Hephthalite

Hephthalites

( Indo - Aryan )
Hephthalite.png
Map showing the extent of regions under Hephthalite dominion, c. 520 AD.
Total population

Unknown
Regions with significant populations
Central Asia
South Asia
Languages
Unknown
Religion
Unknown

The Hephthalites or White Huns were a Central Asian nomadic confederation whose precise origins and composition remain obscure. They were called Ephthalites by the Greeks, and Hunas by the Indians. 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.[1] Elsewhere they were called White Huns . According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, they had no cities or system of writing, lived in felt tents, and practiced polyandry, while very little is known of their language.[2]

According to historical texts, they are related to the European Huns: Procopius: (Book I. ch. 3): "the Ephthalitae Huns, who are called White Huns... The Ephthalitae 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...", furthermore: "They are not nomads like the other Hunnic peoples, but for a long period have been established in a goodly land."[3], though there is no definitive evidence to this contact[4] (because it is thought that this used to be a term which has been used by outside observers to denote very different nomadic confederations).

It seems that the Hephtalites were an agricultural people with a developed set of laws. They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them as living in Dzungaria around AD 125. They displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana and Khorasan before 425. After that, they crossed the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded Persia. In Persia, they were initially held off by Bahram Gur but later around AD 483–85, they succeeded in making Persia a tributary state. After a series of wars in the period around AD 503-513, they were driven out of Persia and were completely defeated in AD 557 by Khosru I though their polity came under the Gokturks thereafter. The White Huns also invaded the regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan and succeeded in at one time, even extended their domain to include the Ganges valley. They temporarily overthrew the Gupta empire but were eventually driven out of India in 528 by a Hindu coalition and had to settle down in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan.[5]

Contents

Origins

Asia in 500 AD, showing the Hepthalite Khanate at its greatest extent.

Many theories have been discussed regarding the origins of the Hephthalites, with the "Turkic"[6][7] and "Indo-European"[8][9][10] theories being the most prominent ones.

For many years, scholars suggested that they were possibly of Tibetan or Turkic-stock,[11] and it seems likely that at least some groups amongst the Hephthalites were Turkic-speakers.[12] 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.[13] Richard Frye is cautiously accepting of Enoki's hypothesis, whilst at the same time stressing that the Hephthalites "were probably a mixed horde".[14] More recently Xavier Tremblay's very 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.[15]

According to the Encyclopaedia Iranica and Encyclopaedia of Islam, Hephthalites possibly originated in northeastern Iran and northwestern India.[16][17] They apparently had no 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.[18]

Hepthalite coin of King Lakhana of Udyana, legend "Raja Lakhana (udaya) ditya".

The earliest information about the Ephthalites comes from the Chinese chronicles, in which it is stated that they were originally a tribe of the great Yue-Chi, living to the north of the Great Wall, and subject to the Jwen-Jwen (Rouran), as were also the Turks at one time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they styled themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to (厌带夷栗陁) after the name of their royal family, or more briefly Ye-tha (嚈噠)[19] descended from one of the 5 Yuezhi families (which included Kushan). There were various theories about their origins documented by the ancient Chinese chroniclers, as well as by Procopius of Caesarea:

Procopius claims that the Hephthalites lived in a prosperous territory and that they were the only Huns with fair complexions. According to him, they did not live as nomads, acknowledged 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 the boon-companions who had been their retainers in their lifetimes; this practice contrasts with evidence of cremation among the Chionites in Ammianus and with remains found by excavators for the European Huns and remains in some deposits ascribed to the Chionites in Central Asia. It is therefore assumed 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.[17]

Some Hephthalites may have been a prominent tribe or clan of the Chionites. According to Richard Nelson Frye:

“ Just as later nomadic empires were confederations of many peoples, we may tentatively propose that the ruling groups of these invaders were, or at least included, Turkic-speaking tribesman from the east and north, although most probably the bulk of the people in the confederation of Chionites and then Hephtalites spoke an Iranian language and this was the last time in the history of Central Asia that Iranian-speaking nomads played any role; hereafter all nomads would speak Turkic languages.[20] ”

The newly-discovered ancient writings found in Afghanistan reveal that the Middle Iranian Bactrian language written in Greek script was not the native idiom of the Hephthalites but the traditional language of administration in this region from Kushan times. There is also evidence of the use of a Turkic language under the Hephthalites. The Bactrian documents also attest several Turkic royal titles (such as Khaqan), indicating an important influence of Turkic people on the Hephthalites, although these could also be explained by later Turkic infiltration south of the Oxus.[17]

Etymology

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. 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.[21] The name of the Hephthal ruling elite seems to have applied to one of the 5 Yuezhi families from the Kushan Empire according to some sources.

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.

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.

The term Haital means "big" or "powerful" in the dialect of Bukhara,[22] but might also mean "seven".

Different spellings include Ephthalite, Epthalite, Ephtalite, Eptalite, Euthalite, Hepthalite, Hephtalite, and Heptalite.

Etymology of Names

According to B.A. Litvinsky, the name of Hephtalite rulers used in the Shahnameh are Iranian.[23]

Billon drachm of the Indo-Hephthalite King Napki Malka (Afghanistan/ Gandhara, c. 475-576).

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".[24]

Hephthalites in South Asia

Hephthalite successor kingdoms (Kushano-Hephthalites) in 600 AD
Main article: Hunas

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 South Asia'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 under their Emperor Mihirakula.

After the sixth century, little is recorded in South Asia 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.

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.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Columbia Encyclopedia
  2. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica
  3. ↑ Procopius: History of the Wars. Book I. The Persian War Ch. III. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Wars/Book_I
  4. ↑ Columbia Encyclopedia
  5. ↑ Columbia Encyclopedia
  6. ↑ David Christian A History of Russia, Inner Asia and Mongolia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) 1998 p248
  7. ↑ Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
  8. ↑ M. A. Shaban, "Khurasan at the Time of the Arab Conquest", in Iran and Islam, in memory of Vlademir Minorsky, Edinburgh University Press, (1971), p481; ISBN 0 85224 200 x.
  9. ↑ The White Huns - The Hephthalites
  10. ↑ Enoki Kazuo, "On the nationality of Hephthalites", 1955
  11. ↑ Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
  12. ↑ David Christian A History of Russia, Inner Asia and Mongolia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) 1998 p248
  13. ↑ 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." Available here.
  14. ↑ Encyclopaedia Iranica: Central Asia in pre-Islamic Times (R. Frye)
  15. ↑ Xavier Tremblay Pour une histore de la Sérinde. Le manichéisme parmi les peoples et religions d’Asie Centrale d’aprés les sources primaire, Vienna, 2001, Appendix D «Notes Sur L'Origine Des Hephtalites” , pp. 183-88 «Malgré tous les auteurs qui, depuis KLAPROTH jusqu’ ALTHEIM in SuC, p113 sq et HAUSSIG, Die Geschichte Zentralasiens und der Seidenstrasse in vorislamischer Zeit, Darmstadt, 1983 (cf. n.7), ont vu dans les Hephthalites des Turcs, l’explication de leurs noms par le turc ne s’impose jamais, est parfois impossible et n’est appuyée par aucun fait historique (aucune trace de la religion turque ancienne), celle par l’iranien est toujours possible, parfois évidente, surtout dans les noms longs comme Mihirakula, Toramana ou γοβοζοκο qui sont bien plus probants qu’ αλ- en Αλχαννο. Or l’iranien des noms des Hephtalites n’est pas du bactrien et n’est donc pas imputable à leur installation en Bactriane […] Une telle accumulation de probabilités suffit à conclure que, jusqu’à preuve du contraire, les Hepthalites étaient des Iraniens orientaux, mais non des Sogdiens.» Available here
  16. ↑ G. Ambros/P.A. Andrews/L. Bazin/A. Gökalp/B. Flemming and others, "Turks", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition 2006
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 A.D.H. Bivar, "Hephthalites", in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition.
  18. ↑ M. Schottky, "Iranian Huns", in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition.
  19. ↑ Classic Encyclopedia
  20. ↑ Robert L. Canfield, Turko-Persia in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 49.
  21. ↑ 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
  22. ↑ The Persian Bukhani Kate dictionary states the meaning of Haital to mean "big, powerful" in the dialect of Bukhara.
  23. ↑ B.A. Livinsky, "The Hephthalites" in History of Civilizations of Central Asia - Vol. 3. South Asia Books; 1 edition (March 1999). pg 135
  24. ↑ Janos Harmatta, "The Rise of the Old Persian Empire: Cyrus the Great," AAASH (Acta Antiqua Acadamie Scientiarum Hungaricae 19, 197, pp. 4-15.

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