Hephthalite
Encyclopedia
The Hephthalites or Hephthalite is a pre-Islamic Greek
term for local Abdali Afghans, who's famous ruler was Nazak Abdali (Greek: Nazak Hephthalite). Hephthalites were a Central Asia
n nomadic confederation of the AD 5th-6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure. According to Chinese
chronicles, they were originally a tribe living to the north of the Great Wall and were known as Hoa or Hoa-tun. Elsewhere they were called White Huns
, known to the Greeks as Hephthalite and the Indians as the Sveta Huns/Turushkas. It is likely that they communicated in an East Iranian language.
(滑). The modern Chinese variation Yanda has been given various Latinised renderings such as "Yeda", although the more archaic Korean
pronunciation "Yeoptal" 엽달 is more compatible with the Greek Hephthal and is certainly a more archaic form.
According to B.A. Litvinsky, the names of the Hephtalite rulers used in the Shahnameh
are Iranian
. According to Xavier Tremblay, one of the Hephthalite rulers was named Khingila, which has the same root as the Sogdian
word xnγr and the Wakhi word xiŋgār, meaning "sword". The name Mihirakula is thought to be derived from Mithra-kula which is Iranian for "Relier upon Mithra
", and Toramāna is also considered to have an Iranian origin. Accordingly, in Sanskrit
, "Mihirakula
" would mean from the "Kul (family or race) of Mihir (Mithra or Sun)". Janos Harmatta gives the translation "Mithra's Begotten" and also supports the Iranian theory.
There are several theories regarding the origins of the White Huns, with the "Turkic
" and "Indo-European
Iranic
" theories being the most prominent.
For many years, scholars suggested that they were of Turkic stock, and it seems likely that at least some groups amongst the Hephthalites were Turkic
-speakers. In 1959, Kazuo Enoki proposed that they were probably East Indo-Iranians
as some sources indicated that they were originally from Tokharestan, which is known to have been inhabited by Indo-Iranian people in antiquity. Richard Frye is cautiously accepting of Enoki's hypothesis, while at the same time stressing that the Hephthalites "were probably a mixed horde". More recently Xavier Tremblay's detailed examination of surviving Hephthalite personal names has indicated that Enoki's hypothesis that they were East Iranian may well be correct, but the matter remains unresolved in academic circles.
According to the Encyclopaedia Iranica and Encyclopaedia of Islam
, the Hephthalites possibly originated in northeastern Iran
and northwestern India
. They apparently had no direct connection with the European Huns
, but may have been causally related with their movement. It is noteworthy that the tribes in question deliberately called themselves Huns in order to frighten their enemies.
Some White Huns may have been a prominent tribe or clan of the Chionites. According to Richard Nelson Frye
:
The 6th-century Byzantine
historian
Procopius of Caesarea
(Book I. ch. 3), related them to the Huns
in Europe:
Scholars believe that the name Hun is used to denote very different nomadic confederations.
Ancient Chinese chroniclers, as well as Procopius, wrote various theories about the origins of the people:
They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them as living in Dzungaria
around AD 125. Chinese chronicles state that they were originally a tribe of the Yuezhi, living to the north of the Great Wall, and subject to the Rouran
(Jwen-Jwen), as were some Turkic peoples at the time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they named themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to (厌带夷栗陁, or more briefly Ye-tha 嚈噠), after their royal family, which descended from one of the five Yuezhi families which also included the Kushan.
They displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana
and Khorasan
before AD 425. After that, they crossed the Syr Darya
(Jaxartes) River and invaded Persia. In Persia, they were initially held off by Bahram Gur but around AD 483–85, they succeeded in making Persia a tributary state
. After a series of wars in the period AD 503-513, they were driven out of Persia and completely defeated in AD 557 by Khosrau I
. Their polity thereafter came under the Göktürks
.
The Hephtalites also invaded the regions of present-day Afghanistan
and Pakistan
, continuing deep into Northern India and succeeded in extending their domain to include the Western India. They were eventually driven out of India
in 528 AD by a Hindu
coalition oconsisting of king Yashodvarman from Malwa and the Gupta
emperor Marsimhagupta Baladitya.
Procopius claims that the White Huns lived in a prosperous territory, and that they were the only Huns with fair complexions. According to him, they did not live as nomads, did acknowledge a single king, observed a well-regulated constitution, and behaved justly towards neighboring states. He also describes the burial
of their nobles in tumuli, accompanied by their closest associates. This practice contrasts with evidence of cremation
among the Chionites in Ammianus and with remains found by excavators of the European Huns and remains in some deposits ascribed to the Chionites in Central Asia. Scholars believe that the Hephthalites constituted a second "Hunnish" wave who entered Bactria
early in the fifth century AD, and who seem to have driven the Kidarites
into Gandhara
.
Newly-discovered ancient writings found in Afghanistan reveal that the Middle Iranian Bactrian language
written in Greek script was not brought there by the Hephthalites, but was already present from Kushan times as the traditional language of administration in this region. There is also evidence of the use of a Turkic language under the White Huns. The Bactrian documents also attest several Turkic royal titles (such as Khagan
), indicating an important influence of Turkic people on White Huns, although these could also be explained by later Turkic infiltration south of the Oxus.
According to Simokattes, they were Chionites who united under the Hephthalites as the "(Wusun
) vultures descended on the people" around AD 460.
. Balkh
had some 100 Buddhist monasteries and 3000 monks. "Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery, later known as Naubahar
" Termez
had 10 sangharama
s (monasteries) and perhaps 1000 monks.
According to Xuanzang
the capital of Chaghaniyan
had five Buddhist monasteries
Mihirakula
, one of the last Hephthalite rulers, embraced Hinduism
and was a worshipper of Shiva
.
In the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, the Hephtalites were not distinguished from their immediate Chionite predecessors and are known by the same name as Huna (Sanskrit: Sveta-Hūna, White Huns). The Huna had already established themselves in Afghanistan and the modern North-West Frontier Province
of present day Pakistan
by the first half of the fifth century, and the Gupta emperor Skandagupta
had repelled a Hūna invasion in 455 before the Hephthalite clan came along.
The Hephthalites with their capital at Bamiyan continued the pressure on ancient India's northwest frontier and broke east by the end of the fifth century, hastening the disintegration of the Gupta Empire
. They made their capital at the city of Sakala, modern Sialkot
in Pakistan
, under their Emperor Mihirakula
.
After the sixth century, little is recorded in ancient India about the Hephthalites, and what happened to them is unclear. Some historians surmise that the remaining Hephthalites were assimilated into the population of northwest India and Pakistan.
Hephthalites are among the ancestors of modern-day Pashtuns and in particular of the Abdali
Pashtun tribe. According to the academic Yu. V. Gankovsky,
Some Hephthalite tribes also participated in the formation of Johal
s, as well as Turkmens
and Uzbeks.
's novel
Baudolino
makes reference to the "White Huns", portrayed as a fearsome warrior race.
Eric Flint
's Belisarius series
makes frequent reference to Ye Tai warriors.
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
term for local Abdali Afghans, who's famous ruler was Nazak Abdali (Greek: Nazak Hephthalite). Hephthalites were a Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n nomadic confederation of the AD 5th-6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure. According to Chinese
History of China
Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...
chronicles, they were originally a tribe living to the north of the Great Wall and were known as Hoa or Hoa-tun. Elsewhere they were called White Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
, known to the Greeks as Hephthalite and the Indians as the Sveta Huns/Turushkas. It is likely that they communicated in an East Iranian language.
Etymology
Although the Hephtalite empire was known in China as Yanda (嚈噠), Chinese chroniclers recognized this designated the leaders of the empire. The same sources document that the main tribe called themselves UarUar
The Uar were the largest of three ethnic components constituting the confederation known to the west as the Hephthalites and to the Chinese as Yanda and the dominant ethnicity of Khwarezm...
(滑). The modern Chinese variation Yanda has been given various Latinised renderings such as "Yeda", although the more archaic Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
pronunciation "Yeoptal" 엽달 is more compatible with the Greek Hephthal and is certainly a more archaic form.
According to B.A. Litvinsky, the names of the Hephtalite rulers used in the Shahnameh
Shahnameh
The Shahnameh or Shah-nama is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c.977 and 1010 AD and is the national epic of Iran and related societies...
are Iranian
Iranian languages
The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....
. According to Xavier Tremblay, one of the Hephthalite rulers was named Khingila, which has the same root as the Sogdian
Sogdian language
The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana , located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ....
word xnγr and the Wakhi word xiŋgār, meaning "sword". The name Mihirakula is thought to be derived from Mithra-kula which is Iranian for "Relier upon Mithra
Mithra
Mithra is the Zoroastrian divinity of covenant and oath. In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-seeing protector of Truth, and the guardian of cattle, the harvest and of The Waters....
", and Toramāna is also considered to have an Iranian origin. Accordingly, in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, "Mihirakula
Mihirakula
Mihirakula was the most important Sveta Huna ruler in India. He was the son of Toramana, the founder of Huna power in India. He ruled his horde from 502 to 530 ....
" would mean from the "Kul (family or race) of Mihir (Mithra or Sun)". Janos Harmatta gives the translation "Mithra's Begotten" and also supports the Iranian theory.
Origins
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
" and "Indo-European
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
Iranic
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
" theories being the most prominent.
For many years, scholars suggested that they were of Turkic stock, and it seems likely that at least some groups amongst the Hephthalites were Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
-speakers. In 1959, Kazuo Enoki proposed that they were probably East Indo-Iranians
Indo-Iranians
Indo-Iranian peoples are a linguistic group consisting of the Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Dardic and Nuristani peoples; that is, speakers of Indo-Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family....
as some sources indicated that they were originally from Tokharestan, which is known to have been inhabited by Indo-Iranian people in antiquity. Richard Frye is cautiously accepting of Enoki's hypothesis, while at the same time stressing that the Hephthalites "were probably a mixed horde". More recently Xavier Tremblay's detailed examination of surviving Hephthalite personal names has indicated that Enoki's hypothesis that they were East Iranian may well be correct, but the matter remains unresolved in academic circles.
According to the Encyclopaedia Iranica and Encyclopaedia of Islam
Encyclopaedia of Islam
The Encyclopaedia of Islam is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies. It embraces articles on distinguished Muslims of every age and land, on tribes and dynasties, on the crafts and sciences, on political and religious institutions, on the geography, ethnography, flora and...
, the Hephthalites possibly originated in northeastern Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and northwestern India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. They apparently had no direct connection with the European Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
, but may have been causally related with their movement. It is noteworthy that the tribes in question deliberately called themselves Huns in order to frighten their enemies.
Some White Huns may have been a prominent tribe or clan of the Chionites. According to Richard Nelson Frye
Richard Nelson Frye
Richard Nelson Frye is an American scholar of Iranic and Central Asian Studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University...
:
History
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Procopius of Caesarea
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine scholar from Palestine. Accompanying the general Belisarius in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he became the principal historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History...
(Book I. ch. 3), related them to the Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
in Europe:
Scholars believe that the name Hun is used to denote very different nomadic confederations.
Ancient Chinese chroniclers, as well as Procopius, wrote various theories about the origins of the people:
- They were descendants of the YuezhiYuezhiThe Yuezhi, or Rouzhi , also known as the Da Yuezhi or Da Rouzhi , were an ancient Central Asian people....
or TocharianTochariansThe Tocharians were the Tocharian-speaking inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, making them the easternmost speakers of Indo-European languages in antiquity. They were known as, or at least closely related to, the Yuezhi of Chinese sources...
tribes who remained behind after the rest of the people fled the XiongnuXiongnuThe Xiongnu were ancient nomadic-based people that formed a state or confederation north of the agriculture-based empire of the Han Dynasty. Most of the information on the Xiongnu comes from Chinese sources...
; - They were descendants of the KangjuKangjuKangju was the name of an ancient people and kingdom in Central Asia. It was a nomadic federation of unknown ethnic and linguistic origin which became for a couple of centuries the second greatest power in Transoxiana after the Yuezhi....
; - They were a branch of the TieleTiele peopleThe Tiele or Tele , were a confederation of nine Turkic peoples living to the north of China and in Central Asia, emerging after the disintegration of the Xiongnu confederacy...
; or - They were a branch of the UarUarThe Uar were the largest of three ethnic components constituting the confederation known to the west as the Hephthalites and to the Chinese as Yanda and the dominant ethnicity of Khwarezm...
.
They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them as living in Dzungaria
Dzungaria
Dzungaria, also called Zungaria, is a geographical region in northwest China corresponding to the northern half of Xinjiang. It covers approximately , lying mostly within Xinjiang, and extending into western Mongolia and eastern Kazakhstan...
around AD 125. Chinese chronicles state that they were originally a tribe of the Yuezhi, living to the north of the Great Wall, and subject to the Rouran
Rouran
Rouran , Mongolia name Jujan or Nirun Ruanruan/Ruru , Tan Tan , Juan-Juan or Zhu-Zhuwas the name of a confederation of nomadic tribes on the northern borders of Inner China from the late 4th century until the middle 6th century...
(Jwen-Jwen), as were some Turkic peoples at the time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they named themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to (厌带夷栗陁, or more briefly Ye-tha 嚈噠), after their royal family, which descended from one of the five Yuezhi families which also included the Kushan.
They displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana
Sogdiana
Sogdiana or Sogdia was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great . Sogdiana is "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda created...
and Khorasan
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...
before AD 425. After that, they crossed the Syr Darya
Syr Darya
The Syr Darya , also transliterated Syrdarya or Sirdaryo, is a river in Central Asia, sometimes known as the Jaxartes or Yaxartes from its Ancient Greek name . The Greek name is derived from Old Persian, Yakhsha Arta , a reference to the color of the river's water...
(Jaxartes) River and invaded Persia. In Persia, they were initially held off by Bahram Gur but around AD 483–85, they succeeded in making Persia a tributary state
Tributary state
The term tributary state refers to one of the two main ways in which a pre-modern state might be subordinate to a more powerful neighbour. The heart of the relationship was that the tributary would send a regular token of submission to the superior power...
. After a series of wars in the period AD 503-513, they were driven out of Persia and completely defeated in AD 557 by Khosrau I
Khosrau I
Khosrau I , also known as Anushiravan the Just or Anushirawan the Just Khosrau I (also called Chosroes I in classical sources, most commonly known in Persian as Anushirvan or Anushirwan, Persian: انوشيروان meaning the immortal soul), also known as Anushiravan the Just or Anushirawan the Just...
. Their polity thereafter came under the Göktürks
Göktürks
The Göktürks or Kök Türks, were a nomadic confederation of peoples in medieval Inner Asia. Known in Chinese sources as 突厥 , the Göktürks under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan The Göktürks or Kök Türks, (Old Turkic: Türük or Kök Türük or Türük; Celestial Turks) were a nomadic confederation of...
.
The Hephtalites also invaded the regions of present-day Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, continuing deep into Northern India and succeeded in extending their domain to include the Western India. They were eventually driven out of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
in 528 AD by a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
coalition oconsisting of king Yashodvarman from Malwa and the Gupta
Gupta
Gupta is a common surname of Indian origin.According to some academicians, the name Gupta is derived from Sanskrit goptri, meaning military governor. A more direct translation of the Sanskrit word gupta is 'secret' or 'hidden'. According to prominent historian R. C...
emperor Marsimhagupta Baladitya.
Procopius claims that the White Huns lived in a prosperous territory, and that they were the only Huns with fair complexions. According to him, they did not live as nomads, did acknowledge a single king, observed a well-regulated constitution, and behaved justly towards neighboring states. He also describes the burial
Burial
Burial is the act of placing a person or object into the ground. This is accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing an object in it, and covering it over.-History:...
of their nobles in tumuli, accompanied by their closest associates. This practice contrasts with evidence of cremation
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
among the Chionites in Ammianus and with remains found by excavators of the European Huns and remains in some deposits ascribed to the Chionites in Central Asia. Scholars believe that the Hephthalites constituted a second "Hunnish" wave who entered Bactria
Bactria
Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
early in the fifth century AD, and who seem to have driven the Kidarites
Kidarites
The Kidarite were a dynasty of the "Ki" clan, probably originating from the Uar people. They were part of the complex of tribes known collectively as Xionites or "Hunas"....
into Gandhara
Gandhara
Gandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...
.
Newly-discovered ancient writings found in Afghanistan reveal that the Middle Iranian Bactrian language
Bactrian language
The Bactrian language is an extinct Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria. Linguistically, it is classified as belonging to the middle period of the East Iranian branch...
written in Greek script was not brought there by the Hephthalites, but was already present from Kushan times as the traditional language of administration in this region. There is also evidence of the use of a Turkic language under the White Huns. The Bactrian documents also attest several Turkic royal titles (such as Khagan
Khagan
Khagan or qagan , alternatively spelled kagan, khaghan, qaghan, or chagan, is a title of imperial rank in the Mongolian and Turkic languages equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate...
), indicating an important influence of Turkic people on White Huns, although these could also be explained by later Turkic infiltration south of the Oxus.
According to Simokattes, they were Chionites who united under the Hephthalites as the "(Wusun
Wusun
The Wūsūn were a nomadic steppe people who, according to the Chinese histories, originally lived in western Gansu in northwest China west of the Yuezhi people...
) vultures descended on the people" around AD 460.
Religion
The main religion in the Hephthalite empire was BuddhismBuddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. Balkh
Balkh
Balkh , was an ancient city and centre of Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a small town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, and some south of the Amu Darya. It was one of the major cities of Khorasan...
had some 100 Buddhist monasteries and 3000 monks. "Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery, later known as Naubahar
Nava Vihara
Navbahar was a Buddhist stupa or monastery near the ancient city of Balkh in northern Afghanistan. The temple may have been an old Zoroastrian fire-temple, or it may have been converted to a Zoroastrian temple .-Rise to prominence:Navbahar, the main monastery at Balkh became the center of higher...
" Termez
Termez
Termez is a city in southern Uzbekistan near the border with Afghanistan.Some link the name of the city to thermos, "hot" in Greek, tracing its name back to Alexander the Great. Others suggest that it came from Sanskrit taramato, meaning "on the river bank". It is the hottest point of Uzbekistan...
had 10 sangharama
Sangharama
Sangharama is a Sanskrit word meaning "temple" or "monastery", the place, including its garden or grove, where dwells the Buddhist monastic community . A famous sangharama was that of Kukkutarama in Pataliputra. The Kukkutura sangharama was later destroyed and its monks killed by Pusyamitra Sunga,...
s (monasteries) and perhaps 1000 monks.
According to Xuanzang
Xuanzang
Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period...
the capital of Chaghaniyan
Chaghaniyan
Chaghaniyan was a small principality located on the right bank of the Oxus River, to the south of Samarkand.In the late 7th and 8th centuries it was ruled by a local magnate, called in Arabic sources the Chaghān-khudā. These rulers were most likely of Iranian stock...
had five Buddhist monasteries
Mihirakula
Mihirakula
Mihirakula was the most important Sveta Huna ruler in India. He was the son of Toramana, the founder of Huna power in India. He ruled his horde from 502 to 530 ....
, one of the last Hephthalite rulers, embraced Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and was a worshipper of Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
.
White Huns in South Asia
In the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, the Hephtalites were not distinguished from their immediate Chionite predecessors and are known by the same name as Huna (Sanskrit: Sveta-Hūna, White Huns). The Huna had already established themselves in Afghanistan and the modern North-West Frontier Province
North-West Frontier Province
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...
of present day Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
by the first half of the fifth century, and the Gupta emperor Skandagupta
Skandagupta
Skandagupta was a Gupta Emperor of northern India. He is generally considered the last of the great Gupta Emperors.-Rule:Skandagupta's antecedents remain unclear. Later official genealogies omit his name, and even the inscriptions of his own age omit the name of his mother...
had repelled a Hūna invasion in 455 before the Hephthalite clan came along.
The Hephthalites with their capital at Bamiyan continued the pressure on ancient India's northwest frontier and broke east by the end of the fifth century, hastening the disintegration of the Gupta Empire
Gupta Empire
The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed approximately from 320 to 550 CE and covered much of the Indian Subcontinent. Founded by Maharaja Sri-Gupta, the dynasty was the model of a classical civilization. The peace and prosperity created under leadership of Guptas enabled the...
. They made their capital at the city of Sakala, modern Sialkot
Sialkot
Sialkot is a city in Pakistan situated in the north-east of the Punjab province at the foothills of snow-covered peaks of Kashmir near the Chenab river. It is the capital of Sialkot District. The city is about north-west of Lahore and only a few kilometers from Indian-controlled Jammu.The...
in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, under their Emperor Mihirakula
Mihirakula
Mihirakula was the most important Sveta Huna ruler in India. He was the son of Toramana, the founder of Huna power in India. He ruled his horde from 502 to 530 ....
.
After the sixth century, little is recorded in ancient India about the Hephthalites, and what happened to them is unclear. Some historians surmise that the remaining Hephthalites were assimilated into the population of northwest India and Pakistan.
Descendants
The last Hephthalite King, Yudhishthira, ruled until about 670, when he was replaced by the Turk Shahi dynasty.Hephthalites are among the ancestors of modern-day Pashtuns and in particular of the Abdali
Abdali
Abdali may refer to:* Abdali Urban Regeneration Project, district in Amman, Jordan* Durrani, one of the two largest Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan* Ahmed Shah Abdali, founder of the Durrani Empire...
Pashtun tribe. According to the academic Yu. V. Gankovsky,
Some Hephthalite tribes also participated in the formation of Johal
Johal
Johal is a prominent Jatt family clan originally from modern Pakistan and North India. The Johals Jats are found both in Punjab, India and Punjab, Pakistan.-Lineage:...
s, as well as Turkmens
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
and Uzbeks.
Contemporary literature
Umberto EcoUmberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Baudolino
Baudolino
Baudolino is a 2000 novel by Umberto Eco about the adventures of a young man named Baudolino in the known and mythical Christian world of the 12th century.Baudolino was translated into English in 2001 by William Weaver...
makes reference to the "White Huns", portrayed as a fearsome warrior race.
Eric Flint
Eric Flint
Eric Flint is an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works are alternate history science fiction, but he also writes humorous fantasy adventures.- Career :...
's Belisarius series
Belisarius series
The Belisarius Series is a fictional saga in the alternate history and military history sub-genres of science fiction, written by American authors David Drake and Eric Flint...
makes frequent reference to Ye Tai warriors.
See also
- Historic states represented in Turkish presidential sealHistoric states represented in Turkish presidential seal16 Great Turkish Empires is a historical discourse that was created in 1969 to explain the meaning of 16 stars of the presidential seal of Turkey. And it was inaugurated in 1985 with the presidential seal today...
- Red HunsKidaritesThe Kidarite were a dynasty of the "Ki" clan, probably originating from the Uar people. They were part of the complex of tribes known collectively as Xionites or "Hunas"....
- Huna peopleHuna peopleHuna is the name under which the Xionite tribes who invaded northern India during the first half of the 5th century were known.-History:...
- HunsHunsThe Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
- XionitesXionitesXionites, Chionites, Chionitae, , Hunni Xionites, Chionites, Chionitae, (Middle Persian: Xiyon, Avestan: Xiiaona, Sogdian:xwn), Hunni Xionites, Chionites, Chionitae, (Middle Persian: Xiyon, Avestan: Xiiaona, Sogdian:xwn), Hunni (Pahlavi:Huna, Yun or Xūn (獯), were a nomadic tribe prominent in...
External links
- Columbia Encyclopedia: Hephthalites
- Hephthalite coins
- Hephthalite History and Coins of the Kashmir Smast Kingdom- Waleed Ziad
- The Hephthalites of Central Asia - by Richard Heli (long article with a timeline)
- The Hephthalites Article archived from the University of Washington's Silk Road exhibition - has a slightly adapted form of the Richard Heli timeline.
- (pdf) The Ethnonym Apar in the Turkish Inscriptions of the VIII. Century and Armenian Manuscripts - Mehmet Tezcan