| White Huns - Hephthalites
- Iranian Huns White Huns - Hephthalites Silk Road Foundation The Origin of Hephthalites The paucity of record in Hephthalites or Ephthalites provides us fragmentary picture of their civilization and empire. Their background is uncertain. They probably stemmed from a combination of the Tarim basin peoples and the Yueh-chih. There is a striking resemblance in the deformed heads of the early Yueh-chih and Hephthalite kings on their coinage. According to Procopius's History of the Wars, written in the mid 6th century - the Hephthalites "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. They are the only ones among the Huns who have white bodies...." Ephthalites was the name given by Byzantine historians and Hayathelaites by the Persian historian Mirkhond, and sometimes Ye-tai or Hua by Chinese historians. They are also known as the White Huns, different from the Hun who led by Attila invading the Roman Empire. They are described as a kindred steppe people originally occupied the pasture-lands in the Altai mountain of southwestern Mongolia. Toward the middle of the 5th century, they expanded westward probably because of the pressure from the Juan-juan, a powerful nomadic tribe in Mongolia. Within decades, they became a great power in the Oxus basin and the most serious enemy of the Persian empire. The Westward Expansion and War with Sassanian Empire At the time when the Hephthalites gained power, Kushan and Gandhara were ruled by the Kidarites, a local dynisty of Hun or Chionites tribe. The Hephthalites entered Kabul and overthrew Kushan. The last Kidarites fled to Gandhara and settled at Peshawar. Around 440 the Hephthalites further took Sogdian (Samarkand) and then Balkh and Bactria. The Hephthalites moved closer and closer toward Persian territory. In 484 the Hephthalite chief Akhshunwar led his army attacked the Sassanian King Peroz (459-484) and the king was defeated and killed in Khurasan. After the victory, the Hephthalite empire extended to Merv and Herat, which had been the regions of the Sassanid Empire. The Hephthalites, at the time, became the superpower of the Middle Asia. They not only destroyed part of Sassanian Empire in Iran but also intervened in their dynastic struggles when the Sassanid royal, Kavad (488-496), was fighting for the throne with Balash, brother of Peroz. Kavad married the niece of the Hephthalites chief and the Hephthalites aided him to regain his crown in 498. After conquest of Sogdia and Kushan, the Hephthalites founded the capital, Piandjikent, 65 kilometers south-west of Samarkand in the Zaravshan valley. This city later reached its prosperity, produced one of the best mural paintings in the seventh century and later was destroyed by the Arabs. The Hephthalites chose Badakshan as their summer residence. Their chiefs lived north of the Hindu Kush, migrating seasonlly from Bactria where they spent the winter, to Badakshan, their summer residence. Under the Hephthalite control, the Bactrian script and language continued to be used and trade and commerce flourished as previously. The Eastward Expansion to the Tarim Basin With the stabilization at the western border, the Hephthalites extended their influence to the northwest into the Tarim Basin. From 493 to 556 A.D., they invaded Khotan, Kashgar, Kocho, and Karashahr. The relationship with Juan-juan and China were tightened. The Chinese record indicated that between 507 and 531, the Hephthalites sent thirteen embassies to Northern Wei (439-534) by the king named Ye-dai-yi-li-tuo. Invasion to India During the 5th century, the Gupta dynasty in India reigned in the Ganges basin with the Kushan empire occupied the area along the Indus. India knew the Hephthalite as Huna by the Sanskrit name. The Hephthaltes or Hunas waited till 470 rigth after the death of Gupta ruler, Skandagupta (455-470), and entered the Inda from the Kabul valley after the conquest of Kushan. They mopped on along the Ganges and ruined every city and town. The noble capital, Pataliputra, was reduced in population to a village. They persecuted Buddhists and burned all the monasteries. Their conquest was accomplished with extreme ferocity and the Gupta regime (414-470) was completely extinguished. For thirty years the northwestern India was ruled by Hephthalite kings. We learned some of the Hephthalite kings ruling India from coins. The most famous ones were Toramana and Mihrakula ruling India in the first half of the 6th century. The Language There are numerous debates about Hephthalite language. Most scholars believe it is Iranian for the Pei Shih states that the language of the Hephthalites differs from those of the Juan-juan (Mongoloid) and of the "various Hu" (Turkic); however there are some think the Hephthalites spoke Mongol tongues like the Hsien-pi (3rd century) and the Juan-juan (5th century) and the Avars (6th-9th century). According to the Buddhist pilgrims Sung Yun and Hui Sheng, who visited them in 520, they had no script, and the Liang shu specifically states that they have no letters but use tally sticks. At the same time there is numismatic and epigraphic evidence to show that a debased form of the Greek alphabet was used by the Hephthalites. Since the Kushan was conquested by Hephthalites, it is possible they retained many aspects of Kushan culture, including the adoption of the Greek alphabet. The Religion It is equally inconsistent while comparing the references to the Hephthalites' religion. Although Sung Yun and Hui Sheng reported that the Hephthalites did not believe in Buddhism, though there is ample archaeological evidence that this religion was practiced in territories under Hephthalite control. According to Liang shu the Hephthalites worshiped Heaven and also fire - a clear reference to Zoroastrianism. However the burials found seem to indicate the normal practice in disposing of the dead, which is against Zoroastrian belief. The Customs Very little was known about these Hephthalite nomads. Little art has left from them. According to Sung Yun and Hui Sheng who visited their Hephthalite chief at his summer residence in Badakshan and later in Gandhara, The Hephthalites have no cities, but roam freely and live in tents. They do not live in towns; their seat of government is a moving camp. They move in search of water and pasture, journeying in summer to cool places and in winter to warmer ones....They have no belief in the Buddhist law and they serve a great number of divinities." Other than the deformation of skulls, the other interesting feature of the Hephthalites is their polyandrous society. The records of brothers marrying to one wife had been reported from Chinese source. The Extermination Between 557 to 561 Persian King Chosroes allied with another steppe people who had appeared from inner Asia. Chorsoes wanted to profit from the situation to take revenge over the defeat of his grandfather Peroz; he married a daughter of the nomadic chief and allied himself with them against the Hephthalites. The chief Sinjibu was the boldest and strongest of all the tribes and he had the largest number of troops. It was he who conquered the Hephthalites and killed their king. Mercileessly attacked on two sides, the Hephthalites were completely broken and disappeared by 565 that only small number of them survived. Some surviving groups living south of Oxus escaped Chosroes' grasp later fell to Arab invaders in the 7th century. One of the surviving groups fled to the west and may have been the ancestors of the later Avars in the Danube region. The decline of the Hephthalites marked a turning point in the story of the steppes. Another era was opening in Central Asia. For the allies of Chosroes were Western Turks, a new power was to dominate the steppe for next few centuries. ------------- THE HEPHTHALITES Richard Heli A Western student's first encounter with the mysterious Ephthalites, or Hephthalites, or White Huns of Central Asia, is probably via the writings of Procopius, that contemporary of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and fierce polemicist against his sovereign and the Empress Theodora. Procopius recorded the observations of an ambassador traveling east with Byzantium's sometime enemies, the Persians, who had chosen for a time, and from the Byzantine perspective very fortunately, to war against their eastern neighbors for a change, the Ephthalites: "The Ephthalites 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.... They are the only ones among the Huns who have white bodies and countenances which are not ugly." [Procopius] Thus, even in their very first appearance, the question of the origins of this people comes into doubt. For if they are Huns, how is it that the appearance of these "White Huns" differs so markedly from that of the Huns proper? This question was not one which Procopius, so far from the Ephthalites, was in any position to determine. That modern researchers can do better is largely due to the survival of writings on the other end of the Central Asian wasteland, by those who were closer to the point of origin and encountered this group early in its history, that is, the Chinese. To the Chinese, they were the Ye-ti-i-li-do or Yeda, even though the Chinese chroniclers seem to realize that the people called themselves the people of Hua (the similarity to Hun may help explain the origin of "White Hun") and that the Chinese terms came actually from the name of the Hua leader. Like Procopius, contemporary Chinese chroniclers had their own theories about Ephthalite origins. One thought that were related in some way to the Visha (Indo-Europeans known to the Chinese as the "Yueh Chih"), another, a branch of the Kao-ch`ê, a third, descendants of the general Pahua, a fourth descendants of Kang Chu and a fifth admits that he cannot make clear their origins at all. This should not discourage as it is not in the theories of such writers that we may find value, but rather in their factual observations which may lead to the answer. Japanese researcher Kazuo Enoki takes on the theories of both the ancient and the modern writers, including the redoubtable Stein, knocking the legs out from one after another. Theories which are based on coincidence of name, e.g. Pahua and Hua, are unlikely in this part of the world which exhibits so many languages and so much linguistic adaptation and orthographic variation, he points out, and should not be upheld if other sorts of evidence do not support the reasoning. Stein's contention that the Ephthalites were of the Hunnish tribe and therefore of Turkish origin is dismissed largely on this basis. On the other hand, J. Marquart finds similarities between the terms for the Ephthalites in India and words in the Mongolian language, but this theory requires so many leaps between tongues that it remains quite unconvincing. Finally, there is a whole school of researchers attempting to prove this tribe a Turkish, albeit non-Hun, one. These too must rely only on flimsy name evidence. Instead, Enoki makes a convincing case that the Ephthalites are actually an Iranian group. His theory, it must be admitted, does not explain all, but there seems little against it. More importantly, it relies first on data which is generally agreed upon, namely, ancient observations of Ephthalite geographical movements and culture. For Enoki, Ephthalite origins may be determined by considering where they were not, as well as by where their conquests drove their enemies. They were not previously north of the Tien Shan, thus they did not stem from that region. They drove the Kidarites out of Balkh to the west, thus they came originally from the east. By such reasoning, the Ephthalites are thought to have originated at Hsi-mo-ta-lo (southwest of Badakhshan and near the Hindu Kush), which tantalizingly, stands for Himtala, "snow plain", which may be the Sanskritized form of Hephthal. Turning to the elements of Ephthalite culture, Enoki notes that Procopius' comments on their appearance while not decisive, are in favor of an Iranian theory. Similarly, the seventh century travels of Hsuan Chwang show that he found no physical difference between the descendants of the Ephthalites and their known Iranian neighbors. As for their language, commentators made clear that it was neither Turkish nor Mongol, which also seems to support an Iranian origin. Iranian customs also are common in the Ephthalite world. For example, the practice of several husbands to one wife, or polyandry, was always the rule, which is agreed on by all commentators. That this was plain was evidenced by the custom among the women of wearing a hat containing a number of horns, one for each of the subsequent husbands, all of whom were also brothers to the husband. Indeed, if a husband had no natural brothers, he would adopt another man to be his brother so that he would be allowed to marry. Conjugal rights were traded off and children were assigned in turn with the oldest husband receiving the first and so on. Tellingly, polyandry has never been associated with any Hun tribe, but is known of several Central Asian ones, including the Aryans in India, other Indo-Europeans and probably in prehistoric Iran. In their religious beliefs, the Ephthalites are said to have worshipped fire and sun gods. While either one is not unusual in any early culture around the world, both together is likely to indicate a Persian origin. In Persia, such beliefs were later to culminate in Zoroastrianism. As part of their religious observance, the Ephthalites did not cremate, but as is reported by all commentators including Procopius, always buried their dead, either by constructing a tomb or under the ground. This is not consistent with the Zoroastrian practice of leaving the body in the open, but is clearly at odds with Turkish nomadic groups. The practice of inhumation then may simply indicate an Iranian group which had been sundered from the main branch at an early date and had adopted local Central Asian burial customs. The rocketlike political career of the Ephthalites may be traced in Appendix A. It may be seen that its enormous rapid successes came not only out of ferocity in battle, but also from shrewd diplomacy. Like the Arabs, the Vikings and others in the parade of history, they seem to appear virtually out of nowhere and amass for themselves a huge area. Of their language, only four words are known including "Ephthalite" itself, and these dubious. Their coins are putative at best, their arts, wholly unknown. Despite their apparent talents for war and diplomacy, however, they appear to have been harsh rulers disliked by rebellious subjects and thus their legacy is brief. Persian Emperor Chosroes, faced with the choice of war against the Turks or conquest of the Ephthalites, hardly needed a moment to opt for the latter -- ironic if the Ephthalites truly had an Iranian origin. But such nationalistic ideas were not the rule in those times. Not much has been written about their dramatic story since 1966, but Enoki hints that from the translation and study of possible Ephthalite documents unearthed at Lou Lan, we may someday learn more about this mysterious and fascinating people. Let us hope it will be so. Appendix A: Approximate Timeline. [Enoki, McGovern] 420-427 Ephthalites raid Persia as far west as modern Tehran. 427 Ephthalites suffer overwhelming defeat in Persia. 437 Chinese embassy to Tokharistan (area around Balkh) and Gandhara finds no sign of Ephthalites. 454 Ephthalites revenge earlier loss to Sassanid Persians. 456 Ephthalites send their first embassy to the Chinese. 457 Firuz (Peroz), former king of Persia, requests Ephthalite assistance. 459 Firuz regains Persian throne with help of Ephthalite armies. 464-475 Wars between the former allies resolved with Persian tribute in 475. 465-470 Ephthalites conquer Gandhara, set up a Tegin (a viceroy). 470-480 War between Tegin of Gandhara and Gupta Empire of India. 473-479 Ephthalites conquer Sogdiana, driving the Kidarites westwards. Next conquering Khotan and Kashgar (in the Tarim Basin). 480-500 Gupta empire collapses. Tegin is overlord of North & Central India. 484 Firuz initiates new war against the Ephthalites which fails miserably. 486 Firuz' heir Kubad takes refuge with Ephthalites following a coup. 488 Kubad regains the throne with Ephthalite assistance. 493-508 Ephthalites extend power as far as Zungaria, then Turfan and Karashar (in modern China). 497 Kubad deposed and escapes to a second refuge with the Ephthalites. 500 Ephthalites place Kubad on Sassanid throne a second time (dies 531). 503-513 Kubad makes war on the Ephthalites. Peace in 513 lasts. 522 Apex of Ephthalite power. Chief of the Juan-Juan nomads flees to the Ephthalites for protection. Ephthalites dominate north and south of the Tien Shan range. Control as far as Tieh-lo in the south, Ci`ih-le^ (Kao-ch`e^) in the north, at least to Khotan in the east probably more, and up to Persia in the west. A separate Ephthalite Empire controls much of India. Forty countries (including Sassanid Persia) are in tribute. Ephthalite centers are at Ghur, Balkh, Warwaliz (north of today's Kunduz near the source of the Oxus) and Hsi-mo-ta-lo. The entire empire probably comprises fifty to sixty thousand individuals. 531 Chosroes succeeds his father Kubad in Persia. 532 Revolts in India; Ephthalites lose most of East & Central India. 532-542 Fleeing ruler conquers the Kashmir for a short reign. 552 Turks overthrow Avars and begin petty conflicts with Ephthalites. c. 565 Turks and Chosroes (Khusrau) of Persia ally to capture and divide Ephthalite empire. c. 570 Ephthalite rule overthrown in India. Appendix B: Bibliography. • Enoki, Kazuo, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, 1955, No. 18, "On the Nationality of the Ephthalites" • Hambly, Gavin, Central Asia, 1966, Chapter 3: "Sassanians and Turks in Central Asia" • McGovern, William, The Early Empires of Central Asia, 1939, Chap. 18: "The Huns in Persia and India," pp. 399-419, and notes, pp. 454-457. • Procopius, History of the Wars, Books I and II, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 1, pp. 12-15 Back to Main Page |