Yuezhi

Not to be confused with Yueshi culture.
For Present Yuezi, Yuechi people, see Chechi clan.
Yuezhi
Figures in the embroidered carpets of the Noin-Ula burial site, proposed to be Yuezhis (1st century BC – 1st century AD).[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
The migrations of the Yuezhi through Central Asia, from around 176 BC to 30 AD
Total population
Some 100,000 to 200,000 horse archers, according to the Shiji, Chapter 123.[8] The Hanshu Chapter 96A records: 100,000 households, 400,000 people with 100,000 able to bear arms.[9]
Regions with significant populations
Western China(pre-2nd century BC)[8]
Central Asia(2nd century BC-1st century AD)
Northern India(1st century AD-4th century AD)
Languages
Bactrian[10] (in Bactria in the 1st century AD)
Religion
Buddhism
Hinduism[11]
Jainism[12]
Shamanism
Zoroastrianism
Manichaeism
Kushan deities

The Yuezhi[a] were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu in 176 BC, the Yuezhi split into two groups migrating in different directions: the Greater Yuezhi[b] and Lesser Yuezhi.[c] This started a complex domino effect that radiated in all directions and, in the process, set the course of history for much of Asia for centuries to come.[13]

The Greater Yuezhi initially migrated northwest into the Ili Valley (on the modern borders of China and Kazakhstan), where they reportedly displaced elements of the Sakas. They were driven from the Ili Valley by the Wusun and migrated southward to Sogdia and later settled in Bactria. The Greater Yuezhi have consequently often been identified with peoples mentioned in classical European sources as having overrun the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, like the Tókharoi[d] and Asii.[e] During the 1st century BC, one of the five major Greater Yuezhi tribes in Bactria, the Kushanas,[f] began to subsume the other tribes and neighbouring peoples. The subsequent Kushan Empire, at its peak in the 3rd century AD, stretched from Turfan in the Tarim Basin in the north to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain of India in the south. The Kushanas played an important role in the development of trade on the Silk Road and the introduction of Buddhism to China.

The Lesser Yuezhi migrated southward to the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Some are reported to have settled among the Qiang people in Qinghai, and to have been involved in the Liang Province Rebellion (184–221 AD) against the Eastern Han dynasty. Another group of Yuezhi is said to have founded the city state of Cumuḍa (now known as Kumul and Hami) in the eastern Tarim. A fourth group of Lesser Yuezhi may have become part of the Jie people of Shanxi, who established the Later Zhao state of the 4th century AD (although this remains controversial).

Many scholars believe that the Yuezhi were an Indo-European people.[14][15] Although some scholars have associated them with artifacts of extinct cultures in the Tarim Basin, such as the Tarim mummies and texts recording the Tocharian languages, there is no evidence for any such link.[16]

  Timeline of the Yuezhi [17]
Before
221 BCE 		 The Yuezhi are powerful near Dunhuang, near the western end of the Hexi corridor, and control the jade trade from the Tarim basin. Somewhere west are the Wusun,[18] and further east near the Ordos plateau are the Xiongnu or their precursors.
215 BCE The Xiongnu are defeated by the Qin dynasty and retreat northwards into the Mongolian Plateau.
207 BCE The Xiongnu begin a campaign of raids against the Yuezhi.
Circa
176 BCE		 The Xiongnu inflict a major defeat on the Yuezhi.
173 BCE The Yuezhi defeat the Wusun.

165 BCE		 The majority of the Yuezhi begin migrating west to the Ili valley; this faction is known later as the "Great Yuezhi". Most of the other faction, known as the "Lesser Yuezhi", settle on the Tibetan plateau and in the Tarim basin.
132 BCE The Wusun attack the Great Yuezhi, forcing them southward from the Ili valley.
132–130 BCE The Great Yuezhi migrate west, then south and settle in north-west Bactria.
128 BCE A Chinese envoy named Zhang Qian reaches the Great Yuezhi.
Circa
30 CE		 One of five tribes comprising the Great Yuezhi tribes, the Kushana, become dominant and form the basis of the Kushan Empire.
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference CAY was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Francfort, Henri-Paul (1 January 2020). "Sur quelques vestiges et indices nouveaux de l'hellénisme dans les arts entre la Bactriane et le Gandhāra (130 av. J.-C.-100 apr. J.-C. environ)". Journal des Savants: 26–27, Fig.8 "Portrait royal diadémé Yuezhi" ("Diademed royal portrait of a Yuezhi").
  3. ^ Considered as Yuezhi-Saka or simply Yuezhi in Polos'mak, Natalia V.; Francfort, Henri-Paul; Tsepova, Olga (2015). "Nouvelles découvertes de tentures polychromes brodées du début de notre ère dans les "tumuli" n o 20 et n o 31 de Noin-Ula (République de Mongolie)". Arts Asiatiques. 70: 3–32. doi:10.3406/arasi.2015.1881. ISSN 0004-3958. JSTOR 26358181. p.3: "These tapestries were apparently manufactured in Bactria or in Gandhara at the time of the Saka-Yuezhi rule, when these countries were connected with the Parthian empire and the "Hellenized East." They represent groups of men, warriors of high status, and kings and/ or princes, performing rituals of drinking, fighting or taking part in a religious ceremony, a procession leading to an altar with a fire burning on it, and two men engaged in a ritual."
  4. ^ Nehru, Lolita (14 December 2020). "KHALCHAYAN". Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. Brill. About "Khalchayan", "site of a settlement and palace of the nomad Yuezhi": "Representations of figures with faces closely akin to those of the ruling clan at Khalchayan (PLATE I) have been found in recent times on woollen fragments recovered from a nomad burial site near Lake Baikal in Siberia, Noin Ula, supplementing an earlier discovery at the same site), the pieces dating from the time of Yuezhi/Kushan control of Bactria. Similar faces appeared on woollen fragments found recently in a nomad burial in south-eastern Xinjiang (Sampula), of about the same date, manufactured probably in Bactria, as were probably also the examples from Noin Ula."
  5. ^ Yatsenko, Sergey A. (2012). "Yuezhi on Bactrian Embroidery from Textiles Found at Noyon uul, Mongolia" (PDF). The Silk Road. 10.
  6. ^ Polosmak, Natalia V. (2012). "History Embroidered in Wool". SCIENCE First Hand. 31 (N1).
  7. ^ Polosmak, Natalia V. (2010). "We Drank Soma, We Became Immortal…". SCIENCE First Hand. 26 (N2).
  8. ^ a b Watson 1993, p. 234.
  9. ^ Hulsewé, A.F.P. and Loewe, M.A.N. China in Central Asia: The Early Stage: 125 B.C.-A.D. 23: An Annotated Translation of Chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty. Leiden. E. J. Birll. 1979. ISBN 90-04-05884-2, pp. 119–120.
  10. ^ Hansen 2012, p. 72.
  11. ^ Bopearachchi 2007, p. 45.
  12. ^ Wink, André (1997). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: The Slavic Kings and the Islamic conquest, 11th–13th centuries. Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 90-04-10236-1.
  13. ^ Dean, Riaz (2022). The Stone Tower: Ptolemy, the Silk Road, and a 2,000-Year-Old Riddle. Delhi: Penguin Viking. pp. 73–81 (Ch.7, Migration of the Yuezhi). ISBN 978-0670093625.
  14. ^ Narain 1990, pp. 152–155 "[W]e must identify them [Tocharians] with the Yueh-chih of the Chinese sources... [C]onsensus of scholarly opinion identifies the Yueh-chih with the Tokharians... [T]he Indo-European ethnic origin of the Yuehchih = Tokharians is generally accepted... Yueh-chih = Tokharian people... Yueh-chih = Tokharians..."
  15. ^ Roux 1997, p. 90 "They are, by almost unanimous opinion, Indo-Europeans, probably the most oriental of those who occupied the steppes."
  16. ^ Mallory & Mair 2000, pp. 283–284.
  17. ^ Based on Benjamin (2007), except where otherwise stated.
  18. ^ Lanhai, Wei; Hui, Li; Wenkan, Xu (2015). "The separate origins of the Tocharians and the Yuezhi". Tocharian Texts in Context: International Conference on Tocharian Manuscripts and Silk Road Culture, June 25-29th, 2013. Hempen. p. 284. ISBN 978-3-944312-26-2.


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