Huna people

The "Hephthalite bowl", NFP Pakistan, 5th or 6th century CE. British Museum.

Huna coin of King Lakhana of Udyana, legend "RAJA LAKHANA (UDAYA) DITYA ".

Huna king Napki Malka.

Billon drachm of the Hephthalite King Napki Malka (Afghanistan/ Gandhara, c. 475–576).
Obv: Napki Malka type bust, winged headdress with bull head in the center. Pahlavi legend "NAPKI MALKA".
Rev: Zoroastrian fire altar with attendants either side. Sun wheel, or possibly eight-spoked Buddhist Dharmacakra, above left.

Sardonyx seal representing Vishnu with a worshipper, Afghanistan or Pakistan, 4th to 6th centuries CE. The inscription in cursive Bactrian reads: "Mihira (Mihirakula?), Vishnu and Shiva". British Museum.

The Hunas were Iranian-speaking Xionite tribes who, via Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, entered India at the end of the 5th or early 6th century and over-ran the Hindu Gupta Empire. In its farthest geographical extent in India, the Huna empire covered the region up to Malwa in central India.

Origin

The White Huna are of the stock of the Huns in fact as well as in name, however they do not mingle with any of the Huns known to us, for they occupy a land neither adjoining nor even very near to them; but their territory lies immediately to the north of Persia [...] They are not nomads like the other Hunnic peoples, but for a long period have been established in a goodly land.[23] Scholars believe that the name Hun is used to denote very different nomadic confederations. Ancient Chinese chroniclers, as well as Procopius, wrote various theories about the origins of the people:

• They were descendants of the Yuezhi or Tocharian tribes who remained behind after the rest of the people fled the Xiongnu;

• They were descendants of the Kangju;

• They were a branch of the Tiele; or

• They were a branch of the Uar.

They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them as living in Dzungaria around AD 125[citation needed]. Chinese chronicles state that they were originally a tribe of the Yuezhi, living to the north of the Great Wall, and subject to the Rouran (Jwen-Jwen), as were some Turkic peoples at the time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they named themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to (厌带夷栗陁, or more briefly Ye-tha 嚈噠),[24] after their royal family, which descended from one of the five Yuezhi families which also included the Kushan.

They displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana and Khorasan before AD 425. After that, they crossed the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded Persian lands. In Persia, they were initially held off by Bahram Gur but around AD 483–85, they succeeded in making Persia a tributary state by defeating the Sassanid forces at the Battle of Herat where they killed the Sassanid king, Peroz I.[25] After a series of wars in the period AD 503–513, they were driven out of Persia and completely defeated in AD 557 by Khosrau I. Their polity thereafter came under the Göktürks and subsequent Western Turkic Khaganate.

The Hephtalites also invaded the regions Afghanistan and present-day Pakistan, succeeding in extending their domain to the Punjab region. Procopius claims that the White Huns lived in a prosperous territory, and that they were the only Huns with fair complexions. According to him, they did not live as nomads, did acknowledge a single king, observed a well-regulated constitution, and behaved justly towards neighboring states. He also describes the burial of their nobles in tumuli, accompanied by their closest associates. This practice contrasts with evidence of cremation among the Chionites in Ammianus and with remains found by excavators of the European Huns and remains in some deposits ascribed to the Chionites in Central Asia. Scholars believe that the White Huna constituted a second "Hunnish" wave who entered Bactria early in the 5th century AD, and who seem to have driven the Kidarites into Gandhara.[20] Newly-discovered ancient writings found in Afghanistan reveal that the Middle Iranian Bactrian language written in Greek script was not brought there by the White Huna, but was already present from Kushan times as the traditional language of administration in this region. There is also evidence of the use of a Turkic language under the White Huns. The Bactrian documents also attest several Turkic royal titles (such as Khagan), indicating an important influence of Turkic people on White Huns, although these could also be explained by later Turkic infiltration south of the Oxus.[20] According to Simokattes, they were Chionites who united under the White Huna as the "(Wusun) vultures descended on the people" around AD 460.

Yuezhi Theory

According to Mr. Adesh Katariya's evaluation, all sub-types of Hunas share a common ancestry and are known by varying names in different regions. According to him, Huna was a sub-tribe of an ancient central Asian Tribe Gurjar/Gujjar, alternatively known as Yuezhi by Chinese scholars. This tribe lived in the north-eastern portion of the Chinese Kingdom (in the present day Ganshu provience of China). By 350 BCE, Chinese officials knew of three powerful groups of mounted, nomadic, pastoral people north of China. 1. One of these groups, the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu), was in the Ordos region and most of Mongolia (including Inner Mongolia), 2. To the east of the Xiongnu, in eastern Mongolia and the plains of Manchuria, there was the second group, the Donghu (Tung-hu). 3. The third group, the Yuezhi (Yueh-chi), inhabited the west of the Ordos region, in the region of Gansu (Kansu). In 175 BCE The Xiongnu defeated the Yuezhi and dominated all of what is now the modern province of Xinjiang (Sinkiang). According to legend, the leader of the Yuezhi was killed and his skull was made into a drinking cup.

According to Chinese sources, a large section of the Yuezhi tribe then fell under the domination of the Xiongnu. These may have been the ancestors of the Tocharian speakers attested to, in the 6th century CE. A very small group of Yuezhi fled south to the territory of the Proto-Tibetan Qiang and came to be known to the Chinese as the "Small Yuezhi". According to the Hanshu, they only numbered around 150 families. After 40 years Gurjars (Yuezhi) established kingdoms. (Kushana - Gurjars). The Gurjars were a very complex tribe divided into various sub-tribes such as the Kushana, Khatana and Karahana(Kara- Huna). These Huna tribes rules over lands that are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, north-western India and other central Asian nations, resulting in multiple Huna-controlled kingdoms. In India, the Huna tribes are referred to, as a "Gotr" or ancestor of the Gurjar Tribe.

Religion

According to Song Yun, the Chinese Buddhist monk who visited the Hephthalite territory in 540 AD and "provides accurate accounts of the people, their clothing, the empresses and court procedures and traditions of the people and he states the White Huna did not recognize the Buddhist religion and they preached pseudo gods, and killed animals for their meat."[1] It is reported that the Hephtalites often destroyed Buddhist monasteries but were rebuilt by others. According to Xuanzang, the third Chinese pilgrim who visited the same areas as Song Yun about 100 years later, the capital of Chaghaniyan had five monasteries.[26] "In the Hephthalite dominion Buddism was predominant but there was also a religious sediment of Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Nestorian Christianity."[3] Balkh had some 100 Buddhist monasteries and 3,000 monks. Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery, later known as Naubahar.[26] Termez had 10 sangharamas (monasteries) and perhaps 1,000 monks.[26]

History

Asia in 500 AD, showing the Huna domain at its greatest extent.

The Central Asian Xionites consisted of four hordes in four cardinal directions. Northern Huna were the Black Huns, Southern Huna were the Red Huns, Eastern Huna were the Celestial Huns, and Western Huna were the White Huns or Hephthalites. This article mainly concerns the Alchon and their Indo-Hephthalite ruling-elite. They seem to have been part of the Hephthalite group, who established themselves in then Bharatvarsha and present day India by the first half of the 5th century. They sometimes call themselves "Hono" on their coins, but it seems that they are similar to the Huns who invaded the Western world.

They appeared in Northwestern India and parts of eastern Iran. During their invasion, the Hunas managed to capture the Sassanian king Peroz I, and exchanged him for a ransom. They used the coins of the ransom to counter mark and copy them, thereby initiating a coinage inspired from Sassanian designs.

The Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata, supposed to have been edited around the 4th or 5th century, in one of its verses, mentions the Hunas with the Parasikas and other Mlechha tribes of the northwest including the Yavanas, Chinas, Kambojas, Darunas, Sukritvahas, Kulatthas etc. According to Dr V. A. Smith, the verse is reminiscent of the period when the Hunas first came into contact with the Sassanian dynasty of Persia.

Scholars believe that king Raghu, the hero of Kalidasa's Sanskrit play Raghuvamsha was in fact king Chandragupta Vikramaditya of the Gupta Dynasty. According to the epic, he had started a military expedition and after defeating and subjugating the local peoples along the way he reached the Parasikas of Sassanian Iran and defeated them after fierce fighting. Then he proceeded to north from Iran and reached river Vamkshu (or Oxus) where he battled with the Hunas. After conquering the Hunas, he crossed the Oxus and encountered the Kambojas, an ancient Iranian people who find frequent mention in South Asian texts.

Brihat Katha Manjari of Kashmiri Pandit Kshmendra (11th century AD) also claims that king Vikramaditya had slaughtered the Shakas, Barbaras, Hunas, Kambojas, Yavanas, Parasikas and the Tusharas etc. and hence unburdened the earth of these sinful Mlechhas. There is still another ancient Brahmanical text Katha-Saritsagara by Somadeva which also attests that king Vikramaditya had invaded the north-west tribes including the Kashmiras and had destroyed the Sanghas of the Mlechhas (reference to Sanghas here obviously alludes to the Sanghas of the Madrakas, Yaudheyas, Kambojas, Mallas or Malavas, Sibis, Arjunayans, Kulutas and Kunindas etc). Those who survived accepted his suzerainty and many of them joined his armed forces.

These references suggest that the Guptas indeed had encounters with the Hunas from the north-west.

Skandagupta is stated to have repelled a Huna invasion in 455, but they continued to pressure South Asia's northwest frontier (present day Pakistan), and broke through into northern India by the end of the 5th century, hastening the disintegration of the Gupta Empire.

According to Litvinsky, the initial Huna or Alxon raids on Gandhara took place in the late 5th and early 6th century AD, upon the death of the Gupta ruler, Skandagupta (455–470), presumably led by the Tegin Khingila. M. Chakravary, based on Chinese and Persian histories believes that the Hunas conquered Gandhara from the Ki-to-lo (Kidarites) in c. 475 AD. Gandhara had been occupied by various Kidarite principalities from the early 4th century AD, but it is still a subject of debate as to whether rule was transferred from the Kidarites directly to the Hephthalites. It is known that the Huns invaded Gandhara and the Punjab from the Kabul valley after vanquishing the Kidarite principalities.

The Alchon ruler Toramana established his rule over Gandhara and western Punjab, and was succeeded by his son Mihirakula in 520 whose capital was Sakala or modern day Sialkot in the Pakistani Punjab. The Guptas continued to resist the Hunas, and allied with the rulers of the neighboring Indian states.

The Hunas suffered a defeat by Yasodharman of Malwa in 528, and by 542 Mihirakula had been driven off the plains of northern India, taking refuge in Kashmir, and he is thought to have died soon after. Mihirakula is remembered in contemporary Indian and Chinese histories for his cruelty and his destruction of temples and monasteries, with particular hostility towards Buddhism.

Victory pillar of Yashodharman at Sondani, Mandsaur

The Huna were further defeated around 565 by a coalition of Sassanians and Western Turks.

After the end of the 6th century little is recorded in India about the Huna. They made the matrimonial alliance with Gurjars and assimilated into the dominant Gurjar community. Huna is one minor gotra among Gurjars.

In northwestern India, the Rajputs formed "as a result of the merging of the Hephthalites and the Gujars with population from northwestern India."

King Devapala of Pala dynasty of Bengal (810 AD −850 AD) is said to have invaded and received tributes from the Vindhyas, Dravidas, Hunas, Gurjaras and Kambojas in the West.

The Hunas are mentioned in the Tibetan chronicle Dpag-bsam-ljon-bzah (The Excellent Kalpa-Vrksa), along people like the Yavanas, Kambojas, Tukharas, Khaqsas, Daradas etc.

Religion

The Huns were fervent worshippers of the Vedic Sun God and Shiva.

Sung Yun and Hui Sheng, who visited the chief of the Hephthalite nomads at his summer residence in Badakshan and later in Gandhara, observed that they had no belief in the Buddhist law and served a large number of divinities."

See also

• 36 royal races
• Ancient India and Central Asia
• Hon
• History of India
• History of Central Asia
• Raghuvaṃśa

References

• Iaroslav Lebedynsky, "Les Nomades", Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-87772-346-6

External links

• Hephthalite coins
• More Hephthalite coins
• Alchon Hunnic History and Coins of the Kashmir Smast Kingdom- Waleed Ziad