The Kingdom of Qocho, (Chinese: 回鶻高昌; pinyin: Huíhú Gāochāng; literally: "Uyghur Gaochang", Mongolian ᠦᠶᠭᠦᠷ Uihur "id.") also called the Idiqut state[4] ("Holy Wealth, Glory"), was a Uyghur state created during 856–866 and based in Qocho (modern Gaochang, also called Qara-Khoja, near modern Turpan); Jimsar County; Hami City; and Kucha.[5] Qocho served as its winter capital with Beshbalik the summer capital. This Uyghur Kingdom played a vital role in the Turkification of Xinjiang in Northwest China.
Alans were recruited into the Mongol forces with one unit called "Right Alan Guard" which was combined with "recently surrendered" soldiers, Mongols, and Chinese soldiers stationed in the area of the former Kingdom of Qocho and in Besh Balikh the Mongols established a Chinese military colony led by Chinese general Qi Kongzhi (Ch'i Kung-chih).[6]
Chinese, Turkic, Tokharian, and Iranian peoples were assimilated into the Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho.[7] Chinese were among the population of Qocho.[8]
The Tang Chinese reign over Qocho and Turfan and the Buddhist religion left a lasting legacy upon the Buddhist Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho with the Tang presented names remaining on the more than 50 Buddhist temples with Emperor Tang Taizong's edicts stored in the "Imperial Writings Tower " and Chinese dictionaries like Jingyun, Yuian, Tang yun, and da zang jing (Buddhist scriptures) stored inside the Buddhist temples and Persian monks also maintained a Manichaean temple in the Kingdom, the Persian Hudud al-'Alam uses the name "Chinese town" to call Qocho, the capital of the Uyghur kingdom.[9]
The Turfan Buddhist Uighurs of the Kingdom of Qocho continued to produce the Chinese Qieyun rime dictionary and developed their own pronunciations of Chinese characters, left over from the Tang influence over the area.[10]
The modern Uyghur linguist Abdurishid Yakup pointed out that the Turfan Uyghur Buddhists studied the Chinese language and used Chinese books like Qianziwen (the Thousand Character Classic) and Qieyun (a rime dictionary) and it was written that "In Qocho city were more than fifty monasteries, all titles of which are granted by the emperors of the Tang dynasty, which keep many Buddhist texts as Tripitaka, Tangyun, Yupuan, Jingyin etc."[11]
In Central Asia the Uighurs viewed the Chinese script as "very prestigious" so when they developed the Old Uyghur alphabet, based on the Syriac script, they deliberately switched it to vertical like Chinese writing from its original horizontal position in Syriac.[12]
The kingdom was a Buddhist state, with both state-sponsored Mahayana Buddhism and Manichaeism, and was a center of Uyghur culture. The Uyghurs sponsored the construction of many of the temple-caves in what is now Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves. They abandoned the Old Turkic alphabet and adopted and modified the Sogdian alphabet, which later came to be known as the Old Uyghur alphabet. The Idiquts (the title of the Qocho rulers) ruled independently until they become a vassal state of the Qara Khitai (Chinese: Western Liao). In 1209, the Kara-Khoja ruler Idiqut Barchuq declared his allegiance to the Mongols under Genghis Khan, and the kingdom existed as a vassal state until 1335. After submitting to the Mongols, the Uyghurs went into the service of the Mongol rulers as bureaucrats, providing the expertise that the initially illiterate nomads lacked. Qocho continued exist as a vassal to the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty, and were allied to the Yuan against the Chagatai Khanate.
Professor James A. Millward described the original Uyghurs as physically "Mongoloid" (an archaic term meaning "appearing ethnically Eastern or Inner Asian"), giving as an example the images of Uyghur patrons of Buddhism in Bezeklik, temple 9, until they began to mix with the Tarim Basin's original eastern Iranian inhabitants.
The Buddhist Uyghurs of the Kingdom of Qocho and Turfan were converted to Islam by conquest during a ghazat (holy war) at the hands of the Muslim Chagatai Khizr Khwaja, Qocho and Turfan were viewed as part of "Khitay",[16] which was a name for China.[17]
After being converted to Islam, the descendants of the previously-Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" (Dzungars) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area.
Buddhist murals at the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves were damaged by local Muslim population whose religion proscribed figurative images of sentient beings, the eyes and mouths in particular were often gouged out. Pieces of murals were also broken off for use as fertilizer by the locals.[19]
The Uyghurs of Taoyuan are the remnants of Uyghurs from Turpan from the Kingdom of Qocho.
Uygur Khan Successor (8th and 9th century wall painting)
Images of Buddhist and Manichean Uyghurs
Images of Buddhist and Manichean Uyghurs from the Bezeklik caves and Mogao grottoes.
| Uyghur king from Turfan, from the murals at the Dunhuang Mogao Caves. |
| Uyghur prince from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur woman from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur Princesses from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur Princes from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur Prince from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur noble from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur noble from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur donor from the Bezeklik murals. |
| Uyghur Manichaean Electae from Qocho. |
| Uyghur Manichaean clergymen from Qocho. |
|
See also
References
- ↑ Marshall Cavendish Corporation (2006). Peoples of Western Asia. p. 364.
- ↑ Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (2007). Historic Cities of the Islamic World. p. 280.
- ↑ Borrero, Mauricio (2009). Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present. p. 162.
- ↑ Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies (1996). Cultural contact, history and ethnicity in inner Asia: papers presented at the Central and Inner Asian Seminar, University of Toronto, March 4, 1994 and March 3, 1995. Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies. p. 137.
- ↑ James A. Millward (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. pp. 46–. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
- ↑ Morris Rossabi (1983). China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries. University of California Press. pp. 255–. ISBN 978-0-520-04562-0.
- ↑ James A. Millward (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. pp. 47–. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
- ↑ James A. Millward (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. pp. 53–. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
- ↑ James A. Millward (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. pp. 49–. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
- ↑ TAKATA, Tokio. "The Chinese Language in Turfan with a special focus on the Qieyun fragments" (PDF). Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University: 7–9. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
- ↑ Abdurishid Yakup (2005). The Turfan Dialect of Uyghur. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 180–. ISBN 978-3-447-05233-7.
- ↑ Liliya M. Gorelova (1 January 2002). Manchu Grammar. Brill. p. 49. ISBN 978-90-04-12307-6.
- ↑ James A. Millward (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. pp. 69–. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
- ↑ Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb; Bernard Lewis; Johannes Hendrik Kramers; Charles Pellat, Joseph Schacht (1998). The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill. p. 677.
- ↑ Whitfield, Susan (2010). "A place of safekeeping? The vicissitudes of the Bezeklik murals". In Agnew, Neville. Conservation of ancient sites on the Silk Road: proceedings of the second International Conference on the Conservation of Grotto Sites, Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang, People's Republic of China (PDF). Getty Publications. pp. 95–106. ISBN 978-1-60606-013-1.
Bibliography