Hephthalite
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| Hephthalites |
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 Map showing the extent of regions under Hephthalite dominion, c. 520 AD. |
| Total population |
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Unknown |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Central Asia South Asia |
| Languages |
| Unknown |
| Religions |
| Unknown |
The Hephthalites were a powerful dynasty ruling a Central Asian nomadic confederation whose precise origins and composition remain obscure. They were called Ephthalites or White Huns by the Greeks, but known as simply Hunas among the Indians, and Hua among the Chinese (滑). They might have been related to the European Huns, as Procopius wrote in the 540's: "The Ephtalitae are of the stock of the Huns in fact as well as in name; however they do not mingle with any of the Huns known to us, for they occupy a land neither adjoining nor even very near to them; but their territory lies immediately to the north of Persia; indeed their city, called Gorgo, is located over against the Persian frontier, and is consequently the centre of frequent contests concerning boundary lines between the two peoples. For they are not nomads like the other Hunnic peoples, but for a long period have been established in a goodly land. As a result of this they have never made any incursion into the Roman territory except in company of the Median army. They are the only ones among the Huns who have white bodies and countenances which are not ugly. It is also true that their manner of living is unlike that of their kinsmen, nor do they live a savage life as they do; but they are ruled by one king, and since they possess a lawful constitution, they observe right and justice in their dealings both with one another and with their neighbours, in no degree less than the Romans and the Persians.”
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[edit] Origins
Many theories have been discussed regarding the origins of the Hephthalites, which have been summarized and critizised in an article of K. Enoki [1]. In 1959, Kazuo Enoki put forward the hypothesis 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.[2] The most recent research on the Hephtalites is a sharp critic of Enoki's methodology (de la Vaissière, 2007). The discovery of the Bactrian documents have proven that polyandry was not at all an Hephtalite practice but was present in Bactriana/Tukharistan before the arrival of the Hephtalites, henceforth ruining one of the major arguments of Enoki. Moreover Enoki seems to have overlooked a major source because it did not fit into his East-Iranian scheme, the Tongdian, a Chinese encyclopaedia completed in 801 which made use of the earliest Chinese on the Hephtalites, the now lost chapter on them in the Weishu. This text plainly says that the Heptalites arrived in Bactriana from the Altay in the middle of the fourth c. and that they spoke a language similar to the language of the Gaoju. De la Vaissière concluded that the Hephtalites might have spoken an Oghuric language, as the Gaoju are supposed to speak, but also that they very soon adopted the Bactrian language and forgot their linguistic identity, although keeping their nomadic way of life.</ref> E. de la Vaissière, "Is There a “Nationality of the Hephtalites”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 17, 2007 [[1]]
[edit] Etymology
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This section does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007) Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Hepthalite is meaning of White Hun (in Turkish Ak Hun or Beyaz Hunlar). The term Hepthalite was first used by Persian writers to refer to a 6th century empire on the northern and eastern periphery of their land.[citation needed] The élite Hephthal clan certainly appears to be quite distinct from the Huns who ravaged Europe in the fourth century AD. Although the Hephthalite empire was known in China, as Yanda (嚈噠), Chinese chroniclers recognized that these terms actually came from the leaders of the empire's polity - the polity which in contrast are documented as having called themselves Huá (滑) in the same sources.[3] India knew the Hephthalites by the Sanskrit name Sveta-Hūna (meaning White Huns). Armenian sources also mention a White Hun origin for the Parthian Arsaces. According to Simokattes, they were the Alchon, who united under the Hephthal as the "vultures descended on the people" around AD 460.[citation needed]
The modern Chinese variation Yada 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.
The term Haital means "big" or "powerful" in the dialect of Bukhara,[4] but might also mean "seven"[citation needed].
Different spellings include Ephthalite, Epthalite, Ephtalite, Eptalite, Euthalite, Hepthalite, Hephtalite, and Heptalite.
[edit] Etymology of Names
According to B.A. Litvinsky, the name of Hephtalite rulers used in the Shahnameh are Iranian.[5]
According to Xavier Tremblay, one of the Heptalite ruler's name "Khingila" has the same root as the Sogdian xnγr and Wakhi xiŋgār and its meaning is "Sword". Toramāna is derived from Tarua-manah. The name Mihirakula is derived from Miθra-kula which is Iranian for Relier upon Mithra. In Sanskrit, Mihirakula would mean from the "Kul (family) of Mihir (Mithra)".
According to Janos Harmatta, the name Mihirakula is Iranian for "Mithra's Begotten".[6]
[edit] Hephthalites in South Asia
In India, the Hephthalites were not distinguished from their immediate predecessors and are known by the same name Huna. The Huna had already established themselves in Afghanistan and the 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 Hephthal clan came along.
The Hephthalites with their capital at Bamiyan continued the pressure on India's northwest frontier (present day Pakistan), and broke into northern India 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 under their Emperor Mihirakula.
After the sixth century, little is recorded in India about the Hephthalites, and what happened to them is unclear; some historians surmise that the remaining Hephthalites were assimilated into Northern India's population.
[edit] Descendants
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This section does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007) Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
The descendants of the Hephthalite ruling elite re-established their dynasty from 565 to 670 AD under the name of Ratbel-Shahan or Kabul-Shahan in the current territories of Afghanistan, mainly in Kabulistan.[citation needed]
Scholars believe the following groups in South Asia are descended either in full or in part from the Hepthalites:
[edit] White Huns in contemporary literature
Umberto Eco's novel Baudolino makes reference to the 'White Huns' who are portrayed as a fearsome warrior race.
Eric Flint's Belisarius series makes frequent reference to Ye Tai warriors.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Enoki Kazuo, "On the nationality of Hephthalites", [Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tokyo Bunko, 1959, No. 18
- ^ Enoki, Kazuo: "On the Nationality of the Ephthalites" Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tokyo Bunko, 1959, No. 18, p56 - "Let me recapitulate the foregoing. The grounds upon which the Ephthalites are assigned an Iranian tribe are : (1) that their original home was on the east frontier of Tokharestan ; and (2) that their culture contained some Iranian elements. Naturally, the Ephthalites were sometimes regarded as another branch of the Kao-ch’e tribe by their contemporaries, and their manners and customs are represented as identical with those of the T’u-chueh, and it is a fact that they had several cultural elements in common with those of the nomadic Turkish tribes. Nevertheless, such similarity of manners and customs is an inevitable phenomenon arising from similarity of their environments. The Ephthalites could not be assigned as a Turkish tribe on account of this. The Ephthalites were considered by some scholars as an Aryanized tribe, but I would like to go further and acknowledge them as an Iranian tribe. Though my grounds, as stated above, are rather scarce, it is expected that the historical and linguistic materials concerning the Ephthalites are to be increased in the future and most of the newly-discovered materials seem the more to confirm my Iranian-tribe theory."
- ^ Enoki, K. "The Liang shih-kung-t'u on the origin and migration of the Hua or Ephthalites," Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 7:1-2 (December 1970):37-45
- ^ The Persian Bukhani Kate dictionary states the meaning of Haital to mean "big, powerful" in the dialect of Bukhara.
- ^ B.A. Livinsky, "The Hephthalites" in History of Civilizations of Central Asia - Vol. 3. South Asia Books; 1 edition (March 1999). pg 135
- ^ Janos Harmatta, "The Rise of the Old Persian Empire: Cyrus the Great," AAASH (Acta Antiqua Acadamie Scientiarum Hungaricae 19, 197, pp. 4-15.
- ^ Mirella Ferrera: People of the World. White Star, Vercelli, Italy 2003. 2) Upendra Thakur: The Hunas (Huns) in India (page 238) Chaukhambha Publishers, Varanasi, India 1967. 3) Denzil Ibbetson: "Punjab Castes", Lahore, India, 1916.
[edit] External links
- Columbia Encyclopedia
- 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
