The heart of Asia : $b A history of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the earliest times — John Shaqi
The heart of Asia : $b A history of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the earliest timesSkrine, Francis Henry
History
The heart of Asia : $b A history of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the earliest times
Skrine, Francis Henry
Asia, Central -- History; Asia, Central -- Relations -- Russia; Russia -- Relations -- Asia, Central
The Bactrians displaced by the Sakas fled eastward, and settled in
the confines of Bokhārā, and the surrounding countries.[39] But the
dominion of their opponents in Bactria was not destined to be of long
duration, for in B.C. 120 the Yué-Chi, who had already overrun the
ancient territory of the Sakas, began to pour into Bactria.
After expelling the Sakas, and the remnant of the Græco-Bactrians,[40]
the Yué-Chi settled in that part of Central Asia which is named
Tokhāristān, after their tribal appellation, and which included Balkh,
Kunduz, Hisār, Bolor, Wakhān, and Badakhshān. Meanwhile the Sakas
retreated southwards, and occupied in turn Kiphin, Soghdiana, Arachosia
(Kandahār), and Drangiana (Sīstān).[41]
Their invasion of India was directly due to the usurpation of their
country by the Yué-Chi. The latter parcelled Bactria out among
their five clans.[42] Each had its own capital, but the only Yué-Chi
headquarters which has been identified is Bamian, at the foot of the
northern slope of the Hindu Kush.
The partition continued in force for nearly a century, during which
repeated collisions occurred between the Yué-Chi and the Parthians.
In B.C. 30 the chief of one of the clans, the Kwei-shuang, subdued
the rest, and assumed sovereignty over the whole race. They became
thenceforward known by the name of the conquering clan, which in
course of time was modified to Kushan, and appears so inscribed on
their coins. The recent overthrow of their most persistent enemies the
Hiung-nu rendered the more easy the task of consolidating their power,
for in the year B.C. 71 the reigning Chinese emperor had administered a
crushing defeat on the Huns, who were in B.C. 60 finally enrolled into
the Chinese Empire. They thus became masters of all those countries
which go to form Turkestan, Eastern Iran, and Afghanistan. The Yué-Chi,
or Kushans, relieved of this incubus, turned their arms towards the
south, crossed the Paropanisus, and overran Kabul, which belonged in
part to the Arsacidæ, and in part to the Sakas, driving the latter out
of their kingdom of Kiphin.[43]
At the dawn of the Christian era the Kushans were a foremost power in
Central Asia. The Romans deigned to treat with them as an established
empire. Mark Antony, for example, sent ambassadors to Bactria, whose
chiefs (all Kushans) were represented at Rome by an envoy under
Augustus; while later, in the reign of Trojan and Adrian, they sent
ambassadors to solicit an alliance against the Parthians.[44]
From Chinese sources we learn that in the year A.D. 98 their general
Panchao[45] was received during an expedition to the Caspian by the
Yué-Chi, and that they recognised the imperial sovereignty by annual
presents.
Their power was not destined to endure for long. By the end of the
third century A.D. they had lost most of their conquests in the south
of Paropamisus, including Kashmir. They were finally expelled from
Bactria itself by the Ephthalites, or White Huns, about the year A.D.
430.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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