Tokharistan (formed from "Tokhara" and the suffix -stan meaning "place of" in Persian) is a historical name used by Islamic sources in the early Middle Ages to refer to the area which was known as Bactria in Ancient Greece sources.
By the 6th century CE, Tokharistan came under rule of the First Turkic Khaganate, and in the 7th and 8th centuries, it was incorporated into the Tang dynasty, administered by the Protectorate General to Pacify the West. Today, Tokharistan is fragmented between Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Names
Several languages have used variations of the word "Tokhara" to designate the region:
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Tokharistan may appear in ancient India sources as the Kingdom of Tushara, to the northwest of the India. "Tushara" is the Sanskrit word for "snowy" "frigid", and is known to have been used to designate the country of Tukhara.
["Tushara ( snowy , frigid ) and Tushkara are used as equivalents of Tukhara" in ] In Sanskrit, it became तुखार (Tukhāra).
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The Tochi Valley in Pakistan signifies the Tokhari country and Tokhari settlements of Bactria. Bactrian Language inscriptions are also found in Tochi Valley, along with other places in Pakistan.
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In ancient Greek, the name was Tokharoi ( ) or Thaguroi.
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Tochari for Latin historians.
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The name "Tokhara" appeared in the 4th century CE, in Buddhist texts, such as the Vibhasa-sastra.
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In Tibetan, the name for the region was Thod-kar or Tho-gar.
["The population was called by the Greeks Tokharoi, Thaguroi; by the Romans Tochar; or Thogarii (in Sanskrit, Tukhara; in Tibetan, Thod-kar or Tho-gar; in Khotanese, Ttaugara; in Uigurian, Twghry; in Armenian, T'ukri-k'" in ]
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The name appears in Chinese as Tukhara (覩货罗 Duhuoluo or 吐火罗 Tuhuoluo).
[For 覩货罗 as "Tokharistan" see ] "Tokhara" was known in Chinese sources as Tuhuluo (吐呼羅), which is first mentioned during the Northern Wei era (386-534 CE).["In the Record of the Northern – Wei Dynasty it is transcribed as T'u-hu-luo" in ] In the Tang dynasty, the name is transcribed as Tuhuoluo (土豁羅). Other Chinese names are Doushaluo 兜沙羅, Douquluo 兜佉羅 or Duhuoluo 覩貨羅.
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In Saka language, Ttaugara; in Uigurian, Twghry; in Armenian, T'ukri-k'.
Ethnicities
Several portraits of ambassadors from the region of Tokharistan are known from the
Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, originally painted in 526–539 CE. They were at that time under the overlordship of the
Hephthalites, who led the embassies to the
Liang dynasty court in the early 6th century CE.
File:Kabadiyan ambassador to the Southern Liang court 516-520 CE.jpg|Qubodiyon ambassador to the court of Emperor Yuan of Liang in his capital Jingzhou in 516–520 CE, with explanatory text. Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, 11th century Song copy. The ambassador accompanied the Hephthalites to China.
File:Kumedh ambassador to the Southern Liang court 516-520 CE.jpg|Wakhan ambassador to the Chinese court of Emperor Yuan of Liang in his capital Jingzhou in 516–520 CE, with explanatory text. Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, 11th century Song copy.
File:Ambassadors from Kabadiyan (阿跋檀), Balkh (白題國) and Kumedh (胡密丹), visiting the court of the Tang Dynasty. The Gathering of Kings (王会图) circa 650 CE.jpg|Ambassadors from Qubodiyon (阿跋檀), Balkh (白題國) and Wakhan (胡密丹), visiting the court of the Tang dynasty. The Gathering of Kings (王会图), c. 650 CE
File:Silver gilt bowl. Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan, 6th c. CE. British Museum OA 1963.12-10.2. I. I. Smirnov (1869-1918), Vostochnoe serebro (St. Petersburg, 1909).jpg|Bactrian types on a silver gilt bowl, 6th c. CE. British Museum.
File:Silver bowl portraits.jpg|Silver bowl portraits.
File:Ajanta Cave 1 ceiling foreign dignitary.jpg|Possible Bactrians revelling, on the ceiling of the central hall of Cave 1 of Ajanta caves, India (460–480 CE).
"Tocharians" in the Tarim Basin
The name of "
Tocharians" was mistakenly applied by early 20th century authors to the Indo-European people of the
Tarim Basin, from the areas of
Kucha and
Karasahr. These scholars erroneously believed that these Indo-Europeans had originated in Tokharistan (
Bactria), and hence applied the term "Tocharians" to them. This appellation remains in common usage, although the Indo-European people of the Tarim Basin probably
endonym as
Agni,
Kucha and
Krorän.
Chinese sources
In the Xi'an Stele, erected in 781 CE, the Church of the East monk Adam, author of the stele, mentioned in
Syriac language that his grandfather was a missionary-priest from
Balkh Province () in Tokharistan (ܬܚܘܪܝܣܬܢ ).
Geography
Geographically, Tokharistan corresponds to the upper
Oxus valley, between the mountain ranges of the
Hindu-Kush to the south and the
Pamir-Alay to the north.
The area reaches east as far as the
Badakshan mountains, south as far as
Bamiyan.
Arab sources considered
Kabul as part of the southern border of Tokharistan, and
Shaganiyan as part of its northern border.
In a narrow sense, Tokharistan may only refer to the region south of the
Oxus.
The region used the East Iranian Bactrian language, which was current from the 2nd to the 9th century CE.
The most important city of Tokharistan was Balkh, which was at the center of the trade between Iran (the Sasanian Empire) and Indian subcontinent.
The region of Tokharistan had been outside of Sasanian control for the three centuries preceding the Muslim conquest of Persia in 633–651 CE. During that time, Tokharistan was under the rule of dynasties of Huns or Turkic peoples origin, such as the Kidarites, the Alchon Huns and the Hephthalites. At the time of the Arab conquest, Tokharistan was under the control of the Western Turks, through the Tokhara Yabghus.
Art and culture
Numerous artefacts exist from the art of early medieval Tokharistan, which shows influence from the Buddhist art of
Gandhara.
5th–6th century CE
Many authors have suggested that the figures in the
Dilberjin Tepe or
Balalyk Tepe paintings are characteristic of the
Hephthalites (450–570 CE).
In this context, parallels have been drawn with the figures from
Kizil Caves in Chinese Turkestan, which seem to wear broadly similar clothing. The paintings of Balalyk Tepe would be characteristic of the court life of the Hephthalites in the first half of the 6th century CE, before the arrival of the Turks.
["Several murals at Dilberjin date from the 5th to the 7th century. A comparison between some of the Dilberjin paintings and those at Kyzyl (“the cave of the 16 swordsmen" and "the cave with picture of Maya") demonstrates a link between them (Litvinsky 1996, 151)." ]
7th century CE
In painting, there is "Tokharistan school of art" (see Northern Buddhist art) with examples from
Kalai Kafirnigan, Kafyr Kala or
Ajina Tepe,
as Buddhism and Buddhist art enjoyed a renaissance, possibly owing to the sponsorships and religious tolerance of the
Western Turks (
Tokhara Yabghus).
, National Museum of Antiquities, Dushanbe, Tajikistan. 7th-early 8th century.
]]
Samanids and Ghaznavids, 10th–11th century
Islamic art developed with the
Samanid Empire and the
Ghaznavids from the 10th to 12th century CE.
, Tajikistan, 10-11th century, National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan (KN 1060)]]