The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

during the 5th to 8th centuries CE. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the

Kidarites The Kidarites, or Kidara Huns, were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries. The Kidarites belonged to a complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna people, Huna, ...

, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the

First Turkic Khaganate The First Turkic Khaganate, also referred to as the First Turkic Empire, the Turkic Khaganate or the Göktürk Khaganate, was a Turkic khaganate established by the Ashina clan of the Göktürks in medieval Inner Asia under the leadership of Bumin ...

and the Sasanian Empire defeated them. After 560 CE, they established "principalities" in the area of

Tokharistan Tokharistan (formed from "Tokhara" and the suffix ''-stan'' meaning "place of" in Persian) is an ancient Early Middle Ages name given to the area which was known as Bactria in Ancient Greek sources. In the 7th and 8th century CE, Tokharistan c ...

, under the

suzerainty Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...

of the

Western Turks The Western Turkic Khaganate () or Onoq Khaganate ( otk, 𐰆𐰣:𐰸:𐰉𐰆𐰑𐰣, On oq budun, Ten arrow people) was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century (593–603 CE) after th ...

(in the areas north of the

Oxus The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...

) and of the Sasanian Empire (in the areas south of the

), before the

Tokhara Yabghus The Tokhara Yabghus or Yabghus of Tokharistan () were a dynasty of Western Turk– Hephtalite sub-kings with the title " Yabghus", who ruled from 625 CE in the area of Tokharistan north and south of the Oxus River, with some smaller remnants surv ...

took over in 625. The Imperial Hephthalites, based in

Bactria Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, so ...

, expanded eastwards to the

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Northwest China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, China." Hyd ...

, westwards to

Sogdia Sogdia ( Sogdian: ) or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Em ...

and southwards through

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

, but they never went beyond the

Hindu-Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Province ...

, which was occupied by the

Alchon Huns The Alchon Huns, ( Bactrian: αλχον(ν)ο ''Alchon(n)o'') also known as the Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alkhan, Alakhana and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries CE. ...

, previously mistakenly regarded as an extension of the Hephthalites. They were a tribal confederation and included both nomadic and settled urban communities. They formed part of the four major states known collectively as ''Xyon'' (Xionites) or ''Huna'', being preceded by the

and by the

Alkhon The Alchon Huns, ( Bactrian: αλχον(ν)ο ''Alchon(n)o'') also known as the Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alkhan, Alakhana and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries C ...

, and succeeded by the

Nezak Huns The Nezak Huns (Middle Persian, Pahlavi: 𐭭𐭩𐭰𐭪𐭩 ''nycky''), also Nezak Shahs, formed a major principality in the south of the Hindu Kush region, active from circa 484 to 665 CE. Despite being traditionally identified as the last of ...

and by the

. All of these Hunnic peoples have often been linked to the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

who invaded Eastern Europe during the same period, and/or have been referred to as "Huns", but scholars have reached no consensus about any such connection. The stronghold of the Hephthalites was

(present-day southern

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

and northern

) on the northern slopes of the

Hindu Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Prov ...

, and their capital was probably at

Kunduz , native_name_lang = prs , other_name = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = Kunduz River valley.jpg , imagesize = 300 , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_ ...

, having come from the east, possibly from the area of

Badakhshan Badakhshan is a historical region comprising parts of modern-day north-eastern Afghanistan, eastern Tajikistan, and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Much of historic ...

. By 479 the Hephthalites had conquered

and driven the

eastwards, and by 493 they had captured parts of present-day

Dzungaria Dzungaria (; from the Mongolian words , meaning 'left hand') is a geographical subregion in Northwest China that corresponds to the northern half of Xinjiang. It is thus also known as Beijiang, which means "Northern Xinjiang". Bounded by the A ...

and the

(in present-day

Northwest China Northwest China () is a statistical region of China which includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai. It has an area of 3,107,900 km2. The region is characterized by a (semi-)ari ...

). The

, formerly confused with the Hephthalites, expanded into

Northern India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

as well. The sources for Hephthalite history are sparse and the opinions of historians differ. There is no king-list, and historians are not sure how the group arose or what language they initially spoke. They seem to have called themselves ''Ebodalo'' (ηβοδαλο, hence ''Hephthal''), often abbreviated ''Eb'' (ηβ), a name they wrote in the

Bactrian script Bactrian (, , ) is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (in present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan, and the Hephthalite empires. Name It was long thought tha ...

on some of their coins. The origin of the name "Hephthalites" is unknown, it may stem either from a Khotanese word ''*Hitala'' meaning "Strong", from hypothetical Sogdian *''Heβtalīt'', plural of *''Heβtalak'', or from postulated

Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...

''*haft āl'' "the Seven Al".

Name and ethnonyms

The Hephthalites called themselves ''ēbodāl'' ( Bactrian cursive script: , Greek script: ηβοδαλο "Ebodalo") in their inscriptions, which was commonly abbreviated to (''ηβ'', "Eb") in their coinage. An important and unique seal, held in the private collection of Professor Dr. Aman ur Rahman and published by

Nicholas Sims-Williams Nicholas Sims-Williams, FBA (born 11 April 1949, Chatham, Kent) is a British professor of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he is the Research Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies at the Dep ...

in 2011, shows an early Hepthalite ruler with a round beardless face and slanted almond-shaped eyes, wearing a radiate crown with a single crescent, and framed by the

legend ''ηβοδαλο ββγο'' ("The Lord 'Yabghu''">Yabghu.html" ;"title="'Yabghu">'Yabghu''of the Hephthalites"). The seal is dated to the end 5th century- early 6th century CE.. "A seal bearing the legend ηβοδαλο ββγο, "Yabghu/governor of the Hephthal," shows the local, Bactrian form of their name, ēbodāl, which is commonly abbreviated to ηβ on their coins" The ethnic name "Ebodalo", and title "Ebodalo

Yabghu Yabghu ( otk, 𐰖𐰉𐰍𐰆, yabγu,Entr"𐰖𐰉𐰍𐰆 [yabγuйабғұ"in "Ethno-Cultural Dictionary" ''Türik Bitig'' ), also rendered as Jabgu, Djabgu or Yabgu, was a state office in the early Turkic peoples">Turkic states, roughly equiv ...

", have also been discovered in contemporary Bactrian documents of the Kingdom of Rob describing administrative functions under the Hephthalites.Translations of

, quoted in

Byzantine Greek Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman c ...

sources referred to them as ''Hephthalitae'' (), ''Abdel'' or ''Avdel''. To the Armenians, the Hephthalites were ''Hephthal'', ''Hep't'al'' & ''Tetal'' and sometimes identified with the

Kushans The Kushan Empire ( grc, Βασιλεία Κοσσανῶν; xbc, Κυϸανο, ; sa, कुषाण वंश; Brahmi: , '; BHS: ; xpr, 𐭊𐭅𐭔𐭍 𐭇𐭔𐭕𐭓, ; zh, 貴霜 ) was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, i ...

. To the Persians, Hephthalites are Hephtal, Hephtel, & Hēvtāls. To Arabs, Hephthalites were ''Haital'', ''Hetal'', ''Heithal'', ''Haiethal'', ''Heyâthelites'', ''(al-)Hayațila'' (هياطلة), and sometimes identified as

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic ...

. According to Togan (1985), the form ''Haytal'' in Persian and Arabic sources in the first period was a clerical error for ''Habtal'', as Arabic '' -b-'' resembles '' -y-''. In Chinese chronicles, the Hephthalites are called ''Ye-tha-i-li-to'' (simp. 厌带夷栗陁; trad. 厭帶夷栗陀;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

: ''Yàndàiyílìtuó''), or the more usual abbreviated form ''Yada'' 嚈噠 (

: ''Yèdā''), or 滑 (

: ''Huá''). The latter name has been given various Latinised renderings, including ''Yeda'', ''Ye-ta'', ''Ye-tha''; ''Ye-dā'' and ''Yanda''. The corresponding

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

and

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

names ''Yipdaat'' and ''Yeoptal'' ( ko, 엽달), which preserve aspects of the

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

pronunciation (roughly ''yep-daht'', ) better than the modern Mandarin pronunciation, are more consistent with the Greek ''Hephthalite''. Some Chinese chroniclers suggest that the root ''Hephtha-'' (as in ''Ye-ta-i-li-to'' or ''Yada'') was technically a title equivalent to "emperor", while ''Hua'' was the name of the dominant tribe. In Ancient India, names such as Hephthalite were unknown. The Hephthalites were apparently part of, or offshoots of, people known in India as ''

Hunas Hunas or Huna (Middle Brahmi script: ''Hūṇā'') was the name given by the ancient Indians to a group of Central Asian tribes who, via the Khyber Pass, entered the Indian subcontinent at the end of the 5th or early 6th century. The Huna K ...

'' or ''Turushkas'', although these names may have referred to broader groups or neighbouring peoples. Ancient Sanskrit text ''Pravishyasutra'' mentions a group of people named ''Havitaras'' but it is unclear whether the term denotes Hephthalites. The Indians also used the expression "White Huns" (''Sveta Huna'') for the Hephthalites.

Geographical origin and expansion

According to recent scholarship, the stronghold of the Hephthalites was always

on the northern slopes of the

, in what is present-day southern

and northern

. Their capital was probably at

Kunduz , native_name_lang = prs , other_name = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = Kunduz River valley.jpg , imagesize = 300 , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_ ...

, which was known to the 11th-century scholar

al-Biruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of ...

as ''War-Walīz'', a possible origin of one of the names given by the Chinese to Hephthalites: 滑 (

( ZS) *''ɦˠuat̚'' >

standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...

: ''Huá''). The Hephthalites may have come from the East, through the

Pamir Mountains The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the worl ...

, possibly from the area of

. Alternatively, they may have migrated from the

Altai Altai or Altay may refer to: Places *Altai Mountains, in Central and East Asia, a region shared by China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia In China * Altay Prefecture (阿勒泰地区), Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China * Altay City (阿� ...

region, among the waves of invading Huns. Following their westward or southward expansion, the Hephthalites settled in

, and displaced the

, who expanded into Northern India. The Hephthalites came into contact with the Sasanian Empire, and were involved in helping militarily

Peroz I Peroz I ( pal, 𐭯𐭩𐭫𐭥𐭰, Pērōz) was the Sasanian King of Kings () of Iran from 459 to 484. A son of Yazdegerd II (), he disputed the rule of his elder brother and incumbent king Hormizd III (), eventually seizing the throne afte ...

seize the throne from his brother

Hormizd III Hormizd III ( pal, 𐭠𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭬𐭦𐭣; New Persian: ), was the seventeenth king (shah) of the Sasanian Empire, ruling briefly from 457 to 459. He was the son and successor of Yazdegerd II (). His reign was marked by the rebellion of his ...

. Later, in the late 5th century, the Hephthalites expanded into vast areas of

, and occupied the

as far as

Turfan Turpan (also known as Turfan or Tulufan, , ug, تۇرپان) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 632,000 (2015). Geonyms The original name of the ci ...

, taking control of the area from the

Ruanruan Ruanruan (; also called Rouran) is an unclassified extinct language of Mongolia and northern China, spoken in the Rouran Khaganate from the 4th to the 6th centuries AD, considered a likely early precursor to Mongolic. Peter A. Boodberg claim ...

s, who had been collecting heavy tribute from the oasis cities, but were now weakening under the assaults of the Chinese Wei Dynasty..

Origins and characteristics

There are several theories regarding the origins of the Hephthalites, with the

and

Altaic Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are c ...

theories being the most prominent. According to most specialist scholars, the Hephthalites adopted Bactrian as their official language, just as the

had done, following their settlement in

. Bactrian was an

Eastern Iranian language The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from c. the 4th century BC). The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle Western Iranian dial ...

, but was written in the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

, a remnant of the

Greco-Bactrian kingdom The Bactrian Kingdom, known to historians as the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom or simply Greco-Bactria, was a Hellenistic-era Greek state, and along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom, the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world in Central Asia and the Ind ...

in the 3rd–2nd century BCE. Bactrian, beyond being an official language, was also the language of the local populations ruled by the Hephthalites.. The Hephthalites inscribed their coins in Bactrian, an

Iranian language The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are grouped ...

written in the

Greek script The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...

, the titles they held were Bactrian, such as XOAΔHO or Šao, and of probable Chinese origin, such as

, the names of Hephthalite rulers given in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh are Iranian, and gem inscriptions and other evidence shows that the official language of the Hephthalite elite was East Iranian. In 1959, Kazuo Enoki proposed that the Hephthalites were probably Indo-European (East) Iranians who originated in

, based on the fact that ancient sources generally located them in the area between

and the

, and the Hephthalites had some Iranian characteristics.

Richard Nelson Frye Richard Nelson Frye (January 10, 1920 – March 27, 2014) was an American scholar of Iranian and Central Asian studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University. His professional areas of interest were Irania ...

cautiously accepted Enoki's hypothesis, while at the same time stressing that the Hephthalites "were probably a mixed horde". According to the ''

Encyclopaedia Iranica An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

'' and ''

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published ...

'', the Hephthalites possibly originated in what is today

. A few scholars, such as

Marquart Marquart and the variant spellings Marquard, Marquardt, Markwardt, Markwart and Markwat is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Josef Markwart (1864–1930) also known as Josef Marquart, German historian and orientalist *Johann ...

and Grousset proposed

Proto-Mongolic Proto-Mongolic is the hypothetical ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages. It is very close to the Middle Mongol language, the language spoken at the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. Most features of modern Mongolic language ...

origins. Yu Taishan traced the Hephthalites' origins to the

Xianbei The Xianbei (; ) were a Proto-Mongolic ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into t ...

and further to

Goguryeo Goguryeo (37 BC–668 AD) ( ) also called Goryeo (), was a Korean kingdom located in the northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula and the southern and central parts of Northeast China. At its peak of power, Goguryeo controlled mos ...

. Other scholars such as de la Vaissière, based on a recent reappraisal of the Chinese sources, suggest that the Hephthalites were initially of Turkic origin, and later adopted the Bactrian language, first for administrative purposes, and possibly later as a native language — according to , this thesis is seemingly the "most prominent at present". In effect, the Hephthalites may have been a confederation of various people, speaking different languages. According to

Relation to European Huns

According to Martin Schottky, the Hephthalites apparently had no direct connection with the European

, but may have been causally related with their movement. The tribes in question deliberately called themselves "Huns" in order to frighten their enemies. On the contrary, de la Vaissière considers that the Hepthalites were part of the great Hunnic migrations of the 4th century CE from the Altai region that also reached Europe, and that these Huns "were the political, and partly cultural, heirs of the Xiongnu". This massive migration was apparently triggered by

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, with aridity affecting the mountain grazing grounds of the

Altay Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with the ...

during the 4th century CE. According to Amanda Lomazoff and Aaron Ralby, there is a high synchronicity between the "reign of terror" of

Attila Attila (, ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and ...

in the west and the southern expansion of the Hephthalites, with extensive territorial overlap between the Huns and the Hephthalites in Central Asia. The 6th-century

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

historian

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman ge ...

of Caesarea (History of the Wars, Book I. ch. 3), related them to the Huns in Europe, but insisted on cultural and sociological differences, highlighting the sophistication of the Hephthalites:

Chinese chronicles

The Hephthalites were first known to the Chinese in 456 CE, when a Hephthalite embassy arrived at the Chinese court of the Northern Wei. The Chinese used various names for the Hephthalites, such as ''Hua'' (滑), ''Ye-tha-i-li-to'' (simp. 厌带夷栗陁, trad. 厭帶夷粟陁) or more briefly ''Ye-da'' (嚈噠). Ancient

imperial Chinese The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the ''Book of Documents'' (early chapter ...

chronicles give various explanations about the origins of the Hephthalites: * They were descendants "of the

Gaoju The Tiele (, Mongolian ''*Tegreg'' " eople of theCarts"), also transliterated as Dili (), Chile (), Zhile (), Tele (), also named Gaoche or Gaoju (, "High Carts"), were a tribal confederation of Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic origins living to ...

or the

Da Yuezhi The Yuezhi (;) were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat ...

" according to the earliest chronicles such as the ''

Weishu The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 t ...

'' or the '' Beishu''. * They were descendants "of the

tribes", according to many later chronicles. * The ancient historian

Pei Ziye Pei Ziye (裴子野, 471-532) was a Chinese historian of the southern Liang dynasty; he lived through the Liu Song and Southern Qi dynasties. He was the grandson of another historian, Pei Yin (裴駰), a son of the famous historian Pei Songzhi. ...

conjectured that the "Hua" (滑) may be descendants of a Jushi general of the 2nd century CE because that general was named "Bahua" (八滑). This etymological fantasy was adopted by the '' Liangshu'' chronicle ( Volume 30 and Volume 54). * Another etymological fantasy appeared in the ''

Tongdian The ''Tongdian'' () is a Chinese institutional history and encyclopedia text. It covers a panoply of topics from high antiquity through the year 756, whereas a quarter of the book focuses on the Tang Dynasty. The book was written by Du You from 766 ...

'', reporting an account by the traveller Wei Jie according to which the Hephthalites may have been the descendants of the

Kangju Kangju (; Eastern Han Chinese: ''kʰɑŋ-kɨɑ'' < *''khâŋ-ka'' (c. 140 BCE)) was the Chinese name of a kingdom in

Central Asia

because a Kangju general of the

Han period The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a w ...

happened to be named "Yitian". Kazuo Enoki made a first groundbreaking analysis of the Chinese sources in 1959, suggesting that the Hephthalites were a local tribe of the

(

) region, with their origin in the nearby Western

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over ...

. He also used as an argument the presence of numerous Bactrian names among the Hephthalites, and the fact that the Chinese reported that they practiced

polyandry Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" ...

, a well-known West Himalayan cultural trait. According to a recent reappraisal of the Chinese sources by de la Vaissière (2003), only the Turkic

origin of the Hephthalites should be retained as indicative of their primary ethnicity, and the mention of the

only stems from the fact that, at the time, the Hephthalites had already settled in the former

territory of

, where they are known to have used the Eastern Iranian

Bactrian language Bactrian (, , ) is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (in present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan, and the Hephthalite empires. Name It was long thought th ...

. The earliest Chinese source on this encounter, the near-contemporary chronicles of the Northern Wei (''

'') as quoted in the later ''

'', reports that they migrated southward from the

region circa 360 CE: The

(高車 lit. "High Cart"), also known as Tiele, were early Turkic speakers related to the earlier

Dingling The Dingling ( (174 BCE); (200 BCE); Eastern Han Chinese: *''teŋ-leŋ'' <

Old Chinese

: *''têŋ-rêŋ'') were ancient peop ...

, who were once conquered by the Xiongnu.

also mentioned the linguistic and ethnic proximity between the Gaoju and the Xiongnu. de la Vaissière proposes that the Hephthalites had originally been one Oghuric-speaking tribe who belonged the Gaoju/Tiele confederation. This and several later Chinese chronicles also report that the Hephthalites may have originated from the

, probably because of their settlement in the former Da Yuezhi territory of

. Later Chinese sources become quite confused about the origins of the Hephthalites, and this may be due to their progressive assimilation of Bactrian culture and language once they settled there. According to the '' Beishi'', describing the situation in the first half of the 6th century CE around the time

Song Yun Song Yun () was a Chinese Buddhist monk who was sent by the pious Buddhist Empress Hu (, ?-528 CE) of the Northern Wei Dynasty with other monastic companions including Hui Zheng, Fa Li and Zheng (or Wang) Fouze, to northwestern India to search ...

visited Central Asia, the language of the Hephthalites was different from that of the Ruanruan, Gaoju or other tribes of Central Asia, but that probably reflects their acculturation and adoption of the Bactrian language since their arrival in

in the 4th century CE. The '' Liangshu'' and ''

Liang Zhigongtu The ''Portraits of Periodical Offering'' () were tributary documentative paintings (with illustration on each of the portrait) produced by various Chinese dynasties and later as well in other East Asian dynasties, such as Japan and Vietnam. These ...

'' do explain that the Hephthalites originally had no written language and adopted the '' hu'' (local, "Barbarian") alphabet, in this case, the

. Overall, de la Vaissière considers that the Hephthalites were part of the great Hunnic migrations of the 4th century CE from the Altai region that also reached Europe and that these Huns "were the political, and partly cultural, heirs, of the Xiongnu".

Appearance

The Hepthalites appear in several mural paintings in the area of

, especially in banquet scenes at Balalyk tepe and as donors to the Buddha in the ceiling painting of the 35-meter Buddha at the

Buddhas of Bamyan The Buddhas of Bamiyan (or Bamyan) were two 6th-century monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of Hazarajat region in central Afghanistan, northwest of Kabul at an elevation of . Carbon dating of the structur ...

. Several of the figures in these paintings have a characteristic appearance, with belted jackets with a unique lapel of their tunic being folded on the right side, a style which became popular under the Hephthalites, the cropped hair, the hair accessories, their distinctive physionomy and their round beardless faces. The figures at Bamyan must represent the donors and potentates who supported the building of the monumental giant Buddha. These remarkable paintings participate "to the artistic tradition of the Hephthalite ruling classes of

Tukharistan Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, sout ...

". The paintings related to the Hephthalites have often been grouped under the appellation of "Tokharistan school of art", or the "Hephthalite stage in the History of Central Asia Art". The paintings of

Tavka Kurgan Tavka Kurgan is an ancient fortress and archaeological site near Shirabad, Uzbekistan. It is especially famous for some frescoes dated to the 5th-6th century CE, several of them located in the Archaeological Museum of Termez. One of these painti ...

, of very high quality, also belong to this school of art, and are closely related to other paintings of the Tokharistan school such as Balalyk tepe, in the depiction of clothes, and especially in the treatment of the faces. This "Hephthalite period" in art, with the caftans with a triangular collar folded on the right, the particular cropped hairstyle, the crowns with crescents, have been found in many of the areas historically occupied and ruled by the Hephthalites, in

Bamyan Bamyan or Bamyan Valley (); ( prs, بامیان) also spelled Bamiyan or Bamian is the capital of Bamyan Province in central Afghanistan. Its population of approximately 70,000 people makes it the largest city in Hazarajat. Bamyan is at an alti ...

(modern

), or in

Kucha Kucha, or Kuche (also: ''Kuçar'', ''Kuchar''; ug, كۇچار, Кучар; zh, t= 龜茲, p=Qiūcí, zh, t= 庫車, p=Kùchē; sa, कूचीन, translit=Kūcīna), was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road ...

in the

(modern

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

, China). This points to a "political and cultural unification of

" with similar artistic styles and iconography, under the rule of the Hephthalites.

History

Ebodalo (Bactrian cursive and Greek standard)

The Hephthalites were a vassal state to the

Rouran Khaganate The Rouran Khaganate, also Juan-Juan Khaganate (), was a tribal confederation and later state founded by a people of Proto-Mongolic Donghu origin.*Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (2000)"Ji 姬 and Jiang 姜: The Role of Exogamic Clans in the Organizat ...

until the beginning of the 5th century. There were close contacts between them, although they had different languages and cultures, and the Hephthalites borrowed much of their political organization from Rourans. In particular, the title "

Khan Khan may refer to: *Khan (inn), from Persian, a caravanserai or resting-place for a travelling caravan * Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name *Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by ...

", which according to McGovern was original to the Rourans, was borrowed by the Hephthalite rulers. The reason for the migration of the Hephthalites southeast was to avoid a pressure of the Rourans. The Hephthalites became a significant political entity in Bactria around 450 CE, or sometime before. It has been commonly assumed that the Hephthalites formed a third wave of migrations into Central Asia, after the

Chionites Xionites, Chionites, or Chionitae (Middle Persian: ''Xiyōn'' or ''Hiyōn''; Avestan: ''Xiiaona''; Sogdian ''xwn''; Pahlavi ''Xyon'') were a nomadic people in the Central Asian regions of Transoxiana and Bactria. The Xionites appear to be syno ...

(who arrived circa 350 CE) and the

(who arrived from around 380 CE), but recent studies suggest that instead there may have been a single massive wave of nomadic migrations around 350–360 CE, the "Great Invasion", triggered by climate change and the onset of aridity in the grazing grounds of the Altay region, and that these nomadic tribes vied for supremacy thereafter in their new territories in Southern Central Asia. As they rose to prominence, the Hephthalites displaced the

and then the

, who expanded into

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Val ...

and Northern India. The Hephthalites also entered into conflict with the Sasanians. The reliefs of the

Bandian complex The Bandian Fire Temple ( fa, محوطه باستانی بندیان) is an archaeological site in Dargaz County, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran, near the medieval city Abiward. The primary excavations were carried out to reveal precious remains of ...

seem to show the initial defeat of the Hephthalites against the Sasanians in 425 CE, and then their alliance with them, from the time of

Bahram V Bahram V (also spelled Wahram V or Warahran V; pal, 𐭥𐭫𐭧𐭫𐭠𐭭), also known as Bahram Gor (New Persian: , "Bahram the onager") was the Sasanian Empire, Sasanian King of Kings (''shahanshah'') from 420 to 438. The son of the incumb ...

(420-438 CE), until they invaded Sasanian territory and destroyed the Bandian complex in 484 CE. In 456–457 a Hephthalite embassy arrived in China, during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Northern Wei. By 458 they were strong enough to intervene in

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkme ...

. Around 466 they probably took Transoxianan lands from the

with Persian help but soon took from Persia the area of

Balkh ), named for its green-tiled ''Gonbad'' ( prs, گُنبَد, dome), in July 2001 , pushpin_map=Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_relief=yes , pushpin_label_position=bottom , pushpin_mapsize=300 , pushpin_map_caption=Location in Afghanistan ...

and eastern

Kushanshahr Kushanshahr was a province of the Sasanian Empire comprising the region between Kabul Valley and Peshawar Valley.The Cambridge History of Iran: Seleucid Parthian, E. Yarshaterp.770 sq/ref> The Kushanshar territory centered on Tukharistan, and c ...

. In the second half of the fifth century they controlled the deserts of

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the s ...

as far as the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad s ...

and possibly

Merv Merv ( tk, Merw, ', مرو; fa, مرو, ''Marv''), also known as the Merve Oasis, formerly known as Alexandria ( grc-gre, Ἀλεξάνδρεια), Antiochia in Margiana ( grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐν τῇ Μαργιανῇ) and ...

. By 500 they held the whole of

and the

Pamirs The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the worl ...

and parts of

. In 509, they captured

and they took 'Sughd' (the capital of

Sogdiana Sogdia ( Sogdian: ) or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empi ...

). To the east, they captured the

and went as far as Urumqi. Around 560 CE their empire was destroyed by an alliance of the

and the Sasanian Empire, but some of them remained as local rulers in the region of

for the next 150 years, under the suzerainty of the

, followed by the

. Among the principalities which remained in Hephthalite hands even after the Turkic overcame their territory were:

Chaganian Chaghaniyan (Middle Persian: ''Chagīnīgān''; fa, چغانیان ''Chaghāniyān''), known as al-Saghaniyan in Arabic sources, was a medieval region and principality located on the right bank of the Oxus River, to the south of Samarkand. Histo ...

, and

Khuttal Khuttal, frequently also in the plural form Khuttalan (and variants such as ''Khutlan'', ''Khatlan'', in Chinese sources ''K'o-tut-lo'') was a medieval region and principality on the north bank of the river Oxus (modern Amu Darya), lying between i ...

in the

Vakhsh Valley Vakhsh may refer to the following, all in southern Tajikistan : ;places and jurisdictions * Vakhsh, Tajikistan city * Vakhsh District, surrounding it * Vakhsh, Jayhun District, a village in Jayhun District * Vakhsh Range * Vakhsh (river) ;othe ...

Ascendancy over the Sasanian Empire (442- c.530 CE)

The Hephthalites were originally vassals of the

but split from their overlords in the early fifth century. The next time they were mentioned was in Persian sources as foes of

Yazdegerd II Yazdegerd II (also spelled Yazdgerd and Yazdgird; pal, 𐭩𐭦𐭣𐭪𐭥𐭲𐭩), was the Sasanian King of Kings () of Iran from 438 to 457. He was the successor and son of Bahram V (). His reign was marked by wars against the Eastern Roman ...

(435–457), who from 442, fought 'tribes of the Hephthalites', according to the Armenian Elisee Vardaped. In 453, Yazdegerd moved his court east to deal with the Hephthalites or related groups. In 458, a Hephthalite king called

Akhshunwar ''Akhshunwar'' ( Sogdian: əxšōnδār, Middle Persian: ''Xašnawāz'') was a ruling title used by the Hephthalite kings in the 5th and 6th-centuries. The title is of Eastern Iranian origin; according W.B. Henning, its original form was ʾxšʾwnd ...

helped the Sasanian Emperor

(458–484) gain the Persian throne from his brother. Before his accession to the throne, Peroz had been the Sasanian for

Sistan Sistān ( fa, سیستان), known in ancient times as Sakastān ( fa, سَكاستان, "the land of the Saka"), is a historical and geographical region in present-day Eastern Iran ( Sistan and Baluchestan Province) and Southern Afghanistan ...

in the far east of the Empire, and therefore had been one of the first to enter into contact with the Hephthalites and request their help. The Hephthalites may have also helped the Sasanians to eliminate another Hunnic tribe, the

: by 467, Peroz I, with Hephthalite aid, reportedly managed to capture Balaam and put an end to Kidarite rule in

Transoxiana Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Tu ...

once and for all. The weakened Kidarites had to take refuge in the area of

Victories over the Sasanian Empire (474–484 CE)

Later, however, from 474 CE, Peroz I fought three wars with his former allies the Hephthalites. In the first two, he himself was captured and ransomed. Following his second defeat, he has to offer thirty mules loaded with silver drachms to the Hephthalites, and also had to leave his son Kavad as a hostage. The coinage of

in effect flooded Tokharistan, taking precedence over all other Sasanian issues. In the third battle, at the

Battle of Herat (484) The 2001 uprising in Herat was a coordinated insurrection and uprising in the Afghan city of Herat as part of the United States war in Afghanistan. The city was captured on November 12 by Northern Alliance forces as well as Special Forces of ...

, he was vanquished by the Hepthalite king Kun-khi, and for the next two years the Hephthalites plundered and controlled the eastern part of the Sasanian Empire.. "The third incursion cost him his own life and his camp was captured together with his daughter who was taken as a wife by the Hephtalite king Kun-khi" Perozduxt, the daughter of Peroz, was captured and became a lady as the Hephtalite court, as Queen of king Kun-khi. She became pregnant and had a daughter who would later marry her uncle

Kavad I Kavad I ( pal, 𐭪𐭥𐭠𐭲 ; 473 – 13 September 531) was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 488 to 531, with a two or three-year interruption. A son of Peroz I (), he was crowned by the nobles to replace his deposed and unpopular ...

. From 474 until the middle of the 6th century, the Sasanian Empire paid tribute to the Hephthalites.

came under formal Hephthalite rule from that time. Taxes were levied by the Hephthalites over the local population: a contract in the

from the archive of the Kingdom of Rob, has been found, which mentions taxes from the Hephthalites, requiring the sale of land in order to pay these taxes. It is dated to 483/484 CE.

Hephthalite coinage

With the Sasanian Empire paying a heavy tribute, from 474, the Hephthalites themselves adopted the winged, triple-crescent crowned

as the design for their coinage. Benefiting from the influx of Sasanian silver coins, the Hephthalites did not develop their own coinage: they either minted coins with the same designs as the Sasanians, or simply countermarked Sasanian coins with their own symbols. They did not inscribe the name of their ruler, contrary to the habit of the

or the

before them. Exceptionally, one coin type deviates from the Sasanian design, by showing the bust of a Hepthalite prince holding a drinking cup. Overall, the Sasanians paid "an enormous tribute" to the Hephthalites, until the 530s and the rise of

Khosrow I Khosrow I (also spelled Khosrau, Khusro or Chosroes; pal, 𐭧𐭥𐭮𐭫𐭥𐭣𐭩; New Persian: []), traditionally known by his epithet of Anushirvan ( [] "the Immortal Soul"), was the Sasanian Empire, Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from ...

Protectors of Kavad

Following their victory over Peroz I, the Hepthalites became protectors and benefactors of his son

, as

Balash Balash (Middle Persian: 𐭥𐭥𐭣𐭠𐭧𐭱𐭩, ) was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 484 to 488. He was the brother and successor of Peroz I (), who had been defeated and killed by a Hephthalite army. Name ''Balāsh'' () is th ...

, a brother of Peroz took the Sasanian throne. In 488, a Hepthalite army vanquished the Sasaniana army of Balash, and was able to put

(488–496, 498–531) on the throne. In 496–498, Kavad I was overthrown by the nobles and clergy, escaped, and restored himself with a Hephthalite army.

Joshua the Stylite Joshua the Stylite (also spelled Yeshu Stylite and Ieshu Stylite) is the attributed author of a chronicle which narrates the history of the war between the Byzantine Empire and Persians between 502 and 506, and which is generally considered to be ...

reports numerous instances in which Kavadh led Hepthalite ("Hun") troops, in the capture of the city of Theodosiupolis of Armenia in 501–502, in battles against the Romans in 502–503, and again during the siege of Edessa in September 503.

Hephthalites in Tokharistan (466 CE)

Around 461–462 CE, an

Alchon Hun The Alchon Huns, ( Bactrian: αλχον(ν)ο ''Alchon(n)o'') also known as the Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alkhan, Alakhana and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries CE. ...

ruler named

Mehama Mehama ( Bactrian: ''Meyam'', Brahmi: ''Me-ha-ma''), ruled c.461-493, was a king of Alchon Huns dynasty. He is little known, but the Talagan copper scroll mentions him as an active ruler making a donation to a Buddhist stupa in 492/93.For an ima ...

is known to have been based in Eastern Tokharistan, possibly indicating a partition of the region between the Hephthalites in western Tokharistan, centered on

, and the

in eastern Tokharistan, who would then go on to expand into northern India.

appears in a letter in the Bactrian language he wrote in 461–462 CE, where he describes himself as "Meyam, King of the people of Kadag, the governor of the famous and prosperous King of Kings Peroz". Kadag is Kadagstan, an area in southern Bactria, in the region of

Baghlan Baghlan (Dari: بغلان ''Baġlān'') is a city in northern Afghanistan, in the eponymous province, Baghlan Province. It is located three miles east of the Kunduz River, 35 miles south of Khanabad, and about 500 metres above sea level in the ...

. Significantly, he presents himself as a vassal of the Sasanian Empire king

, but Mehama was probably later able to wrestle autonomy or even independence as Sasanian power waned and he moved into India, with dire consequences for the

Gupta Empire The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Go ...

. The Hepthalites probably expanded into

following the destruction of the

in 466. The presence of the Hepthalites in Tokharistan (

) is securely dated to 484 CE, date of a tax receipt from the Kingdom of Rob mentioning the need to sell some land in order to pay Hephthalite taxes. Two documents were also found, with dates from the period from 492 to 527 CE, mentioning taxes paid to Hephthalite rulers. Another, undated documents, mentions scribal and judiciary functions under the Hephthalites:

Hephthalite conquest of Sogdiana (479 CE)

The Hephthalites conquered the territory of

, beyond the

, which was incorporated into their Empire. They may have conquered Sogdiana as early as 479 CE, as this is the date of the last known embassy of the Sogdians to China. The account of the Liang Zhigongtu also seems to record that from around 479 CE, the Hephthalites occupied the region of Samarkand. Alternatively, the Hephthalites may have occupied Sogdia later in 509 CE, as this is the date of the last known embassy from

Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top: Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zi ...

to the Chinese Empire, but this might not be conclusive as several cities, such as

Kobadiyan Qubodiyon, also Qubadiyan, ancient Kobadiyan (russian: Кабодиён; tg, Қубодиён, fa, قبادیان ''Qobādiyān'') is a town in the Khatlon Region of Tajikistan. It is the capital of Qubodiyon District. The population of the town ...

, are known to have sent embassies to China as late as 522 CE, while under Hephthalite control. As early as 484, the famous Hephthalite ruler

, who defeated

, held a title that may be understood as Sogdian: "’xs’wnd’r" ("power-holder"). The Hephthalites may have built major fortified

Hippodamian Hippodamus of Miletus (; Greek: Ἱππόδαμος ὁ Μιλήσιος, ''Hippodamos ho Milesios''; 498 – 408 BC) was an ancient Greek architect, urban planner, physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher, who is considered to ...

cities (rectangular walls with an orthogonal network of streets) in Sogdiana, such as

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

and Panjikent, as they had also in

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Saf ...

, continuing the city-building efforts of the

. The Hephthalites probably ruled over a confederation of local rulers or governors, linked through alliance agreements. One of these vassals may have been Asbar, ruler of Vardanzi, who also minted his own coinage during the period. The wealth of the Sasanian ransoms and tributes may have been reinvested in Sogdia, possibly explaining the prosperity of the region from that time. Sogdia, at the center of a new Silk Road between China to the Sasanian Empire and the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

became extremely prosperous under its nomadic elites. The Hephthalites took on the role of major intermediary on the Silk Road, after their great predecessor the

, and contracted local

Sogdians :''This category lists articles related to historical Iranian peoples'' Historical Peoples Iranian Iranian Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples ...

to carry on the trade of silk and other luxury goods between the China Empire and the Sasanian Empire. Because of the Hephthalite occupation of Sogdia, the original coinage of Sogdia came to be flooded by the influx of Sasanian coins received as a tribute to the Hephthalites. This coinage then spread along the Silk Road. The symbol of the Hephthalites appears on the residual coinage of

, probably as a consequence of the Hephthalite control of Sogdia, and becomes prominent in Sogdian coinage from 500 to 700 CE, including in the coinage of their indigenous successors the

Ikhshid ''Ikhshid'' ( sog, xšyδ, ) was the princely title of the Iranian rulers of Soghdia and the Ferghana Valley in Transoxiana during the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods. The title is of Iranian origin; scholars have derived it variously f ...

s (642-755 CE), ending with the

Muslim conquest of Transoxiana The Muslim conquest of Transoxiana or Arab conquest of Transoxiana were the 7th and 8th century conquests, by Umayyad and Abbasid Arabs, of Transoxiana, the land between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) rivers, a part of Central ...

Tarim Basin (circa 480–550 CE)

In the late 5th century CE they expanded eastward through the

, which are comparatively easy to cross, as did the

before them, due to the presence of convenient plateaus between high peaks. They occupied the western

(

Kashgar Kashgar ( ug, قەشقەر, Qeshqer) or Kashi ( zh, c=喀什) is an oasis city in the Tarim Basin region of Southern Xinjiang. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, near the border with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan ...

and

Khotan Hotan (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Western China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become ...

), taking control of the area from the

s, who had been collecting heavy tribute from the oasis cities, but were now weakening under the assaults of the Chinese

Northern Wei dynasty Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei (), Tuoba Wei (), Yuan Wei () and Later Wei (), was founded by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei. The first of the Northern dynasties, it ruled northern China from 386 to 535 during th ...

. In 479 they took the east end of the Tarim Basin, around the region of

. 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 Northern Wei dynasty. They were probably in contact with Li Xian, the Chinese Governor of

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

, who is known for having furnished his tomb with a Western-style

ewer In American English, a pitcher is a container with a spout used for storing and pouring liquids. In English-speaking countries outside North America, a jug is any container with a handle and a mouth and spout for liquid – American "pitchers" w ...

probably made in

. The Hephthalites continued to occupy the Tarim Basin until the end of their Empire, circa 560 CE. As the territories ruled by the Hephthalites expanded into Central Asia and the Tarim Basin, the art of the Hephthalites, characterized by the clothing and hairstyles of the figures being represented, also came to be used in the areas they ruled, such as

in the

(

Kizil Caves The Kizil Caves ( zh, t=克孜爾千佛洞, s=克孜尔千佛洞, l=Kizil Caves of the Thousand Buddhas; ug, قىزىل مىڭ ئۆي, translation=The Thousand Red Houses; also romanized Qizil Caves, spelling variant Qyzyl; Kizil means 'red') ar ...

Kumtura Caves The Kumtura Thousand Buddha Caves ( zh, t=庫木吐喇千佛洞, s=, p=Kùmùtǔlǎ Qiānfódòng) (also Qumtura) is a Buddhist cave temple site in the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China. The site is located some 25 km west of Kucha, Kuqa ...

, Subashi reliquary). 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. The paintings from the

region, particularly the swordsmen in the

, appear to have been made during Hephthalite rule in the region, circa 480–550 CE. The influence of the

art of Gandhara The Greco-Buddhist art or Gandhara art of the north Indian subcontinent is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between Ancient Greek art and Buddhism. It had mainly evolved in the ancient region of Gandhara. The s ...

in some of the earliest paintings at the

, dated to circa 500 CE, is considered as a consequence of the political unification of the area between Bactria and

under the Hephthalites. Some words of the

Tocharian languages The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( or ), also known as ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians. The ...

may have been adopted from the Hephthalites in the 6th century CE. The early Turks of the

then took control of the

and

areas from around 560 CE, and, in alliance with the Sasanian Empire, became instrumental in the fall of the Hepthalite Empire.

Hephthalite embassies to Liang China (516–526 CE)

An illustrated account of a Hepthalite (滑, Hua) embassy to the Chinese court of the Southern Liang in the capital

Jingzhou Jingzhou () is a prefecture-level city in southern Hubei province, China, located on the banks of the Yangtze River. Its total residential population was 5,231,180 based on the 2020 census, 1,068,291 of whom resided in the built-up (''or metro' ...

in 516–526 CE is given in ''

Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang The ''Portraits of Periodical Offering'' () were tributary documentative paintings (with illustration on each of the portrait) produced by various Chinese dynasties and later as well in other East Asian dynasties, such as Japan and Vietnam. Thes ...

'', originally painted by

or the future

Emperor Yuan of Liang Emperor Yuan of Liang () (16 September 508 – 27 January 555), personal name Xiao Yi (), courtesy name Shicheng (), childhood name Qifu (), was an emperor of the Chinese Liang Dynasty. After his father Emperor Wu and brother Emperor Jianwen w ...

while he was a Governor of the Province of Jingzhou as a young man between 526 and 539 CE, and of which an 11th-century Song copy is preserved. The text explains how small the country of the Hua was when they were still vassals of the

, and how they later moved to "Moxian", possibly referring to their occupation of

, and then conquered numerous neighbouring country, including the Sasanian Empire:. "Growing more and more powerful in the course of time, the Hua succeeded in conquering the neighbouring countries such as Bosi ( Sasanid Persia), Panpan (

Tashkurgan Tashkurgan ( ug, تاشقورغان بازىرى; zh, s=塔什库尔干镇, p=Tǎshíkù'ěrgān Zhèn; ) is a town in the far northwest of China, close to the country's border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It is the principal tow ...

?), Jibin ( Kashmir), Wuchang ( Uddiyana or

Khorasan Khorasan may refer to: * Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan * Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...

), Qiuci (

), Shule (

), Yutian (

) and Goupan ( Karghalik), and expanded their territory by a thousand ''li''" The ''Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang'' mentions that no envoys from the Hephthalites came before 516 to the southern court, and it was only in that year that a Hephthalite King named Yilituo Yandai (姓厭帶名夷栗陁) sent an ambassador named Puduoda[] (蒲多达[], possibly a Buddhist name "Buddhadatta" or "Buddhadāsa"). In 520, another ambassador named Fuheliaoliao (富何了了) visited the Liang court, bringing a yellow lion, a white marten fur coat and Persian brocade as present. Another ambassador named Kang Fuzhen (康符真), followed with presents as well (in 526 CE according to the '' Liangshu''). Their language had to be translated by the

Tuyuhun Tuyuhun (; LHC: *''tʰɑʔ-jok-guənʔ''; Wade-Giles: ''T'u-yühun''), also known as Henan () and Azha (; ), was a dynastic kingdom established by the nomadic peoples related to the Xianbei in the Qilian Mountains and upper Yellow River valley, ...

. In ''Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang'', the Hepthalithes are treated as the most important foreign state, as they occupy the leading position, at the front of the column of foreign ambassadors, and have by far the largest descriptive text. The Hepthalites were, according to the ''Liangshu'' (Chap.54), accompanied in their embassy by three states: Humidan (胡蜜丹),

Yarkand Yarkant County,, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also Shache County,, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also transliterated from Uyghur as Yakan County, is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomou ...

(周古柯, Khargalik) and Kabadiyan (呵跋檀). The envoys from right to left were: the Hephthalites (滑/嚈哒),

(波斯),

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...

(百濟),

(龜茲), Japan (倭),

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

(狼牙脩), Qiang (鄧至),

(周古柯, ''Zhouguke'', "near ''Hua''"), Kabadiyan (呵跋檀 ''Hebatan'', "near ''Hua''"), Kumedh (胡蜜丹, ''Humidan'', "near ''Hua''"),

(白題, ''Baiti'', "descendants of the Xiongnu and east of the ''Hua''"), and finally

(末). Most of the ambassadors from Central Asia are shown wearing heavy beards and relatively long hair, but, in stark contrast, the Hephthalite ambassador, as well as the ambassador from

, are clean-shaven and bare-headed, and their hair is cropped short. These physical characteristics are also visible in many of the Central Asian seals of the period.

Other embassies

Overall, Chinese chronicles recorded twenty-four Hephthalite embassies: the first embassy in 456, and the others from 507 to 558 CE (including fifteen to the Northern Wei until the end of this dynasty in 535, and five to the Southern Liang in 516–541). The last three are mentioned in the ''

Zhoushu The ''Book of Zhou'' (''Zhōu Shū'') records the official history of the Xianbei-led Western Wei and Northern Zhou dynasties of China, and ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. Compiled by the Tang dynasty histo ...

'', which records that the Hepththalites had conquered Anxi, Yutian (

Hotan Hotan (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Western China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to bec ...

region in

) and more than twenty other countries, and that they sent embassies to the Chinese court of the

Western Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Western Wei (), was an imperial dynasty of China that followed the disintegration of the Northern Wei. One of the Northern dynasties during the era of the Northern and Southern dynasties, it ruled the west ...

and

Northern Zhou Zhou (), known in historiography as the Northern Zhou (), was a Xianbei-led dynasty of China that lasted from 557 to 581. One of the Northern dynasties of China's Northern and Southern dynasties period, it succeeded the Western Wei dynasty a ...

in 546, 553 and 558 CE respectively, after what the Hepthalites were "crushed by the Turks" and embassies stopped.

Buddhas of Bamyan (544–644 CE)

The complex of the

was developed under Hephthalite rule. Carbon dating of the structural components of the Buddhas has determined that the smaller "Eastern Buddha" was built around 570 CE (544–595 CE with 95% probability), while the larger "Western Buddha" was built around 618 CE (591–644 CE with 95% probability). This corresponds to the period soon before or after the major defeat of the Hephthalites against the combined forces of

Western Turk The Western Turkic Khaganate () or Onoq Khaganate ( otk, 𐰆𐰣:𐰸:𐰉𐰆𐰑𐰣, On oq budun, Ten arrow people) was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century (593–603 CE) after th ...

and Sasanian Empire (557 CE), or the following period during which they regrouped south of the Oxus as Principalities, but essentially before the Western Turks finally overran the region to form the

(625 CE). Among the most famous paintings of the Buddhas of Bamyan, the ceiling of the smaller Eastern Buddha represents a solar deity on a chariot pulled by horses, as well as ceremonial scenes with royal figures and devotees. The god is wearing a caftan in the style of

Tokhara Tokharistan (formed from "Tokhara" and the suffix ''-stan'' meaning "place of" in Persian) is an ancient Early Middle Ages name given to the area which was known as Bactria in Ancient Greek sources. In the 7th and 8th century CE, Tokharistan c ...

, boots, and is holding a lance, he is "The Sun God and a Golden Chariot Rising in Heaven". His representation is derived from the iconography of the Iranian god

Mithra Mithra ( ae, ''Miθra'', peo, 𐎷𐎰𐎼 ''Miça'') commonly known as Mehr, is the Iranian deity of covenant, light, oath, justice and the sun. In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-se ...

, as revered in

. He is riding a two-wheeled golden charriot, pulled by four horses. Two winged attendants are standing to the side of the charriot, wearing a

Corinthian helmet The Corinthian helmet originated in ancient Greece and took its name from the city-state of Corinth. It was a helmet made of bronze which in its later styles covered the entire head and neck, with slits for the eyes and mouth. A large curved ...

with a feather, and holding a shield. In the top portion are wind gods, flying with a scarf held in both hands. This great composition is unique, and has no equivalent in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, but there are some similarities with the painting of Kizil or

. The central image of the Sun God on his golden chariot is framed by two lateral rows in individuals: Kings and dignitaries mingling with Buddhas and

Bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schoo ...

s. One of the personages, standing behind a monk in profile, much be the King of Bamyan. He wears a crenalated crown with single crescent and korymbos, a round-neck tunic and a Sasanian headband. Several of the figures, either royal couples, crowned individuals or richly dressed women, have the characteristic appearance of the Hephthalites of

, with belted jackets with a unique lapel of their tunic being folded on the right side, the cropped hair, the hair accessories, their distinctive physionomy and their round beardless faces. These figures must represent the donors and potentates who supported the building of the monumental giant Buddha. They are gathered around the

Seven Buddhas of the past 7 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 7 or seven may also refer to: * AD 7, the seventh year of the AD era * 7 BC, the seventh year before the AD era * The month of July Music Artists * Seven (Swiss singer) (born 1978), a Swiss recording artist ...

and Maitreya. The individuals in this painting are very similar to the individuals depicted in Balalyk Tepe, and they may be related to the

Hepthalites The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during th ...

. They participate "to the artistic tradition of the Hephthalite ruling classes of Tukharestan". These murals disappeared with the destruction of the statues by the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pas ...

in 2001.

Hephthalite royals on the tombs of Sogdian traders

The

Tomb of Wirkak The Tomb of Wirkak ( Sogdian: ''wyrkʾk''), in Chinese commonly referred to as Tomb of Master Shi ( zh, t=史君墓, w=Shih3-Chün1 Mu4, p=Shǐ Jūn Mù), is the grave of the Sogdian '' Sabao'' ( Chinese: 薩保, "Protector, Guardian", derived fro ...

is the tomb of a 6th century Sogdian trader established in China, and discovered in

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...

. It seems that depictions of Hephthalite rulers are omnipresent in the pictorial decorations of the tomb, as royal figures with elaborate Sasanian-type crowns appearing in their palaces, nomadic yurts or while hunting. Hephthalites rulers are shown short-haired, wearing tunics, and are often depicted together with their female consort. The Sogdian trader Wirkak may therefore have primarily dealt with the Hephthalites during his young years (he was around 60 when the Hephthalites were finally destroyed by the alliance of the

Sasanians The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

and the Turks between 556 and 560 CE). The Hephthalites also appear in four panels of the Miho funerary couch (c.570 CE) with somewhat caricatural features, and characteristics of vassals to the Turks. On the contrary, the depictions in the tombs of later Sogdian traders, such as the Tomb of An Jia (who was 24 years younger than Wirwak), already show the omnipresence of the Turks of the

, who were probably his main trading partners during his active life.

End of the Empire and fragmentation into Hephthalite Principalities (560–710 CE)

After

, the Hephthalites seem to have shifted their attention away from the Sasanian Empire, and Kavad's successor

(531–579) was able to resume an expansionist policy to the east. According to

al-Tabari ( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari ...

, Khosrow I managed, through his expansionsit policy, to take control of "

Sind Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

, Bust, Al-Rukkhaj,

Zabulistan Zabulistan ( fa, زابلستان ''Zābulistān''/''Zābolistān''/''Zāwulistān'' or simply ''Zābul'', ps, زابل ''Zābəl''), was a historical region in southern Afghanistan roughly corresponding to the modern provinces of Zabul and ...

, Dardistan, and

Kabulistan Kabulistan (Pashto: کابلستان) is a historical regional name referring to the territory that is centered on present-day Kabul Province of Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت ا ...

" as he ultimately defeated the Hephthalites with the help of the

. In 552, the

Göktürks The Göktürks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks ( otk, 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰:𐰉𐰆𐰑𐰣, Türük Bodun; ; ) were a nomadic confederation of Turkic peoples in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) a ...

took over Mongolia, formed the

, and by 558 reached the

Volga The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...

. Circa 555–567, the Turks of the

and the Sasanians under

allied against the Hephthalites and defeated them after an eight-day battle near

Qarshi Qarshi ( uz, Qarshi/Қарши, ; fa, نخشب ''Nakhshab'') is a city in southern Uzbekistan. It is the capital of Qashqadaryo Region. Administratively, Qarshi is a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlement Qashqadaryo (tow ...

, the Battle of Bukhara, perhaps in 557. These events put an end to the Hephthalite Empire, which fragmented into semi-independent Principalities, paying tribute to either the Sasanians or the Turks, depending on the military situation. After the defeat, the Hephthalites withdrew to Bactria and replaced king Gatfar with Faghanish, the ruler of

Chaghaniyan Chaghaniyan ( Middle Persian: ''Chagīnīgān''; fa, چغانیان ''Chaghāniyān''), known as al-Saghaniyan in Arabic sources, was a medieval region and principality located on the right bank of the Oxus River, to the south of Samarkand. His ...

. Thereafter, the area around the Oxus in

contained numerous Hephthalites principalities, remnants of the great

Hephthalite Empire The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during ...

destroyed by the alliance of the Turks and the Sasanians. They are reported in the Zarafshan valley,

Termez Termez ( uz, Termiz/Термиз; fa, ترمذ ''Termez, Tirmiz''; ar, ترمذ ''Tirmidh''; russian: Термез; Ancient Greek: ''Tàrmita'', ''Thàrmis'', ) is the capital of Surxondaryo Region in southern Uzbekistan. Administratively, it is ...

Badghis Bādghīs ( Dari: ) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northwest of the country, on the border with Turkmenistan. It is considered to be one of the country's most underdeveloped provinces, with the highest pover ...

and

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Ac ...

, in the geographical areas corresponding to

and today's northern

. The Sasanians and Turks established a frontier for their zones of influence along the

Oxus river The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...

, and the Hephthalite Principalities functioned as buffer states between two Empires. But when the Hephthalites chose Faghanish as their king in Chaganiyan,

crossed the Oxus and put the Principalities of

and

under tribute. When Khosrow I died in 579, the Hephthalites of

and

took advantage of the situation to rebel against the Sasanians, but their efforts were obliterated by the Turks. By 581 or before, the western part of the

separated and became the

Western Turkic Khaganate The Western Turkic Khaganate () or Onoq Khaganate ( otk, 𐰆𐰣:𐰸:𐰉𐰆𐰑𐰣, On oq budun, Ten arrow people) was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century (593–603 CE) after t ...

. In 588, triggering the

First Perso-Turkic War The First Perso-Turkic War was fought during 588–589 between the Sasanian Empire and Hephthalite principalities and its lord the Göktürks. The conflict started with the invasion of the Sasanian Empire by the Turks and ended with a decisive ...

, the

Turkic Turkic may refer to: * anything related to the country of Turkey * Turkic languages, a language family of at least thirty-five documented languages ** Turkic alphabets (disambiguation) ** Turkish language, the most widely spoken Turkic language * ...

Khagan Khagan or Qaghan (Mongolian:; or ''Khagan''; otk, 𐰴𐰍𐰣 ), or , tr, Kağan or ; ug, قاغان, Qaghan, Mongolian Script: ; or ; fa, خاقان ''Khāqān'', alternatively spelled Kağan, Kagan, Khaghan, Kaghan, Khakan, Khakhan ...

Bagha Qaghan Bagha Qaghan was the seventh ruler (587–589) of the Turkic Kaganate. He may have been the 'great kaghan' that was killed with an arrow by Persian commander Bahrām Chobin during First Perso-Turkic War. He is given as ''Chǔluóhóu'' (处� ...

(known as Sabeh/Saba in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

sources), together with his Hephthalite subjects, invaded the Sasanian territories south of the Oxus, where they attacked and routed the Sasanian soldiers stationed in

, and then proceeded to conquer the city along with Talaqan,

, and

. They were finally repelled by the Sasanian general

Vahram Chobin Bahrām Chōbīn ( fa, بهرام چوبین) or Wahrām Chōbēn (Middle Persian: ), also known by his epithet Mehrbandak ("servant of Mithra"), was a nobleman, general, and political leader of the late Sasanian Empire and briefly its ruler as Ba ...

Raids into the Sasanid Empire (600–610 CE)

Circa 600, the Hephthalites were raiding the Sasanian Empire as far as Ispahan (Spahan) in central Iran. The Hephthalites issued numerous coins imitating the coinage of Khosrow II, adding on the obverse a

Hephthalite The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during th ...

signature in Sogdian and a

Tamgha A tamga or tamgha (from otk, 𐱃𐰢𐰍𐰀, tamga, lit=stamp, seal; tr, damga; mn, tamga; ; ); an abstract seal or stamp used by Eurasian nomads and by cultures influenced by them. The tamga was normally the emblem of a particular tribe, ...

symbol

. Circa 606/607 CE the Second Perso-Turkic War started, when the

and Hephthalites again invaded the Sasanian Empire. Khosrow recalled

Smbat IV Bagratuni Smbat IV Bagratuni ( hy, Սմբատ Դ Բագրատունի; el, Συμβάτιος) was an Armenian prince from the Bagratuni Dynasty who served first in the Byzantine army before switching, ca. 595, to the Sasanian Empire, where he had a dist ...

from

Persian Armenia Sasanian Armenia, also known as Persian Armenia and Persarmenia ( hy, Պարսկահայաստան – ''Parskahayastan''), may either refer to the periods in which Armenia ( pal, 𐭠𐭫𐭬𐭭𐭩 – ''Armin'') was under the suzerainty of ...

and sent him to Iran to repel the invaders. Smbat, with the aid of a Persian prince named Datoyean, repelled the Hephthalites from Persia, and plundered their domains in eastern Khorasan, where Smbat is said to have killed their king in single combat. Khosrow then gave Smbat the honorific title ''Khosrow Shun'' ("the Joy or Satisfaction of Khosrow"), while his son

Varaztirots II Bagratuni Varaztirots II Bagratuni ( hy, Վարազ-Տիրոց Բ Բագրատունի; c. 590 – 645) was an Armenian ''nakharar'' from the Bagratuni family, the son of Smbat IV Bagratuni. He was ''marzpan'' of Armenia c. 628, fled to the Byzantine Empir ...

received the honorific name ''Javitean Khosrow'' ("Eternal Khosrow").

Western Turk takeover (625 CE)

Delegate from Chaganian in the Afrasiab murals 650 CE

From 625 CE, the territory of the Hephthalites from

was taken over by the

, forming an entity ruled by Western Turk nobles, the

. The Tokhara Yabghus or "Yabghus of Tokharistan" (), were a dynasty of

sub-kings, with the title "

s", who ruled from 625 CE south of the

, in the area of

and beyond, with some smaller polities surviving in the area of

until 758 CE. Their legacy was extended to the southeast until the 9th century CE, with the Turk Shahis and the Zunbils.

Arab invasion (c.651 CE)

Circa 650 CE, during the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire, the Sasanian Empire ruler Yazdegerd III was trying to regroup and gather forces around Tokharistan and was hoping to obtain the help of the Turks, after his defeat to the Arabs in the Battle of Nihâvand (642 CE). Yazdegerd was initially supported by the Hephthalite

Principality of Chaghaniyan The Principality of Chaghaniyan, known in Arabic sources as al-Saghaniyan, was a part of the Hephthalite Confederation from the 5th to the 7th century CE. After this, it was ruled by a local, presumably Iranian dynasty, which governed the Chaghan ...

, which sent him troops to aid him against the Arabs. But when Yazdegerd arrived in

(in what is today's

) he demanded tax from the ''

Marzban Marzbān, or Marzpān (Middle Persian transliteration: mrzwpn, derived from ''marz'' "border, boundary" and the suffix ''-pān'' "guardian"; Modern Persian: ''Marzbān'') were a class of margraves, warden of the marches, and by extension milita ...

'' of Marw, losing his support and making him ally with the Hephthalite ruler of

Nezak Tarkan Nezak Tarkhan was a nomadic ruler of Tokharistan who led a revolt against the Arab commander Qutayba bin Muslim around 709 CE. Nezak Tarkhan is first mentioned in 651 CE as the Hephthalite ruler of Badghis, when he allied with the ''marzban'' of ...

. The Hepthalite ruler of Badghis allied with the ''Marzban'' of Merv attack Yazdegerd and defeated him in 651. Yazdegerd III barely escaped with his life but was murdered in the vicinity of Merv soon after, and the Arabs managed to capture the city of Merv the same year. In 652 CE, following the

Siege of Herat (652) The siege of Herat was part of the Islamic conquest of Persia which was commanded by Ahnaf ibn Qais. Background Caliph Umar (634-644) launched an offensive against the Sassanid Persian Empire in 642, and by 651 the Empire was destroyed. Howe ...

to which the Hephthalites participated, the Arabs captured the cities of northern Tokharistan,

included, and the Hepthalites principalities were forced to pay tribute and accept Arab garrisons. The Hephthalites again rebelled in 654 CE, leading to the

Battle of Badghis The Battle of Badghis was fought in 654 between the Karen family and their Hephthalite allies against the Rashidun Caliphate. History In 651, the Arabs had invaded Khorasan, and by 652, they had conquered most of the region. However, in 654, ...

. In 659, Chinese chronicles still mentioned the "Hephtalite Tarkans" (悒達太汗 ''Yida Taihan'', probably related to "

"), as some of the rulers in Tokharistan who remained theoretically subjects to the Chinese Empire, and whose main city was Huolu 活路 (modern Mazār-e Sherif, Afghanistan). The city of

became the base of the Arabs for their Central Asian operations. The Arabs weakened during the 4-year civil war leading to the establishment of the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

in 661, but they were able to continue their expansion after that.

= Hephthalite revolts against the Ummayad Caliphate (689–710 CE)

Circa 689 CE, the Hephthalite ruler of

and the Arab rebel Musa ibn Abd Allah ibn Khazim, son of the

Zubayrid Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam ( ar, عبد الله ابن الزبير ابن العوام, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām; May 624 CE – October/November 692), was the leader of a caliphate based in Mecca that rivaled the ...

governor of Khurasan

Abd Allah ibn Khazim al-Sulami ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khāzim al-Sulamī () (died 692) was the Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad governor of Greater Khorasan, Khurasan between 662 and 665 and again in late 683, before becoming the nominal Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, Zubayrid governor of the s ...

, allied against the forces of the

. The Hepthalites and their allies captured

in 689, repelled the Arabs, and occupied the whole region of

for a brief period, with Termez as they capital, described by the Arabs as "the headquarters of the Hephthalites" (''dār mamlakat al-Hayāṭela''). The Arabs of the

under

Yazid ibn al-Muhallab Yazid ibn al-Muhallab ( ar, يزيد بن المهلب) (672–720) was a provincial governor in the time of the Umayyad dynasty and an early member of the Muhallabid family that became important in early Abbasid times. Life In A.H. 78 (697-698 ...

re-captured

in 704. Nezak Tarkan, the ruler of the Hephthalites of Badghis, led a new revolt in 709 with the support of other principalities as well as his nominal ruler, the Yabghu of Tokharistan. In 710, Qutaiba ibn Muslim was able to re-establish Muslim control over Tokharistan and captured Nizak Tarkan who was executed on al-Hajjaj's orders, despite promises of pardon, while the Yabghu was exiled to Damascus and kept there as a hostage. In 718 CE, Chinese chronicles still mention the Hephthalites (悒達 ''Yida'') as one of the polities under the suzerainty of the Turkic

, capable of providing 50,000 soldiers at the service of its overlord. Some remnants, not necessarily dynastic, of the Hephthalite confederation would be incorporated into the

, as an

Old Tibetan Old Tibetan refers to the period of Tibetan language reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century. In 816 CE, during the reign of Sadnalegs, literary Tibeta ...

document, dated to the 8th century, mentioned the tribe ''Heb-dal'' among 12 ''Dru-gu'' tribes ruled by

Eastern Turkic Chagatai (چغتای, ''Čaġatāy''), also known as ''Turki'', Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic (''Čaġatāy türkīsi''), is an extinct Turkic literary language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia and remained the shared liter ...

khagan ''Bug-chor'', i.e.

Qapaghan Qaghan Qapaghan or Qapghan Qaghan ( otk, 𐰴𐰯𐰍𐰣:𐰴𐰍𐰣, Qapaγan qaγan, meaning "the conqueror", , Xiao'erjing: ٿِيًا شًا, Dungan: Чяншан, , also called Bögü Qaghan ( otk, 𐰋𐰇𐰏:𐰴𐰍𐰣, Bögü qaγan) in B ...

Chinese chronicles report embassies from the "Hephtalite kingdom" as late as 748 CE.

Military and weapons

The Hephthalites were considered as a powerful military force. Depending on sources, their main weapon was the bow, the mace or the sword. Judging from their military achievements, they probably had a strong cavalry. In Persia, according to the 6th century Armenian chronicler Lazar of P’arpec’i: "Hunnic" designs in weaponry are known to have influenced Sasanian designs during the 6th–7th century CE, just before Islamic invasions. The Sasanians adopted Hunnish nomadic designs for straight iron swords and their gold-covered scabbards. This is particularly the case of two-straps suspension design, in which straps of different lengths were attached to a P-shaped projection on the scabbard, so that the sword could be held sideways, making it easier to draw, especially when on horseback. The two-point suspension system for swords is considered to have been introduced by the Hephthalites in Central Asia and in the Sasanian Empire and is a marker of their influence, and the design was generally introduced by them in the territories they controlled. The first example of two-suspension sword in Sasanian art occurs in a relief of Taq-i Bustan dated to the time of

Khusro II Khosrow II (spelled Chosroes II in classical sources; pal, 𐭧𐭥𐭮𐭫𐭥𐭣𐭩, Husrō), also known as Khosrow Parviz (Persian language, New Persian: , "Khosrow the Victorious"), is considered to be the last great Sasanian Empire, Sasa ...

(590–628 CE), and is thought to have been adopted from the Hepthalites. Swords with ornate cloisonné designs and two-straps suspensions, as found in the paintings of

Penjikent Panjakent ( tg, Панҷакент), or Penjikent (russian: Пенджикент) is a city in the Sughd province of Tajikistan on the river Zeravshan, with a population of 52,500 (2020 estimate). It was once an ancient town in Sogdiana. The ruin ...

and Kizil and in archaeological excavations, may be versions of the daggers produced under Hephthalite influence. Weapons with Hunnic designs are depicted in the "Cave of the Painters" in the

, in a mural showing armoured warriors and dated to the 5th century CE. Their sword guards have typical

Hunnish The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

designs of rectangle or oval shapes with

cloisonné Cloisonné () is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects with colored material held in place or separated by metal strips or wire, normally of gold. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, but inlays of cut gemstone ...

ornamentation.

Lamellar helmet The lamellar helmet (German language: ''Lamellenhelm'', plural ''Lamellenhelme'') was a type of helmet used in Europe during the Early Middle Ages. Examples are characterized by caps made from overlapping lamellar scales, in addition to a brow pla ...

s were also popularized by the steppe nomads, and were adopted by the Sasanian Empire when they took control of former Hephthalite territory. This type of helmet appears in sculptures on pillar capitals at

Ṭāq-e Bostān Taq-e Bostan ( fa, طاق بستان, ) is a site with a series of large rock reliefs from the era of the Sassanid Empire of Persia (Iran), carved around the 4th century CE. This example of Persian Sassanid art is located 5 km from the ...

and Behistun, and on the Anahita coinage of

Khosrow II Khosrow II (spelled Chosroes II in classical sources; pal, 𐭧𐭥𐭮𐭫𐭥𐭣𐭩, Husrō), also known as Khosrow Parviz (New Persian: , "Khosrow the Victorious"), is considered to be the last great Sasanian king (shah) of Iran, ruling f ...

(r. 590–628 CE). Sword and scabbard, Sasanian, 7th century CE

Religion and culture

The Hunter King from Kakrak, a valley next to Bamiyan

They were said to practice

and

artificial cranial deformation Artificial cranial deformation or modification, head flattening, or head binding is a form of body alteration in which the skull of a human being is deformed intentionally. It is done by distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying ...

. Chinese sources said they worshiped 'foreign gods', 'demons', the 'heaven god' or the 'fire god'. The Gokturks told the Byzantines that they had walled cities. Some Chinese sources said that they had no cities and lived in tents. Litvinsky tries to resolve this by saying that they were nomads who moved into the cities they had conquered. There were some government officials but central control was weak and local dynasties paid tribute. According to

, the Chinese Buddhist monk who visited the Hephthalite territory in 540 and "provides accurate accounts of the people, their clothing, the empresses and court procedures and traditions of the people and he states the Hephthalites did not recognize the Buddhist religion and they preached pseudo gods, and killed animals for their meat." It is reported that some Hephthalites often destroyed Buddhist monasteries but these were rebuilt by others. According to

Xuanzang Xuanzang (, ; 602–664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (), also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of ...

, the third Chinese pilgrim who visited the same areas as Song Yun about 100 years later, the capital of

had five monasteries. Panjikent mural, Hermitage Museum

According to historian André Wink, "...in the Hephthalite dominion

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

was predominant but there was also a religious sediment of

Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ont ...

and

Manichaeism Manichaeism (; in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian prophet Mani ( ...

."''Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early medieval India''. André Wink, p. 110. E. J. Brill.

had some 100

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

monasteries and 30,000 monks. Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery, later known as Naubahar. There were

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

among the Hephthalites by the mid-6th century, although nothing is known of how they were converted. In 549, they sent a delegation to

Aba I Aba I (or, with his Syriac honorific, Mar Aba I) or Mar Abba the Great was the Patriarch of the Church of the East at Seleucia-Ctesiphon from 540 to 552. He introduced to the church the anaphoras of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius beside t ...

, the

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in ce ...

of the

Church of the East The Church of the East ( syc, ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ, ''ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā'') or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church or the Nestorian C ...

, asking him to consecrate a priest chosen by them as their bishop, which the patriarch did. The new bishop then performed obeisance to both the patriarch and the Sasanian king,

. The seat of the bishopric is not known, but it may have been

–Qadištan, the bishop of which, Gabriel, sent a delegate to the synod of Patriarch

Ishoyahb I Ishoʿyahb I of Arzun was patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 582 to 595. His name is included in the traditional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East. Sources Brief accounts of Ishoʿyahb's patriarchate are given in the '' ...

in 585. It was probably placed under the metropolitan of Herat. The church's presence among the Hephthalites enabled them to expand their missionary work across the Oxus. In 591, some Hephthalites serving in the army of the rebel

Bahram Chobin Bahrām Chōbīn ( fa, بهرام چوبین) or Wahrām Chōbēn (Middle Persian: ), also known by his epithet Mehrbandak ("servant of Mithra"), was a nobleman, general, and political leader of the late Sasanian Empire and briefly its ruler as B ...

were captured by

and sent to the Roman emperor Maurice (emperor), Maurice as a diplomatic gift. They had Nestorian crosses tattooed on their foreheads.

Hephthalite seals

Several seals found in Bactria and Sogdia have been attributed to the Hephthalites. * The "'':File:Seal of a Hephthalite king with the Bactrian inscription The Lord (Yabgu) of the Hephthalites. End 5th century early 6th century CE.jpg, Hephthalite Yabghu seal''" shows a Hephthalite ruler with a radiate crown, royal ribbons and a beardless face, with the

title "Ebodalo

" ( ηβοδαλο ββγο, "The Lord of the Hephthalites"), and has been dated to the end of the 5th century-early 6th century CE. This important seal was published by Judith A. Lerner and

in 2011. * ''Stamp seal (BM 119999)'' in the British Museum shows two facing figures, one bearded and wearing the Sasanian dress, and the other without facial hair and wearing a radiate crown, both being adorned with royal ribbons. This seal was initially dated to 300–350 CE and attributed to the Kushano-Sasanians, but has been more recently attributed to the Hephthalites, and dated to the 5th–6th century CE. Paleographically, the seal can be attributed to the 4th century or first half of the 5th century. * The "''Seal of Khingila''" shows a beardless ruler with radiate crown and royal ribbons, wearing a single-lapel caftan, in the name of Eškiŋgil (εϸχιγγιλο), which could correspond to one of the rulers named Khingila (χιγγιλο), or may be a Hunnic title meaning "Companion of the Sword", or even "Companion of the God of War".

Local populations under the Hephthalites

The Hephthalites governed a confederation of various people, many of whom were probably of Iranian descent, speaking an Iranian language. Several cities, such as

and possibly

, were allowed to send regional embassies to China while under Hephthalite control. Several portraits of regional ambassadors from the territories occupied by the Hephthalites (

) are known from Chinese paintings such as the ''

'', originally painted in 526–539 CE. They were at that time under the overlorship of the Hephthalites, who led the embassies to the Southern Liang court in the early 6th century CE. A century later, under the Tang dynasty, portraits of the local people of Tokharistan were again illustrated in ''The Gathering of Kings'', circa 650 CE. Etienne de la Vaissière has estimated the local population of each major oasis in

and Western Turkestan during the period to around several hundreds of thousands each, while the major oasis of the

are more likely to have had populations ranging in the tens of thousands each. File:Kabadiyan ambassador to the Southern Liang court 516-520 CE.jpg, Kabadiyan ambassador to the Chinese court of

in his capital

in 516–520 CE. ''

'', 11th century Song copy. He accompanied the Hephthalite ambassador to China. File:Kumedh ambassador to the Southern Liang court 516-520 CE.jpg, Kumedh ambassador to the Chinese court of

in his capital

in 516–520 CE. ''

'', 11th century Song copy. File:Kucha ambassador to the Southern Liang court 516-520 CE.jpg, Ambassador from

(龜茲國 ''Qiuci-guo''), one of the main Tocharians, Tocharian cities in the

, visiting the Chinese Southern Liang court in

circa 516–520 CE. ''

'', 11th century Song copy. File:Ambassadors from Kabadiyan (阿跋檀), Balkh (白題國) and Kumedh (胡密丹), visiting the court of the Tang Dynasty. The Gathering of Kings (王会图) circa 650 CE.jpg, Ambassadors from Kabadiyan (阿跋檀),

(白題國) and Kumedh (胡密丹), visiting the court of the Tang Dynasty. ''The Gathering of Kings'' (王会图), circa 650 CE

The Alchon Huns (formerly considered as a branch of the Hephthalites) in South Asia

The

, who invaded northern India and were known there as "Huna people, Hūṇas", have long been considered as a part or a sub-division of the Hephthalites, or as their eastern branch, but now tend to be considered as a separate entity, who may have been displaced by the settlement of the Hephthalites in Bactria. Historians such as Christopher I. Beckwith, Beckwith, referring to Étienne de la Vaissière, say that the Hephthalites were not necessarily one and the same as the Hunas (''Sveta Huna''). According to de la Vaissiere, the Hephthalites are not directly identified in classical sources alongside that of the Hunas. They were initially based in the

basin in Central Asia and established their control over Gandhara in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent by about 465 CE. From there, they fanned out into various parts of northern, western, and central

. In India, these invading people were called Hunas, or "Sveta Huna" (''White Huns'') in

. The Hūṇas are mentioned in several ancient texts such as the Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa, Mahabharata, Mahābhārata, Puranas, Purāṇas, and Kalidasa's Raghuvaṃśa. The first ''Hunas'', probably

, were initially defeated by Emperor Skandagupta of the

in the 5th century CE. In the early 6th century CE, the

''Hunas'' in turn overran the part of the Gupta Empire that was to their southeast and had conquered Central and North India. Gupta Emperor Gupta Empire, Bhanugupta defeated the Hunas under Toramana in 510, and his son Mihirakula was repulsed by Yashodharman in 528 CE. The ''Hunas'' were driven out of India by the kings Yasodharman and Narasimhagupta, during the early 6th century.

Possible descendants

A number of groups may have descended from the Hephthalites. * Avars: suggestions have been made that the Pannonian Avars were Hepthalites who went to Europe after their collapse in 557 CE, but this is not adequately supported by archaeological or written sources. * Pashtuns: The Hephthalites may have contributed to the ethnogenesis of Pashtuns. Yu. V. Gankovsky, a Soviet historian on Afghanistan, stated: "Pashtun began as a union of largely Eastern Iranian languages, East Iranian tribes, which became the initial ethnic stratum of the Pashtun ethnogenesis dating from the middle of the first millennium CE, and is connected with the dissolution of the Hephthalite confederacy." ** Durrani: The Durrani Pashtuns of Afghanistan were called "Abdali" before 1747. According to linguist Georg Morgenstierne, their tribal name ''Abdālī'' may have "something to do with" the Hephthalite. This hypothesis was endorsed by historian Aydogdy Kurbanov, who indicated that after the collapse of the Hephthalite confederacy, they likely assimilated into different local populations and that the Abdali may be one of the tribes of Hephthalite origin. Tegin Shah (obverse)

* Khalaj: The Khalaj people are first mentioned in the 7th–9th centuries in the area of Ghazni, Qalati Ghilji, and

in present-day

. They spoke Khalaj language, Khalaj Turkic. Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi, Al-Khwarizmi mentioned them as a remnant tribe of the Hephthalites. However, according to linguist Nicholas Sims-Williams, Sims-Williams, archaeological documents do not support the suggestion that the Khalaj were the Hephthalites' successors, while according to historian Vladimir Minorsky, V. Minorsky, the Khalaj were "perhaps only politically associated with the Hephthalites." Some of the Khalaj were later Pashtunization, Pashtunized, after which they transformed into the Pashtun Ghilji tribe. * Kanjina: a Saka tribe linked to the Indo-Iranians, Indo-Iranian Komedes, Kumijis and incorporated into the Hephthalites. Kanjinas were possibly Turkicized later, as Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, al-Khwarizmi called them "Kanjina Turks". However, Clifford Edmund Bosworth, Bosworth and Gerard Clauson, Clauson contended that al-Khwarizmi was simply using "Turks" "in the vague and inaccurate sense". * Karluks: (or Qarlughids) were reported as settled in Ghazni and Zabulistan, present-day Afghanistan, in the thirteenth century. Many Muslim geographers identified "Karluks" ''Khallukh'' ~ ''Kharlukh'' with "Khalajes" ''Khalaj'' from confusion, as the two names were similar and these two groups dwelt near each other. * Abdal is a name associated with the Hephthalites. It is an alternate name for the Äynu people. ** According to Köprülü family, Orhan Köprülü, Abdal of Turkey might be descended from the Hepthalites. Albert von Le Coq mentions the relation between Abdals of Adana and Äynus of East Turkestan, by them having some common words, and by both referring to themselves as Abdals and speaking an exclusive language among themselves. Some Abdal elements can also be found in the composition of Azerbaijanis, Turkmen (Ata, Chowdur, Ersary, Saryk), Kazakhs, Uzbek-Lokays, Turkish people, Turks and Volga Bulgars (Sabir people, Savirs).

Hephthalite rulers

, circa 458 CE * Kun-khi, circa 484 CE * Yandai Yilituo, circa 516 CE (only known from his Chinese name 厭帶夷栗陁) * Hwade-gang (only known from the archives of the Kingdom of Rob). * Ghadfar/Ghatifar, circa 567–568 CE. * Faghanish (568-) (ruling in

) *

(circa 650–710)

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * . 4-volume set. * * * * * *
Internet Archive copy
* * * * *
Internet ArchiveGoogle Books
* * * * * * * * * * *
Alternate PDF
* * * * * * *
Internet Archive
* * * * * *

External links

"The Ethnonym Apar in the Turkish Inscriptions of the VIII. Century and Armenian Manuscripts" Dr. Mehmet Tezcan.

The Anthropology of Yanda (Chinese)
pdf

Columbia Encyclopedia: Hephthalites

*

(long article with a timeline) * Article archived from the University of Washington's Silk Road exhibition – has a slightly adapted form of the Richard Heli timeline.
(pdf)
The Ethnonym Apar in the Turkish Inscriptions of the VIII. Century and Armenian Manuscripts – Mehmet Tezcan
Records Relevant to the Hephthalites in Ancient Chinese Historical Works
collected by Yu Taishan (2016). {{Huns Hephthalites, Nomadic groups in Eurasia Former countries in Central Asia Former countries in South Asia History of Pakistan Medieval Afghanistan History of India History of China Medieval Khorasan States and territories established in the 440s 670 disestablishments Former empires

Name and ethnonyms

Geographical origin and expansion

Origins and characteristics

Relation to European Huns

Chinese chronicles

Appearance

History

Ascendancy over the Sasanian Empire (442- c.530 CE)

Victories over the Sasanian Empire (474–484 CE)

Hephthalite coinage

Protectors of Kavad

Hephthalites in Tokharistan (466 CE)

Hephthalite conquest of Sogdiana (479 CE)

Tarim Basin (circa 480–550 CE)

Hephthalite embassies to Liang China (516–526 CE)

Other embassies

Buddhas of Bamyan (544–644 CE)

Hephthalite royals on the tombs of Sogdian traders

End of the Empire and fragmentation into Hephthalite Principalities (560–710 CE)

Raids into the Sasanid Empire (600–610 CE)

Western Turk takeover (625 CE)

Arab invasion (c.651 CE)

= Hephthalite revolts against the Ummayad Caliphate (689–710 CE)

Military and weapons

Religion and culture

Hephthalite seals

Local populations under the Hephthalites

The Alchon Huns (formerly considered as a branch of the Hephthalites) in South Asia

Possible descendants

Hephthalite rulers

See also

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

External links