Shvetahûna

The Shvetahūna or Huns white are wandering people, named Hephthalites by the Greeks, Yeta by the Chinese (*Iep-t' IEN as average Chinese) and Shvetahūna (of shveta , white and hūna , hun) by the Indians. One generally attaches them to the other people called Huns. They played a big role in the history of Persia and India.

The Chinese mentioned them for the first time in 125 like living in the south of the Dzoungarie, under the name of Hua . They crossed the Syr-Daria before 450 and invaded the Transoxiane (inhabited by the Sogdiens), the Bactriane and the Khorasan, in the North-East of the Perse. A Armenian historian, Elishe Vardapet, mentioned a battle between the emperor Sassanide Yazdgird II (438-457) and Hephthalites in 442. Later, about the year 500, they took possession of the oases of the Bassin of Tarim, which was however much nearer than the Transoxiane to their territory of origin.

Identity of Hephthalites

The question of the identity of Hephthalites is at first sight one of most difficult which is, but one has some indices which make it possible to see there clearly.

The fact even as of the Chinese, like Wei Jie, personally conversed with of Hephthalites but did not succeed in identifying them is completely significant. That shows that they did not belong to any the great known linguistic groups at the sixth century. According to annals of the Dynasty Liang, (502 - 556), “their language was understood by a interpète Henan and, since then, one was informed of it”. According to the Beishi , published towards 644 by Li Yanshou, “Their language differs from that of Ruanruan, Gaoju and various Hu”. One does not know which lanque spoke the Ruanruan, which founded an empire in Mongolia between 402 and 552, but it was probably Turkish or Mongolian. Gaoju, or rather Gaoju Dingling, appears to have been Turkish: it is of their conferedation, seems it, that the Ouïgours result. As for the term Hu , the Chinese made use of it at that time to designate the people iranophones, in particular the Sogdiens.

The Chinese texts affirm however that Hephthalites were Yuezhi. These people, which had founded an empire with the Western Gansu in Antiquity, were well-known Chinese historians. Their empire had crumbled as of second century BC, that is to say seven centuries before the emergence of Hephthalites. One knows that they were Tokhariens, of Indo-European language, and that alive people in the area of Karachahr, Agnéens, had preserved their language. It was however only about one small kingdom of the Bassin of Tarim, in the current Chinese province of the Xinjiang. If Hephthalites spoke a language connected with that about Agnéens (called the Tokharien has), one can understand that the Chinese had evil to identify it.

One also knows that Hephthalites were originating in the area of Tourfan, in the east of Karachahr. This geographical proximity with Agnéens gives a reason of more than see in them speakers of tokharien A. They would have been, like Agnéens, remains of the empire of Yuezhi, but they would have preserved a wandering lifestyle while Agnéens were sédentarisaient. It is starting from Tourfan that they started to make their conquests.

Civilization

The Chinese texts give rather abundant information on the lifestyle of Hephthalites. They insist on their Polyandrie: when a woman married a man, the younger brothers of her husband became also her husbands. His/her children were regarded as those of the elder one. It put “horns” on its cap, of number equal to that of her husbands. This habit, similar to the polyandry of the Tibetans, was to have the same explanation: so that the heritage is not divided, the younger brothers did not have clean goods. All belonged to elder, including the wife. It should be noticed that this habit was unknown Köktürks (Blue Turks). On the other hand, it is perhaps attested at the Tokhariens of Tourfan, but at one very former time, fifth century BC: three women buried in a cemetery had witch's hats, but one of them had a hat with two points. The Chinese archeologists, undoubtedly inspired by the example of Hephthalites, thought that it had had two husbands. Hephthalites admitted that the guests were received by their wives. They could sit down together. Moreover, the women did not live all the time with their husbands. They were sometimes separated of more than 100 km.

Hephthalites cut close-cropped hair and decorated their clothing with ribbons and cords. The tents were out of felt and opened in the east. That of the king was of square form; one suspended wool carpets at his four sides. The sovereign and his wife, who had separated residences, sat down on gold thrones. The queen carried a kind of hennin from where fell down of the veils which went down to ground and which somebody was charged to raise. She was accompanied by the wives by the principal dignitaries. Among the brothers and wire of the king, it was able which succeeded to him.

The food of Hephthalites, like that of the Mongolian today, consisted of flesh of sheep and flour of corn. Like the Köktürks, they engraved their contracts on wood plates. They had books in sheepskins. Justice was returned in a simple and severe way: the culprit of a flight was cut into two and the victim received ten times what it had lost. Such a severity reflected the warlike character of Hephthalites. When a father or a mother died, their sons cut an ear and chose one ostentation day for the burial. The rich person were buried under Tumulus out of stones.

Hephthalites venerated the god of the Sky and the god of Fire. Each morning, they left their tents to venerate their gods, then they took their first meal. These ceremonies, just as the orientation of the tents in the east, were certainly in connection with the rising sun.

Hephthalites in Transoxiane

As it was known as in the introduction, the Persian emperor Yazdgard II was confronted with Hephthalites as of 442. The situation was so serious that it transferred its capital more to north, in order to better be able to answer the attacks of these nomads. His/her own son Péroz I went to ask Hephthalites to give him troops in order to take possession of the Perse. According to Arab historian Al Tabari then, the king of Hephthalites was called Akhshunvar. One recognizes a title sogdien, khsundar , meaning “king”. Apparently, in order to be able to reign on the Sogdiens, Hephthalites had had to adopt their language. They would start later with sédentariser.

Another son of Yazdgird II had succeeded to him, Hormizd III (457 - 459). Thanks to the assistance obtained at Hephthalites, Péroz I reversed it and became emperor of Persia (459 - 484). To thank them, it yielded the district of Taliqan to them, in the south-east of current the Turkménistan. It was not long however in entering in conflict with them. Twice of continuation, in the Years 460, Péroz I was captured by Hephthalites. Each time, a ransom was required for its release. The first time, it was partly paid by the Byzantine . The second time, as the required sum could not be gathered, Peroz had to leave his/her son Kavadh as an hostage at his enemies. They were of so savage warriors that the simple mention of their name terrified everyone. The Persian soldiers sent to their meeting resembled condemned to dead going to the scaffold. Kavad, however, was not maltreated during its four years of captivity. It was entitled to all the honors and it married the girl or the sister of Akhshunvar.

Peroz was killed in 484 at the time of a new battle against Hephthalites, but one of its following, Sukhra, forced the enemy troops to be withdrawn. Its death involved an internal conflict at the Sassanides. Kavadh seized the throne in 488, thanks to Hephthalites; it reigned until in 531. It called upon them again when it was confronted with the revolutionary movement of Mazdakites. In exchange, Persia still had to yield territories. Moreover, it paid a tribute in Hephthalites. This situation lasted until the beginning of the reign of Khosrau I Anushirvan (531 - 579), which was a powerful emperor.

The conquest of the Bassin of Tarim put Hephthalites in contact with the Ruanruan, but there was never conflict between these two people. They behaved on the contrary like allies. After having carried a fatal blow in Ruanruan in 552, the Köktürks sought to be combined with Persians against Hephthalites. Between 560 and 563, the latter were overcome at the time of a great battle, which lasted eight days, close to Bukhara. Thereafter, they were divided in principalities which paid tribute, the ones with Persians, the others with the Turks. Some of them, with the southernmost Tadjikistan and in Afghanistan, remained a long time.

Hephthalites in India

When Hephthalites settled in Transoxiane, the Indian dynasty of the Gupta was with the ridge of its power. The inscription of Junagadh, gone back to approximately 457, mentions a victory gained by the king Skandagupta (towards 454-467) against tribes which seem to have been hephthalites. Their penetration in India was allowed by the decline of Gupta which followed the death of this king.

At the end of the 5th century, one their chiefs, Toramâna , invades the Panjâb and is established there. His/her son Mihirakula - or Mihiragula - succeeds to him towards 515. During its reign, Huns white make many raids in the gangetic flat where they destroy monasteries. In 528, a confederation of Râja S Hindu S reverses Mihirakula which takes refuge with the Cachemire, where it seizes the throne after a few years and from where it tackles the neighboring state of the Gandhara, where it practices terrible massacres. One year later, towards 540, he dies and Hephthalites crumble under the blows of the Turks. Our knowledge of Hephthalites comes mainly from the Numismatique, some inscriptions found with the Panjâb and in central India and from the writings of the Chinese traveller Xuanzang which visited India shortly after the death of Mihirakula. The Greek traveller Cosmas Indikopleustès, which visited the country towards 530, makes the description of a white king hun, whom it names Gollas, which perceives a tribute by oppressing its country by means of an large army made up of a cavalry and elephants of war. It is probable that it is about Mihiragula. According to the currencies struck by Mihirakula, which carries the emblem of Nandin, one thinks that he venerated Shiva, perhaps although the first part of the name comes from that from the Persian god Mithra. One found many coins struck by his father, Toramâna, with the Cashmere, territory which belonged to the zone of influence of Hûnas. Mihirakula left in India the memory of a cruel sovereign who persecuted the Bouddhisme severely.

The Greeks left a description of Hephthalites much more flattering, probably based on the fact that they were a threat against the Persian enemy at the borders of the Roman Empire of the East, but too remote for the Empire itself. Procope de Césarée affirmed that they were civilized much than Huns of Attila.

Huns white had only little influence on the Persian company, but in India, they were at the origin of a modification of the system of the castes by changing the hierarchy of the reigning families. Certains Huns white remained in India and was melted in the population, probably at the origin of one or more clans Râjput .

See too

Huns

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