Mirror: http://tinyurl.com/qgghbrd
According to Zhang Guang-da, the name Yuezhi is a transliteration of their own name for themselves, the Visha ("the tribes") or Vèsh in modern Pashto meaning "divisions", being called the Vijaya in Tibetan.(History of civilizations of Central Asia, volume III: Zhang Guang-da, The city-states of the Tarim Basin, p. 284). Visha were vessā part of the four-fold grouping of a community in ancient times and principally engaged in trading activities in Meluhha caravans or as seafaring Meluhha: khattiyā brāhmaṇā vessā suddā (Pali).
According to Zhang Guang-da, the name Yuezhi is a transliteration of their own name for themselves, the Visha ("the tribes") or Vèsh in modern Pashto meaning "divisions", being called the Vijaya in Tibetan.(History of civilizations of Central Asia, volume III: Zhang Guang-da, The city-states of the Tarim Basin, p. 284). Visha were vessā part of the four-fold grouping of a community in ancient times and principally engaged in trading activities in Meluhha caravans or as seafaring Meluhha: khattiyā brāhmaṇā vessā suddā (Pali).
Yuezhi are usually identified with the Tókharoi (Τοχάριοι), named by Greek historians among the conquerors of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in the 2nd century BCE. (Millward, James A. (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press, New York. p. 15.)
Who were the Tókharoi? They were túṣāra, tushara. Their lineage are likely to have been involved in the dissemination of Sanghata-sutra which is a very long Bauddham text mostly dealing with the merit accruing from reciting, copying, etc., the text itself, but containing a number of interesting parables. Many complete folios and numerous fragments are extant. The gloss sanghata is instructive. This is a rebus representation of the Indus script hieroglyph: sangaDa 'lathe, portable furnace' which is frequently deployed to denote metalwork catalogs in Indus Script Corpora which are Meluhha texts written in mlecchita vikalpa, 'Meluhha cipher'. Varahamihira explains the phrase Vajra sanghAta as: 'adamantine glue' in archaeometallurgical terms which is consistent with the rendering of semantics of Bhāratam Janam as 'metalcaster folk' in Rigveda.
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Sangar 'fortification', Afghanistan (evoking the citadels and fortifications at hundreds of archaeological sites of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization).
Sanghata Sutra (Ārya Sanghāta Sūtra; Devanagari, आर्य सङ्घाट सूत्र) is a Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture widely circulated in northwest India and Central Asia. Manuscripts of the Sanghāta have been recovered in Gilgit (in 1931 and 1938), Khotan, Dunhuang, and other sites in Central Asia along the silk route. Translations appear in Khotanese, Sogdian, Chinese, Tibetan and English. "In standard Sanskrit, sanghāta is a term meaning the ‘fitting and joining of timbers’ or ‘the work done by a carpenter in joining two pieces of wood,’ and can refer to carpentry in general. It has a specialized use in a few Buddhist Sanskrit texts, where it means ‘vessel’ or ‘jar,’ and this image of ‘something that contains’ is evoked several times within the sutra, when Buddha calls the Sanghāta a ‘treasury of Dharma.’
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Source: History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations, 700 BCE to 250 CE, Unesco, p.399.
Contributors: A. H. Dani, UNESCO Staff, M. S. Asimov, B. A. Litvinsky, Guang-da Zhang, R. Shabani Samghabadi, C. E. Bosworth, Unesco, 01-Jan-1994 - 574 pages. Volume II presents an account of various population movements and cultural exchanges in Central Asia between 700 B.C. and 250 A.D. Important nomadic tribal cultures such as the Kushans emerged during this period. Contacts between the Mediterranean and the Indus Valley were reinforced by the campaigns of Alexander the Great and, under his successors, the progressive syncretism between Zoroastrianism, Greek religion and Buddhism gave rise to a new civilization instituted by the Parthians, known for its artistic creations. Under Kushan rule, Central Asia became the crossroads of a prosperous trade between the Mediterranean and China along the Silk Route.
Yuezhi were Tocharian-speakers. Christopher Beckwith's narrative on Central Eurasian history begins with the chariot warriors and the Proto-Indo-Europeans in the late 3rd millennium BCE. Christopher Beckwith argues that the character 月, usually read as Old Chinese *ŋʷjat > Mod. yuè, could have been pronounced in an archaic northwestern dialect as *tokwar or *togwar, a form that resembles the Bactrian name Toχοαρ (Toχwar ~ Tuχwar) and the medieval form Toχar ~ Toχâr.(Beckwith, Christopher I. (2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press, page 5, footnote #16, as well as pages 380–383 in appendix B.) Christopher Beckwith "equates the Tokharians with the Yuezhi, and the Wusun with the Asvins, as if these are established facts, and refers to his arguments in appendix B. But these identifications remain controversial, rather than established, for most scholars." As succinctly sumamrised by Doug Hitch, Christopher Beckwith proposes three migratory waves of languages from Urheimat (the PIE homeland): wave A with one set of stop consonants (Tocharian, Anatolian), wave B with three (Germanic, Italic, Greek, Indic, Armenian), and wave C with two (Celtic, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian, Iranian)(p.365).(Hitch, Doug (2010). "Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present" in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 130 (4): 654–658.)
http://www.ynlc.ca/ynlc/staff/hitch/review_of_Beckwith.pdf (Embedded) https://www.scribd.com/doc/269518451/Review-of-Christopher-Beckwith-s-Empires-of-the-Silk-Road-A-history-of-central-Eurasdia-from-th-Bronze-Age-to-the-Present-JAOS-130-4-2010-pp-65
For the pronunciation of Mod. yuè, as *togwar (cognate túṣāra) see: Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 806.
Thus, yuè-zhi were indeed Tushara of Vedic texts,
Sangar 'fortification', Afghanistan (evoking the citadels and fortifications at hundreds of archaeological sites of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization).Sanghata Sutra (Ārya Sanghāta Sūtra; Devanagari, आर्य सङ्घाट सूत्र) is a Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture widely circulated in northwest India and Central Asia. Manuscripts of the Sanghāta have been recovered in Gilgit (in 1931 and 1938), Khotan, Dunhuang, and other sites in Central Asia along the silk route. Translations appear in Khotanese, Sogdian, Chinese, Tibetan and English. "In standard Sanskrit, sanghāta is a term meaning the ‘fitting and joining of timbers’ or ‘the work done by a carpenter in joining two pieces of wood,’ and can refer to carpentry in general. It has a specialized use in a few Buddhist Sanskrit texts, where it means ‘vessel’ or ‘jar,’ and this image of ‘something that contains’ is evoked several times within the sutra, when Buddha calls the Sanghāta a ‘treasury of Dharma.’
Whether we take sanghāta as having the sense of joining or connecting that it has in standard Sanskrit, or the sense of holding or containing that it can have in Buddhist Sanskrit, the question remains as to just what is connected or held. One possible interpretation is that what is connected are sentient beings, and they are joined or connected by the Sanghāta to enlightenment. This suggestion—that what the Sanghāta joins is sentient beings to enlightenment—was offered by Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche during an oral transmission of the text in 2003. In this, we find an idea that we readers and reciters are the material that the Sanghāta is working on, as it shapes us, and connects us to our enlightenment in such a way that we will never turn back. This, indeed, is what Sarvashura initially requests the Buddha to give: a teaching that can ensure that the young ones are never disconnected from their path to enlightenment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanghata_Sutra
Source: History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations, 700 BCE to 250 CE, Unesco, p.399.
Contributors: A. H. Dani, UNESCO Staff, M. S. Asimov, B. A. Litvinsky, Guang-da Zhang, R. Shabani Samghabadi, C. E. Bosworth, Unesco, 01-Jan-1994 - 574 pages. Volume II presents an account of various population movements and cultural exchanges in Central Asia between 700 B.C. and 250 A.D. Important nomadic tribal cultures such as the Kushans emerged during this period. Contacts between the Mediterranean and the Indus Valley were reinforced by the campaigns of Alexander the Great and, under his successors, the progressive syncretism between Zoroastrianism, Greek religion and Buddhism gave rise to a new civilization instituted by the Parthians, known for its artistic creations. Under Kushan rule, Central Asia became the crossroads of a prosperous trade between the Mediterranean and China along the Silk Route.
Yuezhi were Tocharian-speakers. Christopher Beckwith's narrative on Central Eurasian history begins with the chariot warriors and the Proto-Indo-Europeans in the late 3rd millennium BCE. Christopher Beckwith argues that the character 月, usually read as Old Chinese *ŋʷjat > Mod. yuè, could have been pronounced in an archaic northwestern dialect as *tokwar or *togwar, a form that resembles the Bactrian name Toχοαρ (Toχwar ~ Tuχwar) and the medieval form Toχar ~ Toχâr.(Beckwith, Christopher I. (2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press, page 5, footnote #16, as well as pages 380–383 in appendix B.) Christopher Beckwith "equates the Tokharians with the Yuezhi, and the Wusun with the Asvins, as if these are established facts, and refers to his arguments in appendix B. But these identifications remain controversial, rather than established, for most scholars." As succinctly sumamrised by Doug Hitch, Christopher Beckwith proposes three migratory waves of languages from Urheimat (the PIE homeland): wave A with one set of stop consonants (Tocharian, Anatolian), wave B with three (Germanic, Italic, Greek, Indic, Armenian), and wave C with two (Celtic, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian, Iranian)(p.365).(Hitch, Doug (2010). "Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present" in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 130 (4): 654–658.)
http://www.ynlc.ca/ynlc/staff/hitch/review_of_Beckwith.pdf (Embedded) https://www.scribd.com/doc/269518451/Review-of-Christopher-Beckwith-s-Empires-of-the-Silk-Road-A-history-of-central-Eurasdia-from-th-Bronze-Age-to-the-Present-JAOS-130-4-2010-pp-65
For the pronunciation of Mod. yuè, as *togwar (cognate túṣāra) see: Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 806.
Thus, yuè-zhi were indeed Tushara of Vedic texts,
túṣāra m. sg. and pl. ʻ frost, snow, mist, dew, thin rain ʼ MBh., adj. ʻ cold ʼ Kālid.
Pk. tusāra -- n. ʻ hoarfrost, snow ʼ; Ku. tusyāro, tos ʻ frost ʼ (y?); N. tusāro ʻ snow, hoarfrost, dew ʼ; B. tusār ʻ cold, dew, drizzle ʼ; H. tusār ʻ cold ʼ, m. ʻ cold, frost, snow, ice, hail, dew, mist, thin rain, blight, crop ripening in cold season ʼ, tusārā, °rū ʻ cold, frosty ʼ; M. tusār, °rā m. ʻ drizzle ʼ; Si. tusara ʻ dew, mist ʼ, adj. ʻ cold ʼ. -- K. tṳ̄run ʻ to freeze ʼ < *tuhār -- ?(CDIAL 5894). It is suggested that the Tókharoi derived their self-designation from the gloss: túṣāra, 'frost, snow' considering the snow-clad Himalayan ranges of Xinjiang they migrated to and settled in.
Pk. tusāra -- n. ʻ hoarfrost, snow ʼ; Ku. tusyāro, tos ʻ frost ʼ (y?); N. tusāro ʻ snow, hoarfrost, dew ʼ; B. tusār ʻ cold, dew, drizzle ʼ; H. tusār ʻ cold ʼ, m. ʻ cold, frost, snow, ice, hail, dew, mist, thin rain, blight, crop ripening in cold season ʼ, tusārā, °rū ʻ cold, frosty ʼ; M. tusār, °rā m. ʻ drizzle ʼ; Si. tusara ʻ dew, mist ʼ, adj. ʻ cold ʼ. -- K. tṳ̄run ʻ to freeze ʼ < *tuhār -- ?(CDIAL 5894). It is suggested that the Tókharoi derived their self-designation from the gloss: túṣāra, 'frost, snow' considering the snow-clad Himalayan ranges of Xinjiang they migrated to and settled in.
They were "...Tusharas, also known as the Tukharas or Tócharoi, were a tribe of ancient India, with a kingdom located in the north west of India, according to the epic Mahabharata. An account in Mbh 1:85 depicts the Tusharas as Mlechchas and the descendants of Anu, one of the cursed sons of king Yayati. Yayati's eldest son Yadu, gave rise to the Yadavas and youngest son Puru to the Pauravas that includes the Kurus and Panchalas. Only the fifth son of Puru's line was considered to be the successors of Yayati's throne, as he cursed the other four sons and denied them kingship. Pauravas inherited the Yayati's original empire and stayed in the Gangetic plainwho later created the Kuru and Panchala Kingdoms. They were followers of the Vedic culture. The Yadavas made central and western India their stronghold. The descendants of Anu, known as the Anavas, are said to have migrated to Iran."
Puranic traditions (Bhagavata Purana) say that Budha, the patriarchic figure the Yadu, Turvasa, Druhyu, Anu and Puru clans had come from Central Asia to Bharatkhand to perform penitential rites and he espoused Ella, the daughter of Manu, by whom was born Pururavas. Pururavas had six sons, one of whom is said to be Ayu. This Ayu or Ay is said to be the patriarch figure of the Tartars of Central Asia as well as of the first race of the kings of China. (James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, p 172.)
Pururavas and Urvasi had two sons, Ayu and Amavasu.Referring to these sons, Baudhāyana Śrauta Sūtra 18.44:397.9 sqq records:
Ayu migrated eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancalas and the Kasi-Videhas. This is the Ayava (migration). Amavasu migrated westwards. His (people) are the Ghandhari, Parsu and Aratta. This is the Amavasu (migration).
Read with the Bhagavata Purana narrative, it is hypothesised that Ayu's people migrated to Xinjiang region and were referred to as Visha ("the tribes") or Vèsh in modern Pashto meaning "divisions" or Vijaya in Tibetan or Yuezhi in Chinese (identified with Tókharoi or Tushara). These were the people who migrated back to Gandhara and North-west India as Kushanas -- as shown in the Yuezi migration map from Tocharian-speaking region. It is notable that Tocharian records the Rigvedic word ams'u (a synonym of Soma) in a phonetic variant ancu'iron' (cf. Georges Pinault).Rigveda also records that Soma was purchased from traders from Mujavant mountain (which could be Mustagh Ata of Tocharian-seaking region).
Many theories have been propounded to identify the origin of Yuezhi people: The Rishikas are said to be same as the Yuezhis (Dr V. S. Aggarwala). The Kushanas or Kanishkas are also the same people (Dr J. C. Vidyalankara). Prof Stein says that the Tukharas were a branch of the Yue-chi or Yuezhi. Tusharas/Tukharas (Tokharois/Tokarais) and the Yuezhi are stated to be same people (Dr P.C. Bagchi).
Stein's contention that Tukharas (Tushara) were a branch of Yuezhi is consistent with Ayu peoples' migration to Xinjiang as Tartars, the first race of the kings of China. This is corroborated by the statement in Vayu Purana and Matsya Purana, that river Chakshu (Oxus) flowed through the countries of Tusharas (Rishikas?), Lampakas, Pahlavas, Paradas and Shakas etc.
These Tushara mleccha (Meluhha) were the people of Sarasvati_Sindhu Civilization who created the Indus Script Corpora.
The Chinese kept referring to the Kushans as Da Yuezhi throughout the centuries. In the Sanguozhi (三國志, chap. 3), it is recorded that in 229 CE, "The king of the Da Yuezhi, Bodiao 波調 (Vasudeva I), sent his envoy to present tribute, and His Majesty (EmperorCao Rui) granted him the title of King of the Da Yuezhi Intimate with the Wei (魏) (Ch: 親魏大月氏王, Qīn Wèi Dà Yuèzhī Wáng)."
...
In a sweeping analysis of the physical types and cultures of Central Asia that he visited in 126 BCE, Zhang Qian reports that "although the states from Dayuan west to Anxi (Parthia), speak rather different languages, their customs are generally similar and their languages mutually intelligible. The men have deep-set eyes and profuse beards and whiskers. They are skilful at commerce and will haggle over a fraction of a cent. Women are held in great respect, and the men make decisions on the advice of their women."(Shiji123)(Watson 1993, p. 245. Watson, Burton (1993), Records of the Grand Historian of China: Han Dynasty II (revised ed.)Translated from the Shiji of Sima Qian., p. 245)
"The Great Yuezhi [Kushans] is located about seven thousand li (about 3000 km) north of India. Their land is at a high altitude; the climate is dry; the region is remote. The king of the state calls himself "son of heaven". There are so many riding horses in that country that the number often reaches several hundred thousand. City layouts and palaces are quite similar to those of Daqin (the Roman empire). The skin of the people there is reddish white. People are skilful at horse archery. Local products, rarities, treasures, clothing, and upholstery are very good, and even India cannot compare with it." [Benjamin, Craig (October 2003). "The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia". Transoxiana Webfestschrift (Transoxiana) 1 (Ēran ud Anērān).] Note: Craig Benjamin's article "The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia"is embedded for ready reference.
These textual references indicating indicate that Yuezhi were traders, that they dealt with handicrafts and 'rarities, treasures', which was the hall-mark of Meluhha who have created metalwork catalogues as Indus Script Corpora with about 7000 inscriptions. Yuezhi were the Meluhha (mleccha). They were the vessa, vēsa, Vaiśya 'traders' (cognate Yuezhi). They could also have included the ivory-carvers of Begram who moved to Kankali-Tila, Mathura, Bharhut, Sanchi to create the architectural marvels of Stupa and Torana with Indus Script hierolyphs venerating dharma-dhamma.
Yuezhi or Rouzhi (Chinese: 月氏; pinyin: Yuèzhī, Wade–Giles Yüeh-chih) were an ancient Indo-European people. (Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1999). The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge University Press. pp. 87–88.). These were Meluhha speakers who had settled in the grasslands of Tarim Basin area which is today Xinjiang and western Gansu, in China. Yuezhi or Tókharoi (Τοχάριοι) or Tushara, migrated to Bactria and founded the Kushan Empire, which 'stretched from Turfan in the Tarim basin to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain at its greatest extent, and played an important role in the development of the Silk Road and the transmission of Buddhism to China."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuezhi
In the Indian tradition, the Yuezhi can be called the chandra-vams'i since the name Yuezi in Chinese is formed with yuè (月) "moon" and shì (氏) "clan".
The Yuezhi were organized into five major tribes, each led by a yabgu, or tribal chief, and known to the Chinese as Xiūmì (休密) in Western Wakhān and Zibak, Guishuang (貴霜) in Badakhshan and the adjoining territories north of the Oxus, Shuangmi (雙靡) in the region of Shughnan, Xidun (肸頓) in the region of Balkh, and Dūmì (都密) in the region of Termez.(Hill, John E. (2003). The Peoples of the West from the Weilüe 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE. Draft annotated English translation,pp. 29, 318–350).
It is notable that ancient Indian tradition also divided the community into five groups, panchal, five artisans, each guild led by a chief.There is a gloss in Sumerian and Gujarati (Indian sprachbund) denoting a pilgrim's companion: sanga 'priest'(Sumerian/Akkadian); sanghvi (Gujarati).
பஞ்சகம்மாளர் pañca-kammāḷar , n. < pañcantaṭṭāṉ, kaṉṉāṉ, ciṟpaṉ, taccaṉ, kollaṉ; தட்டான், கன்னான், சிற்பன், தச்சன் கொல்லன் என்ற ஐவகைப் பட்ட கம்மாளர். (சங். அக.) அஞ்சுபஞ்சலத்தார் añcu-pañcalattār , n. < அஞ்சு + பஞ்சாளத்தார். Pañca-kammāḷar, the five artisan classes; பஞ்சகம்மாளர். (I. M. P. Cg. 371.) pañcālá m. ʻ name of a tribe in North India ʼ ŚBr.
Pk. paṁcāla -- m. ʻ id. ʼ; K. panzāl m. ʻ the Pīr Panjāl range south of the valley of Kashmir ʼ.(CDIAL 7680) pāˊñcāla ʻ of the Pañcālas ʼ MBh. [
The migrations of the Yuezhi through Central Asia, from around 176 BCE to 30 CE
VIŚ ʻ enter, settle in ʼ:vēśá1 m. ʻ inhabitant (of a víś -- ), neighbour ʼ RV. [víś -- f. ʻ tribe, habitation ʼ RV. -- √viś ] Kho. Kal.rumb. gram -- bešu ʻ neighbour ʼ (< *vēśaka -- BelvalkarVol 90).(CDIAL 12124) vḗśa2 m. ʻ habitation ʼ VS. (= víś -- : VS. vḗśān dhāraya ~ RV. viśāˊṁ dhártr̥ -- ), ʻ house ʼ Daś. -- See vēśa -- 3 . [√viś ](CDIAL 12125) vēśíya metr. for vēśyà -- m. ʻ inhabitant ʼ RV. [vḗśa -- 2 ] Kt. vušī ʻ neighbour ʼ (Rep1 57 < vēśin -- ).(CDIAL 12127) vaíśya m. ʻ peasant as member of the third caste ʼ RV. adj. ʻ belonging to such ʼ MBh. (n. ʻ vassalage ʼ TS.). [vḗśa -- 1 or vēśyà --] Pa. vessa -- m., °sī -- , °sikā -- f. ʻ member of the third caste ʼ, Pk. vessa -- , vēsa -- m., vēsī -- f.; Si. vessā, st. ves<-> ʻ merchant ʼ; -- A. behā ʻ trade ʼ. vaiśyavr̥tti -- Add. 14810.(CDIAL 12150). Vessa [cp. Vedic vaiśya, a dial. (local) word] a Vaiśya, i. e. a member of the third social (i. e. lower) grade (see vaṇṇa 6), a man of the people D iii. 81, 95 (origin); Si. 102, 166; iv. 219; v. 51; A i. 162; ii. 194; iii. 214, 242; Vbh 394; DA i. 254 (origin). -- f. vesī (q. v.); vessī (as a member of that caste) D i. 193; A iii. 226, 229.Vessikā (f.) [fr. vessa] a Vaiśya woman Sn 314.(Pali)
Vaṇṇa [cp. Vedic varṇa, of vṛ: see vuṇāti. Customary definition as "vaṇṇane" at Dhtp 572] appearance etc. (lit. "cover, coating"). There is a considerable fluctuation of meaning, especially between meanings 2, 3, 4. One may group as follows. -- 1. colour Sn 447 (meda˚); Sv. 216 (chavi˚ of the skin); A iii. 324 (sankha˚); Th 1, 13 (nīl'abbha˚); Vv 4510 (danta˚=ivory white); Pv iv. 39 ; DhA ii. 3 (aruṇa˚); SnA 319 (chavi˚); VvA 2 (vicitta˚); PvA 215. Six colours are usually enumd as vaṇṇā, viz.nīla pīta lohitaka odāta mañjeṭṭha pabhassara Ps i. 126; cp. the 6 colours under rūpa at Dhs 617 (where kāḷaka for pabbassara); J i. 12 (chabbaṇṇa -- buddha -- rasmiyo). Groups of five see under pañca 3 (cp. J i. 222). -- dubbaṇṇa of bad colour, ugly S i. 94; A v. 61; Ud 76; Sn 426; It 99; Pug 33; VvA 9; PvA 32, 68. Opp.suvaṇṇa of beautiful colour, lovely A v. 61; It 99. Also as term for "silver." -- As t. t. in descriptions or analyses (perhaps better in meaning "appearance") in abl.vaṇṇato by colour, with saṇṭhānato and others: Vism 184 ("kāḷa vā odāta vā manguracchavi vā"), 243=VbhA 225; Nett 27. -- 2. appearance S i. 115 (kassaka -- vaṇṇaŋ abhinimminitvā); J i. 84 (id. with māṇavaka˚); Pv ii. 110 (=chavi -- vaṇṇa PvA 71); iii. 32 (kanakassa sannibha); VvA 16; cp. ˚dhātu. -- 3. lustre, splendour (cp. next meaning) D iii. 143 (suvaṇṇa˚, or=1); Pv ii. 962 (na koci devo vaṇṇena sambuddhaŋ atirocati); iii. 91 (suriya˚); Vv 291 (=sarīr' obhāsa VvA 122); PvA 10 (suvaṇṇa˚), 44. -- 4. beauty (cp. vaṇṇavant) D ii. 220 (abhikkanta˚); M i. 142 (id.); D iii. 68 (āyu+); Pv ii. 910 (=rūpa -- sampatti PvA 117). Sometimes combd with other ideals, as (in set of 5): āyu, sukha, yasa, sagga A iii. 47; or āyu, yasa, sukha, ādhipacca J iv. 275, or (4): āyu, sukha, bala A iii. 63. -- 5. expression, look, specified as mukha˚, e. g. S iii. 2, 235; iv. 275 sq.; A v. 342; Pv iii. 91 ; PvA 122. <-> 6. colour of skin, appearance of body, complexion M ii. 32 (parama), 84 (seṭṭha); A iii. 33 (dibba); iv. 396 (id.); Sn 610 (doubtful, more likely because of its combn with sara to below 8!), 686 (anoma˚); Vism 422 (evaŋ˚=odato vā sāmo vā). Cp.˚pokkharatā. <-> In special sense applied as distinguishing mark of race or species, thus also constituting a mark of class (caste) distinction & translatable as "(social) grade, rank, caste" (see on term Dial. i. 27, 99 sq.; cp. Vedic ārya varṇa and dāsa varṇa RV ii. 12, 9; iii. 34, 9: see Zimmer, Altind. Leben 113 and in greater detail Macdonell & Keith, Vedic Index ii. 247 sq.). The customary enumn is of 4 such grades, viz. khattiyā brāhmaṇā vessā suddā Vin ii. 239; A iv. 202; M ii. 128, but cp. Dial. i. 99 sq. -- See also Vin iv. 243 (here applied as general term of "grade" to the alms -- bowls: tayo pattassa vaṇṇā, viz. ukkaṭṭha, majjhima, omaka; cp. below 7); D i. 13, 91; J vi. 334; Miln 225 (khattiya˚, brāhmaṇa˚). -- 7. kind, sort Miln 128 (nānā˚), cp. Vin iv. 243, as mentioned under 6. -- 8. timbre (i. e. appearance) of voice, contrasted to sara intonation, accent; may occasionally be taken as "vowel." See A i. 229 (+sara); iv. 307 (id.); Sn 610 (id., but may mean "colour of skin": see 6), 1132 (giraŋ vaṇṇ' upasaŋhitaŋ, better than meaning "comment"); Miln 340 (+sara). <-> 9. constitution, likeness, property; adj. ( -- ˚) "like": aggi˚ like fire Pviii. 66 (=aggi -- sadisa PvA 203). -- 10. ("good impression") praise DhA i. 115 (magga˚); usually combd and contrasted with avaṇṇa blame, e. g. D i. 1, 117, 174; A i. 89; ii. 3; iii. 264; iv. 179, 345; DA i. 37. -- 11. reason ("outward appearance") S i. 206 (=kāraṇa K.S. i. 320); Vv 846 (=kāraṇa VvA 336); Pv iv. 16 (id. PvA 220); iv. 148 .-- āroha (large) extent of beauty Sn 420. -- kasiṇa the colour circle in the practice of meditation VbhA 251. -- kāraka (avaṇṇe) one who makes something (unsightly) appear beautiful J v. 270. -- da giving colour, i. e. beauty Sn 297. -- dada giving beauty A ii. 64. -- dasaka the ten (years) of complexion or beauty (the 3rd decade in the life of man) Vism 619; J iv. 497. -- dāsī "slave of beauty," courtezan, prostitute J i. 156 sq., 385; ii. 367, 380; iii. 463; vi. 300; DhA i. 395; iv. 88. -- dhātu composition or condition of appearance, specific form, material form, natural beauty S i. 131; Pv i. 31 ; PvA 137 (=chavivaṇṇa); DhsA 15. -- patha see vaṇṇu˚.-- pokkharatā beauty of complexion D i. 114, 115; A i. 38; ii. 203; Pug 66; VbhA 486 (defd ); DhA iii. 389; PvA 46. -- bhū place of praise J i. 84 (for ˚bhūmi: see bhū2 ). -- bhūta being of a (natural) species PvA 97. -- vādin saying praise, praising D i. 179, 206; A ii. 27; V.164 sq.; Vin ii. 197. -- sampanna endowed with beauty A i. 244 sq., 288; ii. 250 sq.(Pali)
Vaṇṇa [cp. Vedic varṇa, of vṛ: see vuṇāti. Customary definition as "vaṇṇane" at Dhtp 572] appearance etc. (lit. "cover, coating"). There is a considerable fluctuation of meaning, especially between meanings 2, 3, 4. One may group as follows. -- 1. colour Sn 447 (meda˚); S
विश्[p= 732,2] (or बिश्) cl.1 P. बेशति , to go Dha1tup. xvii , 71 (= √ पिस् q.v.) to enter , enter in or settle down on , go into to enter (a house &c ) Hariv. ; f. (m. only L. ; nom. sg. व्/इट् ; loc. pl. विक्ष्/उ) a settlement , homestead , house , dwelling (विश्/अस् प्/अति " lord of the house " applied to अग्नि and इन्द्र) RV.(sg. and pl.) the people καÏá¾½ , á¼Î¾Î¿Ïήν , (in the sense of those who settle on the soil ; sg. also " a man of the third caste " , a वैश्य ; विशाम् with पतिः or नाथः or ईश्वरः &c , " lord of the people " , a king , sovereign) S3Br. &c(pl.) property , wealth BhP.mf. a man in general , person L.
viṣaya m. ʻ scope ʼ ŚāṅkhŚr., ʻ sphere, region ʼ MBh. [√viṣ ] Pa. Pk. visaya -- m. ʻ sphere, locality ʼ; -- Si. visā ʻ district ʼ (EGS 166) ← Pa.?(CDIAL 11973) vḗṣa -- 1 m. ʻ work, activity ʼ VS. [√viṣ ]
विषय[p= 997,1] a country with more than 100 villages L.; m. (ifc. f(आ). ; prob. either fr √1. विष् , " to act " , or fr. वि + √ सि , " to extend " cf. Pa1n2. 8-3 , 70 Sch.) sphere (of influence or activity) , dominion , kingdom , territory , region , district , country , abode (pl. = lands , possessions) Mn. MBh. &c; special sphere or department , peculiar province or field of action , peculiar element , concern (ifc. = " concerned with , belonging to , intently engaged on " ; विषये , with gen. or ifc. = " in the sphere of , with regard or reference to " ; अत्र विषये , " with regard to this object ") MBh. Ka1v. &c; a symbolical N. of the number " five " VarBr2S.anything perceptible by the senses , any object of affection or concern or attention , any special worldly object or aim or matter or business , (pl.) sensual enjoyments , sensuality Kat2hUp. Mn. MBh. &c
कौश kauśaकौश a. (-शी f.) [कुश-अण्] 1 Silken; Bhāg.3.4.7.-2 Made of Kuśa grass.-शम् An epithet of Kānya- kubja.द्वीपः पम् [द्विर्गता द्वयोर्दिशोर्वा गता आपो यत्र; द्वि-अप्, अप ईप्] 1 An island. -2 A place of refuge, shelter, pro- tection. -3 A division of the terrestrial world; (the number of these divisions varies according to different authorities, being four, seven, nine or thirteen, all situated round the mountain Meru like the petals of a lotus flower, and each being separated from the other by a distinct ocean. [In N. 1.5 the Dvīpas are said to be eighteen; but seven appears to be the usual number :- जम्बु, प्लक्ष, शाल्मलि, कुश, क्रौञ्च, शाक and पुष्कर; cf. Bhāg.5.1.32; R.1.65; and पुरा सप्तदीपां जयति वसुधामप्रतिरथः Ś.7.33. The central one is जम्बुद्वीप in which is included भरतखण्ड or India.] कुश [p= 296,3] m. grass S3Br. S3a1n3khS3r. Ka1tyS3r. A1s3vGr2. the sacred grass used at certain religious ceremonies (Poa cynosuroides , a grass with long pointed stalks) Mn. Ya1jn5. MBh. &cf. a rope (made of कुश grass) used for connecting the yoke of a plough with the pole L. कुशी (= कुशा) a small pin (used as a mark in recitation and consisting of wood [ MaitrS. iv] or of metal [TBr. i S3Br. iii]) f. a ploughshare L. कुशा f. ( Pa1n2. 8-3 , 46) a small pin or piece of wood (used as a mark in recitation) La1t2y. ii , 6 , 1 and 4 (Monier-Williams)
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Wall painting of "Tocharian Princes" from Cave of the Sixteen Sword-Bearers (no. 8), Qizil, Tarim Basin, Xinjiang, China. Carbon 14 date: 432–538 CE. Original in Museum für Indische Kunst, Berlin.
Wall painting of "Tocharian Princes" from Cave of the Sixteen Sword-Bearers (no. 8), Qizil, Tarim Basin, Xinjiang, China. Carbon 14 date: 432–538 CE. Original in Museum für Indische Kunst, Berlin.
Possible Yuezhi king and attendants, Gandhara stone palette, 1st century CE
Shu-ilishu cylinder seal of eme-bal, interpreter. Akkadian. Cylinder seal Impression. Inscription records that it belongs to ‘S’u-ilis’u, Meluhha interpreter’, i.e., translator of the Meluhhan language (EME.BAL.ME.LUH.HA.KI) The Meluhhan being introduced carries an goat on his arm. Musee du Louvre. Ao 22 310, Collection De Clercq 3rd millennium BCE. The Meluhhan is accompanied by a lady carrying a kamaṇḍalu. The goat on the trader's hand is a phonetic determinant -- that he is Meluhha. This is decrypted based on the word for the goat: mlekh 'goat' (Brahui); mr..eka 'goat' (Telugu) Rebus: mleccha'copper' (Samskritam); milakkhu 'copper' (Pali) Thus the sea-faring merchant carrying the goat is a copper (and tin) trader from Meluhha. The jar carried by the accompanying person is a liquid measure:ranku 'liquid measure' Rebus: ranku 'tin'. A hieroglyph used to denote ranku may be seen on the two pure tin ingots found in a shipwreck in Haifa. See Annex on Tarim Basin mummies and Meluhha speakers.
Elamite, holding a goat (Gold, silver cire perduestatues) ca. 1400 BCE. mlekh, mr..eka 'goat' (Brahui.Telugu) Rebus: milakkhu 'Meluhha, mleccha''copper' (Pali)
Meluhha (Bhāratam Janam) trade routes 1. From Hanoi to West of Sindhu to Haifa (assur meluhha)and 2. Eurasia (túṣāra meluhha)
[quote]From the sixth century BCE, land and river routes criss-crossed the subcontinent and extended in various directions – overland into Central Asia and beyond, and overseas, from ports that dotted the coastline – extending across the Arabian Sea to East and North Africa and West Asia, and through the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia and China. Rulers often attempted to control these routes, possibly by offering protection for a price.
Those who traversed these routes included peddlers who probably travelled on foot and merchants who travelled with caravans of bullock carts and pack-animals. Also, there were seafarers, whose ventures were risky but highly profitable. Successful merchants, designated as masattuvan
in Tamil and setthisand satthavahasin Prakrit, could become enormously rich. A wide range of goods were carried from one place to another – salt,
grain, cloth, metal ores and finished products, stone, timber, medicinal plants, to name a few. Spices, especially pepper, were in high demand in
the Roman Empire, as were textiles and medicinal plants, and these were all transported across the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean.
Items traded
Recent archaeological finds suggest that copper was also probably brought from Oman, on the southeastern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Chemical
analyses have shown that both the Omani copper and Harappan artefacts have traces of nickel, suggesting a common origin.
There are other traces of contact as well. A distinctive type of vessel, a large Harappan jar coated with a thick layer of black clay has been found at Omani sites. Such thick coatings prevent the percolation of liquids. We do not know what was carried in these vessels, but it is possible that the Harappans exchanged the contents of these vessels for Omani copper. Mesopotamian texts datable to the third millennium BCE refer to copper coming from a region called Magan, perhaps a name for Oman, and interestingly enough copper found at Mesopotamian sites also contains traces of nickel.
Other archaeological finds suggestive of long distance contacts include Harappan seals, weights, dice and beads. In this context, it is worth noting that Mesopotamian texts mention contact with regions named Dilmun (probably the island of Bahrain), Magan and Meluhha, possibly the Harappan region. They mention the products from Meluhha: carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold, and varieties of wood.
A Mesopotamian myth says of Meluhha: “May your bird be the haja-bird, may its call be heard in the royal palace.” Some archaeologists think the
haja-bird was the peacock. Did it get this name from its call? It is likely that
communication with Oman, Bahrain or Mesopotamia was by sea. Mesopotamian texts refer to Meluhha as a land of seafarers. Besides,we find depictions of ships and boats on seals. [unquote]
Annex: Tarim Basin mummies and Meluhha speakers
Some Tarim mummies on trade caravans spoke Mleccha (Meluhha) before they were mummies
This hypothesis needs to be tested by archaeometallurgical and historical linguistic studies from an extended area from Ancient Far East to Ancient Near East. This is also an imperative in the context of a new start for Vedic and IE studies. Evidence of contact between Vedic and Tocharian has already been attested in the cognate expressions: ams'u (Vedic), ancu (Tocharian). The circular stones in funerary practices unite Tocharian and Dholavira. By the 6th century CE, the Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira also locates the Tusharas with Barukachcha (Bhroach) and Barbaricum (on the IndusDelta) near the sea in western India: bharukaccha.samudra.romaka.tushrah.. :(BrhatsamhitaXVI.6). If contacts with area lived in by speakers of Kafiri (Nuristani) was a transit point, Tushara could also have arrived to settle in Barukachcha from this detour from Kyrgystan (Muztagh Ata), taking a caravan route south of the Oxus (Amu Darya) river. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tushara_Kingdom
What language did the people of Sarasvati-Sindhu doab river basins (with about 2,600 archaeological sites) speak? Given the evidence of Buddhist Hybrid Samskritam (BHS) in the Tarim Basin documents and the links between Rigvedic people and Tushara (Tocharian) in trade transactions of Soma (synonyms, metaphors: ams'u, ancu), a proto-BHS, or Proto-Indo-Aryan, or Early Indo-European, Mleccha (Meluhha) is suggested as the language of the metalworkers of the Bronze Age. Mleccha, 'copper' (Samskritam) provides the profession of Mleccha-speakers, 'metal workers', also referred to by cognate expressions: Milakkha (Pali), Meluhha (Akkadian on a Shu-ilishu cylinder seal). A reference to the metalworkers is contained in the expression used in Rigveda to denote the people in general by Rigveda Rishi Visvamitra: Bharatam Janam, 'lit. metalworker people'. Chandas, 'prosody' represented the liturgical version of an Indo-European language and Mleccha/Meluhha 'parole or speech' represented the administrative version of the language used predominantly by trader caravans (as attested by Tarim Mummies and the Tin Road from Asshur to Kanesh in Ancient Near East), by metalworkers, in general and by specialist cire perdue metalcasters,dhokra kamar, in particular. The expression, kamar is an Indo-European gloss: karmāˊra m. ʻ blacksmith ʼ RV. [EWA i 176 < stem *karmar -- ~ karman -- , but perh. with ODBL 668 ← Drav. cf. Tam. karumā ʻ smith, smelter ʼ whence meaning ʻ smith ʼ was transferred also to
Md. kan̆buru ʻ blacksmith ʼ.(CDIAL 2898). kamar 'artisan, smith, smelter' (Santali) karum (Akkadian: kārum "quay, port, commercial district", plural kārū, from Sumerian kar "fortification (of a harbor), break-water" is also perhaps an expression related to karumā 'smith, smelter' or khārun, 'the trough into which the blacksmith allows melted iron to flow after smelting' (Kashmiri, see below) of this Indian sprachbund.
The roots of the expression are found in Kashmiri where a number of compounds are attested and hence provide the trade route across Karakoram and Pamir, from Muztagh Ata through Kashmir to Sarasvati-Sindhu river basins: khār 1
"Early references to karū come from the Ebla tablets; in particular, a vizier known as Ebrium concluded the earliest treaty fully known to archaeology, known variously as the "Treaty between Ebla and Aššur" or the "Treaty with Abarsal" (scholars have disputed whether the text refers to Aššur or to Abarsal, an unknown location). In either case, the other city contracted to establish karū in Eblaite territory (Syria), among other things... By 1960 BC, Assyrian merchants had established the karū,[5] small colonial settlements next to Anatolian cities which paid taxes to the rulers of the cities.[6] There were also smaller trade stations which were called mabartū (singular mabartum). The number of karū and mabartū was probably around twenty. Among them were Kültepe (Kanesh in antiquity) in modern Kayseri Province; Alişar Hüyük (Ankuva (?) in antiquity) in modern Yozgat Province; and Boğazköy (Hattusa in antiquity) in modern Çorum Province. (However, Alişar Hüyük was probably a mabartum.)(a metal in trade transactions)... amutum, was even more valuable than gold. Amutum is thought to be the newly discovered iron and was forty times more valuable than silver. The most important Anatolian export was copper, and the Assyrian merchants sold tin and clothing to Anatolia." (Ekrem Akurgal: Anadolu Kültür Tarihi, Tubitak, Ankara, 2000, pp. 40-41). It is possible that amutum also relates to Vedic-Tocharian ams'u-ancu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karum_(trade_post)
Letter from Assyria to karum Kanesh concerning the trade in precious metals. 1850–1700 BC. Walters Museum (click on image for more info).Tracing the Tarim mummies to the traditions associated with the veneration of the departed aatman, we find a remarkable parallel in Dholavira and Harappa of stone circles associated with death ceremonies. It is not unlikely that some of the mummies before they were mummies spoke Mleccha (Meluhha) language, not far from Kafiri (Nuristani) which was attested as a possible candidate by Frits Staal.(http://bharatkalyan97.
According to Louis Renou, the immense Rigvedic collection is present in nuce in the themes related toSoma. Rigveda mentions amśu as a synonym of soma. The possibility of a link with Indus writing corpora which is essentially a catalog of stone-, mineral-, metalware, cannot be ruled out.
George Pinault has found a cognate word in Tocharian, ancu which means 'iron'. I have argued in my book, Indian alchemy, soma in the Veda, that Soma was an allegory, 'electrum' (gold-silver compound). See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2011/10/itihasa-and-eagle-narratives.html for Pinault's views on ancu, amśu concordance.
The link with the Tocharian word is intriguing because Soma was supposed to come from Mt. Mujavant. A cognate of Mujavant is Mustagh Ata of the Himalayan ranges in Kyrgystan.
Is it possible that the ancu of Tocharian from this mountain was indeed Soma?
The referemces to Anzu in ancient Mesopotamian tradition parallels the legends of śyena 'falcon' which is used in Vedic tradition of Soma yajña attested archaeologically in Uttarakhand with a śyenaciti, 'falcon-shaped' fire-altar.
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2011/11/syena-orthography.html śyena, orthography, Sasanian iconography. Continued use of Indus Script hieroglyphs.
Comparing the allegory of soma and the legend of Anzu, the bird which stole the tablets of destiny, I posit a hypothesis that the tablets of destiny are paralleled by the Indus writing corpora which constitute a veritable catalog of stone-, mineral- and metal-ware in the bronze age evolving from the chalcolithic phase of what constituted an 'industrial' revolution of ancient times creating ingots of metal alloys and weapons and tools using metal alloys which transformed the relation of communities with nature and resulted in the life-activities of lapidaries transforming into miners, smiths and traders of metal artefacts.
I suggest that ayas of bronze age created a revolutionary transformation in the lives of people of these bronze age times.
Comparing the allegory of soma and the legend of Anzu, the bird which stole the tablets of destiny, I posit a hypothesis that the tablets of destiny are paralleled by the Indus writing corpora which constitute a veritable catalog of stone-, mineral- and metal-ware in the bronze age evolving from the chalcolithic phase of what constituted an 'industrial' revolution of ancient times creating ingots of metal alloys and weapons and tools using metal alloys which transformed the relation of communities with nature and resulted in the life-activities of lapidaries transforming into miners, smiths and traders of metal artefacts.
I suggest that ayas of bronze age created a revolutionary transformation in the lives of people of these bronze age times.
"The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE. Many centuries separate these mummies from the first attestation of the Tocharian languages in writing. A 2008 study by Jilin University that the Yuansha population has relatively close relationships with the modern populations of South Central Asia and Indus Valley, as well as with the ancient population of Chawuhu. (Mitochondrial DNA analysis of human remains from the Yuansha site in Xinjiang Science in China Series C: Life Sciences Volume 51, Number 3 / March, 2008). The scientists extracted enough material to suggest the Tarim Basin was continually inhabited from 2000 BCE to 300 BCE and preliminary results indicate the people, rather than having a single origin, originated from Europe, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and other regions yet to be determined.(Amanda Huang https://archive.today/bK4h)."
http://bharatkalyan97.
"Buddhist missionaries possesed liturgical texts in what is known as Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, a language originating in northern India...Whether from India or greater Iran, all of these languages were carried into the Tarim basin by religious communities or merchants from outside the region during the 1st millennium CE. A second group of languags are associated with documents that were not exclusively religious, but also adminsitrative. This may indicate that the languages were spoken by considerable numbers of the local population. Buddhists in the region of Kroran (Chinese Loulan), for example, employed an Indic language, Prakrit, in administration. Tocharian was used both to translate Buddhist texts and as an administrative language, which suggests that it was spoken by a wider range of people than exclusively monks. Another major language was Khotanese Saka, the language spoken in the south of the Tarim Basin at th site of Khotan as well as at northern sites suh as Tumshuq and Murtuq and possibly Qashgar, the western gateway into the Tarim Basin...And unlike Tocharian, which became extinct, there were small pockets of Saka speakers who survived in the Pamir Mountains...two main languages in the Tarim Basin that might be associated with at least some of the Tarim mummies of the Bronze Age and Iron Age: Khotanese Saka (or any other remnant of the Scythians or the Eurasian steppe) and Tocharian...Saka belongs to the eastern branch of the Iranian languages, which was one of he most widespread of the Indo-European family of languages spoken in most of Europe, Iran, India, and other parts of Asia...The sub-branch to which Saka belongs also included Sogdian, Bactrian and Avestan. Most archaeologists believe that the Iranian languages appeared earliest in the steppelands and only later moved southward through the agricultural oases of Central Asia into the region of modern Iran. The Iranian language group is very closely related to Indo-Aryan, the branch of Indo-European that occupies the northern two-thirds of India; these language groups presumably shared a common origin in the steppe region during the Bronze Age, perhaps about 2500 BCE." (Mallory, 2010, JP, Bronze Age languages of the Tarim Basin, Expedition, Volume 52, Number 3
http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/pdfs/52-3/mallory.pdf pp.45-47)
Mallory goes on t provide select glosses comparing Saka with Tocharian B:
duva - wi (two)
drai - trai (three)
tcahora - s'twer (four)
hauda - sukt (seven)
sata - kante (hundre)
pate - pAcer (father)
mAta - mAcer (mother)
brAte - procer (brother)
ass- - yakwe (horse)
gguhi - keu (cow)
bar- - par- (bear, carry)
puls- - park- (ask)
In the Tarim Basin, in addition to Tocharian, administrative texts in Prakrit have been discovered; this is an Indian language from the terroritory of Kroran; the Kroranian documents date to ca. 300 CE providing the earliest evidence of spoken Tocharian.
Mallory continues: "From a linguistic point of view, we need to explain how languages from two major Indo-European language groups managed to spread into the Tarim Basin, and evaluate as far as possible whether they were the language spoken by those Bronze Age individuals whose remains were mummified...We also know that the Saka were known to the ancient Greeks as Scythians, and were clearly a people of the northern steppes, famous as horse-riding nomads who periodically challenged the civilizations to their south. They are attested in historical and archaeological sources from about the 8th century BCE...The one language group that is most clearly anchored in the Tarim, Tocharian, lacks any obvious external source..." (ibid., pp.49-50).
The search is on to trace the movements from Andronovo or Afanasievo cultures, the way the search is on for the Urheimat of PIE. Based on what Nicholas Kazanas has pointed out and argued, the search for Urheimat for PIE may lie closer to the river basin where most of Rigveda was composed and chanted: Sarasvati River Basin. This river basin attests a spoken, administrative language: Mleccha (Meluhha) which may include many mispronunciations of reconstructed IE glosses and expressions and closely associated with the Prakrits which may also be termed Proto-Indo-Aryan. Tocharian speakers got isolated from the rest of the Indo-Europeans but had apparent trade contacts with the Rigvedic people for exchanges of Soma (ancu) from Mount Mujavant (Muztagh Ata) of the Tarim Basin as argued with the evidence of cognates (Soma syonym) ams'u~~ancu pointed out by Georges Pinault.
So, with Frits Staal, Mallory and Mair have to answer the question posed earlier, why Mleccha (Meluhha) could not be the candidate among the IE languages to explain Tocharian languages.
The concentric circles of timber posts found in Tarim Basin may also compare with concentric circles of stones found in Ukherda and Dholavira. See also polished stone pillars found in Dholavira and stone sivalinga found in Harappa.
Ancient graveyard, near Nakhtarna, Kutch: anthropomorphic menhirs
Ukherda burial ground, cemetery.
Barrow Cemetery in IndiaNear Nakhtarana in Kutch, Gujarat, there is a large cemetery and cremation ground called Ukherda by the locals. There are also ancient hero and Sati stones. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=26370
Circle of stones at Dholavira.
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Remains of Circular hutments (?) joined in 8-shape with stone pillar fragments at the centre of each circle, close to the area where two polished stone pillars (sivalinga?) were found. Did these circular stone remnants, denote a smithy? In Kota language (Indian sprachbund, Mleccha-Meluhha) kole.l 'smithy, temple'.
Remains of Circular hutments (?) joined in 8-shape with stone pillar fragments at the centre of each circle, close to the area where two polished stone pillars (sivalinga?) were found. Did these circular stone remnants, denote a smithy? In Kota language (Indian sprachbund, Mleccha-Meluhha) kole.l 'smithy, temple'.
Three stone Siva Lingas found in Harappa. Plate X [c] Lingam in situ in Trench Ai (MS Vats, 1940, Excavations at Harappa, Vol. II, Calcutta): ‘In the adjoining Trench Ai, 5 ft. 6 in. below the surface, was found a stone lingam [Since then I have found two stone lingams of a larger size from Trenches III and IV in this mound. Both of them are smoothed all over]. It measures 11 in. high and 7 3/8 in. diameter at the base and is rough all over.’ (Vol. I, pp. 51-52)."
Using stone slabs in cremation samskara in Vedic tradition is attested from the days of Rigveda. "When the body is almost consumed by the fire the chief mourner carries an earthen pot (the one in which fire was brought) filled with water on his shoulders and walks thrice round the burning pyre. A man walks with him piercing with a stone called the ashma or life-stone a hole in the jar out of which water spouts round the burning corpse. He finally throws the trickling water pot backwards over the shoulders spilling the water over the ground. Then, he pours libations of water mixed with sesamum on the ashma to cool the spirit of the dead which has been heated by the fire. The ashma is carefully preserved for ten days. The mourners also pour such water on the ashma. When the body is completely consumed, the party returns. During the first ten days, all closely related persons belonging to the family observe mourning called sutak." http://akola.nic.in/gazetteers/maharashtra/people_rituals.html As'ma is the symbolic stone of the departed aatman which is used during the samskara performances lasting upto 13 days after the cremation. अश्म 1 [p = 114 , 1] ifc. for. 2 / अश्मन् , a stone Pa1n2. 5-4, 94th as'man *= 2 %{A} m. (once %{azma4n} S3Br. iii), a stone, rock RV. &c.; a precious stone RV. v, 47, 3 S3Br. vi; any instrument made of stone (as a hammer &c.) RV. &c.; thunderbolt RV. &c.; a cloud Naigh.; the firmament RV. v, 30, 8; 56, 4; vii, 88, 2 [cf. Zd. {asman}; Pers. {as2ma1n}; Lith. {akmu}; Slav. {kamy}].
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/06/ancient-near-east-ziggurat-and-related.html
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The salty sands and freeze-drying climate of the Tarim Basin, where the mummies were found, are highly conducive to preservation. http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0111/feature2_1.html
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http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=14315.0
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A Tarim Mummy and a reconstruction.
http://dienekes.blogspot.in/2011/05/on-tocharian-origins.html
Using stone slabs in cremation samskara in Vedic tradition is attested from the days of Rigveda. "When the body is almost consumed by the fire the chief mourner carries an earthen pot (the one in which fire was brought) filled with water on his shoulders and walks thrice round the burning pyre. A man walks with him piercing with a stone called the ashma or life-stone a hole in the jar out of which water spouts round the burning corpse. He finally throws the trickling water pot backwards over the shoulders spilling the water over the ground. Then, he pours libations of water mixed with sesamum on the ashma to cool the spirit of the dead which has been heated by the fire. The ashma is carefully preserved for ten days. The mourners also pour such water on the ashma. When the body is completely consumed, the party returns. During the first ten days, all closely related persons belonging to the family observe mourning called sutak." http://akola.nic.in/gazetteers/maharashtra/people_rituals.html As'ma is the symbolic stone of the departed aatman which is used during the samskara performances lasting upto 13 days after the cremation. अश्म 1 [p = 114 , 1] ifc. for. 2 / अश्मन् , a stone Pa1n2. 5-4, 94th as'man *= 2 %{A} m. (once %{azma4n} S3Br. iii), a stone, rock RV. &c.; a precious stone RV. v, 47, 3 S3Br. vi; any instrument made of stone (as a hammer &c.) RV. &c.; thunderbolt RV. &c.; a cloud Naigh.; the firmament RV. v, 30, 8; 56, 4; vii, 88, 2 [cf. Zd. {asman}; Pers. {as2ma1n}; Lith. {akmu}; Slav. {kamy}].
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/06/ancient-near-east-ziggurat-and-related.html
The salty sands and freeze-drying climate of the Tarim Basin, where the mummies were found, are highly conducive to preservation. http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0111/feature2_1.html
http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=14315.0
A Tarim Mummy and a reconstruction.
http://dienekes.blogspot.in/2011/05/on-tocharian-origins.html
Ērān ud Anērān Webfestschrift Marshak 2003
The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia
Craig Benjamin
Introduction
Following the defeat of the formerly powerful Yuezhi confederation by the Xiongnu near Dunhuang in c.162 BCE, the Yuezhi dynasty and those tribes that remained loyal to it commenced a migration away from the Gansu that was destined to completely reshape the geopolitics of ancient Inner Asia. Both the Han Shu and Shi Ji provide evidence of their departure: "the Yuezhi had fled furious with the Xiongnu"1, the 'Yuezhi had fled and bore a constant grudge against the Xiongnu'2. The decision to migrate, despite still having a force of perhaps 100,000 armed archer warriors at their disposal is indicative of the severity of the defeat, and also of the steadily increasing power of the Xiongnu under Maodun and Jizhu during the preceding decades. The Yuezhi dynasty may in fact have considered such a move several times during the fourteen years between Maodun's initial raid against them in 176, and their ultimate defeat in 162.Indeed, the fact that the migration seems to have been conducted in an orderly fashion suggests something of a planned strategic relocation rather than a rout. The Yuezhi's original intention was to move some 2000 kilometres to the northwest and resettle in the valley of the Ili River, a region occupied by a group of Sakas (or Scythians). They had no intention, nor any idea, that this journey would only be the first stage of a migration that ultimately would take them half away across Central Asia, until thirty years later they would find themselves in secure occupation of the fertile river valleys north of the Amu Darya, and masters of the former Greek kingdom of Bactria.
Leaving the Gansu in 162 the Yuezhi headed northwest towards the Ili Valley, settling near Ysyk Kul in present-day Kazakhstan. Corroborative evidence for this new location is provided by the Greek geographer Ptolemy who mentions a group called the Tagouraioi (clearly a variation on Tocharian, the Indo-European language spoken by the core Yuezhi) dwelling near Ysyk Kul3. Russian archaeologist Yu Zadneprovsky has noted a substantial number of podboy sites in the region, which he has tentatively identified as Yuezhi on the basis of their similarity to other podboy tombs discovered at the Haladun site near Minqin in the Central Gansu, which he also argues are Yuezhi. The Ysyk Kul region is rich in nomadic burial sites and some 370 tombs had been noted by as early as 1960. Of these, 80% were in pits, and attributed to the autonomous Sakas, and 17% in podboys, tentatively attributable to the Yuezhi4.
The Chinese sources show that the Ili/Ysyk Kul region was already populated by the Sai people, an eastern concentration of Sakas or Scythians who probably spoke an Indo-Iranian language. Upon arriving at the Ili, the Yuezhi quickly displaced them: (The Yuezhi) 'attacked the king of the Sai (who) moved a considerable distance to the south and the Yuezhi then occupied his lands'5. Most of the displaced Sakas subsequently undertook their own substantial migration, moving west and then south through the western Tarim Basin, crossing the so-called 'Suspended Crossing' (probably the Khunjerab Pass or similar, between present-day Xinjiang and northern Pakistan) before ultimately settling in Kashmir6.
The Yuezhi confederation occupied the former Sakan lands in the hope of permanently resettling there, and remained in residence for almost three decades. They no doubt felt they had successfully relocated, having escaped the Xiongnu menace and reestablished themselves in the fertile Ili Valley. They returned to their previous semi-nomadic, semi-sedentary lifeway and probably began to lose interest in Chinese/nomadic politics. But the Kunmo of the Wusun, the former neighbours of the Yuezhi in the Gansu, could not forget the ill treatment his people had suffered as a result of a Yuezhi attack upon them in 1737. Eventually he sought permission from his Xiongnu overlord (the new ShanyuJunchen, successor to Jizhu who had died in 158) to pursue the Yuezhi into the Ili and 'avenge his father's wrongs'8. In 132 BCE the Kunmo led a powerful force of mounted Wusun archers into the region which attacked and routed the no doubt surprised and dismayed Yuezhi, forcing them to once again uproot and resume their long march to the west.
The sources indicate that within a short space of time the Yuezhi passed through a region called Dayuan 'The Yuezhi thereupon went far away, passing Dayuan and proceeding west'9 and then through a land to the southwest called Kangju. Although the exact route remains a matter of some conjecture, the evidence of both the Chinese annals, and of Russian and Central Asian archaeology, leaves little doubt that the Dayuan through which the migrating horde passed can only be identified with the Ferghana Valley10. The Yuezhi apparently met with little resistance from the urbanised Dayuans/Ferghanese, and after perhaps spending some months (the winter of 132/1?) in southwestern Ferghana, they passed on unmolested. Zadneprovsky has also noted several single podboy burials that have been unearthed in the southwestern, northern and eastern parts of the Ferghana Valley, most concentrated in the Lyailyaka-Isfara-Sokha interfluve in southern Kyrgyzstan where over 300 podboy burials have been located. Although originally attributed to a separate culture by Baruzdin in 1960, Zadneprovsky argues for their re-attribution to the migrating Yuezhi, on the basis of their similarity to podboy sites also tentatively attributable to the Yuezhi in both the Gansu and Ysyk Kul region11.
Perhaps in the spring of 131 BCE then, the Yuezhi most probably moved from Ferghana into the 'state' of Kangju, probably the Zeravshan Valley in the heart of Sogdia. Some four or five years later they were followed through the region by Han envoy Zhang Qian, who was led there by guides and interpreters provided for him by the king of Dayuan. It is references to Kangju in the Han Shu and Shi Ji (and by Ptolemy in his Geographica), as well as the discoveries of Soviet and Russian archaeologists, that has provided evidence identifying Kangju with Sogdia, and thus of the role of Sogdia in both the migration of the Yuezhi and the mission of Zhang Qian. The intention of this paper is to consider the origins of the relationship that developed between the Kangju and Yuezhi dynasties, a relationship that subsequently evolved to provide vital political and military stability in the region throughout the Kushan Era. The initial task is to consider evidence that allows for the conclusive identification of Kangju as Sogdia.
References to Kangju and the Yuezhi in the Han Annals
Kangju Sogdia: Location and Lifeway
Location'The seat of the king's government in winter is in Leyuenidi to the town of Beitian. It is distant by 12,300 li from Xian. One reaches (Le)yuenidi after a journey of seven days on horseback, and it is a distance of 9,104 li within the realm to the king's summer residence. To the east it is a distance of 5,500 li to the Seat of the Protector General'12.
'It is said: Some 2000 li to the northwest from Kangju is the state of Yancai. The trained bowmen number 100,000. It has the same way of life as Kangju. It is situated on the Great Marsh, which has no further shore and which is presumably the Northern Sea'13.
'Kangju is situated some 2,000 li northwest of Dayuan. The country is small and borders Dayuan. It acknowledges nominal sovereignty to the Yuezhi people in the south and the Xiongnu in the east'14
'(Wusun) adjoins Kangju in the northwest'15
'(The State of Wusun) and 5000 li to the west, to land within the realm of Kangju'16Attempts by scholars over several centuries to geographically locate and delineate Kangju have not been helped by textual corruption in both the Han Shu and Shi Ji. And yet, although several words and even whole sentences are missing, the information provided is still in the same order as that for the other 'western states', so that any gaps cannot be substantial. Certainly the distances between Xian and Beitian are not quite reconciled, and the distance from Beitian and the king's summer capital (9104 li or 3641 kms) is surely corrupt. Hulsewe and Loewe suggest that the text may originally have read 'ninety one li' (or 36 kilometres, although this seems too low),17 while Pelliot noted Wang Kuowei's suggestion of 1104 li (441 kms)18 which is a more viable figure within a country described as 'small'.
The identities of both Beitian and (Le)yueni(di) are almost impossible to determine, however, Wang Kuowei identified the former (impossibly) with Ysyk Kul19 while Pulleyblank has argued that the latter might 'represent some form of the name Jaxartes'20. The distance between Beitian and (Le)yueni(di) is described as 'seven days on horseback' in the Han Shu, which Hulsewe and Loewe suggest equals about 500 li i.e. marches of seventy lior 28 kilometres per day through the mountainous country of the region21. The identification of these two principal settlements with Samarkand and Bukhara is one obvious possibility, although the distance between the two cities by road is about 200 or so kilometres which does not reconcile with any of the given statistics.
Pulleyblank discusses the possible Tokharian philological origin of the name 'Kangju', in his reconstruction of 'Old Chinese' *khan-kiah. In the Tokharian vocabulary (Tokharian 1A) there is the word kank, which means 'stone'. Thus Kangju could mean the 'Stone Country', i.e. Samarkand (or equally Tashkend as 'Stone City')22. A.K. Narain offers a precise geographical location for Kangju: 'the northeastern wedge of modern Uzbekistan into Kirghiziya and Kazakhstan; the eastern part of this wedge formed part of Dayuan'23. This description, however, does not allow for the inclusion of any lands south of the Syr Darya, thus excluding the entire Zeravshan Valley, the cultural heart and population centre of Sogdia.
The information provided by the texts is hardly ambiguous, however, and clearly suggests the identification of the 'state' of Kangju with ancient Sogdia. Kangju is to the north of the Amu Darya and the Yuezhi's principal city of Jianshi (Khalchayan in the Surkhan Darya valley?); to the west and northwest of the Ferghana Valley (where it also apparently adjoined the clearly very substantial, post-132 realm of the Wusun); and southeast of the western realms of the Xiongnu (which must therefore have included the steppes of present-day Kazakhstan). Kangju incorporated lands on either side of the middle Syr Darya, particularly the densely occupied Zeravshan Valley south of the Syr Darya, and must surely have included Samarkand and Bukhara (as Shishkina also argues below). Hence, according to the textual evidence at least, Kangju can only convincingly be located within the general geographical region of ancient Sogdia.
Population/Size
Households: 120,000 Individuals: 600,00024
'The country is small'25
The physical dimensions of the Kangju realm may not have been vast, but the population was substantial, which allowed the ruling dynasty to maintain a formidable military force.
Military Strength
Persons able to bear arms: 120,00026
'They have 80,000 or 90,000 skilled archer warriors'27
'(it) is not subject to the Protector General'28
'In the east (the inhabitants) were constrained to serve the Xiongnu'29
'It acknowledges nominal sovereignty to (Zurcher translates as 'it is subservient to')30 the Yuezhi people in the south and the Xiongnu in the east'31
'However, Kangju felt that it was separated (from Han) by a long distance, and alone in its arrogance it was not willing to be considered on the same terms as the various other states'32
'(He Wudi - heard that) to the north, there were (people or places) such as the Da Yuezhi and Kangju, whose forces were strong; it would be possible to present them with gifts and hold out advantages with which to bring them to court'33
The Chinese were clearly impressed by the strength of Kangju, finding them arrogant and militarily self-confident. The military resources of Kangju (120,000 armed men, 80,000 - 90,000 of which were skilled and presumably mounted archers) were substantial, and would not easily be defeated by the Han. Presumably the ruling Kangju dynasty and its pastoralist allies provided the bulk of the mounted archer warriors, while the sedentised agriculturists of the river valleys could be relied upon to provide the remainder. Eschewing any military option then, Zhang Qian argued instead (in his report to Wudi) that the Kangjuans could be persuaded by Han gifts and favours to consider becoming subjects (or at least allies) of the Chinese. In short, Kangju was powerful and remote enough to resist Han attempts to join their tributary confederacy by military means, but was clearly under some sort of sovereignty obligation to both the Yuezhi and the Xiongnu.
Environment/Lifeways
'The way of life is identical with that of the Da Yuezhi'34
'Its people likewise are nomads and resemble the Yuezhi in their customs'35
'In Kangju there are five lesser kings all the five kings are subject to Kangju'36
The last reference clearly indicates that 'Kangju' should be considered both as the Han name of the 'state' (that is the realm or region) of Kangju/Sogdia, but also of the dominant faction or dynasty which was controlling that realm at the time (i.e. the Kangju dynasty). Shishkina agrees, and argues that geo-political changes in Sogdia that became apparent towards the end of the second century BCE must have been as a result of Kangju hegemony:
'The historical situation of the first century BC suggests that these changes were related to the spread of the power of the Kangju, when this dynasty controlled Samarkand and Bukhara'37
The five lesser kings noted in the Han Shu were probably subordinate tribal groups within the realm of 'greater Kangju', and given that all are listed as having specific 'seats of government' (different to the two principal settlements named as belonging to the Kangju proper), may represent sedentised, agrarian-based 'peoples' living under Kangju hegemony38
The way of life of the dominant Kangju faction was probably that of semi-nomadic militarised pastoral nomadism, similar to the assessment of the lifeway of the Yuezhi soon after their arrival north of the Amu Darya that Zhang Qian provided to the Han court. If the Kangju state is thus to be identified with ancient Sogdia under Kangju dynastic hegemony, then a brief account of Sogdian history prior to the arrival of the Yuezhi is required to identify the probable date of the establishment of Kangju power, and also to clarify the archaeological and textual evidence of subsequent Yuezhi/Kangju interaction.
Sogdian Historical Framework Prior to the Arrival of the Yuezhi
Between 553 and 550 BCE, Cyrus II (r. 559-529), a leader of the Persian Achaemenid family, overthrew Astyages, King of the Medes, and brought Mesopotamia, Parthia and Anatolia under his control. By 539 he had conquered Bactria and much of Sogdia as well, where he established a line of fortresses on the Syr Darya. Sogdia was made the thirteenth satrapy of the Achaemenids, and paid tribute to Cyrus' successors. The oldest layers of Afrasiab, the ancient site of Samarkand, date from this Achaemenid period. But, whilst the city states of Sogdia and Bactria gained considerably through their incorporation into the Achaemenid Empire, they remained intent upon regaining their independence, which parts of Sogdia may have done by c. 400 BCE39Some two centuries after Cyrus' death, Alexander of Macedon reconquered much of Central Asia, following his arrival in Bactria in 329 BCE. Alexander's principal opponent in the region was the Achaemenid ruler Darius' former satrap, Bessus, who had Darius murdered in modern-day Shahr-I Qumis before proclaiming himself as his successor. Bessus' troops consisted of armoured cavalry from Bactria and Sogdia, which, following their defeat at Gaugemela, he took back across the Amu Darya after destroying its bridges. Alexander led his troops on forced marches through the desert, crossed the Amu Darya on inflated hide rafts, and confronted his opponents who immediately sued for peace.
Bessus was executed; the Macedonians installed themselves in the satrapal palace at Maracanda (Samarkand) and Sogdia, following some seventy years of independence, found itself incorporated into the new Macedonian Empire. But while Alexander campaigned further north along the Syr Darya, the Sogdians, under the leadership of Spitamenes, rose in his rear and massacred a garrison of Macedonians, inflicting arguably the worst defeat of Alexander's career40. Over the course of the ensuing eighteen months Alexander gained his revenge by reducing the fortified towns of Sogdia one by one, starting in the Hissar Mountains and moving along the Zaravshan Valley41.
At the heart of ancient Soghd were the valleys of the Zeravshan and Kashkadarya, and in his vengeful campaign along these densely occupied valleys the Macedonians may have killed up to 120,000 Sogdians42.
Amongst the many prisoners captured during the Sogdian campaign was the Princess Roxanne, daughter of another Sogdian opponent, Oxyartes. Alexander's subsequent decision to marry Roxanne was due partly to her exceptional beauty, but was also intended as a gesture to appease the rebellious Sogdians. After Alexander's death in Babylon in 323, Bactria and Sogdia immediately rebelled but were reconquered in c. 305 by his successor Seleucus Nicator (r. 311-281 BCE). However under Seleucus' son Antiochus I (r. 281-261), Bactria and (probably) Sogdia broke away again from Seleucid hegemony. None the less, Sogdia, along with much of Central Asia, was brought into the orbit of Hellenistic influence during its brief period of Macedonian conquest.
Antiochus I minted an extensive local coinage in the region, probably at Balkh (the 'capital' of Bactria). These were coins of large denominations: staters, tetradrachms and drachms. During the last two centuries before the Common Era, several series of diverse denominations and types were struck at Sogdian mints, and coins were widely used in Sogdia and Bactria, although perhaps only by the Greek population43
None the less the native population of Sogdia became used to Greek coinage during the Seleucid period, and when the inflow of Greek coins stopped following their independence from Antiochus I, local rulers began to mint their own. As Nymark has pointed out, however, these local issues were highly debased, and in fact were 'mere imitations of the most widespread Greek coins'44.
Yet these imitations remain as crucial (and often the only) evidence of political, economic and social developments in Sogdia during the first century BCE. Furthermore, both Sogdian and Bactrian imitation issues also constitute potential evidence for the Yuezhi during the 'five-yabghu period'.
In the mid-third century (c. 250) the Seleucid Governor of Bactria, Diodotus, established an independent Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, which may also have exercised a degree of control over Sogdia. In c. 230 Diodotus' son was overthrown by one of his satraps, a Greek settler called Euthydemus, who then ruled Graeco-Bactria for about forty years until c. 190 BCE. If Sogdia was indeed part of the incipient Graeco-Bactrian state, then the evidence of the Euthydemus imitation coinage indicates that some time late in the third century, during the lifetime of Euthydemus, Sogdia became an independent entity once more45.
Euthydemus concluded a peace treaty with the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III in 206, but did not attempt to reconquer Sogdia. Instead the Graeco-Bactrians expanded south into India, establishing the Indo-Greek kingdoms. If the 'state' of Kangju is indeed to be identified as Sogdia, then it was during this period of post-Seleucid independence, i.e. from c. 210 BCE, that the region came under the hegemony of the Kangju dynasty, which then continued to rule an independent Sogdia until it came under Kushan political influence early in the first century CE. As Bopearachchi concludes, under the Kangju dynasty 'Sogdiana probably remained free at least until the arrival of the Yuezhi in c. 130 BC'46.
The Passage of the Yuezhi through Kangju/Sogdia
Although neither of the Chinese sources categorically states that the Yuezhi horde passed through Kangju, the only logical inference to be drawn from the texts is that they did. In addition, Ptolemy continued to unknowingly chart the course of the Yuezhi migration by noting a group he this time called the Tachoroi (surely another variant of Tocharian) dwelling in Sogdia47.The conclusion that the Yuezhi must have passed through the region is further strengthened by the fact that the Han sources do unequivocally show that Zhang Qian passed through Kangju during his search for the Yuezhi. The Han envoy was obviously well informed by the rulers of Dayuan as to the route followed by the Yuezhi who provided him with guides to lead him to the Yuezhi, unless they knew the migrants' route and probable whereabouts? And thus is likely to have followed closely in the original footsteps of his quarry. The chronology is straightforward enough.
C. 132/1 BCE: The Yuezhi depart Dayuan and continue their migration to the west
That the Yuezhi continued westwards in their migration following their passage through (and possibly winter residency in) Dayuan is implicit in the key Han Shu passage: 'passing Dayuan (and) proceeding west to subjugate Daxia'48.There are three feasible route options west from Ferghana, whether starting from present-day Kukon in the centre of the valley, or Isfara in the southwest. The first is due north and then west, across the 2267 metre Kamcik Pass and through Angren into Tashkent, thence southwest to Samarkand. A second and more direct route is due west through present-day Chugand and Zizzach, thence southwest into Samarkand. However, given that the Zeravshan Valley was the agricultural and population heartland of Sogdia/Kangju (information probably given to the Yuezhi by the rulers of Dayuan who were no doubt anxious to encourage the Yuezhi to move on and seek suitable settlement lands elsewhere), the migrating horde may have chosen to follow a third route option from Chugand, south over the 3378 metre Sahristan Pass, then down into the upper Zeravshan Valley. If the Yuezhi leadership decided upon this latter route, then it would indeed have been necessary for them to winter in southern Ferghana before attempting the crossing of this high pass in the spring.
The Shi Ji also implies this in noting (in Watson's translation) that the Yuezhi 'moved far to the west, beyond Dayuan'49, which Zurcher reads as: 'They passed through Dayuan and to the west of thatcountry'50. Between Dayuan and Daxia (Bactria) lay only Kangju/Sogdia; anyone moving to the west, beyond Dayuan (or to the west of that country) and heading for northern Bactria would have to have passed through Sogdia. This probability is then strengthened by the unambiguous statement that Zhang Qian was taken to Kangju by his Dayuan guides and interpreters, and from there proceeded directly to the realm of the Da Yuezhi in northern Bactria.
129/128 BCE: Zhang Qian also passes through Kangju
The Han Shu notes that:'(the king of Dayuan) sent off (Zhang) Qian, providing him with interpreters and guides. He reached Kangju who passed him on to the Da Yuezhi'51.Or as Sima Qian puts it:
'The king of Dayuan trusted his words and sent him on his way, giving him guides and interpreters to take him to the state of Kangju. From there he was able to make his way to the land of the Great Yuezhi'52.Despite its obvious military strength, Kangju (like Dayuan) also apparently facilitated (or at least did not hinder) the passage through its territory of both the migrating Yuezhi horde in c. 131 and the Han envoy in c. 128 BCE. Given the size of its military resources, Kangju was powerful enough to be not 'easily defeated by Han forces',53 although it was 'constrained to serve the Xiongnu' in the east,54 and (later) would acknowledge 'nominal sovereignty' (or even become 'subservient to') the Yuezhi in the south'55.
Does this acknowledgement suggest that parts of Sogdia (and the most populous parts at the Zeravshan valley and Samarkand) were actually invaded and defeated by the migrating Yuezhi, and then forced into a subordinate relationship thereafter? Certainly Torday is prepared to argue that not only did the Yuezhi defeat the Kangju dynasty in Sogdia, but in northern Bactria as well where he suggests the Kangju were also ruling:
'We must accept that they took the region from the Kangju by force, in a war. His (the Yuezhi king's) subsequent conquest of Sogdiana was probably a by-product of his ambitions further south-east where he had brought Daxia under his sway'56.
If Torday is correct, this says much about the military capabilities of the migrants that a displaced, previously fragmented and essentially homeless nomadic tribal confederation, soundly defeated twice during the previous three decades by the Xiongnu and the Wusun, was none the less able to invade and defeat the well-defended state of independent Kangju Sogdia. But there is simply no evidence to support Torday's reconstruction, and indeed his argument is unconvincing. He has the Yuezhi settling in the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) delta rather than northern Bactria at the end of their migration, which is clearly incorrect as textual and archaeological evidence indicates. He then suggests that the Yuezhi defeated the Kangju dynasty to gain control of Bactria, where the evidence shows it was a group of Sakas (who had established hegemony over those regions of Bactria to both the north and south of the Amu Darya) that the Yuezhi were forced to defeat and evict to gain control of the region.
Ultimately there is no suggestion (other than the mention of 'nominal sovereignty') that the Yuezhi were ever forced to confront the Kangju militarily. If there had been any need for conflict, then given the subsequent history of the region (including the invasion of Sogdia by the Karakhanid Dynasty in the 11th Century, for example), the acceptance of Yuezhi suzerainty by Kangju should more accurately be seen as an example of an all-too-familiar phenomenon in Central Asian history, and the greater military power of pastoral nomadic states over semi-sedentary, irrigation-based city states, whatever the relative size of their forces. Despite the fact that the ruling dynasty of Kangju was probably of a militarised, semi-nomadic ancestry, the bulk of the population was surely sedentised agriculturists.
The evidence might alternatively be interpreted as suggesting that Kangju (both the state and the dynasty) adopted a conciliatory and diplomatic position towards most of its neighbours, even including the migrating Yuezhi horde. Kangju acknowledged nominal sovereignty (or was subservient) to both the Xiongnu and the Yuezhi; they also assisted the Chinese by helping (or at least not impeding) Zhang Qian in his attempt to locate the Yuezhi and subsequently even sent a 'royal' son as envoy to the Han Court during the reign of Emperor Zheng. Undoubtedly, like the Wusun, Kangju felt that the Han court was remote and refused to become subject to the Protector General, but the dynasty was careful to offend no one Han, Xiongnu or Yuezhi. It is therefore more likely that the Kangju rulers of Sogdia agreed to allow the Yuezhi unmolested passage through their territory, and accepted some form of subservient relationship thereafter to avoid military conflict.
It is not at all necessary to envisage violent military confrontation between the two dynasties, but rather a situation where local rulers recognised that the Yuezhi were powerful enough to be worth accepting as symbolic overlords. Certainly the later Mongol invasions would show that where cities made peace with the migrating, invading force without offering resistance, they could survive and prosper under the rule of pastoralist conquerors, whereas those who refused were destroyed utterly. The apparent ease with which the Yuezhi subjugated Bactria (just to the south of and contiguous to Sogdia) a year or so later may also have been a salutary reminder to the Kangju dynasty. And, just as the Dayuans might have suggested the Zeravshan Valley in Sogdia as a possible resettlement location for the migrants, the rulers of Sogdia could in turn have nominated the fertile valleys north of the Amu Darya in northern Bactria for the Yuezhi to relocate, thus discouraging any thoughts the latter might have entertained of remaining in Sogdia itself.
The careful relationship established between the two dynasties in c.131 BCE became an enduring one. Kangju Sogdia would be drawn further and further into the Yuezhi/Kushan sphere of influence over the following centuries until substantial portions of its territory may have been incorporated into the Kushan Empire (although this is by no means certain). Certainly, according to the Hou Han Shu, by 83 CE the Kushans were happy to further cement this relationship through an alliance based on a 'bond of royal marriage' with the ruling family of Kangju57. Even as early as the last three decades of the second century BCE Kangju proved to be an ideal buffer for the Yuezhi between their new homeland north of the Amu Darya, and the Wusun and Xiongnu to the north and east.
The Kangjuans (or at least some elements of the Sogdian populace) also apparently acknowledged sovereignty to the Xiongnu in the east (presumably northeast),58 indicating the astonishing reach of Xiongnu influence. This is confirmed by the Han Shu inclusion of a statement in Zhang Qian's description of the 'state' of Dayuan that '(the area) west of Wusun as far as Anxi is close to the Xiongnu'59. That is, Xiongnu influence apparently reached from the steppes of eastern Mongolia to as far west as Parthia. Even allowing for possible Han exaggeration or misinformation, this means that the Xiongnu were in seasonal occupation of (or at least exercised some form of nominal hegemony over) a very substantial western realm indeed, including the steppelands of present-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, from Lake Balkash to the Aral Sea.
It is also possible that this 'nominal sovereignty' took the ambiguous form of gift-giving, which the Xiongnu and Chinese sources interpreted as subordination, but which the locals (including the ruling dynasties of Dayuan and Kangju) understood merely as diplomatic courtesies. There is little or no evidence that the Xiongnu actively exercised military power further to the west, although they may have occupied temporary sites along the Middle Syr Darya, if the archaeological evidence of a burial mound at Zhaman-Togai attributed to the Xiongnu by the tomb's Soviet discoverers in 1968 is accepted60. Torday is prepared to read this acknowledgment of nominal sovereignty as proof of Xiongnu military subjugation of Kangju, and even attempts to date the beginning of that subjugation from early in the reign of Maodun. He finds the Han Shu passage evidence of 'Kangju's humiliation by Xiongnu in the east', and links this humiliating defeat to a steppe battle conducted by Maodun at Zaysan Nor in 203 BCE61. Torday's reconstruction is imaginative but there is simply no evidence to support it. In the hope of corroborating the textual suggestions of Yuezhi/Kangju interaction, one must turn to a consideration of archaeological evidence.
Archaeological Evidence of the Yuezhi in Kangju/Sogdia
Introduction and History
The textual references thus strongly imply that during the latter stages of their migration the Yuezhi horde probably passed through some regions of the 'state' of Kangju Sogdia. However, as is the case with most aspects of Yuezhi history, archaeological confirmation of this apparent course of textually-attested events is hardly overwhelming. The most likely location for the discovery of material evidence would surely be somewhere in the valley of the Zeravshan River, which has its source between the Turkestan and Zeravshan ranges in Tajikistan, and then flows west through Samarkand and out into the deserts of Uzbekistan. In ancient times the valley was fertile and sheltered, providing excellent conditions for early Bronze Age agrarian settlements. The discovery in 1976 of the Bronze Age settlement of Sarazm on the upper reaches of the river showed that the valley had been settled for thousands of years, perhaps since as early as the mid-4th Millennium BCE62.Archaeological investigation of the middle and lower Zeravshan Valley commenced in 1940 with a survey carried out on the construction site of the Katta-Kurgan reservoir, halfway between Samarkand and Bukhara, which resulted in the discovery of Sogdian burial mounds of the 'Kushan period'63. Between 1945 and 1949 Terenozhkin conducted systematic research in the immense town site of ancient Samarkand, Afrasiab64. This was followed by expeditions from the Uzbek Branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in the late 50s and early 60s, which thoroughly investigated a series of sites around Samarkand65. In 1946, meanwhile, the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic began investigating the upper reaches of the Zeravshan, east of Samarkand, which, under the direction of Yakubovsky, laid the ground work for a systematic archaeological survey of the entire length of the upper regions of the valley66. Yakubovsky's preliminary work was carried on through the 1960s by Mandleshtam in particular, who discovered numerous burial mounds and settlements, many of them apparently left by migrating nomadic groups during the early Kushan era (as Soviet archaeologists tended to label the period between the second century BCE and the late second/early third century CE)67. However, within this broad and general chronology the attribution of particular types of burial structures and fortified settlements to specific groups of pastoral nomads was again very difficult. Mandleshtam was the first to attempt to narrow the search down somewhat in his address to the 1968 conference on the Kushans in Dushanbe:
'The dating of the investigated monuments (which is substantiated by the results of recent excavations of town-sites) enables us to state with certainty that they belonged to the nomads, who in the last third of the second century BC destroyed the Graeco-Bactrian Empire. Archaeology reveals four groups of nomads, which probably relate to four different tribes'68.
Obelchenko, however, who from 1952 onwards carried out large-scale excavations of nomadic burial mounds in the middle and lower Zeravshan, particularly around Bukhara, linked all of the funerary monuments discovered in the Zeravshan to an invasion of 'Sarmatian' tribes in the second to first centuries BCE69. Gorbunova has summarised Obelchenko's mid-50s theory thus:
'The discovery and investigation of Sogdian pastoralists' sites were begun by O.V. Obelchenko. He isolated among the cemeteries an earlier group dating from the second century BC to the first century AD, and a later group dating from the second to the fourth centuries AD. He regards both sites as relics of the Sarmatian tribes whose attacks contributed to the final defeat of Graeco-Bactria'70.
Obelchenko's conclusions were questioned by Mandleshtam, who argued that the attribution of all of the mounds as Sarmatian was too generalised and superficial, particularly as various groups of burials displayed quite distinctively different characteristics.
'The culture of all of them (the burial mounds) exhibits traits resembling the culture of the Sarmat tribes, but this is mainly a 'temporal' resemblance, which is observed over a vast area. A more concrete comparison points to links with areas to the N and NE of Central Asia'71.
Zadneprovsky also disagrees with Obolchenko,72 and has argued that similarities between possible Yuezhi tombs in northern Bactria and those discovered in the Bukharan oasis by Obelchenko suggest that the latter are also relics of the passage of the Yuezhi through Sogdia: 'The coincidence of the design, funeral ceremony and the accompanying inventory definitely point to their similarity'73.
Artifacts from Nomadic Tombs in Ferghana and Sogdia
However, even a detailed analysis of the 'accompanying inventory' of grave goods discovered at the various nomadic tomb sites does not clarify the matter74. Pottery vessels (including censers) occur in all types of graves, as would be expected. Gorbunova argues that 'they have a strictly local character, originating in the pottery centres nearest to the cattle-breeding people's area of habitation, or being diffused only over the local area'75. Thus jugs (with and without handles) are common to the whole region, although they vary in shape from one location to the next. Bactrian and Sogdian jugs and goblets were almost all fashioned on a potter's wheel, which differentiates them from Khorezmian ceramics, for example.Weapons have also been discovered in most nomadic cemeteries throughout former Soviet Central Asia, including swords, daggers, iron arrowheads and fragments from composite bows, all weapons generally associated with militarised nomads. Swords and daggers with a cross hilt are characteristic of both the Sogdian and Bactrian sites, whereas the majority of swords from other areas (i.e. areas probably not visited by the migrating Yuezhi) do not have cross-hilts, thus allowing for possible identification of the unique Sogdian and Bactrian examples as Yuezhi. Also characteristic of Bactrian and early Sogdian sites are arrowheads with barbed triangular flanges, which differ markedly from the triangular-flanged, straight-based arrowheads found in Khorezmia, Turkmenia and at Kaunchi culture sites (near Tashkent). The graves of Ferghana, emphasising that region's role throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages as an obvious funnel for all manner of Eurasian nomads, contain arrowheads of almost every type76. The arrowheads discovered at early Kushan sites in Sogdia are similar to those found at Begram in Bactria, thus dating them to the 'late-Yuezhi/early Kushan period'77.
Household objects, including knives, spindle-whorls and a variety of toilet-articles also demonstrate considerable local variation. Bronze mirrors have been found at sites all over former Soviet Central Asia, with Khorezmia, Sogdia and Bactria yielding mirrors of a similar so-called 'Sarmatian' type, and Ferghana again yielding the largest number and greatest variety of examples78.
Belt buckles have also been found in extensive numbers, indicating that most pastoral nomads probably wore belts with buckles. Differentiation of buckle types is also a potential source of tomb identification. The link between Sogdian and Bactrian sites is again apparent Gorbunova notes that 'belt buckles from Bactrian and early Sogdian cemeteries are obviously of the same kind, and differ from the buckles of other places'79. The nomadic cultures associated with the different tomb types thus display a series of distinctive individual traits through their material possessions, but also a range of other features commonly shared between all nomadic 'peoples', which increases the difficulties of definitive attribution. Undeniably there is substantial evidence of nomadic passage along (and even temporary occupation of) various sites in the Zeravshan Valley, and it remains a matter of ongoing interpretation as to which tombs and funerary objects (if any) might be convincingly identifiable as Yuezhi.
Shishkina argues, perhaps too dismissively, that there is no evidence whatsoever of Yuezhi influence, although his conclusion that the densely populated Zeravshan valley proved ultimately unsuitable as a possible relocation site for the nomads is self-evidently correct:
'In the second century BC the area between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya was the object of a massive invasion by peoples of a foreign culture, of which tribes of the Great Yuezhi made up a considerable part. Nevertheless the character of the Hellenized culture was preserved and there are no traces of new influences. One may assume that (the Yuezhi) passed through the Zeravshan Valley peacefully and did not remain there for long. There certainly would not have been enough room on the densely populated and cultivated lands of Soghd for masses of migratory peoples'80.
Shishkina's claim that there is 'no trace' of the passage of the nomads obviously takes no account of Zadneprovsky's argument that significant numbers of podboy tomb types, similar in style and design to those found in other areas of probable Yuezhi occupation (the Gansu, Ysyk Kul and Ferghana), have also been unearthed along the Zeravshan. Furthermore, in addition to the similarity of tomb-type, many of the artifacts discovered in podboy tombs also display a range of common features, particularly those found in tombs in Sogdia and Bactria; Gorbunova notes similarities between 'Bactrian and early Sogdian cemeteries with their distinctive types of pottery, weapons, belt buckles and women's clothing'81. Whilst it is clearly impossible to prove that these tombs and their artifacts were left along the Zeravshan by the migrating Yuezhi, there is certainly sufficient evidence to at least entertain the possibility.
'Sogdian' Statuettes
Further archaeological evidence of Yuezhi activity in Sogdia might be provided by the attribution of a particular sub-group of Sogdian statuettes unearthed at several sites in and around Samarkand, particularly at Tali Barzu south of the city, and also at Afrasiab. A form type of female statuette discovered at these (and other nearby) sites, characterised by the position of the hands under the breasts or resting on the upper stomach, and with distinctive facial features and dress, has been analysed by Fiona Kidd of Sydney University82. The primary focus group of figurines is distinct and stable in form a female figure with small protruding breasts and very slim arms bent sharply at the elbows so that her hands are resting on her upper stomach. Related groups include statuettes with stumps instead of arms, or with arms resting on the lower rather than upper stomach. The three groups are united by their similar style of facial features. As a stylistic form, similar examples are known from Mesopotamia at least as early as the 2nd Millennium BCE, although it has been suggested that the form probably dates much further back into antiquity83.Where there might be some (admittedly very tenuous) link between a particular sub-type of these figurines and the Yuezhi is through a comparative coroplastic analysis of costume styles. Examples from the Samarkand area show a variety of clothing styles pleats on the lower part of the dress; a looser dress worn over long trousers with folds falling from the waist; a long pleated dress with pleats falling from the waist; or with pleats falling all the way from the shoulders84. Abdullaev has tentatively attributed one particular group of figurines clothed in a long dress with a flared lower half to the Yuezhi during their interim residency of the Zeravshan Valley85. The identification is somewhat strengthened by the discovery of similarly attired figurines at other Yuezhi and early Kushan sites, notably Tillya-tepe and Dalverzin-tepe86.
Sogdia lay at the heart of a network of ancient migration and trade routes, and it is only to be expected that Sogdian art would be subjected to a range of stylistic influences, including those of pastoral nomads, be they steppe- or oasis-dwellers. Kidd argues that 'the nomadic legacy of the peoples living in this region must also be recognised as an important factor in the formation of style in Sogdian art generally'87. That the Yuezhi occupied, if only for a relatively brief period, parts of the Zeravshan valley including the greater Samarkand oasis is more than likely, given the cumulative textual and archaeological evidence considered above. The possibility that further evidence of their residency might be found through a coroplastic analysis of the costume of figurines unearthed at probable Yuezhi sites in the region is thus also worthy of consideration.
Archaeological Evidence: Conclusion
Archaeological evidence for the migrating Yuezhi confederation in both Sogdia and Ferghana is at best inconclusive. Mass migrations of nomadic 'peoples' would hardly be expected to leave a substantial archaeological record anyway, given that they generally did not construct settlements or 'townships' meant to last longer than a winter season. During the long, cold Central Asian winters the dead would be buried beside the encampments, and in the spring the tribes would move on in search of new dwelling places. This would surely have been the lifeway of the Yuezhi during the short period of forced migration following their eviction from the Ili Basin in c. 133/2 and preceding their arrival in northern Bactria in c. 130 BCE. Thus the only record of their passage through the Ferghana and Zeravshan valleys would be their funerary monuments and the grave goods they contained. The incidence of podboy tombs in both regions (mostly with a common north-south orientation), the similarity of household objects, weapons, arrowheads and belt buckles in those tombs, and the possible evidence of Sogdian statuettes, provides clearly circumstantial but arguably cumulatively convincing evidence that there does indeed exist a material record of the passage of the Yuezhi. Textual and archaeological evidence thus allows for the following tentative narrative reconstruction of events.Conclusion and Summary
As a result of their defeat by the Wusun in 133/2 BCE, and after almost three decades of residency in the Ili Valley, the confederation of the Da Yuezhi was forced to resume its migration westwards, moving initially into the Ferghana Valley. Here they may have briefly occupied sites in the Isfara region before continuing their journey (in the spring of 132/1?), travelling west and south into the Zeravshan valley of Sogdia, before perhaps following it into the Samarkand and Bukharan oases. This itinerary is implied by several references in the Han Shu and Shi Ji, and also tentatively reinforced by Russian and Central Asian archaeology.In the penultimate stage of their journey the Yuezhi horde entered the realm of Kangju, a dynasty in control of a region most probably identifiable as Sogdia and the Zeravshan Valley. 'Kangju' was the Han name for both the 'state' and the powerful ruling dynasty, which may have been in control of Sogdia since it gained independence from the Graeco-Bactrians late in the third century BCE, during the reign of Euthydemus. Ptolemy provides incidental evidence of the identification of Kangju with Sogdia, and once again continued to unknowingly chart the course of the Yuezhi migration by noting a group he this time called the Tachoroi (Tocharians) dwelling in Sogdia88.
Archaeologists have unearthed podboy tombs potentially attributable to the Yuezhi at the periphery of the Bukharan and Samarkand oases, as well as in the upper valley of the Zeravshan. All are similar in design, funeral ceremony and 'accompanying inventory' of artifacts to other possible Yuezhi podboy monuments found in northern Bactria89. In addition, the coroplastic analysis of a group of Sogdian statuettes, might eventually provide supporting evidence of brief Yuezhi occupation.
Both the Han Shu and Shi Ji suggest some level of diplomatic interaction between the Yuezhi and Kangju dynasties prior to the Yuezhi's arrival in northern Bactria90. Although Kangju is described as a 'small' country in the Chinese sources, its military strength was substantial, with some 120,000 persons able to bear arms, according to Ban Gu,91 of which 90,000 were skilled archer warriors according to Sima Qian92. Unlike Dayuan, it was described as powerful enough to be 'not easily defeated by Han forces',93 but none the less was 'constrained to serve the Xiongnu' in the east,94 and acknowledged 'nominal sovereignty' (or was 'subservient to') the Yuezhi in the south'95.
Kangju displayed obvious ability at inter-state diplomacy by balancing these competing (and essentially opposed) interests recognising the nominal sovereignty over parts of its country by both the Xiongnu and the Yuezhi, aiding Zhang Qian and subsequent Han envoys, and later sending a Kangju prince as envoy to China. It is therefore probable that the rulers of Kangju agreed to give the Yuezhi safe passage through their territory, and accepted some form of subservient relationship to avoid military conflict. The Sogdian dynasty may even have encouraged the Yuezhi to settle at the southern extremities of their territory, and suggested the fertile river valleys north of the Amu Darya as an ideal homeland for the migrants.
Eventually Kangju would be drawn further and further into the Yuezhi/Kushan realm over the following decades and centuries until the southern portions of its territory were probably incorporated into the Kushan Empire, or at least into its sphere of influence96. By 83 CE the Kushans would further cement this relationship through an alliance based on a 'bond of royal marriage' with the ruling family of Kangju97. Kangju/Sogdia thus proved to be an ideal buffer for the Yuezhi between their new northern Bactria homeland and the Wusun and Xiongnu realms in the steppes to the north and east. Ultimately, as a result of the generally cooperative relationship apparently established almost immediately between the Kangju and Yuezhi dynasties in c. 131 BCE, Sogdia went on to become an integral and stable member (through direct incorporation or alliance) of the greater Kushan sphere of influence until the dissolution of the Kushan Empire in the mid-third century of the Common Era.
Craig Benjamin
March 2003
Dr. Craig Benjamin is a Lecturer in History at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He can be contacted at: craigbenjamin
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optusnet.com.au1 HS 61 1B.
2 SJ 123. See B. Watson, Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian Han Dynasty II (Revised edtn., Columbia University Press 1993) p. 231.
3 Ptol. Geog. vi, 14, 7-14. Hermann located Ptolemy's Tagouraioi to the north of the 'Alexandrovski Range', north of Ysyk Kul, in A. Hermann, Sakai col. 1770-1806', in Pauly Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadedie Der Classischen Alterumewissenschaft, 2e Reihe, Vol I (Stuttgart 1914).
4 Zadneprovsky (1999) op. cit., pp 4-5. See also J.P. Mallory and V.H. Mair The Tarim Mummies (London 2000) pp. 156 and 158.
5 HS 61 4B.
6 On the Hanging Pass see HS 96A 12A/12B; HS 96B 1B; H. Tsuchiya, 'Tracing Ancient Routes in Northern Pakistan', in M. Alram and D.E. Klimburg-Salter, Coins, Art and Chronology (Vienna 1999) pp. 353 ff.; A. Stein, Ancient Khotan (Oxford 1907) pp. 1-46.
7 See HS 61 4B.
8 HS 61 4B.
9 HS 61 1A.
10 See A.K. Narain, The Tokharians (Shillong 2000) p. 36, n. 11 for example.
11 Y.A. Zadneprovsky, 'Migration Paths of the Yueh-chih based on Archaeological Evidence', Circle of Inner Asian Art Newsletter No. 8 (April 1999) p. 5.
12 HS 96A 15B.
13 HS 96 A 17A.
14 SJ 123, Watson p. 234.
15 HS 96B 1B.
16 Ibid.
17 A.F.P. Hulsewe and M.A.N. Loewe, China in Central Asia. The Early Stage: 125 B.C. A.D. 23. An Annotated Translation of Chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty (Leiden 1979) p. 125, n. 299, 2.
18 P. Pelliot, 'L'Edition collective des oeuvres de Wang Kouo-wei', in T'oung Pao 26 (1929) p. 151.
19 See Ibid. p. 150.
20 E.G. Pulleyblank, 'The Consonontal System of Old Chinese', in Asia Major 9 (1962) p. 94; see also L. Torday, Mounted Archers: The Beginnings of Central Asian History (Durham 1997) p. 319 n. 34 for a detailed discussion of the philological link between Kangju and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya).
21 Hulsewe and Loewe op. cit., p. 125, n. 299, 2.
22 E.G. Pulleyblank, 'Chinese and Indo-Europeans', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2 (London 1966) p. 28.
23 Narain (2000) op. cit., pp. 29-30.
24 HS 96A 15B.
25 SJ 123, Watson p. 234.
26 HS 96A 15B.
27 SJ 123, Watson p. 234.
28 HS 96A 15B.
29 Ibid.
30 E. Zurcher, 'The Yueh-chih and Kaniska in the Chinese Sources', in A.L. Basham, ed., Papers on the Date of Kanishka (Leiden 1968) p. 360.
31 SJ 123, Watson p. 234.
32 HS 96A 16A.
33 HS 61 3A.
34 HS 96A 15B.
35 SJ 123, Watson p. 234.
36 HS 96A 17A.
37 G.V. Shishkina, 'Ancient Samarkand: Capital of Soghd', Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8 (1994) p. 90.
38 Hulsewe and Loewe, op. cit., pp. 130-1, ns. 320, 321, 322, 323 and 324 provide comments on attempts to identify the five principal towns of the lesser kings.
39 See R. Frye, The History of Ancient Iran (Munich 1984) p. 141.
40 Arrian, Book Four, 5-7 (1971) op. cit., pp. 208-211 for a description of this defeat.
41 See for example, A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great (Melbourne 1988) pp. 117, and 109-10.
42 See for example A. Nymark, Culture and Art of Ancient Uzbekistan vol.1 (Moscow 1991) p. 155.
43 See for example E. Rtveladze, The Ancient Coins of Central Asia (Tashkent 1987) p. 46.
44 Nymark op. cit., p. 156.
45 See O. Bopearachchi, 'The Euthydemus Imitation and the Date of Sogdian Independence', Silk Roads Art and Archaeology 2 (1991/2) pp. 11-12; also Rtveladze op. cit., p. 46.
46 Ibid., p. 12.
47 Ptol. Geog. vii, 2, 15; vi, 14, 7-14. See W.W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India (Cambridge 1938, 2nd edtn. 1951) p. 517; and J.W. McCrindle, Ancient India as Described by Ptolemy (London 1885) p. 281
48 HS 96A 15A.
49 SJ 123, Watson p. 234.
50 SJ 123.3b, trans. E. Zurcher (1968) op. cit., p. 360.
51 HS 61 2A.
52 SJ 123, Watson p. 232.
53 HS 61 3A.
54 HS 96A 15B.
55 HS 96A 15B; and Zurcher (1968) op. cit., p.360.
56 Torday op. cit., p. 301.
57 HHS 77.4a.
58 HS 96A 16A.
59 HS 96A 19A.
60 On the Zhaman-Togai Xiongnu tomb see A.G. Maximova, M.S. Merschiev, B.I. Vainberg, L.M. Levina, Drevnosti Chardary (Antiquities of Chardara) (Alma-Ata 1968) pp. 175-190.
61 Torday op. cit., pp. 301-2.
62 On Sarazm see A.I. Isakov, 'Sarazm: An Agricultural Centre of Ancient Sogdiana', Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8 (1994) pp. 1 ff.
63 See V.A. Shishkina, 'Arkheologicheskie nablyudeniya na stroitel' stve Katta-Kurganskogo vodokhranilishcha' (Archaeological Observations on the Building Site of the Katta-Kurgan Reservoir) Izvestiya Uzbfil AN SSSR Bulletin of the Uzbek Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1940) No. 10, pp. 19-24.
64 See A.I. Terenozhkin, 'Sogd I Chach' (Soghd and Chach) KSIIMK 33 (1950) pp. 152-169; A.I. Terenozhkin, 'Roskopki na gorodishche Afrasiabe' (Excavations on the Site of Afrasiab) KSIIMK 36 (1951) pp. 136-140.
65 See V.I. Shishkina, 'Uzbekistanskaya arkheologicheskaya ekspeditsiya AN UzSSR' (The Uzbekistan Archaeological Expedition of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences. Field Work in 1956-1959), IMKUz(Tashkent 1961) pp. 36-43; V.I. Shishkina, Afrasiab sokrovishchnitsa drevnei kultury (Afrasiab Treasury of Ancient Culture) (Tashkent 1966) pp. 8-10.
66 See A.Y. Yakubovsky, 'Itogi rabot Sogdiiko-Tadzhikskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii v 1946-1947 gg' (Results of the Work of the Sogdian-Tajik Archaeological Expedition of 1946-1947) MIA SSR No. 15 (Moscow-Leningrad 1950) pp. 13-28.
67 See for example, A.M.Mandleshtam, 'Mogilnik v s. Zosun verkhovya r. Zeravshan (The Burial Site in Zosun Village, Upper Zeravshan) Izvestia Otdelniya Obshchestvennykh nauk AN Tadzh. SSR No. 40 (1965) pp. 29-44.
68 A.M. Mandleshtam, 'Archaeological Data on the Origin and Early History of the Kushans', in Central Asia in the Kushan Period (1970) op. cit., p. 166.
69 See for example O.V. Obelchenko, 'Kuyu-Mazarsky mogil'nik' (The Necropolis of Kuyu-Mazar) Trudy IIA AN Uz. SSR VIII (Tashkent 1956) pp. 205-227; and O.V. Obelchenko, 'Kurgany okolo sel. Khazara' (The Kurgans Near the Village of Khazara) IMKUz (Tashkent 1963) pp. 57-65.
70 N.G. Gorbunova, 'Early Nomadic Pastoral Tribes in Soviet Central Asia during the First Half of the First Millennium A.D.', in G. Seamen, ed., Foundations of Empire: Archaeology and Art of the Eurasian Steppes (Los Angeles 1992) p. 34; and see O.V. Obelchenko, 'Kurgannye mogilniki epokhii Kushan v Bukharskom oazise' (Kurgan Barrows of the Kushan Epoch in the Bukhara Oasis), in Central Asia in the Kushan Period, vol I (Moscow 1974) for a summary of Obelchenko's conclusions.
71 Mandleshtam (1970) op. cit., p. 166.
72 Y.A. Zadneprovsky, History of Central Asian Nomads in the Kushan Period', in Kushan Studies in the U.S.S.R. (Moscow 1970) pp. 148-9.
73 Zadneprovsky (1999) op. cit., p. 5.
74 See Gorbunova (1992) op. cit., pp. 36 ff for a general outline of material artifacts discovered at a range of Central Asian sites.
75 Ibid., p. 36.
76 Ibid., p. 39; and see G. Frumkin, Archaeology in Soviet Central Asia (Leiden 1970) pp. 42 ff, for a detailed summary of Ferghana Valley archaeological discoveries, including grave artifacts.
77 See R. Ghirshman, Begram Recherches Archeologiques et Historiques sur les Kouchans (Paris 1946), Plate XXXVI, Nos. BG 290 a and b for excellent photographs of the Begram arrowheads with barbed triangular flanges. At the British Museum in January 2001 Elizabeth Errington was good enough to show me a colour transparency of a similar arrowhead from the Charles Masson collection. See also E. Errington, 'Rediscovering the Collections of Charles Masson', in M. Alram and D.E. Klimburg-Salter, eds., Coins, Art and Chronology. Essays on the pre-Islamic History of the Indo-Iranian Borderlands(Vienna 1999) pp. 207ff.
78 See Gorbunova (1992) op. cit. p. 44, Fig. 5 for a map illustrating the 'Distribution of Mirror Types'.
79 Ibid., p. 41.
80 Shishkina op. cit., pp. 89-90.
81 Gorbunova op. cit., p. 42.
82 Fiona Kidd, 'The Chronology and Style of a Group of Sogdian Statuettes', in C. Benjamin and S. Lieu, eds., Walls and Frontiers in Inner Asian History, Silk Roads Studies VI (Turnhout 2002) pp. 197 ff.
83 P. Ucko, Anthropomorphic Figurines of Predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete with Comparative Material from the Prehistoric Near East and Mainland Greece (London 1968). See also M. Gimbutas,The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (London 1982) for early examples of similar figurines.
84 Kidd op. cit., pp 197 ff.
85 K. Abdullaev, in R.K. Suleimanov, Drevnii Nakshab: Problemi' Tzivilizatzii Uzbekistana VII v. do N.E. (Tashkent 2000) p. 203.
86 On the Tillya-tepe figurines see V.I. Sarianidi, Khram I Nekropol' Tillyatepe (1989) p. 53 fig. 15 and p. 57 figs. 17, 25 and 70; on the Dalverzin-tepe figurines see K. Abdulaev, 'Portrayal of musicians in Bactrian teracotta figurines', in Information Bulletin 7 (1984) pp. 52-56 figs. 4-5.
87 Kidd op. cit., p. 211.
88 Ptol. Geog. vii, 2, 15; vi, 14, 7-14. See Tarn (1938/1951) op. cit, p. 517; and McCrindle (1885) op. cit., p. 281.
89 Zadneprovsky (1999) op. cit.,p. 5.
90 HS 96A 15B; SJ 123, Watson p. 232.
91 HS 96A 15B.
92 SJ 123, Watson p. 234.
93 HS 61 3A.
94 HS 96A 15B.
95 HS 96A 15B, and Zurcher op. cit.,p. 360.
96 Whether Sogdia/Kangju or Khorezmia were ever actually part of the Kushan Empire is a matter of some conjecture. See, for example, Svend Helms, 'Ancient Chorasmia: The Northern Edge of Central Asia from the 6th Century B.C. to the mid-4th Century A.D., in David Christian and Craig Benjamin (eds.), Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern (Turnhout 1998), pp. 85-6; and S. Helms (in private correspondence) who has argued that Khorezmia at least remained nominally independent.
97 HHS 77.4a.
http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/benjamin.html
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
June 24, 2015