Product Code Database
The Ashina (w=A-shih-na; Middle Chinese: (Guangyun) ) were a Turkic tribe and the ruling dynasty of the Göktürks. They rose to prominence in the mid-6th century when the leader, Bumin Qaghan (died 552), revolted against the Rouran Khaganate. The two main branches of the family, one descended from Bumin and the other from his brother Istämi, ruled over the eastern and western parts of the Göktürk confederation, respectively, forming the First Turkic Khaganate (552–603).
According to the Book of Zhou, History of the Northern Dynasties, and the New Book of Tang, the Ashina clan was a component of the Xiongnu confederation,Linghu Defen et al., Book of Zhou, Vol. 50. New Book of Tang, vol. 215 upper. "突厥阿史那氏, 蓋古匈奴北部也." "The Ashina family of the Turk probably were the northern tribes of the ancient Xiongnu." translated by Xu (2005)Xu Elina-Qian, Historical Development of the Pre-Dynastic Khitan, University of Helsinki, 2005 but this is contested. The Göktürks were also posited as having originated from an obscure Suo state (索國), north of the Xiongnu.Li Yanshou (李延寿), History of the Northern Dynasties, Vol. 99. According to the Book of Sui and the Tongdian, they were "mixed barbarians" (; záhú) from Pingliang.杜佑, 《通典》, 北京: 中華書局出版, (Du You, Tongdian, Vol.197), 辺防13 北狄4 突厥上, 1988, , p. 5401.
According to some researchers (Duan, Xue, Tang, and Lung) the Ashina tribe descended from the Tiele people,Duan: Dingling, Gaoju and Tiele. 1988, pp. 39–41Xue, Zongzheng History of Turks (1992). 39–85Rachel Lung, Interpreters in Early Imperial China, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, p. 48 "Türk, or Türküt, refers to a state of Ašina clan (of Tiele 鐵勒 tribe by ancestral lineage)"Duan: Dingling, Gaoju and Tiele. 1988, pp. 39–41 who were likewise associated with the Xiongnu. Old Book of Tang Vol. 199 lower "鐵勒，本匈奴別種" tr. "Tiele, originally a splinter race from Xiongnu"Suishu, Vol. 84 "鐵勒之先，匈奴之苗裔也" tr. "Tiele's predecessors are Xiongnu's descendants." Like the Göktürks, the Tiele were a Turkic tribal confederation on the steppe.Suribadalaha, "New Studies of the Origins of the Mongols", p. 46–47Cheng, Fangyi. "The Research on the Identification Between Tiele and the Oghuric Tribes". However, Lee & Kuang (2017) state that Chinese histories did not describe the Ashina-led Göktürks as descending from the Dingling or belonging to the Tiele confederation. The name "Ashina" was recorded in ancient Muslim chronicles in these forms: Aś(i)nas (al-Tabari), Ānsa (Hudud al-'Alam), Śaba (Ibn Khordadbeh), Śana, Śaya (Al-Masudi).Гумилёв Л. Н. Древние тюрки. М.-Л., Наука, 1967.P. B. Golden, "Irano-Turcica: The Khazar sacral kingship revisited," in Acta Orientalia Hungarica 60:2 (2007) p. 165, 172, n. 33
Carter V. Findley assumes that the name "Ashina" comes from one of the Saka languages of central Asia and means "blue" (which translates to Proto-Turkic * kȫk, whence Old Turkic 𐰚𐰇𐰚 kök, and same in all Modern Turkic languages). The color blue is identified with the east, so that Göktürk, another name for the Turkic empire, meant the "Turks of the East"; meanwhile, Peter Benjamin Golden favours a more limited denotation of Göktürks as denoting only the Eastern Turks.C. V. Findley 39.Golden, P.B. (1992) Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples. Series: Turcologia, Volume 9. Otto-Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden p. 117 Findley also said that the term böri, used to identify the ruler's retinue as 'wolves', probably also derived from one of the Iranian languages.
H. W. Haussig and S. G. Kljyashtorny suggest an association between the name and the compound "kindred of Ashin" ahşaẽna (in Old Persian). This is so even in East Turkestan; then the desired form would be in the Sogdian language 'xs' yn' k (-әhšēnē) "blue, dark"; Khotan-Saka (Brahmi) āşşeiņa (-āşşena) "blue", where a long -ā- emerged as development ahş-> āşş-; in Tocharian A āśna- "blue, dark" (from Khotan-Saka and Sogdian). There is textual support for either of these versions in the Göktürk Orkhon inscriptions, in which the Göktürks are described as the "Blue Turks"; being descended from the marriage between Blue Sky and the Brown Earth.
According to Kuastornyj, the perfect translation of "Ashina" as an Indo-European word meaning "blue" indicates that the Türks of the First Turkic Khaganate period may aware of the non-Türkic origin of the name "Ashina." In this hypothesis of Louis Bazin, this knowledge was being suppressed in the Second Turkic Khaganate period by the Türkic nationalist policies of Bilge Qaghan. "Dans le recit relatif aux premiers kagans, les grandes inscriptions de l'Orkhon dèsignent le peuple qui avait créé l'empire et habité le pays par le terme kök türk, ce que l'on traduit habituellement les "Turcs bleu chair (bleus)". Sans aborder les nombreuses interprétations du mot kök dans cette combinaison, notons sa convergence sémantique parfaite avec la signification, reconstituée ici, du nom A-che-na: "bleu". Un calque èvident du nom suppose la connaissance conservée de sons sens primitif et de son origine étrangère (tout à fait compatible avec les composantes poly-ethniques de la culture du premier Kaganant turc), lesquels perdirent toutefois leur popularité dans le milieu culturel et politique "nationaliste" (selon l'expression de L. BAZIN, qui caractérise à l'époque de Bilgä-kagan le milieu dirigeant d'Ötükän, centre de pourvoir dans la région de l'Orkhon)."
Japanese Sinologist and historian Kurakichi Shiratori suggested that Ashina comes from * Esh- in Proto-Turkic. Christopher I. Beckwith reads the word Ashina as a Turkic name Arslan, based on Byzantine historian Menander Protector's record that “the name of the earliest rulers of the Turks was Arsilas” meaning that Ashina may have been an earlier form or a Chinese corrupted form of Arslan.
Based on Chinese sources' testament that the Ashina, upon becoming the head of Turks, exhibited a tuğ banner with a wolf head over their gate in reminiscence of its origins,Bichurin, 1950, p. 220–221 Zhoushu, vol. 50: quote: "旗纛之上，施金狼頭。侍衞之士，謂之附離，夏言亦狼也。蓋本狼生，志不忘舊。" Suishu vol. 84. quote "故牙門建狼頭纛，示不忘本也。" the name "Ashina" is translated by Boodberg as "wolf", cf. Tuoba language 叱奴 * čino, Middle Mongol činua, Khalkha čono.Boodberg, 1936, p. 182 Gumilev, on the other hand, considered 阿 ( A) as a prefix, a respect marker placed before a name, and accepted 'shih-na' as činua, just as Boodberg did; thus, he concluded that A-shih-na means "noble wolf."Gumilev, 1967, p. 23 Nevertheless, Golden contends that derivation from Mongolic is mistaken.Golden, Peter B. (August 2018). "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks". The Medieval History Journal, 21(2). 21 (2): 292.
On the Khor-Asgat inscription, the form Ašїnas is written and is similar to the Sogdian form Ašinas from the Bugut and Karabalgasun steles and the Arabic forms Ašinās and Ašnās from medieval Islamic sources. Reasoning that Chinese editors usually avoided the coda /-s/, Takashi Ōsawa hypothetically derives the family name Ašїnas from their tribal ancestress's name * A-ši-na and the final element -as, which he explains as a plural suffix (similar to the Turkic Käŋäräs < Käŋär "(Kangar Union / Kangly)" + suffix -(ä)s) as proposed by Marquart, Melioranskii and others.
He further links * A-ši-na to the Xiongnu title 閼氏, which was pronounced * ′ât-zie in Late Middle Chinese, meant "wife of a ruler", and might be derived from * aš / eš, * azhi / * ezhi < * ašïn / * ešin, and * azhïn / * ezhin, further from Tungusic * Aši < * asun / * asi < * hasun < * khasu < * kasun < * katsun and Turkic languages-Mongolic * Ači < ačun < * hatun < khatun < katun.Takashi Ōsawa, “ A hypothesis on the etymology of the Old Turkic royal clan name Ašina/Ašinas and the transformation process in the early Abbasid period”, Chronica, S. 11, (2011), pp. 145-153.
These stories were sometimes pieced together to form a chronologically coherent narrative of early Ashina history. However, as the Book of Zhou, the Book of Sui, and the Youyang Zazu were all written around the same time, during the early Tang dynasty, it is debatable whether they could truly be considered chronological or rather should be considered competing versions of the Ashina's origin.Xue, Zongzheng. History of Turks (1992) 39–85
The record of Turks in Zhoushu (written in the first half of the seventh century) describes the use of gold by Turks around the mid-fifth century:
"(The Turks) put gold sculpture of wolf head on their tuğ banner; their military men were called Fuli, that is, wolf in Chinese. It is because they are descendants of the wolf, and naming so is for not forgetting their ancestors."Zhoushu, vol. 50. quote: "旗纛之上，施金狼頭。侍衞之士，謂之附離，夏言亦狼也。蓋本狼生，志不忘舊。"
According to Klyashtorny, the origin myth of Ashina shared similarities with the Wusun, although there is a significant difference that, whereas in the Wusun myth the wolf saves the ancestor of the tribe, it is not as in the case of the Turks. He also adds that Turk system of beliefs linking at least some sections of the Turk ruling class to the Sogdians and, beyond them, to the Wusun.
According to D. G. Savinov, no burials have been found in South Siberia nor Central Asia that are fully consistent with the description of Ashina burials.
According to D. G. Savinov this may be for several reasons:
It is thought that the rite of cremation which was adopted by the ruling elite did not spread among the common people of the Khaganate. This may be attributed to the different ethnic origin of the ruling family. Савинов Д.Г. Народы Южной Сибири в древнетюркскую эпоху Глава II. Раннетюркское время 1. Древнетюркские генеалогические предания и археологические памятники раннетюркского времени (с. 31–40)
The khan wore a green satin robe; his hair, which was ten feet long, was free. A band of white silk wound round his forehead and hung down behind. The ministers of the presence,"ta-Kuan"", probably tarkhan is intended; see Christian 260. numbering two hundred in number, all wearing embroidered robes, stood on his right and left. The rest of his military retinue was clothed in fur, serge and fine wool, the spears and Asena and bows in order, and the riders of camels and horses stretched far out of sight.Adapted from Watters I:74,77.20th-century Chinese historian Xue Zongzheng claimed original Ashina members had physical features similar to Sogdian people was by the time of Qilibi Khan, an eighth generation descendant of Bumin Qaghan, presented as a sign of mixed ancestry among the Ashina. "According to Xue Zongzheng (1992:80), the emergence of less-Caucasoid features in the Turkic ruling class was probably due to the intermarriage with the Chinese imperial families from generation to generation. Consequently, up to the Qagan's eighth generation descendant, Ashina Simo, his racial features remained unchanged to the extent in which he was described as looking like a Hu (Sogdian) person, not akin to Turkic, and suspected to be not of Ashina genealogical strain, and henceforth was unfortunately not trusted for military commandership (JTS 194.5163). Xue Zongzheng argues that 'looking like a Hu person' was originally the intrinsic feature of the Ashina lineage, then became presented as a sign of impure blood as a result of the qualitative change occurred in the hybrid physical features combining both Mongoloid and Caucasoid physical traits."
However, both Shibi Khan (609–619 AD) and Heshana Qaghan (604–612 AD) were doubtful of Qilibi being Ashina because he resembled a Sogdian more than a Göktürk which prevented him from being a shad.Jiu Tangshu, 舊唐書/卷194上, txt: '思摩者, 頡利族人也. 始畢、處羅以其貌似胡人, 不類突厥, 疑非阿史那族類, 故歷處羅, 頡利世, 常為夾畢特勒, 終不得典兵為設'translated by and quoted in Lee & Kuang (2017) "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples", Inner Asia 19. p. 201-202. note 13
This hypothesis was not supported by general consensus. DNA studies on early members of the Ashina family revealed that they were exclusively East Asian. Muqan Qaghan, the third qaghan of the First Turkic Khaganate, was described by Chinese authors as having an unusual appearance. He had eyes like "colored glazes",Beishi vol. 99 "狀貌奇異，面廣尺餘，其色赤甚，眼若琉璃。" he had a very red complexion, and his face was over a foot wide. Traits evocative of Northeast or East Asian physiognomy.Zhoushu, vol. 50 ""狀貌多奇異，面廣尺餘，其色甚赤，眼若瑠璃。" "Some of the “Hu", including the Köktürk Qaghan Mu-kan and the Qirghïz Turks, were reported by the Chinese to have Europeoid features, such as aquiline noses, red hair and light-coloured eyes."
It was determined that Empress Ashina belonged to the North-East Asian mtDNA haplogroup F1d. The Ashina individual was found to be genetically closer to East Asians than modern Central Asian Turkic groups. However, East Asian Turkic groups such as Yakuts, Tuvans and Salar people showed genetic genetic affinity with Ashina. The Ashina individual was genetically closest to post-Iron Age Tungusic and Mongolic Steppe pastoralists, supporting the near-exclusively Northeast Asian origin of the Ashina tribe and early Turkic populations.
The ancient Türkic royal family of the Göktürks was found to share genetic affinities to post-Iron Age Tungusic and Mongolic pastoralists, while having heterogeneous relationships towards various later Turkic-speaking groups, suggesting genetic heterogeneity and multiple sources of origin for the later populations of the Turkic empire. This shows that the Ashina lineage had a dominating contribution on Mongolic and Tungusic speakers but limited contribution on Turkic-speaking populations. According to the authors of the 2023 study, these findings "once again validates a cultural diffusion model over a demic diffusion model for the spread of Turkic languages" and refutes "the western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses" in favor of an East Asian origin for the royal Ashina family.
|
|
