The Zoroastrian faith did not stop at Sogdia, but it probably made most converts there. By the fifth century, Sogdian merchants and Persian envoys had taken their faith south into India and as far east as China and there were temples in Chang'an (Xian) and Luoyang, but little evidence of local converts. This letter in Chinese provides rare evidence of Zoroastrianism in tenth century Dunhuang, a major Silk Road town en route to China from Samarkand. It is from Princess Jun Zhezhe, possibly a Turkic Uighur, to her friend, Madame Sikong, Mistress of the North House.
Ink on paper
The British Library,
Or.8210/S.2241