This article discusses the sources and historical information available on the Hephtalites, also known as the White Huns. The author argues that Kazuo Enoki's analysis of the Weishu texts was biased and flawed, as he did not provide valid reasons for rejecting the origin of the Hephtalites in the Altai region. Instead, he tried to prove in vain the western Himalayan origin.
The Tongdian is the only text in the Chinese sources that gives a date of the migration of these nomadic tribes from the Altai to the south, between 360 and 370. However, the original source of this date should be the Weishu.
The connection established by the original Weishu between the Hephtalites and the Gaoju could mean that the Hephtalites were a Turkic tribe, and more precisely an Oghur tribe, since the Gaoju are considered to be the heirs of the ancient Tiele confederation, which, in turn, is said to be the origin of the various Oghur tribes.
The author had previously shown[*] that the great Hunnic migrations that reached the Volga at around the same time originated in the Altai, and that these Huns were at least the political and cultural heirs of the Xiongnu. Part of these migrations reached Central Asia, and the Hephtalites were among the tribes that arrived, i.e., the Hephtalites were in Bactria a century before gaining control there.
In the last section, he discusses the Xiongnu sword known as “qïŋïraq” in Turkic languages that was worshipped as a god or the attribute of a god, identified as the god of War, Mars, among the Xiongnu and Attilanic Huns. The article suggests that the prefix “Eš-” attached to the sword’s name “Eškiŋgil” < “Khiṅgila” may have been a common Turkic prefix meaning “comrade, companion of,” as evidenced in Hunnic names like “Ešqam.” This would make “Eškiŋgil” a meaningful Hunnic name or title, meaning “companion of the Sword (i.e., of Mars),” and would be in line with the shared political and ethnic past of the European, Central and Inner Asian Huns. The article references various linguistic and historical sources to support these conclusions, but surprisingly he misses the fact that the German sinologist Friedrich Hirth had already discussed it as “Kingrak — the oldest Turkish word on record” back in 1908, while “king-lü” in ancient Chinese records, referring to a two-edged knife or sabre, was meaningless in that language.
[*] This paper was published in 2003, but somehow he claims to refer to the English translation published in 2005 of the corrected and expanded edition of his own “Histoire des marchands sogdiens,” published in 2002. Or, there is a mistake, and he is actually referring to “Huns et Xiongnu,” also published in 2005.
Étienne de la Vaissière, “Is There a ‘Nationality of the Hephtalites’?” in Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 2003.
1. Interpretation of the Dynastic Histories
In 1959, Enoki Kazuo published his groundbreaking article “On the Nationality of the Ephtalites” in the Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko.[1] Since then, it has been regarded as the basic study of the ethnic affiliation of the Hephtalites. According to Enoki, this tribe was a local one whose origin was the western Himalayan Mountains. This idea is based on geography and on some Iranian names attested among them but also on the fact that the Chinese sources described polyandry as one of the Hephtalite customs. Polyandry, well known on the Western Tibetan plateau and quite unusual elsewhere, was used by Enoki as the cornerstone of his demonstration of the local origin of the Hephtalites (pp. 51–55).
[1] Enoki 1959. As this article will be thoroughly quoted, in the text I will give only the reference to the pages.
What Enoki could not have foreseen is the discovery in the Rob archive of a polyandric marriage contract antedating the first mention of the Hephtalites in Bactria by a century.[2] As usual in the Chinese descriptions of the Western world, their authors simply mixed together customs of the various components of the Bactrian society and gave them the name of the leading tribe, that of the Hephtalites. Polyandry was a genuine Bactrian custom, not a Hephtalite one. While logical half a century ago, Enoki’s hypothesis can no longer be regarded as demonstrated. It is time to return to the Chinese texts, our main sources.
[2] Sims-Williams 2000, 32–33.
Enoki proceeded in his article by following the various origins of the Hepthalites that can be found in the Chinese sources: first the Jushi, an ancient tribe located to the north of Turfan; then the Da Yuezhi, the tribes that conquered Bactria in the second century BC; and finally the Gaoju, the Turkic tribe that conquered the Turfan region in the fifth century AD.
The Jushi theory is found in the Liangshu. The Liang (502–557) were a Southern Dynasty, but they were in continuous contact with Central Asia through Qinghai. The beginning of the text is:
[3] See the complete translation in Annex 1.The country of Hua is another branch of Jushi (Turfan). In the 1st year of Yongjian (126 A.D.) of the Han, a Jushi named Bahua, who under (the Chinese general) Ban Yong had rendered distinguished services in conquering the Northern savages (i.e., the Xiongnu), was promoted to Hou-bu Qin-han-hou (or Marquis of Posterior Jushi, who is friendly to the Han) by arrangement of Ban Yong.[3]
Enoki correctly rejected the commentary linking the Hephtalites with a Jushi general as a learned gloss. But, did the author of the commentary deduce that the inhabitants of the country of Hua were Jushi from the ethnic identity of Ba Hua only, or was “Jushi” a data with which he had to deal? Enoki answered this question in another article, published in 1970. From the biography of Pei Ziye (471–532), it seems indeed clear that the only information the Liang court had was the name of Hua, so that the Jushi theory is devoid of any basis: “During this period, there were beyond the Northwestern frontiers the states of Boti and Hua, who sent envoys through the mountain road of the Min (river, in Sichuan) to offer tribute. These two states had not been guests of the successive dynasties, their origin was unknown.” Then, Pei Ziye continues with his erudite explanation of both names, and the emperor orders him to write an illustrated treaty on the foreign countries, which is the source for chapter 54 of the Liangshu.[4]
[4] Liangshu, chap. 30, p. 443; Enoki 1970, 39–41.
While this chapter gives a good deal of information about the Hephtalites, it is strange that the ambassadors were unable to provide any about their origin. It might suggest that the precise origin of the Hephtalites was already something that was not clear in their own country in the first quarter of the sixth century, an idea that
is to be found in other Chinese texts, as we will see.
The second theory to be read in the Chinese texts, that they are of Da Yuezhi stock, seems at first glance to have a wider textual base than the previous one but is in fact easier to dismiss. The Weishu chap. 102, p. 2278; Zhoushu chap. 50, p. 918; Beishi chap. 97, pp. 3230–31; and Suishu chap. 83, p. 1854; all wrote that the Hephtalites (Yada in the Weishu, the Zhoushu, and the Beishi, Yida in the Suishu) “are a branch of the Da Yuezhi.”
However, it has long been known that all these texts copy each other. The original text of the Weishu, the basis of this textual tradition, is lost. The chapter of the Weishu in question was reconstructed according to the Beishi. Enoki inserted very useful line-by-line comparisons of these texts (pp. 7–10), and demonstrated, after Hermann and Funaki, that some parts of the present chapter of the Beishi and Weishu are copied from the Zhoushu and Suishu. In particular, the description of the Hephtalites as a branch of the Da Yuezhi is convincingly interpreted by him as meaning only that, in the sixth century, they occupied the former territory of the Da Yuezhi, that is, Bactriana and Tokharistan (p. 11).
But, the Beishi, or Weishu, also states that “it is also said that they are a branch of the Gaoju. They originated from the north of the Chinese frontier and came down south from the Jinshan mountain.” The Gaoju were a nomadic tribe that lived to the west of Mongolia, between Turfan and the Jinshan, that is, the Altai. This is the third point of Enoki’s demonstration.
He agreed that this part of the Beishi must have been in the original Weishu, as it is not in the Zhoushu and Suishu (p. 12). But, he nevertheless dismissed the Gaoju theory as well: “It is not clear why the Ephtalites were identified with a branch of the Gaoju, while it is recognized that the language of the Ephtalites was different from that of Rouran, Gaoju and other tribes of Central Asia (according to the Beishi). There is no evidence, both literal and archaeological, which shows us that the Ephtalites originated in the neighbourhood of Altai Mountain or anywhere to the north of the Tianshan Mountains. So far as we know for the moment, the Ephtalites had risen to power in Tokharistan where the Ephtalites continued to live even after the destruction of their empire. This will show that the origin of the Ephtalites should be looked for in, or in the neighbourhood of, Tokharistan” (p. 13).
It is obvious that there is a flaw in this argument. If Enoki assumed that the Hephtalites had always lived in Tokharistan, why did he try to explain the Chinese texts saying that they arrived in Tokharistan? To say that there are no archaeological remains of the Hephtalites in the Altai is not convincing, as there has been no archaeological research on this period in the Altai, while identified Hephtalite remains, even in Bactriana, are also almost nonexistent. Also, to say that there is no textual evidence is not convincing either, given the fact that the only texts that deal with northern Central Asia at that time are Chinese.
Enoki’s argument is flawed, because these Chinese texts are not analyzed for themselves but only as an introduction to the geographic and ethnographic rationale with which Enoki tried to prove the western Himalayan origin of the Hephtalites. He had to discard the text of the Weishu to clear the ground for his geographic and ethnographic comparisons, and obviously he failed in this regard. Basically, Enoki does not explain why a text placed the origin of the Hephtalites in the Altai. If he had good reasons to reject the Jushi and Da Yuezhi theories, he had none for rejecting the original Weishu, which situated the Hephtalites there.
The consequence of this is that not only the ethnographic section of his article should be corrected but also the textual one, as all his reasoning was biased.
2. The Tongdian
The Tongdian, published at the beginning of the ninth century, can also be a source for the history of the Hephtalites. Regarding the Western Regions, the
Tongdian juxtaposed or summarized texts taken from the various dynastic histories, so that in it there are three texts concerning the Hephtalites: one on the country of Hua, taken from the Liangshu; one on Yada country, from the Weishu; and one on Yidatong, from the Suishu.[5] On the whole, these texts add very few facts to the parallel passages in the dynastic histories. But, the Tongdian was written before the disappearance of the original Weishu and preserves or summarizes the lost original text, which was still extant at the beginning of the ninth century. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that here and there the Tongdian directly quotes the Weishu, as “The Weishu said . . .”[6]
[5] Tongdian, 5258–60.
[6] For instance in the Shiwei chapter, 5487.
The relationship between the various chapters on the Yada country is then:
original Weishu (+ Zhoushu + Suishu) → Beishi → reconstructed Weishu.
original Weishu → summarized in the Tongdian.
Enoki recognized that some parts of the text of the current Beishi, which are not in the Zhoushu or in the Suishu, must have come from the original Weishu (p. 12). Regarding the text of the Tongdian, it is possible to demonstrate this hypothesis: most of these precise parts of the Beishi are also in the Tongdian, while the few facts that are in the Beishi and not in the parallel passage of the Tongdian are summarized in it, or can be read in other parts of the Tongdian. All of them are dated from the Wei dynasty and can be assumed to have been in the original Weishu.
That is especially the case regarding the Gaoju theory. The beginning of the text is:[7]
[7] See Annex 1 for a complete translation.
Yada country, Yidatong: Yada country is said to either be a division of the Gaoju or of Da Yuezhi stock. They originated from the north of the Chinese frontier and came down south from the Jinshan mountain. They are located to the west of Khotan. To Chang’an, to the east, there are 10,100 li. To the reign of Wen(cheng) of the Late Wei (452–466), eighty or ninety years have elapsed.
Enoki was aware of the presence of some data in the Tongdian only. If he did not bring up the fact that the Gaoju theory was mentioned there first (so that it can be assumed that it was also the case in the original Weishu, a fact which would have weakened his own theory) he did comment upon the date, but in a surprising manner.
The Tongdian is the only text in the Chinese sources that gives a date of the migration of these nomadic tribes from the Altai to the south, between 360 and 370. Clearly, this date comes from the original Weishu, as a Wencheng (452–466) was a Wei emperor. Moreover, it is known that a great part of the Wei knowledge of Central Asia comes from the Hephtalite embassy that arrived in 456. This is demonstrated by Enoki, who wrote: “here the time of the emperor Wencheng means 456, when the Ephtalites sent the first embassy to the Wei.” But, curiously, he added: “But, the authority on which this chronology was based is not known,” and he concluded, after discussing the textual variants on the name of the emperor:[8] “According to Syriac sources, the date of the Ephtalites cannot go back earlier than 460” (p. 2, n. 3). But obviously, it is most probable that the information on the date of the migration came from the ambassadors themselves, while the Syriac sources gave only the date of their access to political power. There is no good reason to dismiss this date.
[8] Wencheng is the reading of the oldest manuscripts. See n. 29 in Tongdian, 5284.
Moreover, the Wei were certainly the Chinese dynasty that best knew the Western countries, as they sent some envoys to the West and received several embassies.[9] But, the embassy of 456 was the earliest contact between the Hephtalites and China, and is separated from the next one by half a century. The data in the Weishu derived from this embassy are logically the most reliable found in the Chinese dynastic histories. According to these data, gathered from the Hephtalites and early enough to be regarded as a reliable account of their origin, the Hephtalites had migrated from the Altai to the south in the middle of the fourth century and were of the same stock as the Gaoju. We do not have the slightest reason to doubt this description from a sinological point of view.
[9] Kuwayama 1989, 116–18.
The link established by the original Weishu between the Hephtalites and the Gaoju may mean that the Hephtalites were a Turki[c] tribe and, more precisely, an Oghuric one, as the Gaoju are regarded as inheritors of the old Tiele confederation supposed to be the origin of the various Oghuric tribes.[10] But, I would argue parodoxically that in this description, the main point is certainly not the ethnic affiliation, but the date.
[10] Golden 1992, 93–96. Outside of the sinological data, two recent discoveries might confirm this idea: (1) a word is attested in the Hephtalite kingdom as σωπανο
and in proto-Bulgar as ζοαπαν (Sims-Williams 2002, 234). This might mean a common Oghuric past. But, we cannot be sure that it was not a Chionite or Kidarite word or whatever tribe arrived with the Hephtalites in Central Asia. (2) A new Bactrian seal has been discovered in Pakistan, but it was written at Samarkand, as this seal gives the titulature in Bactrian of a 5th-century lord of Samarkand. It gives a title ογλαργο υονανο þαο king of the Oghlar Huns. Oghlar looks like a clan name, although an interpretation as Oghlar, king of the Huns, that is, as a personal name, cannot be excluded. This name is unknown from other sources, but it sounds very close to the eponymous name of the Oghuric tribes, Oghur, -lar being a plural suffix in Turkish while Oghur being itself regarded as a form based on Ogh- child, to be liked, and a denominative suffix -ur. Oghur is supposed to mean “the Kindred ones,” and so might be the meaning of Oghlar (Golden 1992, 96. Differently in Rahman, Sims-Williams, and
Grenet 2006, where Oghlar is understood as “the princes, the sons.” Many thanks to Peter Golden, who provided me with some help on this point). However, it is a Chionite or Kidarite seal, as the titulature on the seal includes Kushanshah, a title that disappeared after the Kidarites. For discussions of the ethnic background of the Hephtalites according to the vocabulary, see Tremblay 2001, 183–88, and Sims-Williams 2002, 233–34. Tremblay could not have made use of the Bactrian documents, then still unpublished.
3. Bactrian Hephtalites
In a recently published article, I attempted to analyze the events in the Altai in the middle of the fourth century. I demonstrated that the great Hunnic migrations that reached the Volga at that time originated in the Altai, and that these Huns were the political, and partly cultural, heirs of the Xiongnu.[11] But, we also know that part of these migrations reached Central Asia, and that the Hephtalites were among the tribes that arrived then, at least if we are to believe the date provided by the Tongdian. They were one of the various tribes loosely united under the old Xiongnu political and cultural leadership. In other words, the Hephtalites were in Bactria a century before gaining control there, and were under the leadership of others. The last nomadic dynasty did not arrive in Bactria later than the other ones but was there from the beginning of the nomadic period. This probably means that all the nomadic kingdoms that flourished in Bactria between the middle of the fourth century and the middle of the sixth century can trace their origin back to a single episode of massive migration in the second half of the fourth century (circa 350–370), and not to a whole set of successive migrations. The Sasanians did not fight against successive waves of nomads freshly emerged from the northern steppe but against successive leading tribes or clans within the nomadic world established in northern Bactria.[12] The date provided by the Tongdian implies a new reconstruction of the events in Central Asia.
[11] La Vaissière 2005.
[12] See, for instance, Bivar’s article, and many others, on the Hephtalites in the Encyclopaedia Iranica: “It is, therefore, assumed that the Hephthalites constituted a second Hunnish wave who entered Bactria early in the fifth century CE, and who seem to have driven the Kidarites into Gandhara.” The idea of waves is to be found in all the historiography.
Moreover, these leading tribes are better described in political terms than in ethnic or linguistic ones. This is quite clear regarding the Hephtalites. If during one century the Hephtalites, already united or not, were among the numerous tribes living as nomads on the pasture grounds of the mountains, and were not at the apex of the political hierarchy, the possibility that they partially or totally lost their language and their ethnic identity in a new environment should be taken into account. This idea can be demonstrated from the succession of the Chinese sources. If each of them gives a static view, it is worth considering them chronologically:
The oldest source, which is preserved in the Tongdian and goes back to the embassy of 456, is able to record quite a precise origin, as I have demonstrated.
The Beishi and the Tongdian state that “their speech is different from that of the Rouran, the Gaoju and all the other hu,” while a few lines before this state that the Hephtalites are a branch of the Gaoju. This part of the text is certainly from the first half of the sixth century when Song Yun and several embassies gathered most of the data, while the only data from 456 are concentrated at the beginning of the text, where Wencheng is mentioned. An evolution had taken place, and I understand it to mean that the Hephtalites had ceased to retain their original Altaic language and adopted Bactrian.[13]
The Liangshu and the Liang Zhigongtu, based on data gathered in the 520s, bridged the gap concerning the origin of the Hephtalites with a learned gloss. The Liangshu adds also that “they were without a written language and kept records by notching wood; [but from] the exchange of ambassadors with the neighbouring countries, they came to employ a Hu alphabet, using sheepskin for paper,” and that the people of Henan, that is here the Tuyuhun, a proto-Mongolic people in the Qinghai region, acted as translators for them. It has been understood as an indication of the proto-Mongol character of the Hephtalite language. However, the Liang dynasty was mainly linked with Central Asia through the Qinghai region, and as the main go-betweens in that region, it is quite natural that the Tuyuhun acted as translators, and that they translated from Bactrian, explicitly mentioned in this text.
The Zhoushu, from data of the third quarter of the sixth century, says nothing about their origin, except that they are Da Yuezhi.
The Suishu says only that they are Da Yuezhi.
The Tongdian, written at the beginning of the ninth century, adds to the text of the Suishu a commentary of Wei Jie, the envoy of the Sui dynasty to the Western countries between 605 and 616, according to which “I had a personal talk with some Ephtalites and knew that they also called themselves Yitian. In the Hanshu, it is stated that the viceroy of Kangju, named Yitian, plundered provisions and arms under Zhen Tang who marched against Shishi (Shanyu). This may mean that they are descendants of Kangju. However, the information has come from remote countries and foreign languages are subject to corruption and misunderstanding and, moreover, it concerns the matter of very ancient time. So we do not know what is certain. (In this way), it is impossible to decide (the origin of the Ephtalites).”[14]
[14] Transl. Enoki 1959, 6–7.
That these Chinese texts, however imprecise, could support the hypothesis deduced from the Hephtalite onomastic in Tokharistan, in which at least some names, for instance Akhshunwar, one of the earliest Hephtalite kings, are clearly Iranian, was recognized by Henning. This does not mean that they were Iranian from the beginning, as Enoki tried to prove, but only that the pace of assimilation for a tribe or a clan not at the height of the political hierarchy was swift after one century in Bactria. The Chinese texts are not contradictory or devoid of value—the various Chinese courts were in constant contact with the Hephtalites during the sixth century—but they reflect
the fact that in the Hephtalite empire itself, the old ethnic origin was an intricate or perhaps even meaningless question, while, linguistically speaking, an evolution had already taken place when the Hephtalites came to power and was still going on during the period recorded by the Chinese sources. The Hephtalites went Bactrian.
We can go beyond linguistic assimilation. The other sources we have on the Hephtalites, the Byzantine sources, do confirm that an assimilation regarding their way of life took place, although later than the ethnic/linguistic assimilation. Procopius wrote, from information of the 530s or 540s:[15]
[15] He was with Belisarius in his wars against the Persians from 527 on, and he wrote the History of the Wars between 540 and 550. If he also gives information
from an earlier period, it seems nevertheless that the description is that of an eyewitness, and that his testimony on the Hephtalites can be dated from 527 on.
The Ephtalitae are of the stock of the Huns in fact as well as in name; however, they do not mingle with any of the Huns known to us, for they occupy a land neither adjoining nor even very near to them; but their territory lies immediately to the north of Persia; indeed, their city, called Gorgo, is located over against the Persian frontier, and is consequently the centre of frequent contests concerning boundary lines between the two peoples. For, they are not nomads like the other Hunnic peoples, but for a long period have been established in a goodly land. As a result of this, they have never made any incursion into the Roman territory except in company of the Median army. They are the only ones among the Huns who have white bodies and countenances, which are not ugly. It is also true that their manner of living is unlike that of their kinsmen, nor do they live a savage life as they do; but, they are ruled by one king, and since they possess a lawful constitution, they observe right and justice in their dealings both with one another and with their neighbours, in no degree less than the Romans and the Persians.[16]
[16] Procopius I.iii.2–8 (transl. Dewing), vol. 1, 13–15.
The accent is clearly put on the difference between the Hephtalites and pure nomads. Assimilation with the sedentary population probably was the major problem in the Hephtalite kingdom. Another source, Menander, confirms slightly later that the Hephtalites at the end of their empire were regarded as a mainly urban population. To a Sogdian ambassador, after the conquest of the Hephtalite empire by the Turks, the emperor asked: “‘You have, therefore, made all the power of the Ephthalites subject to you?’ ‘Completely,’ replied the envoys. The Emperor then asked, ‘Do the Ephthalites live in cities or villages?’ The envoys: ‘My Lord, that people lives in cities.’ ‘Then,’ said the Emperor, ‘it is clear that you have become master of these cities.’ ‘Indeed,’ said the envoys.”[17]
[17] Menander (ed. and transl. Blockley), 115–17.
These Byzantine descriptions contrast directly with that of Song Yun, who met the Hephtalite emperor as he was nomadizing in the mountains in 519. The Beishi, from the testimony of Song Yun and other contemporary embassies, states that: “Without cities and towns, they follow water and grass, using felt to make tents, moving to the cold places in summer, to the warm ones in winter. [The king?] separates his various wives, each one in a separate place, apart from one another at a distance perhaps of 200 or 300 li. Their king travels around and changes places every month, but in the cold of winter stays three months without moving.” But in the Zhoushu, using later mid-sixth-century data, we read: “Its king has his capital in the walled city of Badiyan, which means something like ‘the walled city in which the king resides’”[18] and is in agreement with the Byzantine sources. The evolution of the Hepthalites’ way of life seems also quite clear, although it took place later.
[18] The passage is also in the Beishi, but here this text only copies the Zhoushu.
On the whole, I suggest using the contemporary and parallel evidence from Tuoba-dominated China as a model for understanding the situation in northern Bactria. The Tuoba Northern Wei dynasty split in the sixth century, among other reasons due to the question of their relationship to the sedentary past, here Chinese. The Qi were more in favor of sinization than the Zhou, who at least ostensibly clung to the Xianbei past.[19] Although the context is different, it is beyond doubt that the question of assimilation was a major one for the tribes in Bactria. In this regard, the main difference between the Hephtalites and the others, either Kidarites or Chionites, is their renunciation of the title of Kushanshah, which implies a different relationship to the sedentary Bactrian past.[20] The Hephtalites, like the Zhou in China, chose at the beginning of their political history not to present themselves as the inheritors of the past glory of the Kushan empire, and are described by Song Yun in 519, and in all the other sources, as clinging to their nomadic way of life up to the first quarter of the sixth century. On the other hand, their Kidarite predecessors, who seem to be the first creators of the new urban network in mid-fifth-century Central Asia, had chosen a Kushan titulature that might be in agreement with this urban policy.
[19] Thanks to Prof. François Martin for his indications on this matter.
[20] Grenet 2002, 210.
I have shown that the Chinese texts were not so garbled on the origin of the Hephtalites as Enoki has tried to show in a biased demonstration. The Tongdian preserves some data from the first Hephtalite embassy to China. The Hephtalites might have been Oghuric, and certainly came from the Altai. But, the very fact that they
are listed among the great migration of people who arrived in Central Asia in the second half of the fourth century combined with their subject status there makes it impossible to speak with precise meaning of a nationality of the Hephtalites. They were, as all the tribal groupings of that period, an intricate mixture of political and
clan relationships, not mainly an ethnic or linguistic entity. They might have been Oghuric at the beginning, but such also might have been the case of the Chionites and the Kidarites, and all of them made use of the old imperial name of Hun. All of them went Bactrian. But, while the Kidarite dynasty seems to have played the card of
the local Kushan past, the Hephtalites differentiated themselves and perhaps even defeated the Kidarites on this very question of the nomadic past and way of life. They accepted the sedentary way of life very late in their history and probably not completely. We have no data to differentiate all these various dynasties on a linguistic or ethnic basis. We do have some to differentiate them on a political one. The ethnic question is certainly not of great help for understanding the history of the Hephtalites and the sources regarding them.
Annex 1. The Chinese Texts
A) The Tongdian
Translation
Yada country, Yidatong: Yada country is said to either be a division of the Gaojgu or of Da Yuezhi stock. They originated from the north of the Chinese frontier and came down south from the Jinshan mountain. They are located to the west of Khotan. To Chang’an, to the east, there are 10,100 li. To the reign of Wen(cheng) of the
Late Wei (452–466), eighty or ninety years have elapsed. Their clothing is similar to that worn by other Hu barbarians, [but] with the addition of tassels. They all cut their hair. Their speech is different from that of the Ruanruan, the Gaoju, and all the other Hu. Their troops number perhaps 100,000 men. They wander in search of water and grass. Their country is without the She but has the Yu,[21] and has many camels and horses. They apply punishments harshly and promptly; regardless of how much or how little a robber has taken, his body is severed to the waist, and even though only one has robbed, ten may be condemned. When a person dies, wealthy families pile up stones to make a [burial] vault, while the poor ones simply dig a hole in the ground and bury [the corpse]. All of the deceased’s personal effects are placed in the tomb.
Brothers, again, all together marry a wife. If there are no brothers, the wife wears a cap with one horn; if there are brothers, then she adds horns according to their number. Kangju, Yutian, Sule, Anxi and over thirty of the small countries of the Western Regions have all been subjugated by them. They are reputed to be a large country.
They often sent envoys bearing tribute. In the Xiping reign period of Xiao Ming Di, Fu Zitong and Song Yun were sent as ambassadors to the Western Regions but were not able to learn much of the history or geography of the countries they traversed. We will nonetheless give a rough outline.[22]
[21] Both are chariots and this passage, repeated in the Beishi, might be corrupted.
[22] Transl. Wakeman 1990, 709–13, modified.
[23] Tongdian, 5259.
B) The Liangshu
Translation
The country of Hua is another branch of Jushi (Turfan). In the 1st year of Yongjian (AD 126) of the Han, a Jushi named Bahua, who under (the Chinese general) Ban Yong had rendered distinguished services in conquering the Northern savages (i.e., the Xiongnu), was promoted to Hou-bu Qin-han-hou (or Marquis of Posterior Jushi, who is friendly to the Han) by arrangement of Ban Yong. Since the Wei and Jin, no envoy came (from the country of Hua) to China [. . .]. While the Yuan Wei (or the Tuoba Wei) had their capital at Sanggan (i.e., 398–494 when the capital was situated at Pingcheng to the north of the present Datong), the Hua was still a small subject community under the Ruirui; but, waxing more and more powerful in the course of time, they succeeded in conquering the tribes in the neighbourhood such as Bosi (Sasanid Persia), Panpan (Warwâlîz?)[24] Jibin (Kashmir), Yanqi (Karashar), Guizi (Kucha), Shule (Kashgar), Gumo (Aksu), Yudian (Khotan) and Juban (Karghalik), and expanded their territory by more than a thousand li.[25]
[24] According to Enoki, but it should be rather Tashkurgan, Keban as in the parallel text of the Tongdian.
[25] Liangshu, chap. 54, 812, transl. Enoki 1959, 1–2.
C) The Beishi
Translation
Country of the Yada. A kind of Da Yuezhi, they are also said to be a division of the Gaoju. They originated from the north of the Chinese frontier and came down south from the Jinshan mountain. They are located to the west of Khotan. Their capital is 200 li or more to the south of the river Wuhu. To Chang’an, there are 10,100 li. The capital of their king is the town of Badiyan, which probably [means] the residence of the king. Its city wall is ten square li or more. There are many pagodas, all decorated with gold. Their customs and those of Tujue are nearly the same. It is their custom that brothers share a wife in common. If a man is without brothers, his wife wears a hat with one horn, if he has brothers, there are as many horns as he has brothers. They have fringes on their garments. They all cut their hair. Their tongue is different from the tongues of the Ruanruan, the Gaoju, and the various Hu. Their total number can be estimated to be ten miriads. Without cities and towns, they follow water and grass, using felt to make tents, moving to the cold places in summer, to the warm ones in winter. [The king?] separates his various wives, each one in a separate place, apart from one another at a distance perhaps of 200 or 300 li. Their king travels around and changes places every month, but in the cold of winter stays three months without moving. The throne is not always passed on to the [elder] son, the [other] sons and younger brothers might also be appointed, if they are able, when the king dies. They do not have the She but have the Yu. They have many camels and horses. Corporal punishments are severe and quick, regardless of the importance of the theft; the thief is severed to the waist, and if one steals, ten are punished. As regards the dead, if rich, a chamber made of stones is constructed; if poor, the earth is dug and he is buried in the ground. All their belongings are put in the tomb. They are violent and fierce men, able to fight at war. Among the Western countries, they control Kangju, Yutian, Shale, and Anxi as well as more than thirty small countries. They claim to be a great country. They have marital ties with the Ruanruan. From the Taian period onward, they frequently dispatched envoys to pay tribute. At the end of the period, Zhengguang, an envoy, offered a lion as tribute. He went up to Gaoping,[26] where he met Moqi Chounu,[27] so that he had to stay. Once Chounu was defeated, he brought the lion to the capital. From the period Yongxi on, they stopped bringing tribute. The 12th year Datong, they dispatched an envoy who brought native products. The second year of Feidi, the second year of Mingdi of the Zhou dynasty, they also sent an envoy with tribute. Later they were smashed by the Tujue. The tribes declined and dispersed, they stopped bringing tribute. In the Daye period of the Sui, again they dispatched an envoy who brought native products. To the south, there are 1,500 li to the kingdom of Cao, to the east, there are 6,500 li to Guazhou. Before, during the period Xiping, Mingdi sent as an envoy to the Western countries Sheng Fuzi, who ordered Song Yun, the monk Fali, and others to collect Buddhist sutra. There was then also the monk Hui Sheng, and they went all together. They came back during the period Zhengguang, but Hui Sheng could not learn
the history, or [the names of the] mountains or rivers, or the distances in li of the countries he passed through. We have just given a rough outline.[28]
[26] Modern Guyuan.
[27] A Xianbei rebel.
[28] See also the French translation of Chavannes 1903, 402, n. 3.
D) The Zhoushu
Translation
The country of Yada is of Greater Yuezhi stock. It is west of Yutian, and 10,100 li west of Chang’an. Its king has his capital in the walled city of Badiyan, which means something like “the walled city in which the king resides.” This walled city is some ten li square. Its penal laws and customs are about the same as those of Tujue. They also have a custom by which elder and younger brother both marry one wife. If one has no elder or younger brother, his wife wears a one-horned hat. If one has brothers, horns are added to the hat according to their number. Its people are fierce and violent, and make mighty warriors. Yutian, Anxi, and other countries, large and small, altogether more than twenty, are all subject to it. In the twelfth year of the period Datong (546), it sent an envoy who presented its characteristic products. In the second year of the reign of Wei Feidi (553), and in the second yearof the reign of (Zhou) Mingdi (558), it also sent envoys, who came with tribute. Later, it was smashed by the Tujue. Its settlement were scattered and its tribute stopped.[29]
[29] Zhoushu (transl. Miller), 11–12.
E) The Suishu
Translation
The country of Yida has its capital 200 li or more to the south of the river Wuhu. The people are of Greater Yuezhi stock. They have an army of five to six thousand men. They are reputed to be good warriors. Formerly, the country became disordered, and the Turks sent Tong Shad Zijie, who forcibly took possession of this country. The capital walled city is 10 square li or more. There are many pagodas, all decorated with gold. Brothers share a wife in common. If a woman is married with only one man, she wears a hat with one horn, if he has brothers, there are as many horns as he has brothers. To the south, there are 1,500 li to the kingdom of Cao, to the east, there are 6,500 li to Guazhou. In the Daye period, they dispatched an envoy who brought native products.
Annex 2. The Liang Zhigongtu
Enoki had to return to the Jushi theory later on because of the discovery in the Nanjing museum of a Song copy of the Liang Zhigongtu (Liang dynasty images of tributaries), an illustrated manuscript describing ambassadors sent to the Liang from various tributary countries, with images of them (twelve out of thirty-five are
extant).[30]
[30] Enoki devoted a long article to this manuscript and its textual tradition: Enoki 1984, and a specific article on the Hephtalites in this manuscript: Enoki, 1970, reprinted at the end of Enoki 1984. Detailed images in Enoki 1984.
Ambassadors from the Western countries or from the sea are depicted: from left to right, from Marw (Mo), Balkh (Boti), Kumedh (Humidan), Qubadiyan (Hebatan), Karghalik (Zhouguke), Dengzhi (some mountainous tribes on the road to Gansu), Langyaxiu (Ceylon or Malaysia)/Japan (Wei), Kucha, Paekche (Boji) in Korea, Persia (Bosi), and Hephtalites (the country of Hua).
The Liang Zhigongtu is derived from the original treatise of Pei Ziye, as is the chap. 54 of the Liangshu, and gives a slightly more complete text on the Hephtalites (in italics):[31] “When the Suolu (the Northern Wei) entered (the Chinese frontier) and settled in the (valley of the river) Sanggan (i.e., 398–494), the Hua was still a small country and under the rule of the Ruirui. In the Qi period (479–502), they left (their original area) for the first time and shifted to Moxian, where they settled.”
[31] It also gives some additional data, especially that the Hephtalites enslaved the kings of the countries which they conquered, and the names of three ambassadors: Puduoda (?) (the last character is missing), sent in 516, Fuheliaoliao, and Kang Fuzhentong sent in 520. It describes their costumes and hairdos: Enoki 1970, 44.
With this new indication, and after correcting Moxian to Moyou (*mâkshu), seen as a transcription of Wakhshu, Enoki proposed that, having deduced from the name of Ba Hua that the Hephtalites were Jushi, Pei Ziye logically thought: (1) that they were under the rule of the Ruirui as the whole area north of Turfan was under their rule in the second half of the fifth century; (2) that the reason for the presence of Hua in Tokharistan and not to the north of Turfan was that when the Ruirui were expelled from there in 485 (hence the mention of the Qi period from 479 to 502) by the Gaoju, the Hua moved to Tokharistan, perhaps to escape the turmoil. In other words, the whole set of political data from the Liangshu and the Liang Zhigongtu would have been only an ad hoc explanation of Pei Ziye to bridge the gap between his own explanation of the country of Hua as being to the north of Turfan and the location of Hua in Tokharistan.
Although Enoki’s argument is quite logical, especially in his first part, I am not so sure that the part of the text dealing with Moxian is only a mere learned gloss, and I would like to propose another hypothesis, the weakness of which I am fully aware.
As a matter of fact, Moxian is a real name, unknown from other sources, and it crept into this precise part of the text, which might mean that some part of these data might have come from the ambassadors themselves. Furthermore, Enoki corrected the name, but if left uncorrected, Moxian (EMC mâk-xɨanh, Karlgren mâk-χi̯ɒn’ might be a truncated transcription of (Sa)markand, Greek Marakanda, as Enoki himself first proposed.[32]
[32] Enoki 1970, 41.
It is not known precisely when Sogdiana was conquered by the Hephtalites. I have in my Sogdian Traders followed Kuwayama and understood the end of the embassies from Samarkand to the Northern Wei in 509 as a hint to the date of the Hephtalite conquest of Sogdiana.[33] But, the last embassies of Sogdiana to the Wei are dated
precisely to 479, and Enoki understood the disappearance of the name of Sogdiana in the Wei annals as the date of the Hephtalite conquest. He might be right: there is no question that in 516 or 520, the date of the embassies of Hua recorded in the Liang Zhigongtu, many of the towns or small regions that sent embassies to the Liang were within the Hephtalite empire. The embassies of Kumedh, Qubadiyan, and Karghalik were all sent in 520 with the embassy of Hua, while Balkh sent its embassy in 522. It is clear that the Hephtalites permitted independent embassies from the main towns of their empire, so that the fact that there were embassies of Samarkand up to 509 is not in itself a proof of a late conquest of Sogdiana, while the end of the embassies of the kingdom of Sogdiana in 479 might indeed mean more.[34]
[33] La Vaissière 2005, 110–11; Kuwayama 1989, 117–18; see also Grenet 2002, 211.
[34] However, this would leave unexplained the end of the embassies from Samarkand in 509.
Moreover, the text gives the Qi period as the moment of the shift to Moxian, but the Qi period began in 479 precisely, and the coincidence would be perfect between the end of the embassies from Sogdiana and the movement to Moxian. The last character means to settle but also to occupy, so that the whole sentence might be translated “in the Qi period they began to go to Moxian and occupied it.” From then on, Sogdiana would have been the wealthiest part of their empire.
It is strange that among all the conquests of the Hephtalites, the Liangshu failed to mention only Sogdiana, then certainly conquered, while mentioning all the other conquests (“they succeeded in conquering the tribes in the neighbourhood, such as Bosi [Sasanid Persia], Panpan [Warwâlîz?], Jibin [Kashmir], Yanqi [Karashar], Guizi [Kucha], Shule [Kashgar], Gumo [Aksu], Yudian [Khotan], and Juban [Karghalik], and expanded their territory by more than a thousand li.”) The parallel text in the Weishu does mention the conquest of Sogdiana. It is known that a Hephtalite king bore a Sogdian title as early as the 480s, which is difficult to explain if Sogdiana was not within the empire.[35] Sogdiana would have been conquered first, before the war with Persia, and not last, as usually believed, and this idea would have consequences for our understanding of the Sogdian economic and urban growth: I have proposed that the Kidarites, who invaded Sogdiana from Bactria sometimes around 440, could have been held responsible for both of them. But, with the Hephtalite conquest of Sogdiana pushed backwards by thirty years, the Hephtalites might have quickly superseded the Kidarites[36] and have pursued the Kidarites’ efforts to construct a whole series of fortified Hippodamian towns, attested from Herat to Bukhara and Panjikent.[37] The wealth of Peroz’ ransom might have been invested locally.[38] In fact, this hypothesis, while based on flimsy evidence, would not contradict anything known of the very obscure history of the Hephtalite empire in the second half of the fifth century, and would help to explain in a neat and compact way the new distribution of wealth and power in western Central Asia after this period.
[35] Ṭabarī I.874, transl. Bosworth 1999, 113, gives the name of the Hephtalite king who defeated Pērōz in 484 as Akhshunwār, which can be Sogdian ’xš’wnd’r “power-holder” (Henning 1936, 17).
[36] Pērōz defeated them in 468 (Priscus, transl. Blockley, 361).
[37] Grenet 1996, 372–83.
[38] Grenet 1996, 388, already suggested this idea, but did not see that it contradicts his idea of a Hephtalite conquest of Sogdiana in 509.
Annex 3
Khiṅgila, Eškiŋgil
The name Khiṅgila is known from various sources, Indian, Chinese and Arabic, as well as on coins and inscriptions.[39] It is now known also on a Bactrian seal, recently published by P. Callieri and N. Sims-Williams, at least if we regard the εþκιγγιλο to be read on this seal as a variant of the same name.[40] Sims-Williams cautiously
proposed an etymology through Indic—(Khiṅgila > *Kṣiṅgila [sanskritization] > Škiŋil [metathesis] > Eškiŋil [prothesis]), but it is not clear why this name, unattested in Indian onomastic, should be Indian. While various Khiṅgila are known in Indian history, all of them seem to be related to foreign dynasties of the Northwest, so that it would be more logical to regard Khiṅgil as a foreign name. The problem is, in fact, double: we have to find a suitable etymology for Khiṅgila and to explain the variant Eškingil. As regards the first part of this problem, another possibility, first proposed to my knowledge by X. Tremblay, would be interesting. Tremblay indeed made the link between Khiṅgila and an analysis by Pulleyblank[41] of the name of the Sacred sword worshipped by the Xiongnu, kenglu (< *keŋ-ĥlax) compared by Pulleyblank and others with Turki[c] qïŋïraq “double-blade knife,” the Wakhi xiŋgār, and the Sogdian xnγr[42]. This sword was worshipped among the Xiongnu in the same way as the Scythians and the Attilanic Huns worshipped one.[43]. But, kenglu was not only the name of a sword but also, at least among the Xiongnu and Attilanic Huns, the name of a god (kenglu shen),[44] or perhaps the attribute of a god, identified as the god of War, Mars, in Jordanes’ testimony about the “sword of Mars” given to Attila.[45] Khiṅgila might have been a theophoric name.
[39] Petech 1964; Kuwayama 1999; Callieri 2002, 129.
[40] Callieri 2002; Sims-Williams 2002b.
[41] Pulleyblank 1962, 222. Akinakès is sometimes added to this family of names.
[42] Tremblay 1999, 182–84.
[43] See Maenchen-Helfen 1973, 278–80.
[44] Kao 1960, 222–23.
[45] Maenchen-Helfen 1973, 279.
What would then be the Eš- prefixed to it? Immediately, there comes to mind the common Turkic prefix Eš-, meaning “comrade, companion of,”[46] attested precisely during this period among the Attilanic Huns (for instance Ešqam Ἔσχάμ, companion of the Shaman).[47] Eskiŋil would be a meaningful Hunnic name or title, companion of the Sword (i.e., of Mars), and would be perfectly in accordance with what I have demonstrated to be the common political and ethnic past of the European and Central Asian Huns.
[46] Clauson 1972, 253–54.
[47] Maenchen-Helfen 1973, 408. Ἀσχάν in Belisarius’ army, although interpreted differently by Maenchen-Helfen (p. 413) might also be “companion of the Qan.”
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