Print

xxi Chronology 1200s Rashid al-Din, a 13th-century historian, records some 11 Buddhist texts circulating in Persia in Arabic translations. 1206 Mongolian tribes assemble at Karakorum and agree to unite under Geng- his Khan. 1215 Genghis Khan captures Beijing. 1245–1247 Giovanni Pianô Carpine travels overland to Karakorum on the orders of Pope Innocent IV and becomes one of the first Europeans to enter the Mongol Empire. 1253–1255 William of Rubruck travels overland to Karakorum on orders from Louis IX. 1267 Kublai Khan makes Beijing his capital city. 1271–1295 Marco Polo travels overland to China, through Turkey and Tibet. 1279–1368 Kublai Khan establishes the Yuan dynasty in China. 1295 Mongol leader Ghazan Khan converts to Islam, thereby ending a line of Tantric Buddhist leaders in the region. 1325–1354 Moroccan traveler and scholar Muhammad Ibn Battuta, or Ibn Batu¯tah . . (1304–1369), visits most of the known Islamic world, from North Africa to the Horn of Africa, West Africa, the Middle East, India, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. 1327 Franciscan friar Oderico of Pordenone travels from Beijing through Tibet, perhaps as far as Lhasa. 1345–1351 The Black Death, likely bubonic plague, sweeps across Europe, killing up to 40 million victims worldwide. 1368–1644 The Ming dynasty thrives in China. 1398 Tamerlane sacks Delhi. 1416 The Drepung Monastery is constructed in Tibetan style. 1419 A monk of the Gelugpa (or “Yellow Hat”) School of Tibetan Buddhism, Je Tsongkhapa, establishes three great monasteries around Lhasa. 1453 Constantinople falls to Ottoman Turks, thereby ending the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire comes into power and remains in power until 1924. 1495 Babur (1483–1530) succeeds in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty in the Indian subcontinent and becomes the first Mughal emperor. His presence promotes the significant expansion of the Persianate ethos across the Indian subcontinent. 1508–1509 The Garden of Fidelity, or Bagh-i Vafa, is constructed by the Mughal emperor Babur south of Adinapur Fort. 1526 The Mughal dynasty begins in India with Babur’s defeat of Ibrahim, the sultan of Delhi, at Panipat in the Punjab. 1561 Humayun’s Tomb is constructed at a cost of about 1.5 million Indian rupees. 1600 Elizabeth I grants a charter to the East India Company. 1602–1605 Bento de Goes travels in Tartary from Agra, via Lahore, Kabul, Yar- kand, Aksu, Turfan, Chami, and Su-cheu.