Sogdiana

Sogdiana

Sogdiana, ca. 300 BC.
Languages	Sogdian language
Religions	Zoroastrianism, Manicheism, Christianity
Capitals	Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand, Kesh
Area	Between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya
Existed

Sogdians, depicted on a Chinese Northern Qi stela, circa 550 AD.

Sogdiana or Sogdia (Old Persian: Suguda-; Ancient Greek: Σογδιανή; New Persian: سغد - Sōġd; Tajik: Суғд - Sughd) was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the eighteenth in the list in the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great (i. 16). Sogdiana is thought to be "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda was believed to have created. This region is listed after the first, Airyana Vaeja, Land of the Aryans, in the Zoroastrian book of Vendidad, hence one can see how notice of this region has been taken since ancient times.^[1] Sogdiana, at different periods of time, included territories around Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand and Kesh in modern Uzbekistan. The inhabitants of Sogdiana were the Sogdians, an Eastern Iranian people, who are among the ancestors of modern-day Tajiks.

The Sogdian states, although never politically united, were centred around their main city of Samarkand. It lay north of Bactria, east of Khwarezm, and southeast of Kangju between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), embracing the fertile valley of the Zarafshan (ancient Polytimetus). Sogdian territory corresponds to the modern provinces of Samarkand and Bokhara in modern Uzbekistan as well as the Sughd province of modern Tajikistan.

History

Gold coin of Diodotus c. 250 BC.

Hellenistic period

An independent and warlike Sogdiana^[2] formed a border region insulating the Achaemenid Persians from the nomadic Scythians to the north and east.^[3] The Sogdian Rock or Rock of Ariamazes, a fortress in Sogdiana, was captured in 327 BC by the forces of Alexander the Great; after an extended campaign putting down Sogdian resistance and founding military outposts manned by his Macedonian veterans, Alexander united Sogdiana with Bactria into one satrapy. The military power of the Sogdians never recovered. Subsequently Sogdiana formed part of the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom, founded in 248 BC by Diodotus, for about a century. Euthydemus I seems to have held the Sogdian territory, and his coins were later copied locally. Eucratides apparently recovered sovereignty of Sogdia temporarily. Finally the area was occupied by nomads when the Scythians and Yuezhis overran it around 150 BC.

Battle of Sogdiana

Barbaric copy of a coin of Euthydemus I, from the region of Sogdiana. The legend on the reverse is in Aramaic script.

In 36 BC

...[a] Han expedition into central Asia, west of the Jaxartes River, apparently encountered and defeated a contingent of Roman legionaries. The Romans may have been the enslaved remnants of Crassus' army, defeated by the Parthians and forced to fight on their eastern frontier. Sogdiana (modern Bukhara), east of the Oxus River, on the Polytimetus River, was apparently the most easterly penetration ever made by Roman forces in Asia. The margin of Chinese victory appears to have been their crossbows, whose bolts and darts seem easily to have penetrated Roman shields and armor.

—^[4]

This interpretation has been disputed.^[5]

Silk Road contacts with China

The Sogdians turned their energies to trade so thoroughly that the Khotanese called all merchants suli ("Sogdian") whatever their culture or ethnicity;^[6] Sogdian contacts with China were triggered by the embassy of the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi in the former Han Dynasty, 141-87 BC. He wrote a report of his visit to the "Western Regions" in Central Asia, and named an area of Sogdiana, "Kangju".

Following Zhang Qian's embassy and report, commercial Chinese relations with Central Asia and Sogdiana flourished,^[7] as many Chinese missions were sent throughout the 1st century BC: "The largest of these embassies to foreign states numbered several hundred persons, while even the smaller parties included over 100 members... In the course of one year anywhere from five to six to over ten parties would be sent out."^[8]

Sogdians played a major role in facilitating trade between China and Central Asia along the Silk Roads as late as the 10th century AD; their language became a lingua franca of trade, and in the 7th century the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang noted with approval that little boys were taught to read and write at the age of five, though their skill was turned, disappointing the scholar, to trade. Xuanzang recording the Sogdians in other capacities: as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers and woodcarvers.^[9]

Central Asian role

Sogdian coin, 6th century AD. British Museum.

Chinese-influenced Sogdian coin, Kelpin, 8th century AD. British Museum.

Subsequent to their domination by Alexander, the Sogdians from the city of Marakanda (Samarkand) became dominant as traveling merchants, occupying a key position along the ancient Silk Road. Their language became the common language of the Silk Route and they played a role in the cultural movements of philosophies and religion, such Manicheism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism into the east as well as the movement of items of trade. They were described by the Chinese as born merchants, learning their commercial skills at an early age. It appears from sources, such a documents found by Sir Aurel Stein and others, that by the 4th century AD they may have monopolized trade between India and China. They dominated the trade along the Silk Route from the 2nd century BC until the 10th century AD^[6]

The Suyab and Talas ranked among their main centres in the north. They were the dominant caravan merchants of Central Asia. Their commercial interests were protected by the resurgent military power of the Göktürks, whose empire has been described as "the joint enterprise of the Ashina clan and the Soghdians".^[10][11][12] Their trade with some interruptions continued in the 9th century. It is occurred in 10th century within the framework of the Uighur Empire, which until 840 extended all over northern Central Asia and obtained from China enormous deliveries of silk in exchange for horses. At this time caravans of Sogdians traveling to Upper Mongolia are mentioned in Chinese sources.

The trade goods they brought to China included grapes, alfalfa, and Sassanian silverware from Persia, as well as glass containers, Mediterranean coral, brass Buddhist images, woolen cloth from Rome and amber from the Baltic. They brought back Chinese paper, copper and silk.^[6]

They played an equally important religious and cultural role. Part of the data about eastern Asia provided by Muslim geographers of the 10th century actually goes back to Sogdian data of the period 750-840 and thus shows the survival of links between east and west. However, after the end of the Uighur Empire, Sogdian trade went through a crisis. What mainly issued from Muslim Central Asia was the trade of the Samanids, which resumed on the northwestern road leading to the Khazars and the Urals and the northeastern one toward the nearby Turkic tribes.^[11]

Turpan under Tang dynasty rule was a center of major commercial activity between Chinese and Sogdian merchants. Mazdaism was the religion practiced by the Sogdians, and there were many inns in Turpan, some provided sex workers with an opportunity to service the Silk Road merchants since the official histories report that there were markets in women at both Kucha and Khotan.^[13] The Sogdian-language contract buried at the Astana graveyard demonstrates that at least one Chinese man bought a Sogdian girl in 639 AD. One of the archeologists who excavated the Astana site, Wu Zhen, contends that, although many households along the Silk Road bought individual slaves, as we can see in the earlier documents from Niya, the Turpan documents point to a massive escalation in the volume of the slave trade.^[14] The few documented pairings of Chinese male owners with Sogdian girls raise the question how often Sogdian and Chinese families intermarried. The historical record is largely silent on this topic, but Rong Xinjiang has found a total of twenty-one recorded marriages in the seventh century in which one partner was Sogdian, and in eighteen cases, the spouse is also Sogdian. The only exceptions are very high-ranking Sogdian officials who married Chinese wives.^[15] He concludes that most Sogdian men took Sogdian wives, and we may surmise that the pairings between Chinese men and Sogdian women were usually between a male master and a female slave. Several commercial interactions were recorded In 673 a company commander (duizheng 􀶟􀍍) bought a camel for fourteen bolts of silk from Kang Wupoyan 􀩰􀤢􀥎􀖷,^[16] a non-resident merchant from Samarkand (Kangzhou 􀩰􀏈).^[17] In 731 a Sogdian merchant sold an eleven-year-old girl to a resident of Chang’an, Tang Rong 􀡥􀿲, for forty bolts of silk.^[18] Five men served as guarantors, vouching that she was not a free person who been enslaved (The Tang Code banned the enslavement of commoners.)^[19]

Language and culture

Sogdian in Sassanid style dresses donors to the Buddha (fresco, with detail), Bezeklik, eastern Tarim Basin, China, 8th century.

The 6th century is thought to be the peak of the Sogdian culture with its superb artistic tradition, judging by the remains of their civilization. Further, they were entrenched in their role as the central Asian traveling and trading merchants, transferring goods, culture and religion.^[20]

This region known as Sogdiana had multi -layered links with India. R H Sulemanov in a paper presented in a seminar held in Tashkent in 2000 AD on India and Central Asia (pre Islamic period) has brought out many Indian parallels in ancient cults of Sogdiana. He has specially mentioned about the funeral rites among the tribes and the same in Vedic tradition, the cult of fire worship and Mithraism (Sun worship Mithra/Mitra is Vedic Sun God , Iranian word is Mihir )the legend of Gandharvas (water deities) and the Ganges. Place names such as Kanka or Ganga has also the central Asian connections. The Mahabharatha mentions the name of Kanka (Kangu tribe ). The water deity was also worshipped in Central Asia as perfect women.
Apart from the Puranic cults mentioned above the worship of five Hindu gods in Sogdiana , namely Brahma, Indra , Mahadeva (Shiva ), Narayana and Vaishravana had the Sogdiana names of Zravan , Adabad and Veshparkar respectively . The four armed goddess riding the lion may be Durga. Portable fire altars associated with Mahadeva -Veshparkar, Brahma-Zravan and Indra -Abdab found in a mural of 8th century at Penjikent also needs special mention ^[21]

The Sogdians were noted for their tolerance of different religious beliefs. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion among Sogdians and remained so until after the Islamic conquest, when they gradually converted to Islam, as is shown by Richard Bulliet's "conversion curve"^[22]. Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity also had significant followings. Much of our knowledge of the Sogdians and their language comes from the numerous religious texts that they have left behind.

The Sogdians spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Sogdian, closely related to Bactrian, another major language of the region in ancient times. Sogdian was written in a variety of scripts, all of them derived from the Aramaic alphabet.

Even in the Middle Ages, the valley of the Zarafshan around Samarkand retained the name of the Sogdian, Samarkand. Arabic geographers reckoned it as one of the four fairest districts in the world. The Yaghnobis living in the Sughd province of Tajikistan still speak a dialect of the Soghdian language.

The great majority of the Sogdian people assimilated with other local groups such as the Bactrians, Chorasmians, and in particular with Persians and came to speak Persian, and in 819 A.D. founded Samanid Empire in the region. They are among the ancestors of the modern Tajiks. Numerous Sogdian words can be found in modern Persian language.

Notable Sogdians

• An Lushan was a military leader of Sogdian (from his father's side) and Tūjué origin during the Tang Dynasty in China. He rose to prominence by fighting frontier wars between 741 and 755. Later, he precipitated the catastrophic An Shi Rebellion, which lasted from 755 to 763.

See also

• Tocharians
• Iranian languages
• Ancient Iranian peoples
• Yaghnobi people

Literature

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Calum MacLeod, Bradley Mayhew “Uzbekistan. Golden Road to Samarkand”
• Archaeological Researches in Uzbekistan. 2001. Tashkent The edition is based on results of German-French-Uzbek co-expeditions in 2001 in Uzbekistan*
• Etienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders. A History, Leiden : Brill, 2005. ISBN 90-04-14252-5
• Etienne de la Vaissière, Histoire des marchands sogdiens, Paris : de Boccard, 2004.
• Babadjan Ghafurov, "Tajiks", published in USSR, Russia, Tajikistan
• Vaissiere. E.D.L, "Sogdian Trade" in Encyclopædia Iranica.

References

External links

• Encyclopedia Iranica: Sogdian trade
• Sogdian on Interlinguae
• http://www.livius.org/x/xerxes/xerxes_ii.html (Xerxes II of Persia and Sogdianus)

Provinces of the Achaemenid Empire (Behistun, Persepolis, Naqsh-e Rustam, Susa, Susa foundation charter, and Daiva inscriptions) Across the sea · Akaufaka · Arabia · Arachosia · Aria · Armenia · Assyria · Babylonia · Bactria · Cappadocia · Caria · Chorasmia · Dahae · Drangiana · Egypt · Elam · Gandhara · Gedrosia · Hyrcania · Ionia · Indus · Kush · Libya · Maka · Media · Parthia · Persia · Quadia · Saka · Sardis · Sattagydia · Skudra  · Sogdia · Thrace See also Districts of the Achaemenid Empire according to Herodotus