In the medieval and ancient worldview, the Far East was not merely a geographic location but a symbolic extreme, integrated into a Jerusalem-centric universal history. This grammar of the world dictated how cultures were understood based on their distance from the spiritual centre of Jerusalem.
Geographical and Cultural Perceptions
Historically, the Far East and the Southern Hemisphere represented the fringe - the edges. Australia, for instance, was envisioned as an upside-down world inhabited by hybrids and criminals. Rather than disproving universal categories, these regions confirmed the symbolic existence of the edge.
Medieval maps were typically oriented East (towards the sunrise) with Jerusalem at the centre. In this spatial hierarchy:
- The East: The source of light and spiritual origin.
- The West (e.g., America): The extreme west or land of barbarians.
- The North: A dark place, the traditional origin of barbarian hordes.
Foundational Encounters and Texts
The West’s understanding of the East relies on several _ur-texts_:
- The Legends of Alexander the Great: Specifically his _Letter to Aristotle_ and his encounter with the Gymnosophists (naked philosophers) in India. This dialogue, where ascetics answered riddles about life, death, and nature, marks the first recorded meeting of Western and Eastern philosophy.
- Herodotus’s Histories: Herodotus famously described India as the "end of the habitable world," populated by diverse tribes and "great ants" that dug up gold. He noted cultural relativism through practices like funerary cannibalism, which horrified the Greeks.
- The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius: This Syriac text introduced Yonatos, a fourth son of Noah, who represented the Far East. Gifted with divine wisdom and astronomy, Yonatos symbolised the East as a source of "spiritual light" that required the West (the sons of Japheth) to provide the "body" or physical city-building.
The Symbolism of Noah’s Sons
The Syriac tradition categorised the world through Noah's lineage:
- Shem: Mesopotamians; the centre, city-builders, and civilization.
- Japheth: Europeans; _techni_ (craft/skill) and the ability to embody ideas.
- Ham: Africans; the edge, associated with trade.
- Yonatos: The Far East; pure wisdom and the "land of the dawn."
Extremes: Asceticism and Decadence
The Far East was consistently viewed as a land of dual extremes:
- Spiritual Rigour: Represented by the disembodied, naked ascetics who possessed nothing.
- Unbound Decadence: Represented by luxury goods (silk, spices) and "unchecked glory." To the Romans, Eastern wealth was a corrupting influence that threatened "homespun virtue."
This duality extends to knowledge. While true wisdom (like the Magi's astrology) came from the East, there was a constant fear of false wisdom or divination magic arising from intermediary powers—such as the Persian or Arab empires—situated between the Far East and Jerusalem.
The Universal Centre and Prester John
The Jerusalem-centric view was surprisingly universal. In the 13th century, Rabon Sauma, a monk from Beijing, travelled to Europe. Despite his Eastern origin, his account reveals a world still fundamentally oriented toward Jerusalem and Christian relics.
This longing for a powerful Eastern ally culminated in the Legend of Prester John, a mythical priest-king. It was believed this Christian monarch would emerge from the Far East to liberate Jerusalem, bridging the gap between the "source of light" and the centre of the world.