ABSTRACT
After the Han Dynasty, the formative period of Chinese civilisation appears to have been completed, and a long cycle begins in which the pattern appears to be settled and lasting. The conception of the ‘Middle Kingdom’ acquired a new significance. It indicated that China had evolved a distinctive and self-reliant economy and culture, which was dominant (even domineering) in its own region of the world. The older, and originally greater, culture of India declined; so also did the cultures and the Empires of Central Asia. Once great in their own vigour, and cross-fertilised by Greek and Roman influences, the latter sank in this period in ruins in the desert sands.
