Yuezhi

Yuezhi

The migrations of the Yuezhi through Central Asia, from around 176 BCE to 30 CE
Total population
Some 100,000 to 200,000 horse archers, according to the Shiji, Chapter 123.[1] The Hanshu Chapter 96A records: 100,000 households, 400,000 people with 100,000 able to bear arms.[2]
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Bactrian[3]
Religion
Buddhism
Hinduism[4]
Shamanism
Zoroastrianism
Manichaeism
Kushan deities
Related ethnic groups
Kushans

The Yuezhi or Rouzhi (Chinese: 月氏; pinyin: Yuèzhī; Wade–Giles: Yüeh-chih) were an ancient Indo-European people[5][6] who were first reported living in an arid grassland area spanning the modern Chinese provinces of Xinjiang and Gansu, before the 2nd century BCE.

After they were defeated by the Xiongnu during the 2nd century BCE, the Yuezhi split into two groups which emigrated in different directions. The majority migrated west into the Ili Valley (on the modern borders of China and Kazakhstan), where they reportedly displaced elements of the the Sakas (Scythians). A smaller group, known as the Little Yuezhi, moved south towards the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The main body of the Yuezhi was driven from the Ili Valley by the Wusun and migrated southward to Sogdia and, later, Bactria, where they displaced the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The Yuezhi were consequently often identified with the Tókharoi (Τοχάριοι; Tusharas) and Asioi mentioned in classical European sources.

During the 1st century BCE, the Kushanas – one of five major Yuezhi tribes in Bactria – subsumed the other tribes and neighbouring peoples. The subsequent Kushan Empire, at its peak during the 3rd century CE, stretched from Turfan in the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China) to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain (India). The Kushan Empire played an important role in the development of the Silk Road and the transmission of Buddhism to China.

Name

There are numerous theories about the origin of the Chinese name "Yuezhi", written with the characters yuè (月) "moon" and shì (氏) "clan", but none has yet found general acceptance.[7][8] Some scholars, such as Zhang Guang-da, have suggested that the name Yuezhi may be a sinicized transliteration of an endonym akin to visha ("the tribes") or vèsh ("divisions") in Eastern Iranian languages or vijaya in Tibetan.[9] This theory has not been widely accepted.

The relationship between the Yuezhi and other Indo-European peoples who lived in China and Central Asia is often unclear. The Kushans, a people who were among the conquerors of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom during the 2nd century BCE,[10] are widely believed to have originated as a dynastic clan or tribe of the Yuezhi.[11][12] Some inhabitants of Bactria were known as Tukhāra (Sanskrit) or Tókharoi (Τοχάριοι; Greek) – these names became associated with the Kushans and also, consequently, with the Yuezhi. Manuscripts dating from the 6th to 8th centuries CE, and written in two hitherto-unknown centum-type, non-Iranian languages, were discovered by scholars more than a millennium later in the northern Tarim Basin. Assuming that the authors were Tókharoi, Friedrich W. K. Müller referred to these languages as "Tocharian", and this became the common name for both the languages of the Tarim manuscripts and the people who produced them.[13][14]

Most historians now reject the identification of the Tókharoi (Kushans/Yuezhi) of Bactria with the Tocharians of the Tarim, because the Tókharoi are not known to have spoken any languages other than Bactrian (a satem-type, Iranian language).

Other scholars have suggested, however, that the Kushan Yuezhi may be an example of an invading or colonising elite adopting a local language. That is, they did not necessarily speak Bactrian before arriving in Bactria, and they may previously have spoken the Tocharian languages of the Tarim.[15][16] In support of this claim, Christopher Beckwith argues that the character 月, usually read as Old Chinese *ŋʷjat > Mod. yuè,[17] 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.[18][19] Likewise, Craig Benjamin in The Cambridge World History (Vol. IV), (2015), points out that "the problem of identifying the Yuezhi ... intersects history and language, since they may have spoken the centum Indo-European language variant of Tokharian."[20]

Theories on origins

Locations of Afanasevo culture (green, top right) to the north of the Tarim basin and Andronovo culture (orange) to the northwest

The Yuezhi may have been an Europoid people, as indicated by the portraits of their kings on the coins that were struck following their exodus to Transoxiana (2nd–1st century BCE), portraits from statues in Khalchayan, Bactria in the 1st century BCE,[21] some old place names in Gansu explainable in Tocharian languages,[22] and especially the coins which they struck in India as Kushans (1st–3rd century CE).[23][24][25][26]

According to one theory, the Yuezhi were connected to a large migration of Indo-European-speaking peoples from eastern Central Asia in the Bronze Age.[8][21] These were possibly ethnic Tocharian speakers and connected to the Afanasevo culture.[8][21] Very well preserved Tarim mummies from the 18th century BCE to the first centuries BCE with Europoid features (light hair and eyes) and dominated by Haplogroup R1a1a (Y-DNA) have been found in the Tarim Basin. One mummy today displayed at the Ürümqi Museum and dated from the 3rd century BCE, found at the ancient oasis on the Silk Road, Niya, has been connected to the Yuezhi.[27] Evidence of the Indo-European Tocharian languages also has been found in the same geographical area. Although the first known epigraphic evidence dates to the 6th century CE, the degree of differentiation between Tocharian A and Tocharian B and the absence of Tocharian language remains beyond that area suggest that a common Tocharian language existed in the same area of Yuezhi settlement during the second half of the 1st millennium BCE.

Esther Jacobson emphasizes that "the Yuezhi/Kushans may properly be considered to have belonged to the larger Scytho-Siberian culture."[28] The nomadic people, probably Scythians, of the Ordos culture of the Ordos Plateau, who lived in northern China, east of the Yuezhi, are another of a later similar migration. According to some scholars the Yuezhi might themselves have been Scythians.[29] The Yuezhi (Rouzhi) are associated by some scholars with the Ordos culture.[30] Also, the Europoid mummies of Pazyryk, which were probably Scythian in origin, were found around 1,500 kilometers northwest of the Yuezhi and date to around the 3rd century BCE.[31] The Pazyryk burials coincide with the apex of Yuezhi power, and have been connected to the Yuezhi by some scholars.[29]

Early history

The Yuezhi resided to the northwest of Qin China in the 3rd century BCE.

The Yuezhi are described in detail in Chinese historical accounts, in particular the 2nd–1st century BCE Records of the Great Historian, or Shiji, by Sima Qian:[1]

The Yuezhi originally lived in the area between the Qilian or Heavenly Mountains and Dunhuang, but after they were defeated by the Xiongnu they moved far away to the west, beyond Dayuan, where they attacked and conquered the people of Daxia and set up the court of their king on the northern bank of the Gui River. A small number of their people who were unable to make the journey west sought refuge among the Qiang barbarians in the Southern Mountains, where they are known as the Lesser Yuezhi.
— "The Account of Dayuan", Shiji, 123

The area between the Qilian Mountains and Dunhuang lies in the modern Chinese province of Gansu. However some scholars have argued that the mountains referred to are the Tian Shan, placing the original homeland of the Yuezhi 1,000 km further west in the northern part of modern Xinjiang.[32] The archaeologist Lin Meicun further argues that Dunhuang refers to a mountain in the Tian Shan named Dunhong, which is listed in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.[33]

A text known as the Guanzi (73, 78, 80 and 81) described nomadic pastoralists called the Yúshì 禺氏 or Niúshì 牛氏, who supplied jade to the Chinese.[34][35] The supply of Tarim Basin jade from ancient times is well documented archaeologically. The hundreds of jade pieces found in the tomb of Fuhao from the late Shang dynasty all originated from Khotan, on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin.[36] According to the Guanzi, these people, unlike the neighbouring Xiongnu, did not engage in conflict with the nearby Chinese states.

During the Warring States period (5th to 3rd centuries BCE) the Chinese also turned to the Yuezhi for the supply of good horses. Moreover, the Yuezhi supplied the Qin Empire with crucial military mounts.[37] The Yuezhi maintained a profitable trade of horses and cattle for Chinese silk, which they sold on to their neighbours. Thus the Yuezhi began the Silk Road trade, acting as intermediaries between China and Central Asia.[38]

However, the Yuezhi were regularly in conflict with the Xiongnu. Around 210 BCE, the Xiongnu king Touman gave his son Modu as hostage to the Yuezhi and then attacked them, hoping they would kill Modu, leaving the succession open to Modu's younger brother. However Modu escaped by stealing a fast horse. He subsequently killed his father and became ruler of the Xiongnu.[39]

The Yuezhi exodus

A Scythian horseman from the area invaded by the Yuezhi, Pazyryk, c.300 BCE

Shortly before 176 BCE, led by one of Modu's tribal chiefs, the Xiongnu invaded Yuezhi territory in the Gansu region and achieved a crushing victory.[40][41] Modu boasted in a letter (174 BCE) to the Han emperor that due to "the excellence of his fighting men, and the strength of his horses, he has succeeded in wiping out the Yuezhi, slaughtering or forcing to submission every number of the tribe." The son of Modu, Laoshang Chanyu, subsequently killed the king of the Yuezhi and, in accordance with nomadic traditions, "made a drinking cup out of his skull." (Shiji 123.[1])

It was around this time that the Yuezhi split into two confederations: the so-called Great or Greater Yuezhi (Da Yuezhi) and the Lesser or Little Yuezhi (Xiao Yuezhi).

The Greater Yuezhi migrated north-west from the Tarim Basin circa 165 BCE,[42] first settling in the Ili valley, immediately north of the Tian Shan mountains, where they defeated the Sai (Scythians): "The Yuezhi attacked the king of the Sai who moved a considerable distance to the south and the Yuezhi then occupied his lands" (Han Shu 61 4B). This was "the first historically recorded movement of peoples originating in the high plateaus of Asia."[43] (The Sai then undertook their own migration, which was to lead them as far as Kashmir, after travelling through a "Suspended Crossing" (probably the Khunjerab Pass between present-day Xinjiang and northern Pakistan). The Sakas ultimately established an Indo-Scythian kingdom in northern India.[44]) In 132 BCE the Wusun, in alliance with the Xiongnu and out of revenge from an earlier conflict, again managed to dislodge the Yuezhi, forcing them to move south-west.[40] The Yuezhi passed through the neighbouring urban civilization of Dayuan (in Ferghana) and settled on the northern bank of the Oxus, in the region of Transoxiana (modern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), just north of the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The Greek city of Alexandria on the Oxus was apparently burnt to the ground by the Yuezhi around 145 BCE.[45]

The Lesser Yuezhi, according to Chinese and Tibetan sources, gave rise to two peoples.

According to Chinese sources, elements of the Yuezhi also settled in the Tarim, under the domination of the Xiongnu; these may have been the ancestors of the Tocharian speakers first attested during the 6th century CE.

Settlement in Transoxiana

The Chinese mission of Zhang Qian to the Yuezhi in 126 BCE, Mogao Caves, 618–712 CE mural painting

The Yuezhi were visited by a Chinese mission, led by Zhang Qian in 126 BCE,[46] that was seeking an offensive alliance with the Yuezhi to counter the Xiongnu threat to the north. Although the request for an alliance was denied by the son of the slain Yuezhi king, who preferred to maintain peace in Transoxiana rather than to seek revenge, Zhang Qian made a detailed account, reported in the Shiji, that gives considerable insight into the situation in Central Asia at that time.[47]

Zhang Qian, who spent a year with the Yuezhi and in Bactria, relates that "the Great Yuezhi live 2,000 or 3,000 li (832–1,247 kilometers) west of Dayuan (Ferghana), north of the Gui (Oxus) river. They are bordered on the south by Daxia (Bactria), on the west by Anxi (Parthia), and on the north by Kangju (beyond the middle Jaxartes). They are a nation of nomads, moving from place to place with their herds, and their customs are like those of the Xiongnu. They have some 100,000 or 200,000 archer warriors."(Shiji 123.[1])

Although they remained north of the Oxus for a while, they apparently obtained the submission of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom to the south of the Oxus. 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.[48]

A description of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom was made by Zhang Qian after the conquest by Yuezhi:

"Daxia (Greco-Bactria) is located over 2,000 li southwest of Dayuan, south of the Gui (Oxus) river. Its people cultivate the land and have cities and houses. Their customs are like those of Ta-Yuan. It has no great ruler but only a number of petty chiefs ruling the various cities. The people are poor in the use of arms and afraid of battle, but they are clever at commerce. After the Great Yuezhi moved west and attacked the lands, the entire country came under their sway. The population of the country is large, numbering some 1,000,000 or more persons. The capital is called the city of Lanshi (Bactra) (modern Balkh) and has a market where all sorts of goods are bought and sold."(Shiji 123.[49])

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."(Shiji 123.[50])

Invasion of Bactria

Yuezhi tribes in Asia in 1 CE

In 124 BCE, the Yuezhi were apparently involved in a war against the Parthians, in which the Parthian king Artabanus II was wounded and died:[51]

"During the war against the Tochari, he (Artabanus) was wounded in the arm and died immediately" (Justin, Epitomes, XLII,2,2: "Bello Tochariis inlato, in bracchio vulneratus statim decedit").

Some time after 124 BCE, possibly disturbed by further incursions of rivals from the north and apparently vanquished by the Parthian king Mithridates II, successor to Artabanus, the Yuezhi moved south to Bactria. Bactria had been conquered by the Greeks under Alexander the Great in 330 BCE and since settled by the Hellenistic civilization of the Seleucids and the Greco-Bactrians for two centuries.

This event is recorded in Classical Greek sources, when Strabo presented them as a Scythian tribe and explained that the Tokhari—together with the Assianis, Passianis and Sakaraulis—took part in the destruction of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the second half of the 2nd century BCE:

"Most of the Scythians, beginning from the Caspian Sea, are called Dahae Scythae, and those situated more towards the east Massagetae and Sacae; the rest have the common appellation of Scythians, but each separate tribe has its peculiar name. All, or the greatest part of them, are nomads. The best known tribes are those who deprived the Greeks of Bactriana, the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacarauli, who came from the country on the other side of the Jaxartes, opposite the Sacae and Sogdiani." (Strabo, 11-8-1)

The last Greco-Bactrian king, Heliocles I, retreated and moved his capital to the Kabul Valley. The eastern part of Bactria was occupied by Pashtun people.

Pompeius Trogus mentions Artabanus II of Parthia being mortally wounded in 128 or 129 BC by the Tokhari.

Head of a Yuezhi/Saka, from Khalchayan, southern Uzbekistan, Painted clay.[52]

As they settled in Bactria from around 125 BCE, the Yuezhi became Hellenized to some degree, as suggested by their adoption of the Greek alphabet and by some remaining coins, minted in the style of the Greco-Bactrian kings, with the text in Greek. The area of Bactria they settled came to be known as Tokharistan, since the Yuezhi were called Tókharoi by the Greeks.

Commercial relations with China also flourished, as many Chinese missions were sent throughout the 1st century BCE: "The largest of these embassies to foreign states numbered several hundred persons, while even the smaller parties included over 100 members ... In the course of one year anywhere from five to six to over ten parties would be sent out." (Shiji, trans. Burton Watson).

The Hou Hanshu also records the visit of Yuezhi envoys to the Chinese capital in 2 BCE, who gave oral teachings on Buddhist sutras to a student, suggesting that some Yuezhi already followed the Buddhist faith during the 1st century BCE (Baldev Kumar (1973)).

A later Chinese annotation in Shiji made by Zhang Shoujie during the early 8th century, quoting Wan Zhen's s (萬震) Strange Things from the Southern Region (Nanzhouzhi (南州志), a now-lost third-century text from the Wu kingdom), describes the Kushans as living in the same general area north of India, in cities of Greco-Roman style, and with sophisticated handicraft. The quotes are dubious, as Wan Zhen probably never visited the Yuezhi kingdom through the Silk Road, though he might have gathered his information from the trading ports in the coastal south.[53] The Chinese never adopted the term Guishuang and continued to call them Yuezhi:

"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."[54]

Expansion into the Hindu-Kush

The area of the Hindu-Kush (Paropamisade) was ruled by the western Indo-Greek king until the reign of Hermaeus (reigned c. 90 BCE–70 BCE). After that date, no Indo-Greek kings are known in the area, which was probably overtaken by the neighbouring Yuezhi, who had been in relation with the Greeks for a long time. According to Bopearachchi, no trace of Indo-Scythian occupation (nor coins of major Indo-Scythian rulers such as Maues or Azes I) have been found in the Paropamisade and western Gandhara.

As they had done in Bactria with their copying of Greco-Bactrian coinage, the Yuezhi copied the coinage of Hermeaus on a vast scale, up to around 40 CE, when the design blends into the coinage of the Kushan king Kujula Kadphises. Such coins provide the earliest names of presumed Yuezhi princes, Sapadbizes (probably a yabgu's prince of Yuezhi confederation) and Agesiles, both around 20 BCE.

Kushan Empire

Main article: Kushan Empire
The first self-declared Kushan ruler Heraios (1–30 CE) in Greco-Bactrian style
Obv: Bust of Heraios, with Greek royal headband.
Rev: Horse-mounted King, crowned with a wreath by the Greek goddess of victory Nike. Greek legend: TVPANNOVOTOΣ HΛOV – ΣΛNΛB – KOÞÞANOY "The Tyrant Heraios, Sanav (meaning unknown), of the Kushans"
Depiction of Heraios, from his clearest coins
Possible Yuezhi king and attendants, Gandhara stone palette, 1st century CE

By the end of the 1st century BCE, one of the five tribes of the Yuezhi, the Guishuang (貴霜, origin of name Kushan adopted in the West), managed to take control of the Yuezhi confederation. From that point, the Yuezhi extended their control over the northwestern area of the Indian subcontinent, founding the Kushan Empire, which was to rule the region for several centuries.[55][56][57] The Yuezhi came to be known as Kushan among Western civilizations; however, the Chinese kept calling them Yuezhi throughout their historical records over a period of several centuries.

The Yuezhi/Kushans expanded to the east during the 1st century CE to found the Kushan Empire. The first Kushan emperor, Kujula Kadphises, ostensibly associated himself with King Hermaeus on his coins, suggesting that he may have been one of the king's descendants by alliance, or at least wanted to claim his legacy.

The unification of the Yuezhi tribes and the rise of the Kushan are documented in the Chinese Historical chronicle, the Hou Hanshu:

"More than a hundred years later, the xihou (Ch:翖侯, "Allied Prince") of Guishuang (Badakhshan and the adjoining territories north of the Oxus), named Qiujiu Que (Ch: 丘就卻, Kujula Kadphises) attacked and exterminated the four other xihou ("Allied Princes"). He set himself up as king of a kingdom called Guishuang (Kushan). He invaded Anxi (Parthia) and took the Gaofu (Ch:高附, Kabul) region. He also defeated the whole of the kingdoms of Puda (Ch: 濮達) and Jibin (Ch: 罽賓, Kapiśa-Gandhāra). Qiujiu Que (Kujula Kadphises) was more than eighty years old when he died.
"His son, Yan Gaozhen (Ch:閻高珍) (Vima Takto), became king in his place. He returned and defeated Tianzhu (Northwestern India) and installed a General to supervise and lead it. The Yuezhi then became extremely rich. All the kingdoms call [their king] the Guishuang (Kushan) king, but the Han call them by their original name, Da Yuezhi." (Hou Hanshu, trans. John Hill,[58][59]).

The Yuezhi/Kushan integrated Buddhism into a pantheon of many deities and became great promoters of Mahayana Buddhism, and their interactions with Greek civilization helped the Gandharan culture and Greco-Buddhism flourish.

During the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Kushan Empire expanded militarily to the north and occupied parts of the Tarim Basin, their original grounds, putting them at the center of the lucrative Central Asian commerce with the Roman Empire. When the Han Dynasty desired to advance north, Emperor Wu sent the explorer Zhang Qian to see the kingdoms to the west and to ally with the Yuezhi people, in order to fight the Xiongnu tribe. The Yuezhi continued to collaborate militarily with the Chinese against nomadic incursion, particularly with the Chinese general Ban Chao against the Sogdians in 84 CE when the latter were trying to support a revolt by the king of Kashgar. Around 85 CE, they also assisted the Chinese general in an attack on Turpan, east of the Tarim Basin.

In recognition of their support to the Chinese, the Kushans requested, but were denied, a Han princess, even after they had sent presents to the Chinese court. In retaliation, they marched on Ban Chao in 86 CE with a force of 70,000 but, exhausted by the expedition, were finally defeated by the smaller Chinese force. The Kushans retreated and paid tribute to the Chinese Empire during the reign of the Chinese emperor Han He (89–106).

About 120 CE, Kushan troops installed Chenpan—a prince who had been sent as a hostage to them and had become a favorite of the Kushan Emperor—on the throne of Kashgar, thus expanding their power and influence in the Tarim Basin,[60] and introduced the Brahmi script, the Indian Prakrit language for administration, and Greco-Buddhist art, which developed into Serindian art.

Benefiting from this territorial expansion, the Yuezhi/Kushans were among the first to introduce Buddhism to northern and northeastern Asia, by direct missionary efforts and the translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Major Yuezhi missionaries and translators included Lokaksema and Dharmaraksa, who went to China and established translation bureaus, thereby being at the center of the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism.

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 (Emperor Cao 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)."

The Sassanids extended their dominion into Bactria during the reign of Ardashir I around 230 CE.

See also

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Watson 1993, p. 234.
  2. ↑ Hulsewé, A.F.P. and Loewe, M.A.N. 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. E. J. Birll. 1979. ISBN 90-04-05884-2, pp. 119–120.
  3. ↑ Hansen, Valerie (2012). The Silk Road: A New History. Oxford University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-19-993921-3.
  4. ↑ André Wink, Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: The Slavic Kings and the Islamic conquest, 11th-13th centuries, (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 57
  5. ↑ Loewe & Shaughnessy 1999, pp. 87–88.
  6. ↑ "Zhang Qian". Encyclopedia Britannica online. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 October 2012.
  7. ↑ Les Saces: Les « Scythes » d'Asie. VIIIe siècle av. J.-C.−IVe siècle apr. J.-C. (2006) Iaroslav Indo-EuropeanEditions Errance, Paris, pp. 240–247
  8. 1 2 3 Mallory & Mair 2000, pp. 98–99, 280–283, 333–334.
  9. ↑ History of civilizations of Central Asia, volume III: Zhang Guang-da, "The city-states of the Tarim Basin, p. 284
  10. ↑ Millward, James A. (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press, New York. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
  11. ↑ Runion, Meredith L. (2007). The history of Afghanistan. Westport: Greenwood Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-313-33798-7. The Yuezhi people conquered Bactria in the second century BCE, and divided the country into five chiefdoms, one of which would become the Kushan Empire. Recognizing the importance of unification, these five tribes combined under the one dominate Kushan tribe, and the primary rulers descended from the Yuezhi.
  12. ↑ Liu, Xinrui (2001). Adas, Michael, ed. Agricultural and pastoral societies in ancient and classical history. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-56639-832-9.
  13. ↑ Adams, Douglas Q. (1988). Tocharian Historical Phonology and Morphology. pp. 2–4. ISBN 978-0-940490-71-0.
  14. ↑ Tocharian Online: Series Introduction, Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, University of Texas at Austin
  15. ↑ Mallory, J.P.; Adams, Douglas Q., eds. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. p. 509. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5.
  16. ↑ A.K. Narain. "6 – Indo-Europeans in Inner Asia". In Denis Sinor. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. p. 153. ISBN 978-0521243049.
  17. ↑ Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 806. ISBN 978-3-11-012324-1.
  18. ↑ Beckwith 2009, p. 5, footnote #16, as well as pp. 380–383 in appendix B.
  19. ↑ Hitch, Doug (2010). "Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present" (PDF). Journal of the American Oriental Society 130 (4): 654–658. He 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.
  20. ↑ Craig Benjamin, The Cambridge World History Volume 4: A World With States Empires and Networks 1200 BCE–900 CE (2015); Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 475
  21. 1 2 3 Mallory 1997, pp. 591–594
  22. ↑ 邪说--请大家狂批：华夏文明的白种雅利安人来源
  23. ↑ 巴里坤：月氏与匈奴的远古王庭
  24. ↑ 《东黑沟——月氏与匈奴人的古家园》
  25. ↑ 月氏？还是匈奴？ – 新疆天山网
  26. ↑ 学术通讯
  27. ↑ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 55: "The strange creatures of the Shanhai jing: (...) we find recorded north of the territory of the "fish dragons" the land of the Whites (Bai), whose bodies are white and whose long hair falls on their shoulders." Such a description could correspond well to a Europoid population beyond the frontiers of ancient China and some scholars have identified these Whites as Yuezhi."
  28. ↑ Jacobson, Esther (1993). The Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia: A Study in the Ecology of Belief. Volume 55 of Studies in the History of Religions (illustrated ed.). BRILL. p. 6. ISBN 9004096280. The most western of the Early Nomads' relatives and those most familiar to the modern observer were Scythians. They are believed to have arrived in the lands of the Caucasus, the Crimea, and the rich steppe north of the Black Sea by the sixth century B.C. ... In the late years of the first millennium B.C., the successors to the Early Nomads and Sakas served as the vehicles for the transformation of Eurasian nomadism into statehood. The Xiongnu of Mongolia gathered an array of nomadic peoples together into a confederation which became the major geopolitical opponent of the Chinese Han Dynasty. In the same period, the second and first centuries B.C., the Yuezhi established hegemony over the vital steppe region west of the borders of Han China and extending through Bactria to the borders of India. Indeed, after their conversion to Buddhism, the Yuezhi- by then known as the Kushans- proceeded to conquer India and to establish the great Kushan Dynasty. Despite these political transformations and despite significant distinctions in language and physical anthropology between the Xiongnu and their Early Nomadic relatives, they as well as the Yuezhi/Kushans may properly be considered to have belonged to the larger Scytho-Siberian culture.
  29. 1 2 Enoki, Koshelenko & Haidary 1994, pp. 171–191
  30. ↑ Hanks & Linduff 2009, pp. 284–286
  31. ↑ "Ice Mummies: Siberian Ice Maiden". PBS – NOVA. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
  32. ↑ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 283.
  33. ↑ Liu 2001a, pp. 267–268.
  34. ↑ "Les Saces", Iaroslav Lebedynsky, ISBN 2-87772-337-2, p. 59
  35. ↑ The Guanzi was compiled around 26 BCE, and while some of the source materials are older, most scholars do not accept its attribution to Guan Zhong, an official of the State of Qi in the 7th century BCE. (Liu Jianguo (2004)). Distinguishing and Correcting the pre-Qin Forged Classics. Xi'an: Shaanxi People's Press. ISBN 7-224-05725-8. pp. 115–127
  36. ↑ Liu 2001a, p. 265.
  37. ↑ Liu 2010, pp. 3–4.
  38. ↑ Liu 2001a, p. 273.
  39. ↑ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 94.
  40. 1 2 Benjamin, Craig (October 2003). "The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia". Transoxiana Webfestschrift (Transoxiana) 1 (Ēran ud Anērān). Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  41. ↑ Beckwith 2009, pp. 380–383.
  42. ↑ Chavannes (1907) "Les pays d'occident d'après le Heou Han chou". T'oung pao, ser.2:8, p. 189, n. 1
  43. ↑ Grousset, Rene (1970). The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press. pp. 27–28. ISBN 0-8135-1304-9.
  44. ↑ Chandra Sagar, Khrisna (1992). Foiegn Influence on Ancient India. New Dehli: Northern Book Centre. p. 119. ISBN 81-7211-028-6.
  45. ↑ Bernard 1994, p. 100.
  46. ↑ Silk Road, North China, C. Michael Hogan, The Megalithic Portal, A. Burnham, ed.
  47. ↑ Watson 1993, pp. 233–236.
  48. ↑ Hill (2004), pp. 29, 318–350
  49. ↑ Watson 1993, p. 235.
  50. ↑ Watson 1993, p. 245.
  51. ↑ Grousset, Rene (1970). The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press. p. 31. ISBN 0-8135-1304-9. This would seem to prove that the Yueh-chih of Chinese history – if they correspond, as supposed, to the Tokharoi of Greek history – were from that time established in Bactria, a country of which they later made a 'Tokharistan'.
  52. ↑ "Greek Art in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Northwest India", Encyclopaedia Iranica, plate VIII
  53. ↑ Yu Taishan (2nd Edition 2003). A Comprehensive History of Western Regions. Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Press. ISBN 7-5348-1266-6
  54. ↑ Notes to Section 13, The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu, trans. John Hill.
  55. ↑ Runion, Meredith L. (2007). The history of Afghanistan. Westport: Greenwood Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-313-33798-7. The Yuezhi people conquered Bactria in the second century BCE and divided the country into five chiefdoms, one of which would become the Kushan Empire. Recognizing the importance of unification, these five tribes combined under the one dominate Kushan tribe, and the primary rulers descended from the Yuezhi.
  56. ↑ Liu 2001b, p. 156.
  57. ↑ Beckwith 2009, pp. 84–85.
  58. ↑ Hill 2009, pp. 28–29.
  59. ↑ 後百餘歲，貴霜翕候丘就卻攻滅四翕候，自立為王，國號貴霜王。侵安息，取高附地。又滅濮達、罽賓，悉有其國。丘就卻年八十餘死，子閻膏珍代為王。復滅天竺，置將一人監領之。月氏自此之後，最為富盛，諸國稱之皆曰貴霜王。漢本其故號，言大月氏云。Hanshu, 96
  60. ↑ Hill 2009, pp. 14, 43.

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