Tocharians: Difference between revisions
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{{Infobox Ethnic group |
{{Infobox Ethnic group |
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|group = Tocharians |
|group = Tocharians |
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|population = (Culturally) Extinct, Modern-day descendants: [[Uyghur people|Uyghurs]], [[Kyrgyz people|Kyrgyzs]] |
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|region1 = The [[Tarim Basin]] in [[Xinjiang]] |
|region1 = The [[Tarim Basin]] in [[Xinjiang]] |
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|pop1 = |
|pop1 = |
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==Archaeology== |
==Archaeology== |
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[[Image:QizilDonors.jpg|thumb|left|300px|"Tocharian donors", possibly the "Knights with Long Swords" of Chinese accounts, depicted with light hair and light eye color and dressed in [[Sassanian]] style. 6th century fresco, [[Qizil]], [[Tarim Basin]]. Graphical analysis reveals that the third donor from left is performing a [[Buddhist]] [[Vitarka mudra|Vitarka Mudra]] gesture. These frescoes are associated with annotations in [[Tocharian languages|Tocharian]] and [[Sanskrit]] made by their painters.]] |
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The [[Tarim mummies]] suggest that precursors of Tocharians may have lived in the region of the [[Tarim Basin]] from around 1800 BC until 2nd century BC, when they were largely driven out by the proto-Turkic Xiongnu.<ref name="Watson, Burton 1993. p. 234"/> Any Tocharian speakers that remained were assimilated by the arrival of the [[Uyghur people|Uyghur]] Turks in the 9th century AD. This is evidenced by both the mummies<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/chinamum/taklamakan.html|title=The Takla Makan Mummies |publisher=PBS|date=|accessdate=17 January 2008}}</ref> and writings on the exodus.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/religion/buddhism/tarim/tarim.html |title=Virtual Art Exhibit - The Tarim Basin |publisher=Depts.washington.edu |date= |accessdate=2012-02-13}}</ref> |
The [[Tarim mummies]] suggest that precursors of Tocharians may have lived in the region of the [[Tarim Basin]] from around 1800 BC until 2nd century BC, when they were largely driven out by the proto-Turkic Xiongnu.<ref name="Watson, Burton 1993. p. 234"/> Any Tocharian speakers that remained were assimilated by the arrival of the [[Uyghur people|Uyghur]] Turks in the 9th century AD. This is evidenced by both the mummies<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/chinamum/taklamakan.html|title=The Takla Makan Mummies |publisher=PBS|date=|accessdate=17 January 2008}}</ref> and writings on the exodus.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/religion/buddhism/tarim/tarim.html |title=Virtual Art Exhibit - The Tarim Basin |publisher=Depts.washington.edu |date= |accessdate=2012-02-13}}</ref> |
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[[Image:Tocharian.JPG|thumb|350px|Wooden plate with inscriptions in the [[Tocharian language]]. [[Kucha]], [[China]], 5th-8th century. [[Tokyo National Museum]].]] |
[[Image:Tocharian.JPG|thumb|350px|Wooden plate with inscriptions in the [[Tocharian language]]. [[Kucha]], [[China]], 5th-8th century. [[Tokyo National Museum]].]] |
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[[Image:Asia 001ad.jpg|thumb|200px|Asia in AD 1, showing the location of the Tocharian/Yue-Chi tribes and their neighbors.]] |
[[Image:Asia 001ad.jpg|thumb|200px|Asia in AD 1, showing the location of the Tocharian/Yue-Chi tribes and their neighbors.]] |
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[[Image:Central Asian Buddhist Monks.jpeg|thumb|200px|Blue-eyed [[Central Asia]]n (Tocharian?) and East-Asian Buddhist monks, [[Bezeklik]], Eastern Tarim Basin, 9th-10th century.]] |
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The Tocharians appear to have originally spoken two distinct languages of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[Tocharian languages|Tocharian family]], an Eastern ("A") form and a Western ("B") form. According to some, only the Eastern ("A") form can be properly called "Tocharian", as the native name for the Western form is referred to as [[Kuchean]] (see below). Tocharian shares of course commonalities with all other Indo-European languages, which does not help in identifying a next neighbor. However, nearly all lexicostatistical studies put it as next neighbor to Hittite, with which it e.g. shares the absence of palatalization, common among the regional neighbors as Indic and Iranian. |
The Tocharians appear to have originally spoken two distinct languages of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[Tocharian languages|Tocharian family]], an Eastern ("A") form and a Western ("B") form. According to some, only the Eastern ("A") form can be properly called "Tocharian", as the native name for the Western form is referred to as [[Kuchean]] (see below). Tocharian shares of course commonalities with all other Indo-European languages, which does not help in identifying a next neighbor. However, nearly all lexicostatistical studies put it as next neighbor to Hittite, with which it e.g. shares the absence of palatalization, common among the regional neighbors as Indic and Iranian. |
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Revision as of 10:29, 15 March 2012
| Regions with significant populations | |
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| Languages | |
| Tocharian languages | |
| Religion | |
| Buddhism and Manicheism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Indo-European peoples, other Indo-Iranian peoples, Yuezhi, Kushans, genes found in Tarim mummies supports evidence of relations between the DNA found in western Eurasia (in or around Ukraine), South Asians(desi) and East Asians. |
| Part of a series on |
| Indo-European topics |
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The Tocharians were the Tocharian-speaking inhabitants of the Tarim Basin. They were known as, or at least closely related to, the Yuezhi of Chinese sources.[1][2] After wars against the northern Xiongnu, the Tocharians migrated out of the Tarim Basin, and the Indo-European language of the Tocharians became supplanted by the Turkic languages of the Uighur tribes about 800 CE.[3]
The Afanasevo culture is a strong candidate for being the earliest attested representative for speakers of the Tocharian languages. The Takhar province of Afghanistan is named after the Tocharians.
Name
The term Tocharian or Tokharian (Ch. Tu-huo-luo 吐火罗) has a complex history. It is based on the ethnonym Tokharoi (Greek: Τοχάροι or Τόχαροι) used by Greek historians (e.g. Ptolemy VI, 11, 6). The first Greek mention of the Tocharians appeared in the 1st century BC, when Strabo presented them as a Scythian tribe, and explained that the Tocharians – together with the Assianis, Passianis and Sakaraulis – took part in the destruction of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (present day Afghanistan-Pakistan) in the second half of the 2nd century BC.[4]
These Tocharians have frequently been identified with the Yuezhi and the later (and probably related) Kushan peoples. Many scholars believe the Yuezhi originally spoke a Tocharian language. However, the debate about the origins and original language(s) of the Yuezhi and the Kushan continues, and there is no general consensus.[5] The geographical term Tokharistan usually refers to 1st millennium Bactria (Chinese Daxia 大夏). Some accounts describe them the Tocharians as having red hair and blue eyes.[6]
Today, the term is associated with those Indo-European languages known as "Tocharian". Tocharian A is also known as East Tocharian, or Turfanian (of the city of Turpan), and Tocharian B is also known as West Tocharian, or Kuchean (of the city of Kucha)[citation needed]
Based on a Turkic reference to Tocharian A as twqry, these languages were associated with the Kushan ruling class, but the exact relation of the speakers of these languages and the Kushan Tokharoi is uncertain, and some consider "Tocharian languages" a misnomer. The term is so widely used, however, that this question is somewhat academic. Tocharians in the modern sense are, then, defined as the speakers of the Tocharian languages. These were originally nomads[citation needed], and lived in the Tarim basin of today's Xinjiang before the arrival of the Xiongnu.
The native name of the historical Tocharians of the 6th to 8th centuries was, according to J. P. Mallory, possibly kuśiññe "Kuchean" (Tocharian B), "of the kingdom of Kucha and Agni", and ārśi (Tocharian A); one of the Tocharian A texts has ārśi-käntwā, "In the tongue of Arsi" (ārśi is probably cognate to argenteus, i.e. "shining, brilliant"). According to Douglas Q. Adams, the Tocharians may have called themselves ākñi, meaning "borderers, marchers".
Archaeology
The Tarim mummies suggest that precursors of Tocharians may have lived in the region of the Tarim Basin from around 1800 BC until 2nd century BC, when they were largely driven out by the proto-Turkic Xiongnu.[3] Any Tocharian speakers that remained were assimilated by the arrival of the Uyghur Turks in the 9th century AD. This is evidenced by both the mummies[7] and writings on the exodus.[8]
A later group of Tocharians were the Kushans and maybe some Iranian tribes of the Hephthalites whose Iranian population also settled in modern Afghanistan, North-Eastern Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkestan, whereas the nomadic Turkic tribes were defeated by Bahram Gur and the Gokturks, who pushed them over the Hindukush mountains to Pakistan and North-West India.
The Tarim Basin mummies (1800 BC) and the Tocharian texts and frescoes from the Tarim Basin (AD 800) have been found in the same general geographical area, and are both connected to an Indo-European origin. The mummies and the frescoes both point to Caucasoid types with light eyes and hair color. However it is unknown if the frescos and mummies are directly connected.
Mallory & Mair (2000:294–296, 314–318) argue that the Tocharian languages were introduced to the Tarim and Turpan basins from the Afanasevo culture to their immediate north. The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Central Asian steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BC) enough to isolate the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization.[9]: 260, 294–296, 314–318 [citation needed]
In 2008, the remains of another male were discovered near Turpan, China. Thought by researchers to be a member of the Gushi culture, the man was buried with a number of practical and ceremonial objects, including archery equipment and a harp, and 789 grams of cannabis. Through genetic analysis and carbon dating, the burial has been dated to roughly 700 BC. Only two of the 500 graves at the site contain cannabis, leading researchers to suggest shamanic roles for the two individuals.
In 2009, the remains of individuals found at a site in Xiaohe were analyzed for Y-DNA and mtDNA markers. They suggest that an admixed population of both west and east origin lived in the Tarim basin since the early Bronze Age. The maternal lineages were predominantly East Asian haplogroup C with smaller numbers of H and K, while the paternal lines were all West Eurasian R1a1a. The geographic location of where this admixing took place is unknown, although south Siberia is likely.[10]
Language
The Tocharians appear to have originally spoken two distinct languages of the Indo-European Tocharian family, an Eastern ("A") form and a Western ("B") form. According to some, only the Eastern ("A") form can be properly called "Tocharian", as the native name for the Western form is referred to as Kuchean (see below). Tocharian shares of course commonalities with all other Indo-European languages, which does not help in identifying a next neighbor. However, nearly all lexicostatistical studies put it as next neighbor to Hittite, with which it e.g. shares the absence of palatalization, common among the regional neighbors as Indic and Iranian.
Tocharian A of the eastern regions seems to have declined in use as a popular language or mother tongue faster than did Tocharian B of the west. Tocharian A speakers probably yielded their original Indo-European language to the proto-Turkic languages of immigrating Turkic peoples beginning in 2nd century BC,[3] while Tocharian B speakers were more insulated from outside linguistic influences.[11] It appears that Tocharian A ultimately became a liturgical language, no longer a living one, at the same time that Tocharian B was still widely spoken in daily life. Among the monasteries of the lands inhabited by Tocharian B speakers, Tocharian A seems to have been used in ritual alongside the Tocharian B of daily life.[citation needed]
Historic role
The Tocharians, living along the Silk Road, had contacts with the Chinese, Persians, Indian and Turkic tribes. They might be the same as, or were related to, the Indo-European Yuezhi who fled from their settlements in the eastern Tarim Basin after attacks by the Xiongnu in the 2nd century BC (Shiji Chinese historical Chronicles, Chap. 123) and expanded south to Bactria and northern India to form the Kushan Empire.
The Tocharians who remained in the Tarim Basin adopted Buddhism, which, like their alphabet, came from northern India in the 1st century of the 1st millennium, through the proselytism of Kushan monks. The Kushans and the Tocharians seem to have played a part in the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism to China.[citation needed] Many apparently also practised some variant of Manichaeanism.[citation needed]
Protected by the Taklamakan Desert from steppe nomads, elements of Tocharian culture survived until the 7th century, with the arrival of Turkic immigrants from the collapsing Uyghur Khaganate of modern day Mongolia.[12]
Sanskrit literature
Sanskrit literature in numerous instances refers to the Tocharians as Tukhāra (also Tuṣāra, Tuḥkhāra, Tukkhāra).
The Atharavaveda-Parishishta[13] associates them with the Sakas, Greeks and Bactrians.[14] It also juxtaposes the Kambojas with the Bactrians.[15] This shows they probably were neighbors in the Transoxian region. The Rishikas are said to be same people as the Yuezhi.[16] The Kushanas or Kanishkas are also the same people.[17]
Aurel Stein proposed that the Tukharas were the same as the Yuezhi.[18] P. C. Bagchi holds that the Yuezhi, Tocharioi and Tushara were identical.[19]
The Parama Kambojas of the Trans-Pamirs, mentioned in the Mahabharata are said to be related to the Rishikas [20] who are placed in Sakadvipa (or Scythia).[21] B. N. Puri takes the Kambojas to be a branch of the Tukharas.[22] Some scholars state that the Kambojas were a branch of the Yuezhi.[23]
Sabha Parva of Mahabharata states that the Parama Kambojas, Lohas and the Rishikas were allied tribes.[24] Like the "Parama Kambojas" ("most distant Kambojas"), the Rishikas of the Transoxian region are similarly styled as "most distant" or "Parama Rishikas".[25] Based on the syntactical construction of the Mahabharata verses 5.5.15 and 2.27.25, Ishwa Mishra believes [26] that the Rishikas were a section of the Kambojas, i.e. Parama Kambojas.
See also
- Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves
- Göktürks, (突厥 Tūjué)
- Hephthalite
- Kizil Caves
- Kucha
- Kushan Empire
- Parama Kambojas
- Rishikas
- Sogdiana
- Tarim mummies
- Tocharian languages
- Uyghers
- Yuezhi
References
 |
- ^ Mallory (2006), p. 35
- ^ "According to some, they were the Tocharians, "Tokharoi", of Classical Antiquity", Roux, p.90
- ^ a b c Watson, Burton. Trans. 1993. Records of the Grand Historian of China: Han Dynasty II. Translated from the Shiji of Sima Qian. Chapter 123: "The Account of Dayuan," Columbia University Press. Revised Edition. ISBN 0-231-08166-9; ISBN 0-231-08167-7 (pbk.), p. 234.
- ^ "Most of the Scythians, beginning from the Caspian Sea, are called Scythian Daheans, and those situated more towards the east Massageteans and Saceans; the rest have the common appellation of Scythians, but each separate tribe has its peculiar name. All, or the greatest part of them, are nomads. The best known tribes are those who deprived the Greeks of Bactriana, the Asians, Pasians, Tocharians, and Sacarauls, who came from the country on the other side of the Jaxartes, opposite the Sacean and Sogdians."; (Strabo, 11-8-1)
- ^ Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE, pp. 310–312. (2009). John E. Hill. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
- ^ "European Heritage Library - European history, cultures, historical memory, and European and immigrant identities". Euroheritage.net. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
- ^ "The Takla Makan Mummies". PBS. Retrieved 17 January 2008.
- ^ "Virtual Art Exhibit - The Tarim Basin". Depts.washington.edu. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
- ^ Mallory & Mair (2000)
- ^ Li, Chunxiang. "Evidence that a West-East admixed population lived in the Tarim Basin as early as the early Bronze Age". BMC Biology. Retrieved 17 February 2010.
- ^ Winter, Werner. 1998. "Tocharian." In Ramat, Anna Giacalone and Paolo Ramat (eds). The Indo-European languages, 154-168. London: Routledge.
- ^ "The mystery of China's celtic mummies". The Independent. August 28, 2006. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Ed Bolling & Negelein, 41.3.3
- ^ Saka. Yavana.Tushara.Bahlikashcha.
- ^ Kamboja-Bahlika......AV-Par, 57.2.5; cf Persica-9, 1980, p 106, Michael Witzel.
- ^ (India as Known to Panini, p 64, V. S. Aggarwala, V. S. Aggarwala.
- ^ Bhartya Itihaas ki Ruprekha, 1941, J. C. Vidyalnkara
- ^ Rajatarangini of Kalhana, I, p 6, trans. M. A. Stein (1900).
- ^ India and Central Asia, 1955, p 24.
- ^ The Deeds of Harsha: Being a Cultural Study of Bāṇa's Harshacharita, 1969, p 199, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala.
- ^ India as Known to Pāṇini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashṭādhyāyī, 1953, p 64, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala – India; A Grammatical Dictionary of Sanskrit (Vedic): 700 Complete Reviews of the ..., 1953, p 62, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala, Surya Kanta, Jacob Wackernagel, Arthur Anthony Macdonell, Peggy Melcher – India.
- ^ Puri, B. N. Buddhism in Central Asia, p. 90.
- ^ Journal of Tamil Studies, 1969, pp. 86, 87, International Institute of Tamil Studies – Tamil philology.
- ^ "The Mahabharata, Book 2: Sabha Parva: Jarasandhta-badha Parva: Section XXVI". Sacred-texts.com. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
- ^ Mahabharata 2.26.26.
- ^ See: Indiancivilization Forum, messages No 64552 dated Sept 27, 2004; Message 64654, dated September 29, 2004 , Adhin88 (alias Ishwa Misra); Jathistory Forum, Message 454, Dated April 15, 2003, Ishwa Misra.
Books and magazines
Note: Recent discoveries have rendered obsolete some of René Grousset's classic The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, published in 1939, which, however, still provides a broad background against which to assess more modern detailed studies.
- Baldi, Philip. 1983. An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages. Carbondale. Southern Illinois University Press.
- Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. 1999. The Mummies of Ürümchi. London. Pan Books.
- Beekes, Robert. 1995. Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Philadelphia. John Benjamins.
- Hemphill, Brian E. and J.P. Mallory. 2004. "Horse-mounted invaders from the Russo-Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from Western Central Asia? A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang" in American Journal of Physical Anthropology vol. 125 pp 199ff.
- Lane, George S. 1966. "On the Interrelationship of the Tocharian Dialects," in Ancient Indo-European Dialects, eds. Henrik Birnbaum and Jaan Puhvel. Berkeley. University of California Press.
- Mallory, J. P.; Mair, Victor H. (2000). "The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West" (Document). London: Thames & Hudson.
{{cite document}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help). - Walter, Mariko Namba 1998 Tocharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 85. October, 1998.
- Xu, Wenkan 1995 "The Discovery of the Xinjiang Mummies and Studies of the Origin of the Tocharians" The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 23, Number 3 & 4, Fall/Winter 1995, pp. 357–369.
- Xu, Wenkan 1996 "The Tokharians and Buddhism" In: Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 9, pp. 1–17. [1]
- Zuev, Ü.A. 2002, Early Türks: Outline of history and ideology, Almaty, "Daik-Press" ISBN 9985-441-52-9 (In Russian)
External links
- Tocharian alphabet at omniglot.com
- Tocharian alphabet
- Modern studies are developing a Tocharian dictionary.
- Mark Dickens, 'Everything you always wanted to know about Tocharian'.
- Mysterious Mummies of China by Nova on Google Video
- “The Dead Tell A Tale China Doesn’t Care to Listen To” New York Times November 19, 2008—Has closeup picture of one of the Tarim mummies known as the “Loulan Beauty”
- Downloadable article: "Evidence that a West-East admixed population lived in the Tarim Basin as early as the early Bronze Age" Li et al. BMC Biology 2010, 8:15. biomedcentral.com