79 replies to this topic

[warlordgeneral]

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Edited by warlordgeneral, 31 March 2013 - 02:40 AM.

[warlordgeneral]

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Edited by warlordgeneral, 31 March 2013 - 02:41 AM.

[Yun]

I must say it is a very cogent and promising argument. I hope to have a chance to pursue it further in my future research! Thanks!

[warlordgeneral]

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Edited by warlordgeneral, 31 March 2013 - 02:41 AM.

[Yun]

Hm, I initially thought that there might be a long debate on this since it seems to be in disagreement with many other theories...

In fact it suggests that there is something to Chen Yinke's explanation of the Jin Shu biography of Shi Le in which his ancestors are said to be from the Qiangqu branch of the Xiongnu. Chen said that Qiangqu was Kangju, and Tashkent (Shi) of the Sogdians was an offshoot of Kang (Samarkand), and then argued that since Kang was the same as the earlier Kangju, the Qiangqu were actually related to the Sogdians. And since the Sogdians are said in the Xin Tangshu to be descended from the Yuezhi, the Jie were Yuezhi and Shi Le was a Yuezhi from Tashkent (Shi).

I had always felt that Chen Yinke made too many assumptions - for example, that there was a direct line of descent between Kangju and Kang (Samarkand), instead of pure coincidence in the names and a rough correspondence of location; or that the Xin Tangshu account of Sogdian descent from the Yuezhi was believable. But your extrapolation has led me to reconsider Chen's theory. The Jie might, after all, be Yuezhi descendants through Kangju, and not Sogdians per se.

[warlordgeneral]

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Edited by warlordgeneral, 31 March 2013 - 02:41 AM.

[Yun]

In the Wei Shu, Sogdiana is known as 'Sute' (same as the Bei Shi) and is described as being northwest of Kangju - thus the two are not synonymous. You are correct about the 'Liyi' of the Hou Hanshu being an erroneous version of 'Suyi'.

In the Sui Shu and Xin Tangshu, there is no mention of the Sogdians collectively as 'Sute', only in terms of the Nine Zhaowu city-states (e.g. Samarkand/Kang, Bukhara/An, Tashkent/Shi). The Sui Shu says on one hand that Samarkand/Kang was the descendant (hou) of Kangju, and on the other hand that the King of Samarkand was a Yuezhi whose ancestors were driven "west over the Pamirs" by the Xiongnu from Zhaowu city. The eight othe city-states were founded by princes of this King, and the rulers all adopted Zhaowu as their surname. Note that there is some difference from the Xin Tangshu: while both locate Zhaowu city as being "north of the Qilian Mountains", Xin Tangshu describes the migration to Sogdiana as being a movement "slightly south to the Pamirs", while Sui Shu describes it as being "west over the Pamirs". Clearly one of them is wrong, and I am a little more doubtful about the Xin Tangshu because it mistakes the Xiongnu as the Turkut (Tujue) and does not mention that Samarkand was formerly Kangju.

I should clarify that Chen Yinke never directly argues that the Sogdians were descended from the Yuezhi - he simply takes at face value the Xin Tangshu assertion that the Nine Zhaowu States were descended from the Yuezhi. And he then argues that since the Jie have clear links to the Nine Zhaowu States, they must be Yuezhi too. It is later scholars, who were aware that the Nine Zhaowu States were Sogdian, that extended the theory to its logical conclusion that the Jie were Sogdians. As for where Qiangqu=Kangju=Samarkand/Kang comes in, it's purely because of Shi Le's biography in which he is traced to the "Qiangqu branch of the Xiongnu". In order to show that the Jie were not themselves Xiongnu, Chen Yinke had to show that the Qiangqu=Kangju were Yuezhi serving under the Xiongnu.

Confusing, eh? I believe we should be careful of assumptions that the Nine Zhaowu States or Kangju were either Sogdian or Yuezhi in composition - they could be a mix of both. This, however, then begs the question of whether the Jie were more Sogdian or more Yuezhi. Since the facial features of the Sogdians and Yuezhi were essentially similar, we may never know unless we use linguistic evidence to analyse whether the Jie language was Tocharian or Iranian. Unfortunately, the only scrap of Jie language we have left is from the Jin Shu biography of the monk Fotudeng, who issued a prophecy to Shi Le which went:
"Xiuzhi tiligang, pugu jutudang." Fotudeng explained that this was Jie language. 'Xiuzhi' meant army, 'tiligang' meant going out, 'pugu' meant the Xiongnu ruler, and 'jutudang' meant too capture. The overall meaning was: "If the army marches out now, it will capture the Xiongnu ruler Liu Yao". Scholars have debated for a long time just what kind of language Jie was, based purely on these four words. Some have also questioned the authenticity of this record, since Fotudeng would hardly have to translate Jie words for Shi Le who was himself a Jie.

[MengTzu]

Most students of Chinese history are familiar with the phrase "Wuhu Luanhua" - Five "Hu" (barbarian peoples) Overrunning China. It's used to describe the rebellions by various non-Han groups (commonly mistakenly termed as "invasions") in the early 4th century that toppled the Western Jin dynasty and brought on nearly three centuries of north-south division.

So where are the descendants of these five ethnicities today?

[Yun]

MengTzu, you have the funny habit of asking the same question many times because you forget you asked it before. Remember the podao question?

Look at this post: http://www.chinahist...dpost&p=4767805

[MengTzu]

MengTzu, you have the funny habit of asking the same question many times because you forget you asked it before. Remember the podao question?

Look at this post: http://www.chinahist...dpost&p=4767805

I know I asked that before, but you never answered.

[Yun]

Yes I did: http://www.chinahist...dpost&p=4767850

Is there something I have not yet covered in there?

Basically, the Xiongnu, Jie, Di and Xianbei have no distinct descendants as such. These ethnic groups have been subsumed into the populations of China in the same way as the Sogdians and Kushans were subsumed into the populations of present-day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The Xibe ethnicity of the northeast claim to be descended from the Xianbei, but this is not yet proven. Only the Qiang remain as a distinct ethnicity, but their link to the ancient Qiang must also be an indirect one: http://www.chinahist...p?showtopic=945

If you subscribe to the theory that the Northern Xiongnu migrated to Europe as the Huns, then there was also a Xiongnu contribution to the ethnic makeup of Eastern Europe.

[MengTzu]

Yes I did: http://www.chinahist...dpost&p=4767850

Is there something I have not yet covered in there?

Basically, the Xiongnu, Jie, Di and Xianbei have no distinct descendants as such. These ethnic groups have been subsumed into the populations of China in the same way as the Sogdians and Kushans were subsumed into the populations of present-day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The Xibe ethnicity of the northeast claim to be descended from the Xianbei, but this is not yet proven. Only the Qiang remain as a distinct ethnicity, but their link to the ancient Qiang must also be an indirect one: http://www.chinahist...p?showtopic=945

If you subscribe to the theory that the Northern Xiongnu migrated to Europe as the Huns, then there was also a Xiongnu contribution to the ethnic makeup of Eastern Europe.

Do you mean that Xiongnu, Jie, Di, and Xianbei have been subsumed into the so-called "Han" population?

[Yun]

Yes, but I would also add that some Tibetans may have a partial Xianbei ancestry too, as the Tuyuhun people of Qinghai were descended from the Murong Xianbei. Those Qiang tribes who remained on the Tibetan plateau are believed to be ancestors of the Tibetans. The Tibetans absorbed the Tuyuhun in the 7th century; therefore there is both Qiang and Xianbei ancestry in the Tibetan population.

Also, I think it's rather narrow to use the "Han"population as a standard. There is no reason why the Hui population should not have some Xiongnu, Jie or Di ancestry too, since the Hui were produced through intermarriage between Arabs and Persians and the Han.

[warlordgeneral]

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Edited by warlordgeneral, 31 March 2013 - 02:41 AM.

[Yun]

The Nine Zhaowu States/Clans of Kangju, at least the rulers, are claimed to have been descended from the Yuezhi in the primary sources and they are Sogdian only in the sense that their territories are in the general region of Sogdia, right?

Yes.

But is it pretty solid that Qiangqu = Kangju, or might it be making too many assumptions to do so? Is the link of Qiangqu = old Kangju directly stated in the primary sources or was it only part of Chen Yinke's theory?

As far as I can tell it is purely a speculation by Chen.

Interesting. Has their been a general consensus among the scholars who have tried to decipher the little fragments of Jie language and what is their justification for that general consensus if it exists?

Also, the Jie being the Qiangqu branch of the Xiongnu may hint at the possibility of the "Turkicization" of them, and thus possible Turkic influence on the Jie language. Do you think that's a possibility? I do have to clarify that it is nothing solid though, just a hypothesis.

I'm afraid I've forgotten where I first read of the attempts to trace the Jie words, and I have not had much access to the relevant literature at all. But it is noteworthy that Pugu was also the name of a later tribe of the Turkic Tiele in the Mongolian steppe.