A saffron-robed monk chats on a cell phone or contemplates an iPad. This photo is meant to conjure contradiction -- a clash of cultures as ancient tradition meets modern technology. Yet, each time I see such images, they evoke for me the opposite.
Journeys on the Silk Road by Joyce Morgan and Conrad Walters tells the story of Marc Aurel Stein's 1906 journey following the Silk Road across Asia from Kashgar to Dunhuang, the site of The Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, plundering along the way.
Its discovery is the result of a series of accidents and its significance realized belatedly. The book unwittingly came to light when a Chinese monk clearing sand from a Buddhist meditation cave in 1900 noticed a crack in a wall.