Ashina tribe: Difference between revisions
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*The Ashina descended from a skilled [[Archery|archer]] named Shemo, who had once fallen in love with a sea goddess west of Ashide cave.<ref>''[[Youyang Zazu]]'', vol. 4[http://www.oa18.com/read/classic/best/xyzz/007.htm]</ref> |
*The Ashina descended from a skilled [[Archery|archer]] named Shemo, who had once fallen in love with a sea goddess west of Ashide cave.<ref>''[[Youyang Zazu]]'', vol. 4[http://www.oa18.com/read/classic/best/xyzz/007.htm]</ref> |
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These stories were sometimes pieced together to form a chronologically narrative of early Ashina history. However the ultimate origin and chronological order of such narratives are uncertain, as most of the stories happens to be written in the same era without specific dates for their authorship. |
These stories were sometimes pieced together to form a chronologically narrative of early Ashina history. However the ultimate origin and chronological order of such narratives are uncertain, as most of the stories happens to be written in the same era without specific dates for their authorship.<ref name=ashina/> These stories also have parallels to folktales and legends of other Turkic peoples, for instance, the [[Wusun]] and [[Kazakhs]]. |
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== History == |
== History == |
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Revision as of 15:17, 16 May 2007
Ashina (Asen, Asena, etc.) was a tribe and the ruling dynasty of the ancient Turks who rose to prominence in the mid-6th century when their leader, Bumin Khan, revolted against the Rouran. The two main branches of the family, one descended from Bumin and the other from his brother Istemi, ruled over the eastern and western parts of the Göktürk empire, respectively.
Origin
According to the New Book of Tang, the Ashina were related to the northern tribes of the Xiongnu. As early as the 7th century, four theories about their mythical origins were recorded by the Book of Zhou, Book of Sui and Youyang Zazu:[1]
- Ashina was one of ten sons born to a grey she-wolf (asena) in the north of Gaochang.[2]
- The ancestor of the Ashina was a man from the Suo nation, north of Xiongnu, whose mother was a wolf, and a season goddess.[2]
- The Ashina were mixture stocks from the Pingliang prefecture of middle Gansu.[3]
- The Ashina descended from a skilled archer named Shemo, who had once fallen in love with a sea goddess west of Ashide cave.[4]
These stories were sometimes pieced together to form a chronologically narrative of early Ashina history. However the ultimate origin and chronological order of such narratives are uncertain, as most of the stories happens to be written in the same era without specific dates for their authorship.[1] These stories also have parallels to folktales and legends of other Turkic peoples, for instance, the Wusun and Kazakhs.
History
The name Ashina first appeared in the Chinese records of the 6th century, and prior to that no other sources had related their history at all.[1] The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia infers that between the years 265 and 460 the Ashina had been part of various late Xiongnu confederations. About 460 they were subjugated by the Rouran, who ousted them from Xinjiang into the Altay Mountains, where the Ashina gradually emerged as the leaders of the early Turkic confederation, known as the Göktürks.[5] By the 550s, Bumin Khan felt strong enough to throw off the yoke of the Rouran domination and established the Göktürk Empire, which flourished until the 630s and from 680s until 740s. The Orkhon Valley was the centre of the Ashina power.
After the collapse of the Göktürk empire under pressure from the resurgent Uyghurs, branches of the Ashina clan moved westward to Europe, where they became the kaghans of the Khazars and possibly other nomadic peoples with Turkic roots. According to Marquart, the Ashina clan constituted a noble caste throughout the steppes. Similarly, the Tatar historian Zeki Validi Togan described them as a "desert aristocracy" that provided rulers for a number of Eurasian nomadic empires.
Accounts of the Göktürk and Khazar khaganates suggest that the Ashina clan was accorded sacred, perhaps quasi-divine status in the shamanic religion practiced by the steppe nomads of the first millennium CE.
Etymology
Sergei Klyashtorny, a Soviet Turkologist who was responsible for the coverage of the Gokturks in the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia, derives the name of the Ashina from the Iranian term for "deep blue" (this epithet was applied by the Persians to the Black Sea). This is consistent with the prevalent interpretation of the ethnonym "Göktürks" as "blue Turks", "heavenly Turks".[citation needed]
Notes
References
- Zongzheng, Xue (1992). "A History of Turks". Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Press. ISBN 7-5004-0432-8.