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Hephthalites

Map showing the extent of regions under Hephthalite dominion, c. AD 520.
Regions with significant populations
Central Asia South Asia

The Hephthalites were a people of obscure origin who at certain periods played an important role in the history of Persia and India. They were called Ephthalites by the Greeks, and Hunas by the Indians. According to Chinese chronicles they were originally a tribe living to the north of the Great Wall and were known as Hoa or Hoa-tun. Elsewhere they were called White Huns or Hunas. However, There is no definite evidence that they are related to the Huns.

The White Huns were an agricultural people with a developed set of laws. They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them (A.D. 125) as living in Dzungaria. They displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana and Khorasan before 425. They crossed (425) the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded Persia. Held off at first by Bahram Gur, they later (483–85) succeeded in making Persia tributary. After a series of wars (503–13) they were driven out of Persia, permanently lost the offensive, and were finally (557) defeated by Khosru I. The White Huns also invaded India and succeeded in extending their domain to include the Ganges valley. They temporarily overthrew the Gupta empire but were eventually driven out of India in 528 by a Hindu coalition. Although in Persia they had little effect, in India the White Huns influenced society by altering the caste system and disrupting the hierarchy of the ruling families. Some of the White Huns remained in India as a distinct group.

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Origins

The origins of the Hephthalites are uncertain. Many theories have been discussed, of which the "Indo-European" and "Turkic" theories are the most prominent ones. Our earliest information about the Ephthalites comes from the Chinese chronicles, in which it is stated that they were originally a tribe of the great Yuezhi (and thus related to their Indo-European neighbours), living to the north of the Great Wall, and in subjection to the Juan-Juan, as were also the Turks at one time. According to these chronicles, their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they styled themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to after the name of their royal family, or more briefly Ye-tha.

Most scholars today regard the Hephthalites - or at least their ruling elite - as speakers of an Eastern Iranian language or possibly another Indo-European language such as Tocharian.

Various theories about their origins are documented by ancient Chinese chroniclers, as well as by Procopius of Caesarea:

• They were related in some way to the Visha (Indo-Europeans known to the Chinese as the Yuezhi or Yüeh Chih),
• They were a branch of the Kao-ch`e,
• They were descendants of the general Pahua,
• They were descendants of Kang Chu
• Their origins cannot be made clear at all.

For some time, it was believed that the Hephthalites were speakers of the Bactrian language. However, modern researches have revealed that while Bactrian was the traditional language of administration, it was not the native tongue of the Hephthalites themselvs. The useage of Turkic royal titles (auch as Khaqan) is attested in ancient writings found in Afghanistan. While it indicates an important influence of Turco-Mongol peoples on the Hephthalites, it does not prove a Turkic or Mongolian origin of the Hephthalites. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Hephthalites "probably sprang from a strong Eastern Iranian element".

Etymology

The term Haithalite was first used by Persian writers to refer to a 6th century empire on the northern and eastern periphery of their land. The élite Hephthal clan certainly appear to be quite distinct from the Huns who ravaged Europe in the fourth century AD. Although the Hephthalite empire was known in China, as Yanda (厌哒 or 嚈噠), Chinese chroniclers recognised that these terms actually came from only the leaders of the empire's polity - the polity which in contrast are documented as having called themselves Huá (滑) in the same sources. The name of their Hephthal ruling élite, some sources indicate originally applied to one of the 5 Yuezhi families from Kushan. India knew the Hephthalites by the Sanskrit name Sveta-Hūna (meaning White Huns). Armenian sources also mention a White Hun origin for the Parthian Arsaces. According to Simokattes, they were the Alchon, who united under the Hephthal as the "vultures descended on the people" around AD 460.

The term Haital means "Big/Powerful" in the dialect of Bukhara, but might also mean "seven". The modern Chinese variation Yanda has been given various latinised renderings such as "Yeda", although the more archaic Korean pronunciation "Yeoptal" 엽달 is much more compatible with the Greek Hephthal and is certainly a much more archaic form.

Different spellings include Ephthalite, Epthalite, Ephtalite, Eptalite, Euthalite, Hepthalite, Hephtalite, and Heptalite.

Expansion

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The Hephthalite empire came into existence for the first time in 460 AD, when the western Uar of Khwarezm and the eastern Choni came into a confederation under the Yuezhi/Kushan 'Haital ruling elite.

Some sources indicate that one branch of the Juan Juan was called Uar or Var(?), and they were placed at the head of the Uyghurs after Juan Juan subjugation in 460 . If the "Uar" people in question are the same as the Hua, then they must have joined the Juan Juan in 460 after pushing the Choni into Uzbekistan and taking over Uyghuristan, then heading for Europe, leaving the Juan Juan controlled area to Hephthalite sovereignty before the 541-545 power shift.

Chinese sources mention a certain "Yedaiyiliduo 厌带夷栗陁" king from 516, indicating the Hephthalite family had come to rule in Xinjiang by this time. Sometime during the reign of this particular Hephthalite King (507-531), those Alchon tribes who had become one unit under his direct rule sought to usurp control in Xinjiang from the Juan Juan . At this point we can see that the Alchon were already better known as Hephthalites.

Soon, the rest of the Alchon strengthened their position in Khwarezmia to conquer the dregs of Attila's Hunnic empire in the west .

The Eastern Huer or Hephthalite control of Uyghuristan was achieved between 541 and 545, during the reign of this Yedaiyiliduo' king's successor Toramana II, which is why some scholars say Avar rule began in the area from this time. After Toramana II, the Hephthalite seat of power was relocated to the Punjab region .

References to eastern "Avars" in control of Uyghuristan from 541-565 concern them. This was during the reign of the Hephthal Toramana II, though they had a presence in Xinjiang under his predecessor the Yedaiyiliduo king (507-531) , even during the Juan Juan rule there (460-545). It was apparently during the reign of Yedaiyiliduo that there was a split resulting in the western portions of Huer and Alchoni relocating their interests in the Volga region of Europe as the Avars .

Hephthalites in South Asia

In India, the Hephthalites were not distinguished from their immediate predecessors and are known by the same name Huna. The Huna had already established themselves in Afghanistan and NWFP in present day Pakistan by the first half of the fifth century, and the Gupta emperor Skandagupta had repelled a Hūna invasion in 455 before the Hephthal clan came along.

The Hephthalites with their capital at Bamiyan continued the pressure on India's northwest frontier (present day Pakistan), and broke through into northern India by the end of the fifth century, hastening the disintegration of the Gupta empire. They made their capital at the city of Sakala (modern day Sialkot) under their Emperor Mihirakula (or MehrGul meaning sunflower).

After the end of the sixth century little is recorded in India about the Hephthalites, and what happened to them is unclear; some historians surmise that the remaining Hephthalites were assimilated into northern India's population.

Hephthal & Pashtun

Former soviet scholar and an expert on Afghan history Yu V. Gankovsky believes them to be an eastern Persian group akin to the Scytho-Sarmatians and deems the Pashtun people to have significant elements of the Hephthalites,

"My opinion is that the formation of the union of largely East-Iranian tribes which became the initial ethnic stratum of the Pashtun ethnogenesis dates from the middle of the first millennium AD and is connected with the dissolution of the Epthalite (White Huns) confederacy. In the areas north of the Hindu Kush some of the tribes of this confederacy participated in the formation of the nationalities who inhabit Middle Asia today, and, among other tribes, in the formation of the Turkmen and Uzbek nationalities. This is attested, among other things, in the records of genonimy which indicate that among the Turkmen and Uzbeks (as well as among the Lokai) there occurs the ethnonym Abdal descending from the name of an Epthalite tribal union (Abdals, Abdel). South of the Hindu Kush, another part of the Epthalite tribes lost their privileged status as the military stronghold of the ruling dynasty and was ousted into the thinly peopled areas of the Sulaiman mountains, areas where there were not enough water supplies and grazing grounds. There they became a tribal union which formed the basis of the Pashtun ethnogenesis."

The surname Abdal figures quite prominently in Pashtun history under Ahmed Shah Abdali. Gankovsky continues:

"Of the contribution of the Epthalites (White Huns) to the ethnogenesis of the Pashtuns we find evidence in the ethnonym of the largest of the Pashtun tribe unions, the Abdali (Durrani after 1747) associated with the ethnic name of the Epthalites -- Abdal. The Siah-posh, called all Pashtuns by a general name of Abdal still at sing of the 19th century (The People of Pakistan (Moscow, 1971)."

Pashto the language of the Pashtuns is an East Iranian language as well.

See also

• Hunas
• Xionites
• Uar
• Indo-Greeks
• Indo-Scythians
• Indo-Parthians
• Kushan Empire
• Kashmir Smast

References

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Hephthalite", Online Edition, (LINK)
2. Enoki Kazuo, "On the nationality of Hephthalites", 1955
3. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, "Hephthalite", Online Edition 2001-2006
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911, "Ephthalites", Online Edition, (LINK)
5. The White Huns - The Hephthalites
6. A.D.H. Bivar, "Hephthalites", in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, (LINK)
7. M. Schottky, "Huns" - "Iranian Huns", in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, (LINK)
8. ^ G. Ambros/P.A. Andrews/L. Bazin/A. Gökalp/B. Flemming and others, "Turks", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition 2006
9. The Persian Bukhani Kate dictionary states the meaning of Haital to mean "big, powerful" in the dialect of Bukhara.
10. http://www.answers.com/topic/pashtun-people

External links

• The Ethnonym Apar in the Turkish Inscriptions of the VIII. Century and Armenian Manuscripts - Mehmet Tezcan (pdf)
• Hephthalite coins
• Hephthalite History and Coins of the Kashmir Smast Kingdom- Waleed Ziad
• The Hephthalites of Central Asia - by Richard Heli (long article with a timeline)
• The Hephthalites Article archived from the University of Washington's Silk Road exhibition - has a slightly adapted form of the Richard Heli timeline.
• Columbia Encyclopedia

• Eurasian nomads
• History of Pakistan
• History of India