Approximate extent of East Iranian languages the 1st century BC is shown in orange. |
| Total population |
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| Unknown |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Central Asia Northern India |
| Languages |
| Religion |
| Related ethnic groups |
The Saka (Old Iranian Sakā, Latinized Sacae; Greek Σάκαι; Sanskrit शक [śaka]; Chinese 塞; Old Chinese *sək) were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes of Iranian origin.[1]
Greek and Latin texts suggest that the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.[2][3]
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Accounts of the Indo-Scythian wars often assume that the Scythian protagonists were a single tribe called the Saka (Sakai or Sakas). But in earlier Greek and Latin texts the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.
"Scythia" was a generic term loosely applied to a vast area of Central Asia spanning numerous groups and diverse ethnicities. Ptolemy writes that Skuthia was not only "within the Imaos" (the Himalayas) and "beyond the Imaos" (north of the Himalayas), but also speaks of a separate "land of the Sakais" within Scythia.[4] He also notes that the Komedes inhabited "the entire mountainous land of the Sakas".
The Romans recognized both Saceans (Sacae) and Scyths (Scythae).
Isidorus of Charax used the term "Saka" in his work "Parthian stations". They were known to the Chinese as the Sai, as in the Chinese Imperial reports by general Ban Chao. Stephanus of Byzantium referred to the Sakas in Ethnica as Saka sena, or Sakaraucae. He records how the Sakasena, originally Scythians, were pushed west and displaced by the Asii who themselves became known as Scythians as they conquered Sakastan.
To Herodotus (484-425 BC), the Sakai were the 'Amurgioi Skuthai' (i.e. Amyrgians).[5] Strabo suggests that the term Skuthais (Scythians) referred to the Sakai and several other tribes. According to him Bactria was taken by nomads like "the Asioi and the Pasianoi, and the Tacharoi and the Sakaraukai, who originally came from the other side of the Iaxartou river (Syr Darya) that adjoins that of the Sakai and the Sogdoanou and was occupied by the Saki."[6] Arrian[7] refers to the Sakai as Skuthon (a Scythian people) or the Skuthai (the Scythians) who inhabit Asia.[8] The Prologus XLI of Historiae Philippicae also refers to the Scythian invasion of the Greek kingdom of Bactria and Sogdia. The invaders are described as "Sarauceans" (Saraucae) and "Asians" (Asiani).
B. N. Mukerjee has said that it is clear the Greek and Latin scholars cited here believed, all Sakai were Scythians, but not all Scythians were Sakai.[9]
Modern confusion about the identity of the Saka is partly due to the Persians. According to Herodotus, the Persians called all Scythians by the name Sakas.[10] Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, AD 23–79) provides a more detailed explanation, stating that the Persians gave the name Sakai to the Scythian tribes "nearest to them".[11] The Scythians to the far north of Assyria were also called the Saka suni "Saka or Scythian sons" by the Persians. The Assyrians of the time of Esarhaddon record campaigning against a people they called in the Akkadian the Ashkuza or Ishhuza.[12] Hugo Winckler was the first to associate them with the Scyths which identification remains without serious question. They were closely associated with the Gimirrai,[12] who were the Cimmerians known to the ancient Greeks. Confusion arose because they were known to the Persians as Saka, however they were known to the Babylonians as Gimirrai, and both expressions are used synonymously on the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 515 BC on the order of Darius the Great.[13] These Scythians were mainly interested in settling in the kingdom of Urartu, which later became Armenia. The district of Shacusen, Uti Province, reflects their name.[14] In ancient Hebrew texts, the Ashkuz (Ashkenaz) are considered to be a direct offshoot from the Gimirri (Gomer).[15]
Thus the Behistun inscription mentions four divisions of Scythians,
Of these, the Saka tigraxauda were the Saka proper. The Saka paradraya were the western Scythians or Sarmatians, the Saka haumavarga and Saka para Sugudam were likely Scythian tribes associated with or split-of from the original Saka.
Pliny also mentions Aseni and Asoi clans south of the Hindukush.[16] Bucephala was the capital of the Aseni which stood on the Hydaspes (the Jhelum River).[17] The Sarauceans and Aseni are the Sacarauls and Asioi of Strabo.[18]
The term Asio (or Asii) possibly refers to Horse People and may refer to the Kambojas of the Parama Kamboja domain whose Aswas or horses have been glorified in the Mahabharata as being of excellent quality. Asio, Asi/Asii, Asva/Aswa, Ari-aspi, Aspasios, Aspasii (or Hippasii) are possibly variant names the classical writers have given to the horse-clans of the Kambojas.[19] The Old-Persian words for horse, "asa" and "aspa, have most likely been derived from this."[20]
In the Mahabharata the Rishikas were closely affiliated with the Parama-Kambojas.[21] Similarly, the Pasianois were another Scythian tribe from Central Asia. Saraucae or Sakarauloi obviously refers to the Saka proper from Issyk-kul.
If one accepts this connection, then the Tukharas (= Rishikas = Yuezhi) controlled the eastern parts of Bactria (Chinese Ta-hia) while the combined forces of the Sakarauloi, Asio (horse people = Parama Kambojas) and Pasinoi of Strabo occupied its western parts after being displaced from their original home in the Fergana valley by the Yuezhi. Ta-hia (Daxia) is then taken to mean the Tushara Kingdom which also included Badakshan, Chitral, Kafirstan and Wakhan[22] According to other scholars, it were the Saka hordes alone who had put an end to the Greek kingdom of Bactria.[23]
Researchers broadly consider as Saka part of the Scythian culture in Siberia, in particular that of Tasmola and the Upper-Irtysh group. Unlike the Scythians of Europe, Saka remains are wide scattered from Central Asia to Chinese Turkestan and define a set of cultures close to each other but not identical:
Recently, bronzes found in Yunnan, China have been tentatively attributed to the Saka.
Migrations of the 2nd and 1st c. BC have left traces in Sogdiana and Bactria, but they cannot firmly be attributed to the Saka, similarly with the sites of Sirkap and Taxila in Pakistan. The rich graves at Tillya Tepe in Afghanistan are seen as part of a population affected by the Saka.[24]
Some of the first Bronze Age Scythian burials documented by modern archaeologists include the kurgans at Pazyryk in the Ulagan district of the Altai Republic, south of Novosibirsk in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. The burial mounds concealed chambers of larch-logs covered over with large cairns of boulders and stones.
Archaeologists have extrapolated the Pazyryk culture from these finds: five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949, one opened in 1947 by Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko. The Pazyryk culture flourished between the 7th and 3rd century BC in the area associated with the Saka. Burials at Pazyryk in the Altay Mountains have included some spectacularly preserved remains of the "Pazyryk culture" — including the Ice Maiden of the 5th century BC. Women dressed in much the same fashion as men. A Pazyryk burial found in the 1990s contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, each with weapons, arrowheads, and an axe.
Ordinary Pazyryk graves contain only common utensils, but in one, among other treasures, archaeologists found the famous Pazyryk Carpet, the oldest surviving wool-pile oriental rug. Another striking find, a 3-metre-high four-wheel funerary chariot, survived superbly preserved from the 5th century BC.
After 178 BC the Saka homeland was invaded from the east by the Yuezhi and Wusun, who were displaced by the rising Xiongnu empire.
Part of the Saka drove over the Pamir to the border area of present-day Afghanistan and Iran (Sistan, before 139 BC) and to the Punjab in north-west India.
In Sakastan they came under the suzerainty of Parthian king Mithridates II (reigned 123-88 BC) with which they allied themselves. They used the Parthian-Roman conflict to their advantage and grabbed much of the Indus Basin and thus the eastern regions from the Indo-Parthians and established a short-lived empire under king Maues, which existed until about 45 AD. They were probably still under Parthian sovereignty, since there are no written records which distinguish the Parthians and Sakas.
Indo-Scythians is a term used to refer to Saka who migrated into Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, Gandhara, Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE.
Indian historians see the actual beginning of the Saka era from 79 AD, after the Kushans conquered the Indo-Parthians and spilled over to the east. The Sakas were once again ousted by the Kushan and forced to wander further into central India. In Rajasthan they came into the Hindu warrior caste of the Kshatriyas and were assimilated and were now feared nomadic warriors and rulers, for which Rajasthan was famous for a long time.
Under the so-called Kshatrya kings the Shaka Ujjayini ruled from parts of north west India and presented, for example, under Rudradaman I (r. about 130-150), a competition to the Satavahana dynasty. They were initially dependent on the Kushan. The Kshatriya kingdom was apparently after 397 conquered by king Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/15).
In the 3rd century AD the Saka had their own kingdom in Khotan.
The language of the original Saka tribes is unknown. The only record from their early history is the Issyk inscription, a short fragment on a silver cup found in the Issyk kurgan.
The inscription is in a variant of the Kharoṣṭhī script, and is probably in a Saka dialect, constituting one of very few autochthonous epigraphic traces of that language. Harmatta (1999) identifies the language as Khotanese Saka, tentatively translating "The vessel should hold wine of grapes, added cooked food, so much, to the mortal, then added cooked fresh butter on".
What is nowadays called the Saka language is the language of the kingdom of Khotan which was ruled by the Saka. This was gradually conquered and acculturated by the Turkic expansion to Central Asia beginning in the 4th century. The only known remnants of the Khotanese Saka language come from Xinjiang, China, but the language there is widely divergent from the rest of Iranian and accordingly is called eastern or northeastern Iranian. It also is divided into two divergent dialects.
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