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Tocharians

May 07, 2023

This article is about speakers of extinct languages of the Tarim Basin, China. For the Tókharoi (or Tochari) of Bactria, see Tokharistan. For the ancient Indian tribe sometimes known as the Tukharas, see Tushara. For a historical people of Central Asia controversially identified with the Tocharians, see Yuezhi.

The Tocharians, or Tokharians (US: /toʊˈkɛəriən/ or /toʊˈkɑːriən/;[5] UK: /tɒˈkɑːriən/),[6] were speakers of Tocharian languages, Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from around 400 to 1200 AD, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang, China).[7] The name "Tocharian" was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi (Latin Tochari), who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC. This identification is generally considered erroneous, but the name "Tocharian" remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers. Their actual ethnic name is unknown, although they may have referred to themselves as Agni, Kuči and Krorän, or Agniya, Kuchiya as known from Sanskrit texts.[8][clarification needed]

Tocharians
Tocharian royal family of the oasis city-state of Kucha (King, Queen and fair-haired young Princes), Cave 17, Kizil Caves. Circa 500 AD, Hermitage Museum.[1][2][3][4]
Regions with significant populations
Tarim Basin in 1st millennium AD
(modern-day Xinjiang, China)
Languages
Tocharian languages
Religion
Buddhism and others
Related ethnic groups
Afanasievo culture

Agricultural communities first appeared in the oases of the northern Tarim circa 2,000 BC. Some scholars have linked these communities to the Afanasievo culture found earlier (c. 3,500–2,500 BC) in Siberia, north of the Tarim or Central Asian BMAC culture. The earliest Tarim mummies date from c. 1,800 BC, but it is unclear whether they are connected to the Tocharians of two millennia later.

By the 2nd century BC, these settlements had developed into city-states, overshadowed by nomadic peoples to the north and Chinese empires to the east. These cities, the largest of which was Kucha, also served as way stations on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert.

For several centuries, the Tarim basin was ruled by the Xiongnu, the Han dynasty, the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty. From the 8th century AD, the Uyghurs – speakers of a Turkic language – settled in the region and founded the Kingdom of Qocho that ruled the Tarim Basin. The peoples of the Tarim city-states intermixed with the Uyghurs, whose Old Uyghur language spread through the region. The Tocharian languages are believed to have become extinct during the 9th century.

Names

Around the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologists recovered a number of manuscripts from oases in the Tarim Basin written in two closely related but previously unknown Indo-European languages, which were easy to read because they used a close variation of the already deciphered Indian Middle-Brahmi script. These languages were designated in similar fashion by their geographical neighbours:[9]

  • A Buddhist work in Old Turkic (Uighur), included a colophon stating that the text had been translated from Sanskrit via toxrï tyly (Tωγry tyly, "The language of the Togari").[10][9][8]
  • Manichean texts in several languages of neighbouring regions used the expression "the land of the Four Toghar" (Toγar~Toχar, written Twγr) to designate the area "from Kucha and Karashar to Qocho and Beshbalik."[9]
 
The geographical spread of the Indo-European languages, with Tocharian in the east.

Friedrich W. K. Müller was the first to propose a characterization for the newly discovered languages.[11][12] Müller called the languages "Tocharian" (German Tocharisch), linking this toxrï (Tωγry, "Togari")[8] with the ethnonym Tókharoi (Ancient Greek: Τόχαροι) applied by Strabo to one of the "Scythian" tribes "from the country on the other side of the Iaxartes" that overran the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (present day Afghanistan) in the second half of the 2nd century BC.[12][13][a] This term also appears in Indo-Iranian languages (Sanskrit Tushara/Tukhāra, Old Persian tuxāri-, Khotanese ttahvāra), and became the source of the term "Tokharistan" usually referring to 1st millennium Bactria, as well as the Takhar province of Afghanistan. The Tókharoi are often identified by modern scholars with the Yuezhi of Chinese historical accounts, who founded the Kushan Empire.[14][15]

Müller's identification became a minority position among scholars when it turned out that the people of Tokharistan (Bactria) spoke Bactrian, an Eastern Iranian language, which is quite distinct from the Tocharian languages. Nevertheless, "Tocharian" remained the standard term for the languages of the Tarim Basin manuscripts and for the people who produced them.[11][16] A few scholars argue that the Yuezhi were originally speakers of Tocharian who later adopted the Bactrian language.[17]

The name of Kucha in Tocharian B was Kuśi, with adjectival form kuśiññe. The word may be derived from Proto-Indo-European *keuk "shining, white".[18] The Tocharian B word akeññe may have referred to people of Agni, with a derivation meaning "borderers, marchers".[19] One of the Tocharian A texts have ārśi-käntwā as a name for their own language, so that ārśi may have meant "Agnean", though "monk" is also possible.[20]

Tocharian kings apparently gave themselves the title Ñäktemts soy (in Tocharian B), an equivalent of the title Devaputra ("Son of God") of the Kushans.[21][22]

Languages

Main articles: Proto-Tocharian language and Tocharian languages
 
Female donor with label in Tocharian, Kizil Caves.
 
The Tocharian script is very similar to the Indian Brahmi script from the Kushan period, with only slight variations in calligraphy. Tocharian language inscription: Se pañäkte saṅketavattse ṣarsa papaiykau "This Buddha was painted by the hand of Sanketava",[23][24] on a painting carbon dated to 245-340 AD.[25]

The Tocharian languages are known from around 7600 documents dating from about 400 to 1200 AD, found at 30 sites in the northeast Tarim area.[26] The manuscripts are written in two distinct, but closely related, Indo-European languages, conventionally known as Tocharian A and Tocharian B.[27]

Tocharian A (Agnean or East Tocharian) was found in the northeastern oases known to the Tocharians as Ārśi, later Agni (i.e. Chinese Yanqi; modern Karasahr) and Turpan (including Khocho or Qočo; known in Chinese as Gaochang). Some 500 manuscripts have been studied in detail, mostly coming from Buddhist monasteries. Many authors take this to imply that Tocharian A had become a purely literary and liturgical language by the time of the manuscripts, but it may be that the surviving documents are unrepresentative.[28]

Tocharian B (Kuchean or West Tocharian) was found at all the Tocharian A sites and also in several sites further west, including Kuchi (later Kucha). It appears to have still been in use in daily life at that time.[29] Over 3200 manuscripts have been studied in detail.[28]

The languages had significant differences in phonology, morphology and vocabulary, making them mutually unintelligible "at least as much as modern Germanic or Romance languages".[30][31] Tocharian A shows innovations in the vowels and nominal inflection, whereas Tocharian B has changes in the consonants and verbal inflection. Many of the differences in vocabulary between the languages concern Buddhist concepts, which may suggest that they were associated with different Buddhist traditions.[30]

The differences indicate that they diverged from a common ancestor between 500 and 1000 years before the earliest documents, that is, sometime in the 1st millennium BC.[32] Common Indo-European vocabulary retained in Tocharian includes words for herding, cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, horses, textiles, farming, wheat, gold, silver, and wheeled vehicles.[33]

Prakrit documents from 3rd century Krorän, Andir and Niya on the southeast edge of the Tarim Basin contain around 100 loanwords and 1000 proper names that cannot be traced to an Indic or Iranian source.[34]Thomas Burrow suggested that they come from a variety of Tocharian, dubbed Tocharian C or Kroränian, which may have been spoken by at least some of the local populace.[35] Burrow's theory is widely accepted, but the evidence is meagre and inconclusive, and some scholars favour alternative explanations.[26]

Origins

The route by which speakers of Indo-European languages reached the Tarim Basin is uncertain. A leading contender is the Afanasievo culture, who occupied the Altai region to the north between 3300 and 2500 BC.

Afanasievo culture

 
 
Indo-European migrations, with location of the Afanasievo culture (genetically identical to the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppes) and their probable Tocharians descendants.[36]

The Afanasievo culture resulted from an eastern offshoot of the Yamnaya culture, originally based in the Pontic steppe north of the Caucasus Mountains.[37] The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Central Asian steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BC).

J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair argued that the Tarim Basin was first settled by Proto-Tocharian-speakers from an eastern offshoot of the Afanasievo culture, who migrated to the south and occupied the northern and eastern edges of the basin.[38] The early eastward expansion of the Yamnaya culture circa 3300 BC is enough to account for the isolation of the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization.[39] Michaël Peyrot argues that several of the most striking typological peculiarities of Tocharian are rooted in a prolonged contact of Proto-Tocharian-speaking Afanasievans with speakers of an early stage of Proto-Samoyedic in South Siberia. Among others, this might explain the merger of all three-stop series (e.g., *t, *d, *dʰ > *t), which must have led to a huge amount of homonyms, as well as the development of an agglutinative case system.[40]

A 2019 genetic study of burials from around 200 BC at a site on the eastern edge of Dzungaria found 20–80% Yamnaya-like ancestry, lending support to the hypothesis of a migration from Afanasievo into Dzungaria, which is just north of the Tarim Basin.[41]

Settlement of the Tarim basin

The Taklamakan Desert is roughly oval in shape, about 1,000 km long and 400 km wide, surrounded on three sides by high mountains. The main part of the desert is sandy, surrounded by a belt of gravel desert.[42] The desert is completely barren, but in the late spring the melting snows of the surrounding mountains feed streams, which have been altered by human activity to create oases with mild microclimates and supporting intensive agriculture.[42] On the northern edge of the basin, these oases occur in small valleys before the gravels.[42] On the southern edge, they occur in alluvial fans on the edge of the sand zone. Isolated alluvial fan oases also occur in the gravel deserts of the Turpan Depression to the east of the Taklamakan.[43] From around 2000 BC, these oases supported Bronze Age settled agricultural communities of steadily increasing sophistication.[44]

The necessary irrigation technology was first developed during the 3rd millennium BC in the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) to the west of the Pamir mountains, but it is unclear how it reached the Tarim.[45][46] The staple crops, wheat and barley, also originated in the west.[47]

Tarim mummies

Main article: Tarim mummies
 
One of the Tarim mummies
 
"Loulan beauty"

The oldest of the Tarim mummies, bodies preserved by the desert conditions, date from 2000 BC and were found on the eastern edge of the Tarim basin. The mummies have been described as being both "Caucasoid" and "Mongoloid", and mixed-race individuals are also observed.[48] A genetic study of remains from the oldest layer of the Xiaohe Cemetery found that the maternal lineages were a mixture of east and west Eurasian types, while all the paternal lineages were of west Eurasian type.[49] It is unknown whether they are connected with the frescoes painted at Tocharian sites more than two millennia later, which also depict light eyes and hair color.

The mummies were found with plaid-woven tapestries that are notably similar to the weaving pattern of the "tartan" style of the Hallstatt culture of central Europe, associated with Celts; the wool used in the tapestries was found to come from sheep with European ancestry.[50]

A 2021 genetic study demonstrated that the Tarim mummies were unrelated to Afanasievo populations and instead were a genetic isolate descending mainly from Ancient North Eurasians.[51]

Later immigrants

Later, groups of nomadic pastoralists moved from the steppe into the grasslands to the north and northeast of the Tarim. They were the ancestors of peoples later known to Chinese authors as the Wusun and Yuezhi.[52] It is thought that at least some of them spoke Iranian languages,[52] but a minority of scholars suggest that the Yuezhi were Tocharian speakers.[53][54]

During the 1st millennium BC, a further wave of immigrants, the Saka speaking Iranian languages, arrived from the west and settled along the southern rim of the Tarim.[55] They are believed to be the source of Iranian loanwords in Tocharian languages, particularly related to commerce and warfare.[56]

Religion

 
Tocharian Prince mourning the Cremation of the Buddha, in a mural from Maya Cave (224) in Kizil. He is cutting his forehead with a knife, a practice of self-mutilation also known among the Scythians.[57]

Most of the Tocharian inscriptions are based on Buddhist monastical texts, which suggests that the Tocharians largely embraced Buddhism. The pre-Buddhist beliefs of the Tocharians are largely unknown, but several Chinese goddesses are similar to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European sun goddess and the dawn goddess, which implies that the Chinese were influenced by the pre-Buddhist beliefs of the Tocharians when they traveled on trade routes which were located in Tocharian territories.[58] Tocharian B has a noun swāñco derived from the name of the Proto-Indo-European sun goddess, while Tocharian A has koṃ, a loanword etymologically connected to the Turkic sun goddess Gun Ana. Besides this, they might have also worshipped a lunar deity (meñ-) and an earth one (keṃ-).[59]

The murals found in the Tarim Basin, especially those of the Kizil Caves, mostly depict Jataka stories, avadanas, and legends of the Buddha, and are an artistic representation in the tradition of the Hinayana school of the Sarvastivadas.[60] When the Chinese Monk Xuanzang visited Kucha in 630 CE, he received the favours of the Tocharian king Suvarnadeva, the son and successor of Suvarnapushpa, whom he described as a believer of Hinayana Buddhism.[61] In the account of his travel to Kucha (屈支国) he stated that "There are about one hundred convents (saṅghārāmas) in this country, with five thousand and more disciples. These belong to the Little Vehicle of the school of the Sarvāstivādas (zhuyiqieyoubu). Their doctrine (teaching of Sūtras) and their rules of discipline (principles of the Vinaya) are like those of India, and those who read them use the same (originals)."[62][63][64]

Oasis states

 
Major oasis states of the ancient Tarim Basin
class=notpageimage|
The Tocharians and contemporary Asian polities c. 500 AD.

The first record of the oasis states is found in Chinese histories. The Book of Han lists 36 statelets in the Tarim basin in the last two centuries BC.[65] These oases served as waystations on the trade routes forming part of the Silk Road passing along the northern and southern edges of the Taklamakan desert.[66]

The largest were Kucha with 81,000 inhabitants and Agni (Yanqi or Karashar) with 32,000.[67] Next was the Loulan Kingdom (Krorän), first mentioned in 126 BCE. Chinese histories give no evidence of ethnic changes in these cities between that time and the period of the Tocharian manuscripts from these sites.[68] Situated on the northern and southern edges of the Tarim, these small urban societies were overshadowed by nomadic peoples to the north and Chinese empires to the east. They became the object of rivalry between the Chinese and the Xiongnu. They conceded tributary relations with the larger powers when required, and acted independently when they could.[69]

Xiongnu and Han empires

In 177 BC, the Xiongnu drove the Yuezhi from western Gansu, causing most of them to flee west to the Ili Valley and then to Bactria. The Xiongnu then overcame the Tarim statelets, which became a vital part of their empire.[70] The Chinese Han dynasty was determined to weaken their Xiongnu enemies by depriving them of this area.[71] This was achieved in a series of campaigns beginning in 108 BC and culminating in the establishment of the Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60 BC under Zheng Ji.[72] The Han government used a range of tactics, including plots to assassinate local rulers, direct attacks on a few states (e.g. Kucha in 65 BC) to cow the rest, and the massacre of the entire population of Luntai (80 km east of Kucha) when they resisted.[73]

During the Later Han (25–220 AD), the whole Tarim Basin again became a focus of rivalry between the Xiong-nu to the north and the Chinese to the east.[74] In 74 AD, Chinese troops started to take control of the Tarim Basin with the conquest of Turfan.[75] During the 1st century AD, Kucha resisted the Chinese invasion, and allied itself with the Xiong-nu and the Yuezhi against the Chinese general Ban Chao.[76] Even the Kushan Empire of Kujula Kadphises sent an army to the Tarim Basin to support Kucha, but they retreated after minor encounters.[76]

In 124, Kucha formally submitted to the Chinese court, and by 127 China had conquered the whole of the Tarim Basin.[77] China's control of the Silk Road facilitated the exchange of art and the progation of Buddhism from Central Asia.[78] The Roman Maes Titianus is known to have visited the area in the 2nd century AD,[79] as did numerous great Buddhist missionaries such as the Parthian An Shigao, the Yuezhis Lokaksema and Zhi Qian, or the Indian Chu Sho-fu (竺朔佛).[80] The Han controlled the Tarim states until their final withdrawal in 150 AD.[81][82]

Kushan Empire (2nd century AD)

 
Tocharian kneeling devotees circa 300 AD, in the paintings of the Cave of the Hippocampi (Cave 118), Kizil Caves.[83]

The Kushan Empire expanded into the Tarim during the 2nd century AD, bringing Buddhism, Kushan art, Sanskrit as a liturgical language and Prakrit as an administrative language (in the southern Tarim states).[84] With these Indic languages came scripts, including the Brahmi script (later adapted to write Tocharian) and the Kharosthi script.[85]

From the 3rd century, Kucha became a centre of Buddhist studies. Buddhist texts were translated into Chinese by Kuchean monks, the most famous of whom was Kumārajīva (344–412/5).[86][81] Captured by Lü Guang of the Later Liang in an attack on Kucha in 384, Kumārajīva learned Chinese during his years of captivity in Gansu. In 401, he was brought to the Later Qin capital of Chang'an, where he remained as head of a translation bureau until his death in 413.[87][88]

The Kizil Caves lie 65 km west of Kucha, and contain over 236 Buddhist temples. Their murals date from the 3rd to the 8th century.[89] Many of these murals were removed by Albert von Le Coq and other European archaeologists in the early 20th century, and are now held in European museums, but others remain in their original locations.[90]

An increasingly dry climate in the 4th and 5th centuries led to the abandonment of several of the southern cities, including Niya and Krorän, with a consequent shift of trade from the southern route to the northern one.[91] Confederations of nomadic tribes also began to jostle for supremacy. The northern oasis states were conquered by Rouran in the late 5th century, leaving the local leaders in place.

Flourishing of the oasis states

 
The Buddhist Cave with the Ring-Bearing Doves (Cave 123) at the Kizil Caves near Kucha, built circa 430-530 CE.

Kucha, the largest of the oasis cities, was ruled by royal families sometimes autonomously and sometimes as vassals of outside powers.[92] The Chinese named these Kuchean kings by adding the prefix Bai (白), meaning "White", probably pointing to the fair complexion of the Kucheans.[93] The government included some 30 named posts below the king, with all but the highest-ranking titles occurring in pairs of left and right. Other states had similar structures, though on a smaller scale.[94] The Book of Jin says of the city:

They have a walled city and suburbs. The walls are threefold. Within are Buddhist temples and stupas numbering a thousand. The people are engaged in agriculture and husbandry. The men and women cut their hair and wear it at the neck. The prince's palace is grand and imposing, glittering like an abode of the gods.

— Book of Jin, Chapter 97[95]
 
Monks from the Cave of the Painters circa 500 AD, Kizil Caves.

The inhabitants grew red millet, wheat, rice, legumes, hemp, grapes and pomegranates, and reared horses, cattle, sheep and camels.[96]

They also extracted a wide range of metals and minerals from the surrounding mountains.[97] Handicrafts included leather goods, fine felts and rugs.[97]

In the Kizil Caves appear portraits of Royal families, composed of the King, Queen and young Prince. They are accompanied by monks, and men in caftan.[1] According to Historian of Art Benjamin Rowland, these portraits show "that the Tocharians were European rather than Mongol in appearance, with light complexions, blue eyes, and blond or reddish hair, and the costumes of the knights and their ladies have haunting suggestions of the chivalric age of the West".[98]

Kucha ambassador are known to have visited the Chinese court of Emperor Yuan of Liang in his capital Jingzhou in 516–520 AD, at or around the same time as the Hepthalite embassies there. An ambassador from Kucha is illustrated in Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, painted in 526–539 AD, an 11th-century Song copy of which as remained.

Hephthalite conquest (circa 480–550 AD)

 
Ambassador from Kucha (龜茲國 Qiuci-guo), one of the main Tocharian cities, visiting the Chinese Southern Liang court in Jingzhou circa 516–520 AD at the time of Hephthalite domination over the region, with explanatory text. Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, 11th century Song copy.

In the late 5th century AD the Hephthalites, based in Tokharistan (Bactria), expanded eastward through the Pamir Mountains, which are comparatively easy to cross, as did the Kushans before them, due to the presence of convenient plateaus between high peaks.[99] They occupied the western Tarim Basin (Kashgar and Khotan), taking control of the area from the Ruanruans, who had been collecting heavy tribute from the oasis cities, but were now weakening under the assaults of the Chinese Wei dynasty.[100] In 479 they took the east end of the Tarim Basin, around the region of Turfan. In 497–509, they pushed north of Turfan to the Urumchi region. In the early years of the 6th century, they were sending embassies from their dominions in the Tarim Basin to the Wei dynasty. The Hephthalites continued to occupy the Tarim Basin until the end of their Empire, circa 560 AD.[101]

As the territories ruled by the Hephthalites expanded into Central Asia and the Tarim Basin, the art of the Hephthalites, with characteristic clothing and hairstyles, also came to be used in the areas they ruled, such as Sogdiana, Bamiyan or Kucha in the Tarim Basin (Kizil Caves, Kumtura Caves, Subashi reliquary).[102][103][104] In these areas appear dignitaries with caftans with a triangular collar on the right side, crowns with three crescents, some crowns with wings, and a unique hairstyle. Another marker is the two-point suspension system for swords, which seems to have been an Hephthalite innovation, and was introduced by them in the territories they controlled.[102] The paintings from the Kucha region, particularly the swordmen in the Kizil Caves, appear to have been made during Hephthalite rule in the region, circa 480–550 AD.[102][105] The influence of the art of Gandhara in some of the earliest paintings at the Kizil Caves, dated to circa 500 AD, is considered as a consequence of the political unification of the area between Bactria and Kucha under the Hephthalites.[106]

Göktürks suzerainty (560 AD)

 
King Suvarnapushpa of Kucha is historically known and ruled 600–625 AD. Cave 69, Kizil Caves.

The early Turks of the First Turkic Khaganate then took control of the Turfan and Kucha areas from around 560 AD, and, in alliance with the Sasanian Empire, became instrumental in the fall of the Hephthalite Empire.[107]

The Turks then split into Western and Eastern Khaganates by 580 AD.[108] Tocharian royal families continued to rule Kucha, as vassals of the Western Turks, to whom they provided tribute and troops.[108] Many surviving texts in Tocharian date from this period, and deal with a wide variety of administrative, religious and everyday topics.[109] They also include travel passes, small slips of poplar wood giving the size of the permitted caravans for officials at the next station along the road.[110]

 
Tocharian knights from Kizil Caves (Cave 16). Circa 600 CE

In 618, king Suvarnapushpa of Kucha sent an embassy to the court of the Tang dynasty acknowledging vassalship.[111][61][112]

The Chinese Monk Xuanzang in 630 AD visited the cities of the Tarim Basin, and described in many details the characteristics of Kucha (屈支国, in "大唐西域记" "Tang Dynasty Account of the Western Regions"):[113][63][64]
1) "The style of writing is Indian, with some differences"
2) "They clothe themselves with ornamental garments of silk and embroidery. They cut their hair and wear a flowing covering (over their heads)"
3) "The king is of Kuchean race"[114]
4) "There are about one hundred convents (saṅghārāmas) in this country, with five thousand and more disciples. These belong to the Little Vehicle of the school of the Sarvāstivādas (Shwo-yih-tsai-yu-po). Their doctrine (teaching of Sūtras) and their rules of discipline (principles of the Vinaya) are like those of India, and those who read them use the same (originals)."
5) "About 40 li to the north of this desert city there are two convents close together on the slope of a mountain".[62]

Tang conquest and aftermath

See also: Tang campaign against the oasis states

In the 7th century, Emperor Taizong of Tang China, having overcome the Eastern Turks, sent his armies west to attack the Western Turks and the oasis states.[115] The first oasis to fall was Turfan, which was captured in 630 and annexed as part of China.[116]

 
Emperor Taizong's campaign against the oasis states

Next to the west lay the city of Agni, which had been a tributary of the Tang since 632. Alarmed by the nearby Chinese armies, Agni stopped sending Tribute to China and formed an alliance with the Western Turks. They were aided by Kucha, who also stopped sending tribute. The Tang captured Agni in 644, defeating a Western Turk relief force, and made the king of Kucha Suvarnadeva (Chinese: 蘇伐疊 Sufadie) resume tribute. When that king was deposed by a relative named Haripushpa (Chinese: 訶黎布失畢 Helibushibi) in 648, the Tang sent an army under the Turk general Ashina She'er to install a compliant member of the local royal family, a younger brother of Haripushpa.[117] Ashina She'er continued to capture Kucha, and made it the headquarters of the Tang Protectorate General to Pacify the West. Kuchean forces recaptured the city and killed protector-general, Guo Xiaoke, but it fell again to Ashina She'er, who had 11,000 of the inhabitants executed in reprisal for the killing of Guo.[118] The Tocharian cities never recovered from the Tang conquest.[119]

The Tang lost the Tarim basin to the Tibetan Empire in 670, but regained it in 692, and continued to rule there until it was recaptured by the Tibetans in 792.[120] The ruling Bai family of Kucha are last mentioned in Chinese sources in 787.[121] There is little mention of the region in Chinese sources for the 9th and 10th centuries.[122]

The Uyghur Khaganate took control of the northern Tarim in 803. After their capital in Mongolia was sacked by the Yenisei Kyrgyz in 840, they established a new state, the Kingdom of Qocho with its capital at Gaochang (near Turfan) in 866.[123] Over centuries of contact and intermarriage, the cultures and populations of the pastoralist rulers and their agriculturalist subjects blended together.[124] Many Uyghurs converted to the Tocharian Buddhism or Nestorian Christianity,[125] and adopted the agricultural lifestyle and many of the customs of the oasis-dwellers.[126] The Tocharian language gradually disappeared as the urban population switched to the Old Uyghur language.[127]

Epigraphy

Most of the texts known from the Tocharians are religious, except for one known love poem in Tocharian B (manuscript B-496, found in Kizil):[128]

Tocharian B manuscript B-496
Translation
(English)		 Transliteration Inscription
(Tocharian script)

I.
... for a thousand years however, Thou wilt tell the story Thy (...) I announce,
Heretofore there was no human being dearer to me than thee; likewise hereafter there will be no one dearer to me than thee.
Love for thee, affection for thee—breath of all that is life—and they shall not come to an end so long as there lasts life.
III.
Thus did I always think: "I will live well, the whole of my life, with one lover: no force, no deceit."
The god Karma alone knew this thought of mine; so he provoked quarrel; he ripped out my heart from thee;
He led thee afar; tore me apart; made me partake in all sorrows and took away the consolation thou wast.

... mi life, spirit, and heart day-by-day...[129][130][131][132]

II.

(...) Yaltse pikwala (...) watäṃ weṃt no

Mā ñi cisa noṣ śomo ñem wnolme lāre tāka mā ra postaṃ cisa lāre mäsketär-ñ.

Ciṣṣe laraumñe ciṣṣe ārtañye pelke kalttarr śolämpa ṣṣe mā te stālle śol-wärñai.

III.

Taiysu pälskanoym sanai ṣaryompa śāyau karttse-śaulu-wärñai snai tserekwa snai nāte.

Yāmor-ñīkte ṣe cau ñi palskāne śarsa tusa ysaly ersate ciṣy araś ñi sälkāte,

Wāya ci lauke tsyāra ñiś wetke klyautka-ñ pāke po läklentas ciṣe tsārwo, sampāte.

(...) Śaul palsk araśñi, kom kom[129][130]
 
Tocharian B Love Poem, manuscript B496 (one of two fragments).

Known rulers

Names of the rulers of Kucha are known mainly from Chinese sources.

 
Prince Tottika, Kizil Cave 205.
  • Hong(洪, 弘), circa 16 CE
  • Chengde (丞德), circa 36 CE
  • Zeluo (则罗), circa 46 CE
  • Shen Du(身毒), circa 50 CE
  • Bin (宾), circa 72 CE
  • Jian (建), circa 73 CE
  • Youliduo 尤利多, circa 76 CE
  • Bai Ba(白霸), circa 91 CE
  • Bai Ying(白英), circa 110-127 CE
  • Bai Shan (白山), circa 280 CE
  • Long Hui(龙会), circa 326 CE
  • Bai Chun Chinese: 白纯 Baichun, ruled circa 383 CE
  • Bain Zhen Chinese: 白震 Baizhen, ruled circa 383 CE
  • Niruimo Zhunashen Chinese: 尼瑞摩珠那胜 Niruimo Zhunashen, ruled circa 520 CE
  • Tottika (ruled in Kucha in the end of the 6th century), Chinese: 托提卡 Tuotika
  • Bai Sunidie Chinese: 白苏尼咥 Bai Sunidie, circa 562 CE
  • Suvarnapuspa (ruled in Kucha, 600-625 CE), Chinese: 白苏伐勃𫘝 Bai Sufaboshi
  • Suvarnadeva (ruled in Kucha before 647), Chinese: 白蘇伐疊 Bai Sufadie
  • Haripushpa (ruled in Kucha from 647), Chinese: 白訶黎布失畢 Bai Helibushibi
  • Bai Yehu (白叶护)(648)
  • Bai Helibushibi(白诃黎布失毕)650
  • Bai Suji 白素稽 (659)
  • Yan Tiandie 延田跌(678)
  • Bai Mobi 白莫苾(708)
  • Bai Jijie 白孝节(719)
  • Bai Huan (ruled 731–789) Chinese: 白环, last ruler to be mentioned by Chinese sources.[121]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "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 Iaxartes, opposite the Sacae and Sogdiani" (Strabo, 11-8-2)

References

  1. ^ a b References BDce-888、889, MIK III 8875, now in the Hermitage Museum."俄立艾爾米塔什博物館藏克孜爾石窟壁畫". www.sohu.com (in Chinese).
  2. ^ Image 16 in Yaldiz, Marianne (1987). Archèaologie unFd Kunstgeschichte Chinesisch-Zentralasiens (Xinjiang) (in German). BRILL. p. xv. ISBN 978-90-04-07877-2.
  3. ^ "The images of donors in Cave 17 are seen in two fragments with numbers MIK 8875 and MIK 8876. One of them with halo may be identified as king of Kucha." in Ghose, Rajeshwari (2008). Kizil on the Silk Road: Crossroads of Commerce & Meeting of Minds. Marg Publications. p. 127, note 22. ISBN 978-81-85026-85-5. "The panel of Tocharian donors and Buddhist monks, which was at the MIK (MIK 8875) disappeared during World War II and was discovered by Yaldiz in 2002 in the Hermitage Museum" page 65,note 30
  4. ^ Le Coq, Albert von; Waldschmidt, Ernst (1922). Die buddhistische spätantike in Mittelasien, VI. Berlin, D. Reimer [etc.] pp. 68–70.
  5. ^ "Definition of TOCHARIAN". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  6. ^ "Tocharian definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  7. ^ Mallory (2015), p. 4. "Our knowledge of the Tocharian languages derives essentially from c. 7600 documents found across about thirty sites in the eastern half of the greater Tarim Basin (Fig. 1). The documents date from c. 400 to 1200 CE"
  8. ^ a b c Namba Walter, Mariko (1998). "Tokharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E." (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers. 85: 2, note 4.
  9. ^ a b c Beckwith (2009), pp. 380-381.
  10. ^ "Introduction to Tocharian". lrc.la.utexas.edu.
  11. ^ a b Krause, Todd B.; Slocum, Jonathan. "Tocharian Online: Series Introduction". University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  12. ^ a b Beckwith (2009), pp. 380-383.
  13. ^ Also Ptolemy VI, 11, 6, 2nd century AD
  14. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 270–297.
  15. ^ Beckwith (2009), pp. 83–84.
  16. ^ Mallory & Adams (1997), p. 509.
  17. ^ Beckwith (2009), p. 381.
  18. ^ Adams (2013), p. 198.
  19. ^ Adams (2013), pp. 2–3.
  20. ^ Adams (2013), p. 57.
  21. ^ "According to linguists, the kings of Kucha called themselves "ñäktemts soy" (in Tocharian B), which is equivalent to Devaputra (an epithet commonly used by the Kuşāņa kings) meaning "Son of deva or God" in Pande, Anupa; Sharma, Mandira (2009). The Art of Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent in Cross-cultural Perspective. Aryan Books International. p. 133, note 22. ISBN 978-81-7305-347-4.
  22. ^ Skalmowski, Wojciech; Tongerloo, Alois van (1984). Middle Iranian Studies: Proceedings of the International Symposium Organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the 17th to the 20th of May 1982. Peeters Publishers. pp. 197–198. ISBN 978-90-70192-14-3.
  23. ^ Härtel, Herbert; Yaldiz, Marianne; Kunst (Germany), Museum für Indische; N.Y.), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York (1982). Along the Ancient Silk Routes: Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums : an Exhibition Lent by the Museum Für Indische Kunst, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany. Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-87099-300-8.
  24. ^ Le Coq, Albert von. Die Buddhistische Spätantike in Mittelasien : vol.5. p. 10.
  25. ^ Waugh (Historian, University of Washington), Daniel C. "MIA Berlin: Turfan Collection: Kizil". depts.washington.edu.
  26. ^ a b Mallory (2015), pp. 6–7.
  27. ^ Winter (1998), p. 154.
  28. ^ a b Mallory (2015), p. 4.
  29. ^ Kim, Ronald (2012). (PDF). p. 30. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2018. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  30. ^ a b Winter (1998), p. 155.
  31. ^ Mallory (2015), p. 7.
  32. ^ Mallory (2015), pp. 7–8.
  33. ^ Mallory (2015), pp. 17–19.
  34. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 277–278.
  35. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 278–279.
  36. ^ Narasimhan, Vagheesh M.; Patterson, Nick; Moorjani, Priya; Rohland, Nadin; Bernardos, Rebecca (6 September 2019). "The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia". Science. 365 (6457): eaat7487. doi:10.1126/science.aat7487. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 6822619. PMID 31488661.
  37. ^ Allentoft, ME (11 June 2015). "Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia" (PDF). Nature. Nature Research. 522 (7555): 167–172. Bibcode:2015Natur.522..167A. doi:10.1038/nature14507. PMID 26062507. S2CID 4399103.
  38. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 314–318.
  39. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 294–296, 317–318.
  40. ^ Peyrot, M. (2019). The deviant typological profile of the Tocharian branch of Indo-European may be due to Uralic substrate influence, Indo-European Linguistics, 7(1), 72-121. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/22125892-00701007
  41. ^ Ning, Chao; Wang, Chuan-Chao; Gao, Shizhu; Yang, Yang; Zhang, Xue; Wu, Xiyan; Zhang, Fan; Nie, Zhongzhi; Tang, Yunpeng; Robbeets, Martine; Ma, Jian; Krause, Johannes; Cui, Yinqiu (2019). "Ancient Genomes Reveal Yamnaya-Related Ancestry and a Potential Source of Indo-European Speakers in Iron Age Tianshan". Current Biology. 29 (15): 2526–2532.e4. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.044. PMID 31353181.
  42. ^ a b c Chen & Hiebert (1995), p. 247.
  43. ^ Chen & Hiebert (1995), p. 248.
  44. ^ Chen & Hiebert (1995), pp. 250–272.
  45. ^ Chen & Hiebert (1995), p. 245.
  46. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 262, 269.
  47. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 269.
  48. ^ Shuicheng, Li (2003). Bulletin. Stockholm: Fälth & Hässler. p. 13. "Biological anthropological research indicates that the physical characteristics of those buried at Gumugou cemetery along the Kongque River near Lop Nur in Xinjiang are very similar to those of the Andronovo culture and Afanasievo culture people from Siberia in Southern Russia. This suggests that all of these individuals belong to the Caucasian physical type.¹² Additionally, excavations in 2002 by Xinjiang archaeologists at the site of Xiaohe cemetery, first discovered by the Swedish archaeologist Folke Bergman,¹³ uncovered mummies and wooden human effigies that clearly have Europoid features [Figure 6.1]. According to the preliminary excavation report, the cultural features and chronology of this site are said to be quite similar to those of Gumugou.¹⁴ Other sites in Xinjiang also contain both individuals with Caucasian features and ones with Mongolian features. For example, this pattern occurs at the Yanbulark cemetery in Xinjiang, but individuals with Mongoloid features are clearly dominant.¹³ The above evidence is enough to show that, starting around 2,000 B.C., some so-called primitive Caucasians expanded eastward to the Xinjiang area as far as the area around Hami and Lop Nur. By the end of the second millennium, another group of people from Central Asia started to move over the Pamirs and gradually dispersed in southern Xinjiang. These western groups mixed with local Mongoloids¹⁶ resulting in an amalgamation of culture and race in middle Xinjiang east to the Tianshan.
  49. ^ Li et al. (2010).
  50. ^ Fortson, Benjamin W. 2004. Indo-European Language and Culture. Blackwell Publishing. Page 352: "Adding to the various mysteries surrounding the Tocharians is the existence of extremely well-preserved mummies in the Takla Makan desert that have striking Europoid features and often red hair; some are nearly 4,000 years old. The mummies were found with tapestries woven in plaids that are similar in weaving style and pattern to tartans from the Hallstatt culture of central Europe, which was ancestral to the Celts... the wool used in weaving the tapestries comes from sheep of European ancestry..."
  51. ^ Zhang, F; Ning, C; Scott, A; et al. (2021). "The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies". Nature. 599 (7884): 256–261. Bibcode:2021Natur.599..256Z. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04052-7. PMC 8580821. PMID 34707286.
  52. ^ a b Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 318.
  53. ^ John E. Hill (2009). Through the Jade Gate to Rome. Booksurge Publishing. p. 311. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
  54. ^ Beckwith (2009), pp. 84, 380–383.
  55. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 268, 318.
  56. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 310–311, 318.
  57. ^ Le Coq, Albert von; Waldschmidt, Ernst (1922). Die buddhistische spätantike in Mittelasien, VI. Berlin, D. Reimer [etc.] pp. 80–81.
  58. ^ Snow (2002), p. [page needed].
  59. ^ Mallory (2015), p. [page needed].
  60. ^ Manko Namba Walter (October 1998). "Tokharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers (85).
  61. ^ a b Grousset 1970, p. 99.
  62. ^ a b Waugh, Daniel (Historian, University of Washington). "Kizil". depts.washington.edu. Washington University. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  63. ^ a b Beal, Samuel (2000). Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World : Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (A.D. 629). Psychology Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-415-24469-5., also available in: "Kingdom of K'iu-chi (Kucha or Kuche) [Chapter 2]". www.wisdomlib.org. 27 June 2018. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  64. ^ a b ""屈支国" in 大唐西域记/01 - 维基文库，自由的图书馆". zh.m.wikisource.org. Wikisource.
  65. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 66.
  66. ^ Millward (2021), p. 6.
  67. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 68, 72.
  68. ^ Mallory & Adams (1997), p. 591.
  69. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 72.
  70. ^ Yü (1986), pp. 405, 407.
  71. ^ Yü (1986), p. 407.
  72. ^ Yü (1986), pp. 409–411.
  73. ^ Loewe (1979), p. 49.
  74. ^ Grousset 1970, p. 40-47.
  75. ^ Grousset 1970, p. 42.
  76. ^ a b Grousset 1970, p. 45-46.
  77. ^ Grousset 1970, p. 48.
  78. ^ Grousset 1970, p. 47-48.
  79. ^ Grousset 1970, p. 40, 48.
  80. ^ Grousset (1970), pp. 49 ff.
  81. ^ a b Hansen (2012), p. 66.
  82. ^ Millward (2021), p. 23.
  83. ^ Rhie, Marylin Martin (15 July 2019). Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia, Volume 2 The Eastern Chin and Sixteen Kingdoms Period in China and Tumshuk, Kucha and Karashahr in Central Asia (2 vols). BRILL. pp. 651 ff. ISBN 978-90-04-39186-4.
  84. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 97.
  85. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 115.
  86. ^ Walter (1998), pp. 5–9.
  87. ^ Millward (2021), pp. 27–28.
  88. ^ Hansen (2012), p. 68.
  89. ^ Walter (1998), pp. 21–17.
  90. ^ Hansen (2012), pp. 61–65.
  91. ^ Millward (2021), pp. 25–26.
  92. ^ Hansen (2012), pp. 66, 75.
  93. ^ Puri, Baij Nath (1987). Buddhism in Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p. 79. ISBN 978-81-208-0372-5.
  94. ^ Di Cosmo (2000), p. 398.
  95. ^ Millward (2021), p. 28.
  96. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 73.
  97. ^ a b Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 74.
  98. ^ Rowland, Benjamin (1975). The art of Central Asia. New York, Crown. p. 155.
  99. ^ Millward (2021), p. 37.
  100. ^ Millward (2021), p. 30.
  101. ^ Millward (2021), pp. 30, 408.
  102. ^ a b c Kageyama, Etsuko (2016). "Change of suspension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Eurasia: Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia" (PDF). ZINBUN. 46: 200–202.
  103. ^ Ilyasov, Jangar (2001). "The Hephthalite Terracotta // Silk Road Art and Archaeology. Vol. 7. Kamakura, 2001, 187–200". Silk Road Art and Archaeology: 187–197.
  104. ^ "CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xiv. E. Iranian Art – Encyclopaedia Iranica". www.iranicaonline.org.
  105. ^ Kurbanov, Aydogdy (2014). "THE HEPHTHALITES: ICONOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS" (PDF). Tyragetia. 8: 329.
  106. ^ Kageyama quoting the research of S. Hiyama, "Study on the first-style murals of Kucha: analysis of some motifs related to the Hephthalite's period", in Kageyama, Etsuko (2016). "Change of suspension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Eurasia: Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia" (PDF). ZINBUN. 46: 200.
  107. ^ Hiyama, Satomi (September 2015). "Reflection on the Geopolitical Context of the Silk Road in the First and Second Indo-Iranian Style Wall Paintings in Kucha". Silk Road – Meditations: 2015 International Conference on the Kizil Cave Paintings, Collection of Research Papers: 81.
  108. ^ a b Hansen (2012), p. 75.
  109. ^ Hansen (2012), p. 76.
  110. ^ Hansen (2012), p. 77.
  111. ^ "On the lunette of the front wall is painted a scene of the preaching of the Buddha in the Deer Park. On the left of the Buddha are painted the king and his wife; on the halo of the king is inscribed the dedication, which was interpreted by Pinault in his paper of 1994, 'Temple Constructed for the Benefit of Suvarnapousa by His Son' (this material is referred to in Kezier shiku neirong zonglu p. 2). From Chinese historical records it is known that this king reigned between the years 600 and 625, and his three sons died before 647: to date, this is the most accurate dating for the cave" in Vignato, Giuseppe (2006). "Archaeological Survey of Kizil: Its Groups of Caves, Districts, Chronology and Buddhist Schools". East and West. 56 (4): 405, note 71. ISSN 0012-8376. JSTOR 29757697.
  112. ^ "618年，汉名为苏伐勃駃（梵文Suvarna pushpa，意为金色的花朵）的库车王向隋场帝表示归顺。" in Grousset, René. 草原帝国 (L'Empire des Steppes). p. 138.
  113. ^ Rowland, Benjamin (1975). The art of Central Asia. New York, Crown. p. 151.
  114. ^ "王屈支种也" in ""屈支国" in 大唐西域记/01 - 维基文库，自由的图书馆". zh.m.wikisource.org. Wikisource.
  115. ^ Wechsler (1979), p. 220.
  116. ^ Wechsler (1979), p. 225.
  117. ^ Wechsler (1979), p. 226.
  118. ^ Wechsler (1979), pp. 226, 228.
  119. ^ Wechsler (1979), p. 228.
  120. ^ Hansen (2012), p. 80.
  121. ^ a b Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 272.
  122. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 272–273.
  123. ^ Hansen (2012), p. 108.
  124. ^ Millward (2021), p. 47.
  125. ^ Millward (2021), p. 63.
  126. ^ Hong, Sun-Kee; Wu, Jianguo; Kim, Jae-Eun; Nakagoshi, Nobukazu (25 December 2010). Landscape Ecology in Asian Cultures. Springer. p. 284. ISBN 978-4-431-87799-8. p.284: "The Uyghurs mixed with the Tocharian people and adopted their religion and their culture of oasis agriculture (Scharlipp 1992; Soucek 2000)."
  127. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 273.
  128. ^ Carling, Gerd (Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen). "Tocharian (p.16)" (PDF).
  129. ^ a b Adams, Douglas Q.; Peyrot, Michaël; Pinault, Georges-Jean; Olander, Thomas; Rasmussen, Jens Elmegård (2013). "More Thoughts on Tocharian B Prosody" in "Tocharian and Indo-European Studies vol.14". Museum Tusculanum Press. pp. 26–28. ISBN 978-87-635-4066-7.
  130. ^ a b Chrestomathie tokharienne: Textes et grammaire, Georges-Jean Pinault. Peeters, 2008.
  131. ^ "Language Log » Tocharian love poem".
  132. ^ World Atlas of Poetic Traditions: Tocharian

Works cited

  • Adams, Douglas Q. (2013), A Dictionary of Tocharian B (2nd ed.), Rodopi, ISBN 978-90-420-3671-0.
  • Beckwith, Christopher I. (2009), Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Present, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-15034-5.
  • Chen, Kwang-tzuu; Hiebert, Fredrik T. (1995), "The late prehistory of Xinjiang in relation to its neighbors", Journal of World Prehistory, 9 (2): 243–300, doi:10.1007/bf02221840, JSTOR 25801077, S2CID 161858422.
  • Di Cosmo, Nicola (2000), "Ancient city-states of the Tarim Basin", in Hansen, Mogens Herman (ed.), A Comparative Study of Thirty City-state Cultures, Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, pp. 393–407, ISBN 978-87-7876-177-4.
  • Grousset, René (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-1304-1.
  • Hansen, Valerie (2012), The Silk Road: a new history, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-195-15931-8.
  • Hulsewé, A.F.P. (1979), 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. Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-05884-2.
  • Li, Chunxiang; Li, Hongjie; Cui, Yinqiu; Xie, Chengzhi; Cai, Dawei; Li, Wenying; Mair, Victor H.; Xu, Zhi; Zhang, Quanchao; Abuduresule, Idelis; Jin, Li; Zhu, Hong; Zhou, Hui (2010), "Evidence that a West-East admixed population lived in the Tarim Basin as early as the early Bronze Age", BMC Biology, 8 (15): 15, doi:10.1186/1741-7007-8-15, PMC 2838831, PMID 20163704.
  • Loewe, Michael (1979), "Introduction", in Hulsewé, Anthony François Paulus (ed.), China in Central Asia: The Early Stage: 125 BC – AD 23, Brill, pp. 1–70, ISBN 978-90-04-05884-2.
  • Mallory, J.P. (November 2015), "The problem of Tocharian origins: an archaeological perspective" (PDF), Sino-Platonic Papers (259).
  • Mallory, J.P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997), Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5.
  • Mallory, J.P.; Mair, Victor H. (2000), The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames & Hudson, ISBN 978-0-500-05101-6.
  • Millward, James A. (2021), Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (new and revised ed.), London: Hurst & Company, ISBN 978-1-78738-334-0.
  • Snow, J.T. (June 2002), "The Spider's Web. Goddesses of Light and Loom: Examining the Evidence for the Indo-European Origin of Two Ancient Chinese Deities" (PDF), Sino-Platonic Papers (118).
  • Walter, Mariko Namba (1998), "Tocharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E." (PDF), Sino-Platonic Papers, 85.
  • Wechsler, Howard J. (1979), "T'ai-tsung (reign 624–49) the consolidator", in Twitchett, Dennis (ed.), The Cambridge History of China, Volume 3: Sui and T'ang China, 589–906 AD, Part 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 188–241, ISBN 978-0-521-21446-9.
  • Winter, Werner (1998), "Tocharian", in Ramat, Giacalone Anna; Ramat, Paolo (eds.), The Indo-European languages, London: Routledge, pp. 154–168, ISBN 978-0-415-06449-1.
  • Yü, Ying-shih (1986), "Han foreign relations", in Twitchett, Dennis; Loewe, Michael (eds.), The Cambridge History of China, Volume 1: The Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 BC–AD 220, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 377–462, ISBN 978-0-521-24327-8.

Further reading

Note: Recent discoveries have rendered obsolete some of René Grousset's classic The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, published in 1939, which, however, still provides a broad background against which to assess more modern detailed studies.

  • Baldi, Philip. 1983. An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages. Carbondale. Southern Illinois University Press.
  • Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. 1999. The Mummies of Ürümchi. London. Pan Books.
  • Beekes, Robert. 1995. Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Philadelphia. John Benjamins.
  • Hemphill, Brian E. and J.P. Mallory. 2004. "Horse-mounted invaders from the Russo-Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from Western Central Asia? A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang" in American Journal of Physical Anthropology vol. 125 pp 199ff.
  • Lane, George S. 1966. "On the Interrelationship of the Tocharian Dialects," in Ancient Indo-European Dialects, eds. Henrik Birnbaum and Jaan Puhvel. Berkeley. University of California Press.
  • Ning, Chao, Chuan-Chao Wang, Shizhu Gao, Y. Yang and Yinqiu Cui. "Ancient Genomes Reveal Yamnaya-Related Ancestry and a Potential Source of Indo-European Speakers in Iron Age Tianshan". In: Current Biology 29 (2019): 2526–2532.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.044
  • Walter, Mariko Namba 1998 "Tocharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E." Sino-Platonic Papers 85.
  • Xu, Wenkan 1995 "The Discovery of the Xinjiang Mummies and Studies of the Origin of the Tocharians" The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 23, Number 3 & 4, Fall/Winter 1995, pp. 357–369.
  • Xu, Wenkan 1996 "The Tokharians and Buddhism" In: Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 9, pp. 1–17. [1][permanent dead link]

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tocharians.
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Tocharians.
 
Look up Tocharian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • Tocharian alphabet at omniglot.com
  • Tocharian alphabet
  • Modern studies are developing a Tocharian dictionary.
  • A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q. Adams (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 10), xxxiv, 830 pp., Rodopi: Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1999. [2]

May 07, 2023
tocharians, this, article, about, speakers, extinct, languages, tarim, basin, china, tókharoi, tochari, bactria, tokharistan, ancient, indian, tribe, sometimes, known, tukharas, tushara, historical, people, central, asia, controversially, identified, with, yue. This article is about speakers of extinct languages of the Tarim Basin China For the Tokharoi or Tochari of Bactria see Tokharistan For the ancient Indian tribe sometimes known as the Tukharas see Tushara For a historical people of Central Asia controversially identified with the Tocharians see Yuezhi The Tocharians or Tokharians US t oʊ ˈ k ɛer i e n or t oʊ ˈ k ɑːr i e n 5 UK t ɒ ˈ k ɑːr i e n 6 were speakers of Tocharian languages Indo European languages known from around 7 600 documents from around 400 to 1200 AD found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin modern day Xinjiang China 7 The name Tocharian was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tokharoi Latin Tochari who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC This identification is generally considered erroneous but the name Tocharian remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers Their actual ethnic name is unknown although they may have referred to themselves as Agni Kuci and Kroran or Agniya Kuchiya as known from Sanskrit texts 8 clarification needed TochariansTocharian royal family of the oasis city state of Kucha King Queen and fair haired young Princes Cave 17 Kizil Caves Circa 500 AD Hermitage Museum 1 2 3 4 Regions with significant populationsTarim Basin in 1st millennium AD modern day Xinjiang China LanguagesTocharian languagesReligionBuddhism and othersRelated ethnic groupsAfanasievo cultureAgricultural communities first appeared in the oases of the northern Tarim circa 2 000 BC Some scholars have linked these communities to the Afanasievo culture found earlier c 3 500 2 500 BC in Siberia north of the Tarim or Central Asian BMAC culture The earliest Tarim mummies date from c 1 800 BC but it is unclear whether they are connected to the Tocharians of two millennia later By the 2nd century BC these settlements had developed into city states overshadowed by nomadic peoples to the north and Chinese empires to the east These cities the largest of which was Kucha also served as way stations on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert For several centuries the Tarim basin was ruled by the Xiongnu the Han dynasty the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty From the 8th century AD the Uyghurs speakers of a Turkic language settled in the region and founded the Kingdom of Qocho that ruled the Tarim Basin The peoples of the Tarim city states intermixed with the Uyghurs whose Old Uyghur language spread through the region The Tocharian languages are believed to have become extinct during the 9th century Contents 1 Names 2 Languages 3 Origins 3 1 Afanasievo culture 3 2 Settlement of the Tarim basin 3 3 Tarim mummies 3 4 Later immigrants 4 Religion 5 Oasis states 5 1 Xiongnu and Han empires 5 1 1 Kushan Empire 2nd century AD 5 2 Flourishing of the oasis states 5 2 1 Hephthalite conquest circa 480 550 AD 5 2 2 Gokturks suzerainty 560 AD 5 3 Tang conquest and aftermath 5 4 Epigraphy 6 Known rulers 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 9 1 Works cited 10 Further reading 11 External linksNames EditAround the beginning of the 20th century archaeologists recovered a number of manuscripts from oases in the Tarim Basin written in two closely related but previously unknown Indo European languages which were easy to read because they used a close variation of the already deciphered Indian Middle Brahmi script These languages were designated in similar fashion by their geographical neighbours 9 A Buddhist work in Old Turkic Uighur included a colophon stating that the text had been translated from Sanskrit via toxri tyly Twgry tyly The language of the Togari 10 9 8 Manichean texts in several languages of neighbouring regions used the expression the land of the Four Toghar Togar Toxar written Twgr to designate the area from Kucha and Karashar to Qocho and Beshbalik 9 The geographical spread of the Indo European languages with Tocharian in the east Friedrich W K Muller was the first to propose a characterization for the newly discovered languages 11 12 Muller called the languages Tocharian German Tocharisch linking this toxri Twgry Togari 8 with the ethnonym Tokharoi Ancient Greek Toxaroi applied by Strabo to one of the Scythian tribes from the country on the other side of the Iaxartes that overran the Greco Bactrian kingdom present day Afghanistan in the second half of the 2nd century BC 12 13 a This term also appears in Indo Iranian languages Sanskrit Tushara Tukhara Old Persian tuxari Khotanese ttahvara and became the source of the term Tokharistan usually referring to 1st millennium Bactria as well as the Takhar province of Afghanistan The Tokharoi are often identified by modern scholars with the Yuezhi of Chinese historical accounts who founded the Kushan Empire 14 15 Muller s identification became a minority position among scholars when it turned out that the people of Tokharistan Bactria spoke Bactrian an Eastern Iranian language which is quite distinct from the Tocharian languages Nevertheless Tocharian remained the standard term for the languages of the Tarim Basin manuscripts and for the people who produced them 11 16 A few scholars argue that the Yuezhi were originally speakers of Tocharian who later adopted the Bactrian language 17 The name of Kucha in Tocharian B was Kusi with adjectival form kusinne The word may be derived from Proto Indo European keuk shining white 18 The Tocharian B word akenne may have referred to people of Agni with a derivation meaning borderers marchers 19 One of the Tocharian A texts have arsi kantwa as a name for their own language so that arsi may have meant Agnean though monk is also possible 20 Tocharian kings apparently gave themselves the title Naktemts soy in Tocharian B an equivalent of the title Devaputra Son of God of the Kushans 21 22 Languages EditMain articles Proto Tocharian language and Tocharian languages Female donor with label in Tocharian Kizil Caves The Tocharian script is very similar to the Indian Brahmi script from the Kushan period with only slight variations in calligraphy Tocharian language inscription Se panakte saṅketavattse ṣarsa papaiykau This Buddha was painted by the hand of Sanketava 23 24 on a painting carbon dated to 245 340 AD 25 The Tocharian languages are known from around 7600 documents dating from about 400 to 1200 AD found at 30 sites in the northeast Tarim area 26 The manuscripts are written in two distinct but closely related Indo European languages conventionally known as Tocharian A and Tocharian B 27 Tocharian A Agnean or East Tocharian was found in the northeastern oases known to the Tocharians as Arsi later Agni i e Chinese Yanqi modern Karasahr and Turpan including Khocho or Qoco known in Chinese as Gaochang Some 500 manuscripts have been studied in detail mostly coming from Buddhist monasteries Many authors take this to imply that Tocharian A had become a purely literary and liturgical language by the time of the manuscripts but it may be that the surviving documents are unrepresentative 28 Tocharian B Kuchean or West Tocharian was found at all the Tocharian A sites and also in several sites further west including Kuchi later Kucha It appears to have still been in use in daily life at that time 29 Over 3200 manuscripts have been studied in detail 28 The languages had significant differences in phonology morphology and vocabulary making them mutually unintelligible at least as much as modern Germanic or Romance languages 30 31 Tocharian A shows innovations in the vowels and nominal inflection whereas Tocharian B has changes in the consonants and verbal inflection Many of the differences in vocabulary between the languages concern Buddhist concepts which may suggest that they were associated with different Buddhist traditions 30 The differences indicate that they diverged from a common ancestor between 500 and 1000 years before the earliest documents that is sometime in the 1st millennium BC 32 Common Indo European vocabulary retained in Tocharian includes words for herding cattle sheep pigs dogs horses textiles farming wheat gold silver and wheeled vehicles 33 Prakrit documents from 3rd century Kroran Andir and Niya on the southeast edge of the Tarim Basin contain around 100 loanwords and 1000 proper names that cannot be traced to an Indic or Iranian source 34 Thomas Burrow suggested that they come from a variety of Tocharian dubbed Tocharian C or Kroranian which may have been spoken by at least some of the local populace 35 Burrow s theory is widely accepted but the evidence is meagre and inconclusive and some scholars favour alternative explanations 26 Origins EditThe route by which speakers of Indo European languages reached the Tarim Basin is uncertain A leading contender is the Afanasievo culture who occupied the Altai region to the north between 3300 and 2500 BC Afanasievo culture Edit Afanasievoculture Tocharians Indo Aryans Indo European migrations with location of the Afanasievo culture genetically identical to the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppes and their probable Tocharians descendants 36 The Afanasievo culture resulted from an eastern offshoot of the Yamnaya culture originally based in the Pontic steppe north of the Caucasus Mountains 37 The Afanasevo culture c 3500 2500 BC displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo European associated cultures of the Central Asian steppe yet predates the specifically Indo Iranian associated Andronovo culture c 2000 900 BC J P Mallory and Victor H Mair argued that the Tarim Basin was first settled by Proto Tocharian speakers from an eastern offshoot of the Afanasievo culture who migrated to the south and occupied the northern and eastern edges of the basin 38 The early eastward expansion of the Yamnaya culture circa 3300 BC is enough to account for the isolation of the Tocharian languages from Indo Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization 39 Michael Peyrot argues that several of the most striking typological peculiarities of Tocharian are rooted in a prolonged contact of Proto Tocharian speaking Afanasievans with speakers of an early stage of Proto Samoyedic in South Siberia Among others this might explain the merger of all three stop series e g t d dʰ gt t which must have led to a huge amount of homonyms as well as the development of an agglutinative case system 40 A 2019 genetic study of burials from around 200 BC at a site on the eastern edge of Dzungaria found 20 80 Yamnaya like ancestry lending support to the hypothesis of a migration from Afanasievo into Dzungaria which is just north of the Tarim Basin 41 Settlement of the Tarim basin Edit The Taklamakan Desert is roughly oval in shape about 1 000 km long and 400 km wide surrounded on three sides by high mountains The main part of the desert is sandy surrounded by a belt of gravel desert 42 The desert is completely barren but in the late spring the melting snows of the surrounding mountains feed streams which have been altered by human activity to create oases with mild microclimates and supporting intensive agriculture 42 On the northern edge of the basin these oases occur in small valleys before the gravels 42 On the southern edge they occur in alluvial fans on the edge of the sand zone Isolated alluvial fan oases also occur in the gravel deserts of the Turpan Depression to the east of the Taklamakan 43 From around 2000 BC these oases supported Bronze Age settled agricultural communities of steadily increasing sophistication 44 The necessary irrigation technology was first developed during the 3rd millennium BC in the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex BMAC to the west of the Pamir mountains but it is unclear how it reached the Tarim 45 46 The staple crops wheat and barley also originated in the west 47 Tarim mummies Edit Main article Tarim mummies One of the Tarim mummies Loulan beauty The oldest of the Tarim mummies bodies preserved by the desert conditions date from 2000 BC and were found on the eastern edge of the Tarim basin The mummies have been described as being both Caucasoid and Mongoloid and mixed race individuals are also observed 48 A genetic study of remains from the oldest layer of the Xiaohe Cemetery found that the maternal lineages were a mixture of east and west Eurasian types while all the paternal lineages were of west Eurasian type 49 It is unknown whether they are connected with the frescoes painted at Tocharian sites more than two millennia later which also depict light eyes and hair color The mummies were found with plaid woven tapestries that are notably similar to the weaving pattern of the tartan style of the Hallstatt culture of central Europe associated with Celts the wool used in the tapestries was found to come from sheep with European ancestry 50 A 2021 genetic study demonstrated that the Tarim mummies were unrelated to Afanasievo populations and instead were a genetic isolate descending mainly from Ancient North Eurasians 51 Later immigrants Edit Later groups of nomadic pastoralists moved from the steppe into the grasslands to the north and northeast of the Tarim They were the ancestors of peoples later known to Chinese authors as the Wusun and Yuezhi 52 It is thought that at least some of them spoke Iranian languages 52 but a minority of scholars suggest that the Yuezhi were Tocharian speakers 53 54 During the 1st millennium BC a further wave of immigrants the Saka speaking Iranian languages arrived from the west and settled along the southern rim of the Tarim 55 They are believed to be the source of Iranian loanwords in Tocharian languages particularly related to commerce and warfare 56 Religion Edit Tocharian Prince mourning the Cremation of the Buddha in a mural from Maya Cave 224 in Kizil He is cutting his forehead with a knife a practice of self mutilation also known among the Scythians 57 Most of the Tocharian inscriptions are based on Buddhist monastical texts which suggests that the Tocharians largely embraced Buddhism The pre Buddhist beliefs of the Tocharians are largely unknown but several Chinese goddesses are similar to the reconstructed Proto Indo European sun goddess and the dawn goddess which implies that the Chinese were influenced by the pre Buddhist beliefs of the Tocharians when they traveled on trade routes which were located in Tocharian territories 58 Tocharian B has a noun swanco derived from the name of the Proto Indo European sun goddess while Tocharian A has koṃ a loanword etymologically connected to the Turkic sun goddess Gun Ana Besides this they might have also worshipped a lunar deity men and an earth one keṃ 59 The murals found in the Tarim Basin especially those of the Kizil Caves mostly depict Jataka stories avadanas and legends of the Buddha and are an artistic representation in the tradition of the Hinayana school of the Sarvastivadas 60 When the Chinese Monk Xuanzang visited Kucha in 630 CE he received the favours of the Tocharian king Suvarnadeva the son and successor of Suvarnapushpa whom he described as a believer of Hinayana Buddhism 61 In the account of his travel to Kucha 屈支国 he stated that There are about one hundred convents saṅgharamas in this country with five thousand and more disciples These belong to the Little Vehicle of the school of the Sarvastivadas zhuyiqieyoubu Their doctrine teaching of Sutras and their rules of discipline principles of the Vinaya are like those of India and those who read them use the same originals 62 63 64 Oasis states Edit Major oasis states of the ancient Tarim Basin CHAM PA500SASANIANEMPIREBYZANTINEEMPIRENORTHERNWEIHYMYARSOUTHERNQIAlchonHunsNezaksTOCHA RIANSZHANGZHUNGFUNANTUYUHUNGUPTAEMPIREHEPHTHALITESROURAN KHAGANATEKyrgyzsGaojuTurksYuebanMagyarsGOGU RYEOAKSUM class notpageimage The Tocharians and contemporary Asian polities c 500 AD The first record of the oasis states is found in Chinese histories The Book of Han lists 36 statelets in the Tarim basin in the last two centuries BC 65 These oases served as waystations on the trade routes forming part of the Silk Road passing along the northern and southern edges of the Taklamakan desert 66 The largest were Kucha with 81 000 inhabitants and Agni Yanqi or Karashar with 32 000 67 Next was the Loulan Kingdom Kroran first mentioned in 126 BCE Chinese histories give no evidence of ethnic changes in these cities between that time and the period of the Tocharian manuscripts from these sites 68 Situated on the northern and southern edges of the Tarim these small urban societies were overshadowed by nomadic peoples to the north and Chinese empires to the east They became the object of rivalry between the Chinese and the Xiongnu They conceded tributary relations with the larger powers when required and acted independently when they could 69 Xiongnu and Han empires Edit In 177 BC the Xiongnu drove the Yuezhi from western Gansu causing most of them to flee west to the Ili Valley and then to Bactria The Xiongnu then overcame the Tarim statelets which became a vital part of their empire 70 The Chinese Han dynasty was determined to weaken their Xiongnu enemies by depriving them of this area 71 This was achieved in a series of campaigns beginning in 108 BC and culminating in the establishment of the Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60 BC under Zheng Ji 72 The Han government used a range of tactics including plots to assassinate local rulers direct attacks on a few states e g Kucha in 65 BC to cow the rest and the massacre of the entire population of Luntai 80 km east of Kucha when they resisted 73 During the Later Han 25 220 AD the whole Tarim Basin again became a focus of rivalry between the Xiong nu to the north and the Chinese to the east 74 In 74 AD Chinese troops started to take control of the Tarim Basin with the conquest of Turfan 75 During the 1st century AD Kucha resisted the Chinese invasion and allied itself with the Xiong nu and the Yuezhi against the Chinese general Ban Chao 76 Even the Kushan Empire of Kujula Kadphises sent an army to the Tarim Basin to support Kucha but they retreated after minor encounters 76 In 124 Kucha formally submitted to the Chinese court and by 127 China had conquered the whole of the Tarim Basin 77 China s control of the Silk Road facilitated the exchange of art and the progation of Buddhism from Central Asia 78 The Roman Maes Titianus is known to have visited the area in the 2nd century AD 79 as did numerous great Buddhist missionaries such as the Parthian An Shigao the Yuezhis Lokaksema and Zhi Qian or the Indian Chu Sho fu 竺朔佛 80 The Han controlled the Tarim states until their final withdrawal in 150 AD 81 82 Kushan Empire 2nd century AD Edit Tocharian kneeling devotees circa 300 AD in the paintings of the Cave of the Hippocampi Cave 118 Kizil Caves 83 The Kushan Empire expanded into the Tarim during the 2nd century AD bringing Buddhism Kushan art Sanskrit as a liturgical language and Prakrit as an administrative language in the southern Tarim states 84 With these Indic languages came scripts including the Brahmi script later adapted to write Tocharian and the Kharosthi script 85 From the 3rd century Kucha became a centre of Buddhist studies Buddhist texts were translated into Chinese by Kuchean monks the most famous of whom was Kumarajiva 344 412 5 86 81 Captured by Lu Guang of the Later Liang in an attack on Kucha in 384 Kumarajiva learned Chinese during his years of captivity in Gansu In 401 he was brought to the Later Qin capital of Chang an where he remained as head of a translation bureau until his death in 413 87 88 The Kizil Caves lie 65 km west of Kucha and contain over 236 Buddhist temples Their murals date from the 3rd to the 8th century 89 Many of these murals were removed by Albert von Le Coq and other European archaeologists in the early 20th century and are now held in European museums but others remain in their original locations 90 An increasingly dry climate in the 4th and 5th centuries led to the abandonment of several of the southern cities including Niya and Kroran with a consequent shift of trade from the southern route to the northern one 91 Confederations of nomadic tribes also began to jostle for supremacy The northern oasis states were conquered by Rouran in the late 5th century leaving the local leaders in place Flourishing of the oasis states Edit The Buddhist Cave with the Ring Bearing Doves Cave 123 at the Kizil Caves near Kucha built circa 430 530 CE Kucha the largest of the oasis cities was ruled by royal families sometimes autonomously and sometimes as vassals of outside powers 92 The Chinese named these Kuchean kings by adding the prefix Bai 白 meaning White probably pointing to the fair complexion of the Kucheans 93 The government included some 30 named posts below the king with all but the highest ranking titles occurring in pairs of left and right Other states had similar structures though on a smaller scale 94 The Book of Jin says of the city They have a walled city and suburbs The walls are threefold Within are Buddhist temples and stupas numbering a thousand The people are engaged in agriculture and husbandry The men and women cut their hair and wear it at the neck The prince s palace is grand and imposing glittering like an abode of the gods Book of Jin Chapter 97 95 Monks from the Cave of the Painters circa 500 AD Kizil Caves The inhabitants grew red millet wheat rice legumes hemp grapes and pomegranates and reared horses cattle sheep and camels 96 They also extracted a wide range of metals and minerals from the surrounding mountains 97 Handicrafts included leather goods fine felts and rugs 97 In the Kizil Caves appear portraits of Royal families composed of the King Queen and young Prince They are accompanied by monks and men in caftan 1 According to Historian of Art Benjamin Rowland these portraits show that the Tocharians were European rather than Mongol in appearance with light complexions blue eyes and blond or reddish hair and the costumes of the knights and their ladies have haunting suggestions of the chivalric age of the West 98 Kucha ambassador are known to have visited the Chinese court of Emperor Yuan of Liang in his capital Jingzhou in 516 520 AD at or around the same time as the Hepthalite embassies there An ambassador from Kucha is illustrated in Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang painted in 526 539 AD an 11th century Song copy of which as remained Hephthalite conquest circa 480 550 AD Edit Ambassador from Kucha 龜茲國 Qiuci guo one of the main Tocharian cities visiting the Chinese Southern Liang court in Jingzhou circa 516 520 AD at the time of Hephthalite domination over the region with explanatory text Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang 11th century Song copy In the late 5th century AD the Hephthalites based in Tokharistan Bactria expanded eastward through the Pamir Mountains which are comparatively easy to cross as did the Kushans before them due to the presence of convenient plateaus between high peaks 99 They occupied the western Tarim Basin Kashgar and Khotan taking control of the area from the Ruanruans who had been collecting heavy tribute from the oasis cities but were now weakening under the assaults of the Chinese Wei dynasty 100 In 479 they took the east end of the Tarim Basin around the region of Turfan In 497 509 they pushed north of Turfan to the Urumchi region In the early years of the 6th century they were sending embassies from their dominions in the Tarim Basin to the Wei dynasty The Hephthalites continued to occupy the Tarim Basin until the end of their Empire circa 560 AD 101 As the territories ruled by the Hephthalites expanded into Central Asia and the Tarim Basin the art of the Hephthalites with characteristic clothing and hairstyles also came to be used in the areas they ruled such as Sogdiana Bamiyan or Kucha in the Tarim Basin Kizil Caves Kumtura Caves Subashi reliquary 102 103 104 In these areas appear dignitaries with caftans with a triangular collar on the right side crowns with three crescents some crowns with wings and a unique hairstyle Another marker is the two point suspension system for swords which seems to have been an Hephthalite innovation and was introduced by them in the territories they controlled 102 The paintings from the Kucha region particularly the swordmen in the Kizil Caves appear to have been made during Hephthalite rule in the region circa 480 550 AD 102 105 The influence of the art of Gandhara in some of the earliest paintings at the Kizil Caves dated to circa 500 AD is considered as a consequence of the political unification of the area between Bactria and Kucha under the Hephthalites 106 Gokturks suzerainty 560 AD Edit King Suvarnapushpa of Kucha is historically known and ruled 600 625 AD Cave 69 Kizil Caves The early Turks of the First Turkic Khaganate then took control of the Turfan and Kucha areas from around 560 AD and in alliance with the Sasanian Empire became instrumental in the fall of the Hephthalite Empire 107 The Turks then split into Western and Eastern Khaganates by 580 AD 108 Tocharian royal families continued to rule Kucha as vassals of the Western Turks to whom they provided tribute and troops 108 Many surviving texts in Tocharian date from this period and deal with a wide variety of administrative religious and everyday topics 109 They also include travel passes small slips of poplar wood giving the size of the permitted caravans for officials at the next station along the road 110 Tocharian knights from Kizil Caves Cave 16 Circa 600 CE In 618 king Suvarnapushpa of Kucha sent an embassy to the court of the Tang dynasty acknowledging vassalship 111 61 112 The Chinese Monk Xuanzang in 630 AD visited the cities of the Tarim Basin and described in many details the characteristics of Kucha 屈支国 in 大唐西域记 Tang Dynasty Account of the Western Regions 113 63 64 1 The style of writing is Indian with some differences 2 They clothe themselves with ornamental garments of silk and embroidery They cut their hair and wear a flowing covering over their heads 3 The king is of Kuchean race 114 4 There are about one hundred convents saṅgharamas in this country with five thousand and more disciples These belong to the Little Vehicle of the school of the Sarvastivadas Shwo yih tsai yu po Their doctrine teaching of Sutras and their rules of discipline principles of the Vinaya are like those of India and those who read them use the same originals 5 About 40 li to the north of this desert city there are two convents close together on the slope of a mountain 62 Tang conquest and aftermath Edit See also Tang campaign against the oasis states In the 7th century Emperor Taizong of Tang China having overcome the Eastern Turks sent his armies west to attack the Western Turks and the oasis states 115 The first oasis to fall was Turfan which was captured in 630 and annexed as part of China 116 Emperor Taizong s campaign against the oasis states Next to the west lay the city of Agni which had been a tributary of the Tang since 632 Alarmed by the nearby Chinese armies Agni stopped sending Tribute to China and formed an alliance with the Western Turks They were aided by Kucha who also stopped sending tribute The Tang captured Agni in 644 defeating a Western Turk relief force and made the king of Kucha Suvarnadeva Chinese 蘇伐疊 Sufadie resume tribute When that king was deposed by a relative named Haripushpa Chinese 訶黎布失畢 Helibushibi in 648 the Tang sent an army under the Turk general Ashina She er to install a compliant member of the local royal family a younger brother of Haripushpa 117 Ashina She er continued to capture Kucha and made it the headquarters of the Tang Protectorate General to Pacify the West Kuchean forces recaptured the city and killed protector general Guo Xiaoke but it fell again to Ashina She er who had 11 000 of the inhabitants executed in reprisal for the killing of Guo 118 The Tocharian cities never recovered from the Tang conquest 119 The Tang lost the Tarim basin to the Tibetan Empire in 670 but regained it in 692 and continued to rule there until it was recaptured by the Tibetans in 792 120 The ruling Bai family of Kucha are last mentioned in Chinese sources in 787 121 There is little mention of the region in Chinese sources for the 9th and 10th centuries 122 The Uyghur Khaganate took control of the northern Tarim in 803 After their capital in Mongolia was sacked by the Yenisei Kyrgyz in 840 they established a new state the Kingdom of Qocho with its capital at Gaochang near Turfan in 866 123 Over centuries of contact and intermarriage the cultures and populations of the pastoralist rulers and their agriculturalist subjects blended together 124 Many Uyghurs converted to the Tocharian Buddhism or Nestorian Christianity 125 and adopted the agricultural lifestyle and many of the customs of the oasis dwellers 126 The Tocharian language gradually disappeared as the urban population switched to the Old Uyghur language 127 Epigraphy Edit Most of the texts known from the Tocharians are religious except for one known love poem in Tocharian B manuscript B 496 found in Kizil 128 Tocharian B manuscript B 496 Translation English Transliteration Inscription Tocharian script I for a thousand years however Thou wilt tell the story Thy I announce Heretofore there was no human being dearer to me than thee likewise hereafter there will be no one dearer to me than thee Love for thee affection for thee breath of all that is life and they shall not come to an end so long as there lasts life III Thus did I always think I will live well the whole of my life with one lover no force no deceit The god Karma alone knew this thought of mine so he provoked quarrel he ripped out my heart from thee He led thee afar tore me apart made me partake in all sorrows and took away the consolation thou wast mi life spirit and heart day by day 129 130 131 132 II Yaltse pikwala wataṃ weṃt noMa ni cisa noṣ somo nem wnolme lare taka ma ra postaṃ cisa lare masketar n Ciṣṣe laraumne ciṣṣe artanye pelke kalttarr solampa ṣṣe ma te stalle sol warnai III Taiysu palskanoym sanai ṣaryompa sayau karttse saulu warnai snai tserekwa snai nate Yamor nikte ṣe cau ni palskane sarsa tusa ysaly ersate ciṣy aras ni salkate Waya ci lauke tsyara nis wetke klyautka n pake po laklentas ciṣe tsarwo sampate Saul palsk arasni kom kom 129 130 Tocharian B Love Poem manuscript B496 one of two fragments Known rulers EditNames of the rulers of Kucha are known mainly from Chinese sources Prince Tottika Kizil Cave 205 Hong 洪 弘 circa 16 CE Chengde 丞德 circa 36 CE Zeluo 则罗 circa 46 CE Shen Du 身毒 circa 50 CE Bin 宾 circa 72 CE Jian 建 circa 73 CE Youliduo 尤利多 circa 76 CE Bai Ba 白霸 circa 91 CE Bai Ying 白英 circa 110 127 CE Bai Shan 白山 circa 280 CE Long Hui 龙会 circa 326 CE Bai Chun Chinese 白纯 Baichun ruled circa 383 CE Bain Zhen Chinese 白震 Baizhen ruled circa 383 CE Niruimo Zhunashen Chinese 尼瑞摩珠那胜 Niruimo Zhunashen ruled circa 520 CE Tottika ruled in Kucha in the end of the 6th century Chinese 托提卡 Tuotika Bai Sunidie Chinese 白苏尼咥 Bai Sunidie circa 562 CE Suvarnapuspa ruled in Kucha 600 625 CE Chinese 白苏伐勃𫘝 Bai Sufaboshi Suvarnadeva ruled in Kucha before 647 Chinese 白蘇伐疊 Bai Sufadie Haripushpa ruled in Kucha from 647 Chinese 白訶黎布失畢 Bai Helibushibi Bai Yehu 白叶护 648 Bai Helibushibi 白诃黎布失毕 650 Bai Suji 白素稽 659 Yan Tiandie 延田跌 678 Bai Mobi 白莫苾 708 Bai Jijie 白孝节 719 Bai Huan ruled 731 789 Chinese 白环 last ruler to be mentioned by Chinese sources 121 See also EditList of Tocharian Agnean Kuchean peoples Tocharian clothing Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves Sogdia Takhar Province Afghanistan Notes Edit 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 Iaxartes opposite the Sacae and Sogdiani Strabo 11 8 2 References Edit a b References BDce 888 889 MIK III 8875 now in the Hermitage Museum 俄立艾爾米塔什博物館藏克孜爾石窟壁畫 www sohu com in Chinese Image 16 in Yaldiz Marianne 1987 Archeaologie unFd Kunstgeschichte Chinesisch Zentralasiens Xinjiang in German BRILL p xv ISBN 978 90 04 07877 2 The images of donors in Cave 17 are seen in two fragments with numbers MIK 8875 and MIK 8876 One of them with halo may be identified as king of Kucha in Ghose Rajeshwari 2008 Kizil on the Silk Road Crossroads of Commerce amp Meeting of Minds Marg Publications p 127 note 22 ISBN 978 81 85026 85 5 The panel of Tocharian donors and Buddhist monks which was at the MIK MIK 8875 disappeared during World War II and was discovered by Yaldiz in 2002 in the Hermitage Museum page 65 note 30 Le Coq Albert von Waldschmidt Ernst 1922 Die buddhistische spatantike in Mittelasien VI Berlin D Reimer etc pp 68 70 Definition of TOCHARIAN www merriam webster com Retrieved 18 October 2019 Tocharian definition and meaning Collins English Dictionary www collinsdictionary com Retrieved 18 October 2019 Mallory 2015 p 4 Our knowledge of the Tocharian languages derives essentially from c 7600 documents found across about thirty sites in the eastern half of the greater Tarim Basin Fig 1 The documents date from c 400 to 1200 CE a b c Namba Walter Mariko 1998 Tokharian Buddhism in Kucha Buddhism of Indo European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C E PDF Sino Platonic Papers 85 2 note 4 a b c Beckwith 2009 pp 380 381 Introduction to Tocharian lrc la utexas edu a b Krause Todd B Slocum Jonathan Tocharian Online Series Introduction University of Texas at Austin Retrieved 17 April 2020 a b Beckwith 2009 pp 380 383 Also Ptolemy VI 11 6 2nd century AD Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 270 297 Beckwith 2009 pp 83 84 Mallory amp Adams 1997 p 509 Beckwith 2009 p 381 Adams 2013 p 198 Adams 2013 pp 2 3 Adams 2013 p 57 According to linguists the kings of Kucha called themselves naktemts soy in Tocharian B which is equivalent to Devaputra an epithet commonly used by the Kusana kings meaning Son of deva or God in Pande Anupa Sharma Mandira 2009 The Art of Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent in Cross cultural Perspective Aryan Books International p 133 note 22 ISBN 978 81 7305 347 4 Skalmowski Wojciech Tongerloo Alois van 1984 Middle Iranian Studies Proceedings of the International Symposium Organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the 17th to the 20th of May 1982 Peeters Publishers pp 197 198 ISBN 978 90 70192 14 3 Hartel Herbert Yaldiz Marianne Kunst Germany Museum fur Indische N Y Metropolitan Museum of Art New York 1982 Along the Ancient Silk Routes Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums an Exhibition Lent by the Museum Fur Indische Kunst Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz Berlin Federal Republic of Germany Metropolitan Museum of Art p 107 ISBN 978 0 87099 300 8 Le Coq Albert von Die Buddhistische Spatantike in Mittelasien vol 5 p 10 Waugh Historian University of Washington Daniel C MIA Berlin Turfan Collection Kizil depts washington edu a b Mallory 2015 pp 6 7 Winter 1998 p 154 a b Mallory 2015 p 4 Kim Ronald 2012 Introduction to Tocharian PDF p 30 Archived from the original PDF on 16 July 2018 Retrieved 1 May 2014 a b Winter 1998 p 155 Mallory 2015 p 7 Mallory 2015 pp 7 8 Mallory 2015 pp 17 19 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 277 278 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 278 279 Narasimhan Vagheesh M Patterson Nick Moorjani Priya Rohland Nadin Bernardos Rebecca 6 September 2019 The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia Science 365 6457 eaat7487 doi 10 1126 science aat7487 ISSN 0036 8075 PMC 6822619 PMID 31488661 Allentoft ME 11 June 2015 Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia PDF Nature Nature Research 522 7555 167 172 Bibcode 2015Natur 522 167A doi 10 1038 nature14507 PMID 26062507 S2CID 4399103 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 314 318 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 294 296 317 318 Peyrot M 2019 The deviant typological profile of the Tocharian branch of Indo European may be due to Uralic substrate influence Indo European Linguistics 7 1 72 121 doi https doi org 10 1163 22125892 00701007 Ning Chao Wang Chuan Chao Gao Shizhu Yang Yang Zhang Xue Wu Xiyan Zhang Fan Nie Zhongzhi Tang Yunpeng Robbeets Martine Ma Jian Krause Johannes Cui Yinqiu 2019 Ancient Genomes Reveal Yamnaya Related Ancestry and a Potential Source of Indo European Speakers in Iron Age Tianshan Current Biology 29 15 2526 2532 e4 doi 10 1016 j cub 2019 06 044 PMID 31353181 a b c Chen amp Hiebert 1995 p 247 Chen amp Hiebert 1995 p 248 Chen amp Hiebert 1995 pp 250 272 Chen amp Hiebert 1995 p 245 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 262 269 Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 269 Shuicheng Li 2003 Bulletin Stockholm Falth amp Hassler p 13 Biological anthropological research indicates that the physical characteristics of those buried at Gumugou cemetery along the Kongque River near Lop Nur in Xinjiang are very similar to those of the Andronovo culture and Afanasievo culture people from Siberia in Southern Russia This suggests that all of these individuals belong to the Caucasian physical type Additionally excavations in 2002 by Xinjiang archaeologists at the site of Xiaohe cemetery first discovered by the Swedish archaeologist Folke Bergman uncovered mummies and wooden human effigies that clearly have Europoid features Figure 6 1 According to the preliminary excavation report the cultural features and chronology of this site are said to be quite similar to those of Gumugou Other sites in Xinjiang also contain both individuals with Caucasian features and ones with Mongolian features For example this pattern occurs at the Yanbulark cemetery in Xinjiang but individuals with Mongoloid features are clearly dominant The above evidence is enough to show that starting around 2 000 B C some so called primitive Caucasians expanded eastward to the Xinjiang area as far as the area around Hami and Lop Nur By the end of the second millennium another group of people from Central Asia started to move over the Pamirs and gradually dispersed in southern Xinjiang These western groups mixed with local Mongoloids resulting in an amalgamation of culture and race in middle Xinjiang east to the Tianshan Li et al 2010 Fortson Benjamin W 2004 Indo European Language and Culture Blackwell Publishing Page 352 Adding to the various mysteries surrounding the Tocharians is the existence of extremely well preserved mummies in the Takla Makan desert that have striking Europoid features and often red hair some are nearly 4 000 years old The mummies were found with tapestries woven in plaids that are similar in weaving style and pattern to tartans from the Hallstatt culture of central Europe which was ancestral to the Celts the wool used in weaving the tapestries comes from sheep of European ancestry Zhang F Ning C Scott A et al 2021 The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies Nature 599 7884 256 261 Bibcode 2021Natur 599 256Z doi 10 1038 s41586 021 04052 7 PMC 8580821 PMID 34707286 a b Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 318 John E Hill 2009 Through the Jade Gate to Rome Booksurge Publishing p 311 ISBN 978 1 4392 2134 1 Beckwith 2009 pp 84 380 383 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 268 318 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 310 311 318 Le Coq Albert von Waldschmidt Ernst 1922 Die buddhistische spatantike in Mittelasien VI Berlin D Reimer etc pp 80 81 Snow 2002 p page needed Mallory 2015 p page needed Manko Namba Walter October 1998 Tokharian Buddhism in Kucha Buddhism of Indo European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C E PDF Sino Platonic Papers 85 a b Grousset 1970 p 99 a b Waugh Daniel Historian University of Washington Kizil depts washington edu Washington University Retrieved 30 December 2020 a b Beal Samuel 2000 Si yu ki Buddhist Records of the Western World Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang A D 629 Psychology Press p 19 ISBN 978 0 415 24469 5 also available in Kingdom of K iu chi Kucha or Kuche Chapter 2 www wisdomlib org 27 June 2018 Retrieved 30 December 2020 a b 屈支国 in 大唐西域记 01 维基文库 自由的图书馆 zh m wikisource org Wikisource Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 66 Millward 2021 p 6 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 68 72 Mallory amp Adams 1997 p 591 Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 72 Yu 1986 pp 405 407 sfnp error no target CITEREFYu1986 help Yu 1986 p 407 sfnp error no target CITEREFYu1986 help Yu 1986 pp 409 411 sfnp error no target CITEREFYu1986 help Loewe 1979 p 49 Grousset 1970 p 40 47 Grousset 1970 p 42 a b Grousset 1970 p 45 46 Grousset 1970 p 48 Grousset 1970 p 47 48 Grousset 1970 p 40 48 Grousset 1970 pp 49 ff a b Hansen 2012 p 66 Millward 2021 p 23 Rhie Marylin Martin 15 July 2019 Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia Volume 2 The Eastern Chin and Sixteen Kingdoms Period in China and Tumshuk Kucha and Karashahr in Central Asia 2 vols BRILL pp 651 ff ISBN 978 90 04 39186 4 Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 97 Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 115 Walter 1998 pp 5 9 Millward 2021 pp 27 28 Hansen 2012 p 68 Walter 1998 pp 21 17 Hansen 2012 pp 61 65 Millward 2021 pp 25 26 Hansen 2012 pp 66 75 Puri Baij Nath 1987 Buddhism in Central Asia Motilal Banarsidass Publ p 79 ISBN 978 81 208 0372 5 Di Cosmo 2000 p 398 Millward 2021 p 28 Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 73 a b Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 74 Rowland Benjamin 1975 The art of Central Asia New York Crown p 155 Millward 2021 p 37 Millward 2021 p 30 Millward 2021 pp 30 408 a b c Kageyama Etsuko 2016 Change of suspension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Eurasia Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia PDF ZINBUN 46 200 202 Ilyasov Jangar 2001 The Hephthalite Terracotta Silk Road Art and Archaeology Vol 7 Kamakura 2001 187 200 Silk Road Art and Archaeology 187 197 CHINESE IRANIAN RELATIONS xiv E Iranian Art Encyclopaedia Iranica www iranicaonline org Kurbanov Aydogdy 2014 THE HEPHTHALITES ICONOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS PDF Tyragetia 8 329 Kageyama quoting the research of S Hiyama Study on the first style murals of Kucha analysis of some motifs related to the Hephthalite s period in Kageyama Etsuko 2016 Change of suspension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Eurasia Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia PDF ZINBUN 46 200 Hiyama Satomi September 2015 Reflection on the Geopolitical Context of the Silk Road in the First and Second Indo Iranian Style Wall Paintings in Kucha Silk Road Meditations 2015 International Conference on the Kizil Cave Paintings Collection of Research Papers 81 a b Hansen 2012 p 75 Hansen 2012 p 76 Hansen 2012 p 77 On the lunette of the front wall is painted a scene of the preaching of the Buddha in the Deer Park On the left of the Buddha are painted the king and his wife on the halo of the king is inscribed the dedication which was interpreted by Pinault in his paper of 1994 Temple Constructed for the Benefit of Suvarnapousa by His Son this material is referred to in Kezier shiku neirong zonglu p 2 From Chinese historical records it is known that this king reigned between the years 600 and 625 and his three sons died before 647 to date this is the most accurate dating for the cave in Vignato Giuseppe 2006 Archaeological Survey of Kizil Its Groups of Caves Districts Chronology and Buddhist Schools East and West 56 4 405 note 71 ISSN 0012 8376 JSTOR 29757697 618年 汉名为苏伐勃駃 梵文Suvarna pushpa 意为金色的花朵 的库车王向隋场帝表示归顺 in Grousset Rene 草原帝国 L Empire des Steppes p 138 Rowland Benjamin 1975 The art of Central Asia New York Crown p 151 王屈支种也 in 屈支国 in 大唐西域记 01 维基文库 自由的图书馆 zh m wikisource org Wikisource Wechsler 1979 p 220 Wechsler 1979 p 225 Wechsler 1979 p 226 Wechsler 1979 pp 226 228 Wechsler 1979 p 228 Hansen 2012 p 80 a b Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 272 Mallory amp Mair 2000 pp 272 273 Hansen 2012 p 108 Millward 2021 p 47 Millward 2021 p 63 Hong Sun Kee Wu Jianguo Kim Jae Eun Nakagoshi Nobukazu 25 December 2010 Landscape Ecology in Asian Cultures Springer p 284 ISBN 978 4 431 87799 8 p 284 The Uyghurs mixed with the Tocharian people and adopted their religion and their culture of oasis agriculture Scharlipp 1992 Soucek 2000 Mallory amp Mair 2000 p 273 Carling Gerd Georg August Universitat Gottingen Tocharian p 16 PDF a b Adams Douglas Q Peyrot Michael Pinault Georges Jean Olander Thomas Rasmussen Jens Elmegard 2013 More Thoughts on Tocharian B Prosody in Tocharian and Indo European Studies vol 14 Museum Tusculanum Press pp 26 28 ISBN 978 87 635 4066 7 a b Chrestomathie tokharienne Textes et grammaire Georges Jean Pinault Peeters 2008 Language Log Tocharian love poem World Atlas of Poetic Traditions Tocharian Works cited Edit Adams Douglas Q 2013 A Dictionary of Tocharian B 2nd ed Rodopi ISBN 978 90 420 3671 0 Beckwith Christopher I 2009 Empires of the Silk Road A History of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Present Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 15034 5 Chen Kwang tzuu Hiebert Fredrik T 1995 The late prehistory of Xinjiang in relation to its neighbors Journal of World Prehistory 9 2 243 300 doi 10 1007 bf02221840 JSTOR 25801077 S2CID 161858422 Di Cosmo Nicola 2000 Ancient city states of the Tarim Basin in Hansen Mogens Herman ed A Comparative Study of Thirty City state Cultures Copenhagen Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab pp 393 407 ISBN 978 87 7876 177 4 Grousset Rene 1970 The Empire of the Steppes A History of Central Asia Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0 8135 1304 1 Hansen Valerie 2012 The Silk Road a new history Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 195 15931 8 Hulsewe A F P 1979 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 Brill ISBN 978 90 04 05884 2 Li Chunxiang Li Hongjie Cui Yinqiu Xie Chengzhi Cai Dawei Li Wenying Mair Victor H Xu Zhi Zhang Quanchao Abuduresule Idelis Jin Li Zhu Hong Zhou Hui 2010 Evidence that a West East admixed population lived in the Tarim Basin as early as the early Bronze Age BMC Biology 8 15 15 doi 10 1186 1741 7007 8 15 PMC 2838831 PMID 20163704 Loewe Michael 1979 Introduction in Hulsewe Anthony Francois Paulus ed China in Central Asia The Early Stage 125 BC AD 23 Brill pp 1 70 ISBN 978 90 04 05884 2 Mallory J P November 2015 The problem of Tocharian origins an archaeological perspective PDF Sino Platonic Papers 259 Mallory J P Adams Douglas Q 1997 Encyclopedia of Indo European Culture Taylor amp Francis ISBN 978 1 884964 98 5 Mallory J P Mair Victor H 2000 The Tarim Mummies Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West London Thames amp Hudson ISBN 978 0 500 05101 6 Millward James A 2021 Eurasian Crossroads A History of Xinjiang new and revised ed London Hurst amp Company ISBN 978 1 78738 334 0 Snow J T June 2002 The Spider s Web Goddesses of Light and Loom Examining the Evidence for the Indo European Origin of Two Ancient Chinese Deities PDF Sino Platonic Papers 118 Walter Mariko Namba 1998 Tocharian Buddhism in Kucha Buddhism of Indo European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C E PDF Sino Platonic Papers 85 Wechsler Howard J 1979 T ai tsung reign 624 49 the consolidator in Twitchett Dennis ed The Cambridge History of China Volume 3 Sui and T ang China 589 906 AD Part 1 Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 188 241 ISBN 978 0 521 21446 9 Winter Werner 1998 Tocharian in Ramat Giacalone Anna Ramat Paolo eds The Indo European languages London Routledge pp 154 168 ISBN 978 0 415 06449 1 Yu Ying shih 1986 Han foreign relations in Twitchett Dennis Loewe Michael eds The Cambridge History of China Volume 1 The Ch in and Han Empires 221 BC AD 220 Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 377 462 ISBN 978 0 521 24327 8 Further reading EditNote Recent discoveries have rendered obsolete some of Rene Grousset s classic The Empire of the Steppes A History of Central Asia published in 1939 which however still provides a broad background against which to assess more modern detailed studies Baldi Philip 1983 An Introduction to the Indo European Languages Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press Barber Elizabeth Wayland 1999 The Mummies of Urumchi London Pan Books Beekes Robert 1995 Comparative Indo European Linguistics An Introduction Philadelphia John Benjamins Hemphill Brian E and J P Mallory 2004 Horse mounted invaders from the Russo Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from Western Central Asia A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang in American Journal of Physical Anthropology vol 125 pp 199ff Lane George S 1966 On the Interrelationship of the Tocharian Dialects in Ancient Indo European Dialects eds Henrik Birnbaum and Jaan Puhvel Berkeley University of California Press Ning Chao Chuan Chao Wang Shizhu Gao Y Yang and Yinqiu Cui Ancient Genomes Reveal Yamnaya Related Ancestry and a Potential Source of Indo European Speakers in Iron Age Tianshan In Current Biology 29 2019 2526 2532 e4 https doi org 10 1016 j cub 2019 06 044 Walter Mariko Namba 1998 Tocharian Buddhism in Kucha Buddhism of Indo European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C E Sino Platonic Papers 85 Xu Wenkan 1995 The Discovery of the Xinjiang Mummies and Studies of the Origin of the Tocharians The Journal of Indo European Studies Vol 23 Number 3 amp 4 Fall Winter 1995 pp 357 369 Xu Wenkan 1996 The Tokharians and Buddhism In Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 9 pp 1 17 1 permanent dead link External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tocharians Wikiquote has quotations related to Tocharians Look up Tocharian in Wiktionary the free dictionary Tocharian alphabet at omniglot com Tocharian alphabet Modern studies are developing a Tocharian dictionary A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q Adams Leiden Studies in Indo European 10 xxxiv 830 pp Rodopi Amsterdam Atlanta 1999 2 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Tocharians amp oldid 1152216880, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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