Lena) of Siberia, quite different from a true plain. A position apart is occupied, in many respects, by the eastern side of the continent, in whose relief and morphology a large place must be given to volcanism, present with numerous active apparatuses from Kamchatka to the Sunda Islands.

On the whole, the arrangement of the relief is such that, in general, the peripheral zones correspond to the most easily accessible sectors, whereas the interior regions are crossed by grandiose mountain complexes that hinder penetration into them. The axes of these complexes, now approaching, now diverging from one another, enclose zones of varying breadth, which come to find themselves segregated from the beneficent oceanic influence. A. is thus the continent that has the highest percentage of areas without drainage to the sea. At the same time a regional compartmentalization is determined, with which is perhaps to be placed in relation the persistence of forms of practical activity (ways of life, tribal and state and spiritual organization, languages, religions, customs), as original as they are conservative.

To the characters of the relief correspond those of the hydrography, of which peculiar is first of all the great extent of the internal basins. No less than 15 million sq. km. (that is to say roughly 1/3 of the continent) is the extent of the zones whose waters do not reach the Ocean, and indeed of these fully 10 million (equal to the area of the whole of Europe) lack surface hydrography altogether (areic zones), for want of precipitation. Setting aside Arabia and Iran, these regions concern central A., from the Caspian to Manchuria and from Tibet to Turkestan; regions in which, besides a great number of closed salt lakes (Caspian, Aral, Balcaš, Lob nor; Tibetan lakes), there are also numerous absolute depressions (Turfan, 130 m.; surface of the Caspian, 26 m.; the deepest is nevertheless represented by the Dead Sea, in Palestine, 394 m.). Excluding the Aralo-Caspian region, the largest internal basin is that of the Tarim (1.1 million sq. km.), whose course (1300 km.), like those of the Amur, the Syr and all the rivers of the arid zones, becomes progressively impoverished toward its mouth also because of the intense withdrawal of water for irrigation purposes.

The expansion, in the very middle of the continent, of this immense area without drainage to the sea and the arrangement of the relief explain why A., notwithstanding its vast bulk, counts the greatest number of large rivers (7 with over 4 thousand; 2 with over 3 thousand and 6 with over 4 thousand km. of course), but not the greatest river of the world.

The Siberian rivers, among which there are notable ones (with 5,200 km of length each, the Ob and the Yenisei yield only to the Nile, the Mississippi and the Amazon), have a plains course and abundant and constant waters, but navigation — which is interrupted there for many months (7 on the Lena upstream of Vitim) because of the ice — is intermittent in character (internal communications); moreover, by bringing the frost earlier downstream and the thaw earlier upstream, they transform the riverside zones into marshland during more or less long periods. The mouth of the Amur is also blocked by ice for about six months (4,500 km; 2.1 million sq km of basin); and the Hoang-ho (4,100 km; 1 million sq km) has a regime that is too irregular, whose powerful alluviation has caused frequent breaches and changes of course (nine times in historical times; the last, in 1852, carried its mouth from the Yellow Sea to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li) and brought about incalculable devastation. By contrast, the largest of the Chinese rivers, the Jang-tse-Kiang (5,200 km; 1.8 million sq km), rich in waters and navigable upstream in every season by vessels for more than half of its course, represents the most important artery of all eastern Asia; with its numerous tributaries it is certainly the most frequented basin in the world. The Indochinese rivers too (Irrawaddy, Menam, Salween, Mekong) enjoy copious discharge, but with characteristics of notable irregularity both in their regimes (floods) and, even more, in their bed profile (rapids and cataracts). There is a sharp contrast between the two greatest Indian rivers, the Indus and the Ganges-Brahmaputra: the former is poor in waters, little navigable and bathes sparsely populated territories (3,200 km; 1 million sq km); the latter is privileged by its abundant and regular flow, better navigable and used for irrigation (in one of the territories most teeming with life on the continent) to a degree perhaps greater than any other river in the world (3,000 km; 1.7 million sq km). Considerably lesser, but still notable, is the importance of the "twins" Euphrates and Tigris, whose skillful utilization made possible, in antiquity, the flourishing of the Mesopotamian civilizations.

Of the many lakes with which Asia is rich, most belong to the internal basins, not excluding the Caspian, which by its proportions (440,000 sq km) and by its characteristics (a remnant of a much larger sea) forms a part unto itself. The Aral (64,500 sq km) and the Baikal (33,000 sq km) are among the most conspicuous; the latter, which is also the deepest on Earth (1,521 m), is at the same time the greatest known crypto-depression, its bed descending to 1,045 m below sea level.

In determining the climatic characteristics of Asia and their great variety, the following contribute essentially: the notable extension of the continent in latitude (from the pole to the equator); the pronounced continentality of its mass; the arrangement and the energy of its relief; and finally the play of the monsoons. These are periodic winds determined by the regular seasonal contrast (mawsim, in Arabic "season") between the differing heating and cooling of the compact internal continental mass and of the adjacent Indian Ocean, and they therefore blow during the half-year of the boreal winter cool and dry from land to sea (NE monsoon), and during the summer half-year in the opposite direction (SW monsoon), bringing in this case, because they are laden with moisture, the benefit of rain to a very extensive area (from the coasts of Arabia to Japan). In monsoonal southern and southeastern Asia, where temperatures are generally rather high and with modest thermal excursions, the year is divided into two seasons, the dry and the rainy, separated by two brief periods of reversal (usually in April and October), in which frequent and terrible storms occur (typhoons of the Chinese seas). On the southern slope of the Himalaya, up to 12 m of rain per year are measured (the maximum recorded on earth). The rains are also copious, and in every season, in Indonesia, where temperatures remain constantly high throughout the year (equatorial oceanic climate). Toward the west, from India and the Caspian to the Aegean, the Mediterranean climate dominates, with mild winters, hot and dry summers, and scanty winter rains, which become ever scarcer on the internal plateaus, segregated from maritime influence (Anatolia, Arabia, Iran). Toward the NW, from these arid zones one passes gradually to the climates of central Asia, which extend over a good third of the continent: more than by the thermal contrasts between long, rigid winters and short, hot summers, their character is given by general aridity, even where altitude increases (Tibet). Boreal Asia, from the Urals to the Amur, has even longer and more rigid winters (at Oimekon, in the basin of the Indigirka, there is a winter average of — 48°; this is the so-called "pole of cold"), and short summers with equally scanty precipitation, but in southern Siberia the climatic conditions become milder and the amount of rain increases to the point of making cultivation possible.

The zonal distribution, roughly from N to S, of the climates corresponds to that of the spontaneous vegetation. The peri-Arctic boreal region, with persistently frozen soil, is in the domain of the tundra, bleak in winter, vividly flowering and green with mosses and lichens during the sunny summer. South of the polar circle stretches the boundless coniferous forest (taiga), which covers almost all of Siberia for a width varying from 1,000 to 2,300 km (and is therefore the vastest in the world): a refuge of inexhaustible game (fur-bearing animals, wolves, brown bears). At the expense of the forest, Russian colonization has given development, in the more suitable southern regions, to livestock raising and to the European crops of the cold zone. By gradual transition the taiga gives way, toward the south, first to the steppe and then to the desert, which form an almost continuous zone, stretching from the Red Sea to the Sea of Japan, and comprising Arabia, Anatolia, Persia, Turan and central Asia as far as the extreme Gobi; an enormous arid belt, whose natural vocation is nomadic pastoralism (sheep and camels; central Asia seems to be the place of origin of the camel, and anterior Asia of the dromedary), but which in part (irrigation, oases) has been able to be won over to cultivation (cereals, cotton: Tarim, Russian Turkestan). The remaining Asia embraces barely 1/3 of the continent's area, but about 9/10 of its population; it includes, together with the savannas of the monsoonal countries and the evergreen scrub of the subtropical countries, which, both in the west (anterior Asia) and in the east (southern China, SW Japan), have by now been transformed by cultivation, fairly extensive strips of equatorial forest, which still cover the internal parts of the Malay islands and various tracts of the continent itself (Malacca, Indochina). In these regions the fauna is as exuberant as the flora (great felines, elephants, rhinoceroses, monkeys, reptiles, etc.; great abundance and variety of birds in the subtropical regions of Asia), it being understood that it becomes impoverished progressively as one passes from the equatorial and monsoonal zone to the peripheral subtropical ones.

On the whole, of the area of Asia, a little more than 1/5 is occupied by steppes, pastures and meadows, less than 1/4 by scrub and forests, approximately 1/5 or a little more by arable land; the rest is unproductive (20%).

A. contains more than half of the entire population of the earth, from 1250 to 1300 million inhabitants, which would give, on average, barely 28 inhabitants per sq km (a little more than half of the European figure). It should be borne in mind, however, that for the most part these are estimates, since several countries of A. do not have regular censuses (one need only think of the very populous China), and that the distribution of this mass is in fact quite unequal. India, China, and Japan alone absorb from 3/4 to 4/5 of the total, with extremes that, even in areas that are far from small, exceed 500 and even 1000 inhabitants per sq km. But these enormous human anthills are matched by much larger areas that are sparsely populated or even depopulated: fewer than 1 inhabitant per sq km and sometimes fewer than 1 per 10 sq km characterize the Siberian tundra and taiga, the steppes and deserts of the west and center, as well as the highest parts of the great mountain systems. Against an average value of about 100 inhabitants per sq km for monsoon Asia, there is one twenty times smaller (5-6 inhabitants per sq km) for the rest, that is, for no less than 3/4 of the continent.

A. is considered the cradle of humanity; and from A. there set out, in historical times, several waves of peoples: Ugro-Finns, Tatars, Turks, Huns, etc. toward Europe, Arabs toward Africa, Jews in every direction. All three of the major racial groups generally recognized today (Whites, Yellows, Blacks) are represented there, but approximately 2/3 of its population belong to the Yellows or Mongoloids (so that this continent is often called by antonomasia the Yellow Continent), among whom numerically predominant are the two eastern branches of the Sino-Tibetans and of the Koreans and Japanese, while spread over much larger areas, but more thinly, are both the western branch (Turks, Turkomans, Tatars, Kirghiz) and the central ones (Mongols in the strict sense and Manchus) and northern ones (or of the Paleo-Asiatics: Samoyeds, Tungus, Yakuts, Kamchadals), who live mostly in a nomadic state and sometimes in primitive conditions.

The Europoid group penetrates into A. from the west with two long intrusions, one ancient, in the south, from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Bengal, made up of Armenians, Iranians and Hindus; and another in the north, extending like a thin strip from the Urals to the Pacific, and more recent (Slavs); branches joined in a certain way, spatially, by the original, confused nucleus of the Caucasians. It can be calculated that Whites in A. amount to 320-350 million in round figures. As for the Malays, who populate most of the Australasian islands and who are sometimes considered to belong to a mixed race (a cross of Mongoloids with Negrids), they are probably no fewer than 70 million. Another area of ethnic mixtures is represented by the southern part of the vast sector in which A. and Europe join; a third, even more evident, is India, where, alongside remnants of primitive populations (Vedda of Ceylon), there is represented a fairly conspicuous branch (200 million) of Negrids or Indo-Melanids (regions of the East), also of still uncertain position. Racially hard-to-classify nuclei are found, moreover, in A., almost everywhere: in northern Japan (Ainu), in the Philippines (Negritos), in the Andamans (Mincopi), etc.

A. was the cradle of all the most widespread religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam were born on the edge of the Arabian desert; Brahmanism and Buddhism in India, Confucianism and Taoism in China, Shintoism in Japan. It is not surprising, therefore, that A. presents in this regard a picture no less varied than complicated. Confucians (370 million), Hindus (280 million) and Buddhists (270 million) alone absorb 4/5 of the continent's population, the first prevailing in southeastern A. from Annam to Korea and in China proper, the second in India, the last from Burma to Indochina. Islam dominates southwestern A. with notable nuclei in India and Indonesia: its proselytes range, in the calculations given by the most reliable sources, from 200 to 280 million. No fewer than 50 million must probably be the adherents of the primitive religions still preserved among the peoples of the far north, as well as in the interior of India, Indochina and the major islands. A group apart, considerable also in number (18-20 million), is formed by the Shintoists of Japan, a relatively small one (perhaps a million) and rather dispersed by the Jews, even though for the most part settled in anterior A.

As for Christians, they represent in A. perhaps no more than 1/25 of the population (50 million souls); barely 1/60 Catholics (20 million; especially the Philippines and anterior A.). The majority of the continent's Christians (25 million) are Orthodox (Asia Minor, Siberia); Protestants are scattered somewhat everywhere, and have, like the Catholics, founded numerous missions in southern and southeastern A. It is hardly necessary to warn that all these statistical data are to be received with many reservations, given the varying and often poor reliability of the sources from which they come.

In the framework of the world economy A. occupies a place on the whole disproportionate to its size, to its potential and to its population.

As regards mining production, A. dominates the international market only with tin (over 90% of the world total, British Malaya, China, Indochina), and its participation is moderate for petroleum (however, less than 1/4 of the world total; especially in the Caucasus, in Arabia and in Iraq). As for coal, on the other hand, even taking into account Soviet production (which for the most part still comes from European regions), the quantity extracted in A. probably does not reach 1/4 of the world total. And modest, or indeed negligible, is the share to be attributed to A. for all the other products most sought after by international trade (let us note only 40% for tungsten; lead gives 1/10, antimony 1/4 or 1/5).

The true wealth of the continent is constituted by agricultural products; which is not surprising when one recalls that from A. has come to us the gift of the greatest number of cultivated species (if not also wheat, certainly rice, tea, cotton, mulberries, olive, sugar cane, etc.) and of fruit trees (cherry, peach, apricot, plum, banana, orange, etc.), as well as of the vine. Of rice, which is the most common food of the monsoon countries, A. produces 95% of the world total; 1/3 of barley (U.S.S.R., and China); 1/4 of wheat (U.S.S.R., China and India), 1/4, likewise, of cane sugar (India) and of hemp (U.S.S.R. and China); more than 1/4 of cotton (India and China); over half of tobacco (China and India), almost all of tea (98%; India, China, Japan, Ceylon), of rubber (97%; British Malaya, Indonesia), and of soy (80%), more (China, Manchuria); all of jute (India), etc.

A. is the homeland of pastoral nomadism, which is still very widespread there; nevertheless, its animal wealth is, on the whole, hardly comparable with its plant wealth.

Cattle breeding is conspicuous in India (which has more cattle than any other country in the world) and in China; with over 200 million head, A. counts about 30% of the world's livestock. Goats (50% of the world total) and sheep (12%) are very widespread, especially in India, China and the Near East; pigs (the continent, including the U.S.S.R., possesses slightly less than 2/5 of the world total) especially in China (which holds the absolute primacy with more than 1/5 of that total). Of draft and pack animals, apart from the regions of the extreme N. (reindeer and dogs), oxen and buffaloes (with 62 million head, the latter represent 98% of the world total) prevail in monsoon A., where the elephant is also employed for the same purpose; horses (30 million head; 1/3 of the world total: U.S.S.R., China and India), donkeys (16 million head; over 1/3; China, India, U.S.S.R.) and mules (26%; especially in China and Manchuria) in the middle territories N. of the desert belt and in eastern A.; camels (1/4 of the world total: China, U.S.S.R., India) in the arid regions of the center, except Tibet, where the Yak is employed (but only for transport). Of products of animal origin, silk should be remembered, whose breeding is highly developed throughout eastern A.; A. certainly supplies more than 4/5 of the raw silk of the whole world. If the continent's contribution is modest as regards meat, wool and milk, the product of maritime fishing is rich (perhaps 2/5 of the world total), long one of the favorite occupations of the populations of Japan (in this regard at the head of all states), China and Malaysia.

While handicrafts have very ancient traditions in A. (China, Japan, India) and still provide objects of artistic value and wide renown, the development of modern large-scale industry has everywhere been late and recent. Only Japan, China and central Siberia can rank among the industrial countries, although, with the exception of the first, these are partial transformations, and productions destined to cover, at least in part, internal consumption. In international trade, in fact, Asian participation remains modest: from 1/7 to 1/6 of the total value before the recent world war. This trade rested and still rests substantially on the exchange of raw materials for manufactured products, of which the only continental suppliers of greater importance are, in substance, Japan and the U.S.S.R.

The wide political fragmentation of A., its physical structure and its economic development explain why, while trade has for the most part preserved traditional systems, international commerce is concentrated in southern and eastern A. The busiest sea routes connect these regions to Europe through the Red Sea (Suez Canal); the importance of the Pacific nonetheless tends to grow, as a consequence of the Second World War. The busiest ports (apart from the U.S.S.R.) are all S. of the 40th parallel (Smyrna, Beirut, Aden, Bombay, Madras, Colombo, Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore, Batavia, Manila, Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Kobe and Yokohama). As for internal communications, railways were introduced into A. relatively late, and their development has been slow. With about 170 thousand km. of lines, A. is, in relation to population, in last place among the continents (1.4 km. of railway per 10 thousand inhabitants), and the four sectors that comprise most of them (Indian, Japanese, Russian, Chinese) neither join up nor complete one another. It is nevertheless possible today to travel by train from Europe to the Persian Gulf, to Turkestan (Turksib), to Korea and to China (Trans-Siberian) with regular services, completed for almost all the other regions of the continent by no less rapid and comfortable motor-coach services; and even more quickly by aircraft that now link all the principal Asian centers to those of the Old and New Continents. If distances are thus everywhere overcome or shortened, there nonetheless remains segregated from modern traffic, most of the continent (central and northern Asia), whose development will certainly still require the efforts of several generations.

Asia, whose peoples have constituted great and well-ordered political organisms since the most remote antiquity and have at various times also included within these part of Europe itself, had, on the eve of the First World War, more than half of its territory still subject to European states. These had long maintained flourishing colonies of exploitation there, in which a narrow aristocracy of administrators dominated enormous masses of indigenous populations, whose traditional and often original forms of life Western civilization has not always been able to permeate and alter. Nevertheless, the last century, with its economic evolution and its great politico-social conflicts, has everywhere favored first a more intimate collaboration of the local element with the rulers, and then a broader and more effective autonomy and independence of the ruled.

Taking into account the changes that have recently occurred in the political situation of the territories subject to English authority or influence (India, Burma, Ceylon, Transjordan), almost 9/10 of the area and more than 9/10 of the Asian population are by law independent, when Russian Asia is excluded from the count, which alone absorbs just under 2/5 of the surface area, but barely 1/30, or little more, of the continent's population (and moreover the recognized national autonomy finds a reflection, albeit an outward one, in the federal structure of the Soviet state). If we then include in the number of independent states also Palestine, the Dutch East Indies and the Indochinese Federation, for which one can no longer speak, in any case, of colonial forms, the proportions reduce European dominion in Asia to barely 2.4% of the territory and 1.4% of the population, that is, in substance, to residual fringes, of which the most important are the English ones (Ceylon and the Malay Union above all).

It should nevertheless be noted that the de facto situation often differs from the juridical one, not only in the newly independent territories, but also in those long considered as such (Afghanistan, Arabia, China, Iran, Iraq, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand), whose internal politics is in close relation with the vicissitudes of the existing or latent conflict among the principal extra-Asian powers (including in the first place the U.S.S.R.) interested in it. Only with such a reservation can the statistical picture of the continent be given below.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. ETHNOGRAPHY AND RELIGIONS

1. From the anthropological point of view, the following racial groups may be noted in the Asian continent: a) the Pygmies, of very small stature, pushed back to the extreme southern limits (Malacca, Andamans, Philippines); b) the Pigmoids, of small stature, differentiated by various evident admixtures; they are represented in the north by the Eskimos, Lapps, Ainu, etc., in the south by the Vedda, Dravidians, etc.; c) the Indo-Afghanians, of large build; d) the Turco-Tartars, of medium stature, occupying the western part of central Asia; e) the Mongols, with their characteristic prominent cheekbones.

2. Linguistically, the following should be noted: a) the Old Pygmy group (Negritos, Andamanese); b) the Paleo-Asiatic group (Ainu, Yukaghirs); c) the Dravidian group; d) the Tibeto-Chinese group; e) the Austro-Asiatic group; f) the Indo-European group; g) the Ural-Altaic group; h) the Semito-Hamitic group.

3. Ethnologically, one can here observe an increasing specialization: a) the primordial culture of hunting and gathering is represented by the Pygmies; b) the archaic culture may be considered a particular phase of the preceding one; c) the pastoral culture is richly present in the great northern steppes; d) the totemistic-patriarchal culture is found among the western tribes; f) there remain finally the great mixed cultures, Indian, Chinese, Japanese.

All these cultures have for a very long time been more or less fixedly crystallized; only recently, that is, after the encounter with modern European civilization, have the great mixed cultures undertaken a new ascending path.

For the great non-Christian religions of Asia, v. the entries: BRAHMANESIMO; BUDDHISMO; CONFUCIANESIMO; GIAINISMO; INDUSMO; ISLAMISMO; LAMAISMO; PARSISMO; SCINTOISMO; TAOISMO; VEDISMO.

Bernardo Bernardi

III. ASIA IN THE BIBLE

It never designates the entire continent. In the books of Maccabees it indicates the kingdom of the Seleucids: the first to whom we find the title of "king of Asia" attributed is Antiochus III (223-187 B.C.: I Mach. 8, 6) and after him his successors also receive it (ibid. 11, 13; 12, 31; 13, 32; II Mach. 3, 3), although under Antiochus III the Seleucid kingdom retained, of the Asian provinces of Alexander the Great, only Syria and Cilicia.

In the New Testament A. (Acts 2:9; 4:9; 16:6; 19:10, 22, 26; 20:4, 16, 18; 21:27; 24:19; 27:2; Rom. 16:5; I Cor. 16:9; II Cor. 1:8; II Tim. 1:15; I Pt. 1:1; Apoc. 1-3) denotes the Roman province of A. (constituted in 129 B.C.), which occupied part of Asia Minor. In the 1st century it comprised Mysia, Lydia, Caria and western Phrygia (Cibyra, Apamea and Synnada) and, from 27 B.C., was governed by the senate through a proconsul resident at Ephesus. In Apoc. 1:4, 11 John addresses himself to the "7 churches that are in A.," and lists them: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea; but he omits Colossae, Hierapolis, Magnesia, Tralles, Miletus, etc. In the New Testament the term sometimes takes on a narrower sense; for example, in Acts it often denotes only the region of Ephesus.

From A. (a proconsular province) derives the term Asiarch (Acts 19:31; as elsewhere the Bithyniarch, the Galatarch), a magistrate who, in the presence of the proconsul, presided at Ephesus over the annual provincial assembly of the delegates of all the cities (Kainón or Commune Asiae), in which the cult of Rome and of the emperor was celebrated, and decisions were made on behalf of the whole province; his office was distinct from that of the Archiereus, the high priest, although the two are sometimes found united in the same individual.

Gaetano M. Perrella

IV. CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA.

ANCIENT ERA

For the spread of Christianity in the Asian continent in ancient times, v. the entries ARABIA; ARMENIA; ASIA MINOR; CHINA; INDIA; PERSIA.

MEDIEVAL AND MODERN ERA

1. From the 13th to the 15th century

In the 13th century, after the conquest of the Germanic peoples of the north, the Church seemed destined to live enclosed within the European boundaries, without any possibility of expanding toward the great pagan world. To the south of Europe the Islamic states had raised an unbreakable dividing wall between the Mediterranean countries and Africa; and the Christian East, by breaking the bonds that tied it to Rome, had closed every path of the Church toward the populations of the Asian interior. Only a new fact, or a complex of events, could have changed that dead-end situation.

And the new fact was the impetuous invasion of the Mongols, which, while it seemed bound to threaten the destruction of Christendom itself, in reality threw down that dividing wall, making possible the passage of the Christian West to the far East. The Church could thus resume its expansionist program for the benefit of those new peoples, all the more fervently as, through the Mongol incursions, these peoples had revealed themselves to be numerous, powerful, and - so it was rumored - also open to evangelical preaching. Events took it upon themselves to demonstrate that this last supposition was not correct (v. MISSIONI, storia), but there remains the notable phenomenon of the Church's coming into contact with the Eastern world, all the more interesting at that time when Christendom was in the grip of terror before the advance of those savage hordes, which, if it had been twice avoided, could not for that reason be believed to have been averted. A contact between two worlds, which, brought about on the initiative of the papacy - the popes of the Avignon period being no less deserving - did not bring to fruition the hoped-for Christian conquest of those peoples, nor their alliance against the nearer Muslim danger, and did not succeed, then, in bringing those nations stably into the general and lively movement of Christendom; it did, however, manage to establish stable relations between Europe and A., which learned to know each other, with incalculable advantages for geographical and ethnographic science.

It cannot be denied, however, that the religious advantages of the apostolate were entirely lacking. Christianity was not established in the East, but missions were established and all the roads of A. were dotted with small Christian beacons, destined in time to mature into firmly planted Christian communities, if not yet dominant, in that immense world then unexplored.

The principal actors of this Christian advance in A. are the two new mendicant Orders of the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The century that runs from the middle of the 14th century to the middle of the 15th, that is, from the journey of John of Piano dei Carpine (v.) to that of Marignolli (v.), marks the most significant stages and the creation of bishopvicariates in the Near and Far East, constitutes its official consecration. The first episcopal see erected is that of Khanbaliq, in the most distant part of the Mongol empire, and from 1257 the new capital in place of Karakorum; from that first diocese there were detached, in the space of a few decades, the territories of new dioceses in the various parts of the empire: those of Sultanieh (1318) for Persia, of Kaffa, Tana (1317) and then Sarai, the capital (1321), for Kipchak or the Golden Horde; to which were added, later (1333), the two minor dioceses of Kerch and Matrega; then that of Meshed for Turkestan and Khorasan. India too, then a land of passage for these Mongol missions, had, in that period, its bishopric, Colombo (which is not the Colombo of the island of Ceylon, but a city on the western coast, probably Quilon); all dioceses, except Khanbaliq, suffragan to Sultanieh, and almost all created under the pontificate of John XXII. Despite the turbulence of those times and those kingdoms, which did not enjoy great peace, after the fragmentation of the single Mongol empire following the death of Genghis Khan (1226), the Church took possession - so to speak - of the whole of A., as large as it was, in order to lay the foundations of new Christianities among those new peoples, watering their lands with the sweat and blood of its pioneers.

With the fall of the Genghis Khanids, the advent of the Ming dynasty in China (1368), and the triumph of Islam at the Persian court, access to the Far East was definitively closed, and on the other hand the land routes through Persia, Kipchak and Turkestan had become almost impossible: the sowing of missionary landing points suffered a halt. Here too, in order to resume the journey, some grand providential event was needed, which was not long in coming about through the enterprise of a young and bold European power, Portugal.

2. From the 15th to the 18th century

The event was the discovery of the sea route to the Indies (1497-98) by rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Along that route the Portuguese navigators and missionaries launched themselves, and from that day for a century and a half they would hold the uncontested colonial and missionary monopoly of A. However one may wish to judge it from the methodological-missionary point of view, an evaluation that would be out of place here (v. missions, history), this is undoubtedly the first great apostolic period of broad horizon and great scope to appear in the history of the apostolate: a period that brings about the Christian taking possession of A. and that sees the most eminent missionary personalities brought onto the scene: St. Francis Xavier (v.), who was the initiator of the new missionary era, Ricci (v.), de Nobili (v.). All the great Asian countries, which still today constitute that historic continent - India, China, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Tibet - see their land and sea routes, their coastal and inland cities traversed by the Catholic missionary, who studies their languages, their customs, adopts their usages, and transmits, or at least attempts to transmit into those civilizations, so distant from our own, the universal religion of Christ. Thus there arise - fruit and hope together of this activity - on Asian soil at the most strategic points the first cells of Christian life, which branch out and multiply. The 16th century is the century of the creation of the great Asian dioceses, of which the very first - Funchal (1514) and Goa (1534) - comprised, besides the whole of A., also Africa, with which the apostolate had come into contact. In 1558 Cochin and Malacca (which extends as far as Japan) were detached from Goa, in 1579 the dioceses of Macao and Manila were created, and in 1587 that of Funai, with which we have the official taking possession of the five major Asian regions: India, Indochina, China, the Philippines and Japan. From these four original centers or even independently of them, the apostolic vicariates of Propaganda, not tied to the Portuguese patronage, would develop from the 17th century and in the following centuries the other minor centers, less extensive but more fruitful, which marked the other stages of the journey, in extension and in depth, of the apostolate in the Eastern world.

Depth, however, relative, with varied, alternating and always laborious vicissitudes. The 17th and 18th centuries, in fact, were the centuries of the harshest experiences for the Church regarding the greater or lesser ease of the true conquest of those Eastern civilizations, won over for centuries to Hinduism and Buddhism. And thus the rupture comes: the three greatest Far Eastern countries isolate themselves from the West, banishing the messengers of Christianity. To make the undertaking ever more arduous there came, in the 18th century - in addition to the disorienting question of the rites (v. CINESI, riti), which had opened in the 17th century - further complications of a religious-political kind: the abolition of the Society of Jesus, with the consequent personal impoverishment of the missions; the controversy over the jurisdiction of the apostolic vicariates, opposed by the supporters of Portuguese missionary policy; the struggle of the Protestant Powers against the Catholic missions and finally the French Revolution, which broke the bridges between the two worlds.

3. From the 18th to the 20th century

With the Restoration of the 19th century, the Church, despite the enduring state of persecution in at least three of those countries, turned its gaze once more to Indochina and the Far East, toward which its zeal carried it as if by instinct. The new task, however, of Christianity in A. was extremely difficult, not only because of the prejudices dominant in those countries following the events just mentioned, but because the question of penetration into those territories, hermetically closed to foreigners, arose anew; moreover, it was no longer a matter of geographical impenetrability, but of political impenetrability, difficult to overcome. Indeed, the obstacle - which concerned not only the Church but the civilized States of Europe - was eliminated by force, but precisely this also poured onto the missions, as such, the antipathy and hatred naturally provoked by every imposition; so that the resumption of the missions took place in a climate of distrust, which increasingly colored their religious, evangelizing and charitable action with political scheming. Not all the balance sheet, however, was negative in this period; the missions, in fact, provided and supported with personnel and means as never before in the past, and officially tolerated, if not recognized, greatly extended their zone of occupation in the interior of A., and, while not obtaining success in the environments religiously dominated by Hinduism and Buddhism, they gathered a fair harvest among all the minor populations, and in any case imposed themselves on the attention, often even on the administration, of the upper classes and the native governments. The widespread movement of renewal that the great organized religions of A. began at the end of the last century and continue in this one, both from the doctrinal point of view and, and above all, from the ethical one, tending to minimize the aspects in contrast with Christianity, of which they sometimes adopt the nomenclature, and often copy its charitable activities, is an index of the undoubted influence, albeit indirect, that the missions have exercised and exercise on the Asian mentality.

There remains—it is true—the formidable problem of penetrating in depth into the stronghold of those religions which gather millions upon millions of adherents; there remains, that is, the age-old problem of the moral conquest of Asia, whose aridity, having emerged in the preceding period, had provoked the well-known controversies. Today, however, the question presents itself under new and more promising conditions, inasmuch as there is no longer any need to fear the resurgence of ancient disputes or its being shelved by summary measures; the question of the study of method or adaptation has imposed itself upon the missionary world, high and low, having been matured by the times and by experience; and some truly grandiose steps have been taken along the path of that longed-for conquest, such as the creation of the indigenous hierarchy (v. INDIGENO, CLERO, questione del), in China, Indochina, India, Japan, Korea, and the abolition of the oath for the Malabar and Chinese rites and the permission of Chinese and Japanese civil ceremonies (v. RITI CINESI, MALABARICI, CIAPPONESI). One has the impression that other notable innovations are under study, while the very latest events will impose and, to a certain extent, facilitate their adoption. For this reason it seems possible to say that the premises for the Christian conquest of Asia have surely been laid. - See PLATES XI-XIV.

Giovanni B. Tragella