The Cultural Role of the Sassanid Persia in the Early Islamic Period and the Spread of Persian Culture to the East Asia

This article is designed in the first, to dig out some illuminating historical facts that the Sassanid Persia gives pivotal influence in the formation of early Islamic period. In the second, this is to open trace the various historical heritage supporting by early contacts between the Sassanid Persia and Islamic world. In the third, the cultural spread of the Sassanid to the East Asia and to further Korean peninsula is deeply discussed based on original materials of Arabic, Persian and Chinese. In many ways the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Iranian Empire before the Muslim conquest and adoption of Islam. Under Khosrau I, the college of Gundishapur, which had been founded in the 5th Century, became "the greatest intellectual cneter of the time", drawing students and teachers from every quarter of the known world. The Sassanian influence carried forward to the early Islamic world with Muslim conquest of Iran, especially Sassanian unique, aristocratic culture. Some scholars even go to the extent of claiming that much of what later became known as Islamic culture, architecture, political system, writing and other skills was borrowed mainly from the Sassanid Persians and propagated throughout the broader Muslim territory. The Sassanid influence didn't reulture main confined to its borders. Like their predecessors the Parthians, the Sassanid Empire carried out active foreign relations with China and Shilla Korea, and ambassadors from Persia frequently traveled to China. Chinese documents report on the ���thirteen Sassanid embassies to China. Commercially, land and sea trade with China was important to both the Sassanid and Chinese Empires. At the same time, of course, many parts of the Sassanid culture introduced to Shilla society through well known sea routes. Glass cups excavated in the Shilla royal tombs in Gyeong-ju areas clearly show that they were imported from the Sassanid. A silver bowl found in a Shilla tombs also tell us Sassanid influence due to the image of Anahita goddess in the Perssian mythology inscribed on the surface of the bowl. Moreover, many Persian manuscripts record the advance of Alawis to Shilla, who were believed to be the followers of the 4th Islamic Caliph Ali. Throughout a wide range of cultural exchange between Shilla Korean and the Sassanid Empire. the factors of music, musical instruments, literature, carpet and artistic design of the Sassanid period introduced deeply to Korean society