Saka

Approximate extent of East Iranian languages the 1st century BC is shown in orange.
Total population
Unknown
Regions with significant populations
Central Asia Northern India
Languages
Scythian language Sakan language
Religion
Scythian religion
Related ethnic groups
Indo-Iranians

The Saka (Old Persian Sakā, Latinized Sacae; Greek Σάκαι; Sanskrit शक [śaka]; Chinese 塞; Old Chinese *sək) were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes of Iranian origin.^[1]

Greek and Latin texts suggest that the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.^[2][3]

Classical accounts[link]

Gold artifacts of the Saka in Bactria, at the site of Tillia tepe.

Accounts^[which?] of the Indo-Scythian wars often assume that the Scythian protagonists were a single tribe called the Saka (Sakai or Sakas).^{[original research?]} But in earlier Greek and Latin texts the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.

"Scythia" was a generic term loosely applied to a vast area of Central Asia spanning numerous groups and diverse ethnicities. Ptolemy writes that Skuthia was not only "within the Imaos" (the Himalayas) and "beyond the Imaos" (north of the Himalayas), but also speaks of a separate "land of the Sakais" within Scythia.^{[4][original research?]} He also notes that the Komedes inhabited "the entire mountainous land of the Sakas".^{[citation needed]}

The Romans recognized both Saceans (Sacae) and Scyths (Scythae).^{[citation needed]}

Isidorus of Charax used the term "Saka" in his work "Parthian stations". They were known to the Chinese as the Sai, as in the Chinese Imperial reports by general Ban Chao. Stephanus of Byzantium referred to the Sakas in Ethnica as Saka sena, or Sakaraucae. He records how the Sakasena, originally Scythians, were pushed west and displaced by the Asii who themselves became known as Scythians as they conquered Sakastan.

Bronze statuette of a man with Scythian characteristics, Ordos culture at the doorstep of China, 3-1st century BC. British Museum.

To Herodotus (484-425 BC), the Sakai were the 'Amurgioi Skuthai' (i.e. Amyrgians).^{[5][original research?]} Strabo suggests that the term Skuthais (Scythians) referred to the Sakai and several other tribes. According to him Bactria was taken by nomads like "the Asioi and the Pasianoi, and the Tacharoi and the Sakaraukai, who originally came from the other side of the Iaxartou river (Syr Darya) that adjoins that of the Sakai and the Sogdoanou and was occupied by the Saki."^{[6][original research?]} Arrian^[7] refers to the Sakai as Skuthon (a Scythian people) or the Skuthai (the Scythians) who inhabit Asia.^[8] The Prologus XLI of Historiae Philippicae also refers to the Scythian invasion of the Greek kingdom of Bactria and Sogdia. The invaders are described as "Sarauceans" (Saraucae) and "Asians" (Asiani).^{[citation needed]}

B. N. Mukerjee has said that it is clear the Greek and Latin scholars cited here believed, all Sakai were Scythians, but not all Scythians were Sakai.^[9]

Persian sources[link]

Modern confusion about the identity of the Saka is partly due to the Persians. According to Herodotus, the Persians called all Scythians by the name Sakas.^[10] Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, AD 23–79) provides a more detailed explanation, stating that the Persians gave the name Sakai to the Scythian tribes "nearest to them".^[11] The Scythians to the far north of Assyria were also called the Saka suni "Saka or Scythian sons" by the Persians. The Assyrians of the time of Esarhaddon record campaigning against a people they called in the Akkadian the Ashkuza or Ishhuza.^[12] Hugo Winckler was the first to associate them with the Scyths which identification remains without serious question. They were closely associated with the Gimirrai,^[12] who were the Cimmerians known to the ancient Greeks. Confusion arose because they were known to the Persians as Saka, however they were known to the Babylonians as Gimirrai, and both expressions are used synonymously on the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 515 BC on the order of Darius the Great.^[13] These Scythians were mainly interested in settling in the kingdom of Urartu, which later became Armenia. The district of Shacusen, Uti Province, reflects their name.^[14] In ancient Hebrew texts, the Ashkuz (Ashkenaz) are considered to be a direct offshoot from the Gimirri (Gomer).^[15]

A cataphract-style parade armour of a Saka royal from the Issyk kurgan, Kazakhstan.

Thus the Behistun inscription mentions four divisions of Scythians,

• the Sakā paradraya "Saka beyond the sea" of Sarmatia,
• the Sakā tigraxaudā "Saka with pointy hats/caps",
• the Sakā haumavargā "haoma-drinking Saka" ^[16] (Amyrgians) of the Pamir and
• the Sakā para Sugdam "Saka beyond Sugda (Sogdiana)" at the Jaxartes.

Of these, the Sakā tigraxaudā were the Saka proper. The Sakā paradraya were the western Scythians or Sarmatians, the Sakā haumavargā and Sakā para Sugdam were likely Scythian tribes associated with or split-of from the original Saka.

Saka in South Asian history[link]

Pliny also mentions Aseni and Asoi clans south of the Hindukush.^[17] Bucephala was the capital of the Aseni which stood on the Hydaspes (the Jhelum River).^[18] The Sarauceans and Aseni are the Sacarauls and Asioi of Strabo.^{[19][clarification needed]}

The term Asio (or Asii) possibly refers to Horse People^{[citation needed]} and may refer to the Kambojas of the Parama Kamboja domain whose Aswas or horses have been glorified in the Mahabharata^{[citation needed]} as being of excellent quality. Asio, Asi/Asii, Asva/Aswa, Ari-aspi, Aspasios, Aspasii (or Hippasii) are possibly variant names the classical writers have given to the horse-clans of the Kambojas.^[20] The Old-Persian words for horse, "asa" and "aspa, have most likely been derived from this."^[21]

In the Mahabharata the Rishikas were closely affiliated with the Parama-Kambojas.^{[22][dubious – discuss]} Similarly, the Pasianois were another Scythian tribe from Central Asia. Saraucae or Sakarauloi obviously refers to the Saka proper from Issyk-kul.^{[citation needed]}

If one accepts this connection,^{[original research?]} then the Tukharas (= Rishikas = Yuezhi) controlled the eastern parts of Bactria (Chinese Ta-hia) while the combined forces of the Sakarauloi, Asio (horse people = Parama Kambojas) and Pasinoi of Strabo occupied its western parts after being displaced from their original home in the Fergana valley by the Yuezhi. Ta-hia (Daxia) is then taken to mean the Tushara Kingdom which also included Badakshan, Chitral, Kafirstan and Wakhan^[23] According to other scholars, it were the Saka hordes alone who had put an end to the Greek kingdom of Bactria.^[24]

History[link]

Artifacts found the tombs 2 and 4 of Tillia Tepe and reconstitution of their use on the man and woman found in these tombs

Researchers^[who?] broadly consider as Saka part of the Scythian culture in Siberia, in particular that of Tasmola and the Upper-Irtysh group. Unlike the Scythians of Europe, Saka remains are wide scattered from Central Asia to Chinese Turkestan and define a set of cultures close to each other but not identical:

• The Zhetysu area of East-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ferghana represents Saka culture in the strict sense.^{[citation needed]}
• The Aral-Caspian area relates to the cultures of the Massagetae and Dahae.^{[citation needed]}
• A final Saka area is located in the Tajik and Chinese Pamir.^{[citation needed]}

Recently, bronzes found in Yunnan, China have been tentatively attributed to the Saka.^{[citation needed]}

Migrations of the 2nd and 1st c. BC have left traces in Sogdiana and Bactria, but they cannot firmly be attributed to the Saka, similarly with the sites of Sirkap and Taxila in Pakistan. The rich graves at Tillya Tepe in Afghanistan are seen as part of a population affected by the Saka.^[25]

Pazyryk culture[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Horseman, Pazyryk felt artifact, ca. 300 BC.

Some of the first Bronze Age Scythian burials documented by modern archaeologists include the kurgans at Pazyryk in the Ulagan district of the Altai Republic, south of Novosibirsk in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. The burial mounds concealed chambers of larch-logs covered over with large cairns of boulders and stones.

Archaeologists have extrapolated the Pazyryk culture from these finds: five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949, one opened in 1947 by Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko. The Pazyryk culture flourished between the 7th and 3rd century BC in the area associated with the Saka. Burials at Pazyryk in the Altay Mountains have included some spectacularly preserved remains of the "Pazyryk culture" — including the Ice Maiden of the 5th century BC. Women dressed in much the same fashion as men. A Pazyryk burial found in the 1990s contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, each with weapons, arrowheads, and an axe.

Ordinary Pazyryk graves contain only common utensils, but in one, among other treasures, archaeologists found the famous Pazyryk Carpet, the oldest surviving wool-pile oriental rug. Another striking find, a 3-metre-high four-wheel funerary chariot, survived superbly preserved from the 5th century BC.

Indo-Scythians[link]

Kingdom of Khotan[link]

Language[link]

The language of the original Saka tribes is unknown. The only record from their early history is the Issyk inscription, a short fragment on a silver cup found in the Issyk kurgan.^{[citation needed]}

The inscription is in a variant of the Kharoṣṭhī script, and is probably in a Saka dialect, constituting one of very few autochthonous epigraphic traces of that language. Harmatta (1999)^{[Full citation needed]} identifies the language as Khotanese Saka, tentatively translating "The vessel should hold wine of grapes, added cooked food, so much, to the mortal, then added cooked fresh butter on".

What is nowadays called the Saka language is the language of the kingdom of Khotan which was ruled by the Saka. This was gradually conquered and acculturated by the Turkic expansion to Central Asia beginning in the 4th century. The only known remnants of the Khotanese Saka language come from Xinjiang, China, but the language there is widely divergent from the rest of Iranian and accordingly is called eastern or northeastern Iranian. It also is divided into two divergent dialects.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Bailey, H. W. 1958. "Languages of the Saka." Handbuch der Orientalistik, I. Abt., 4. Bd., I. Absch., Leiden-Köln. 1958.
• Bailey, H. W. (1979). Dictionary of Khotan Saka. Cambridge University Press. 1979. 1st Paperback edition 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-14250-2.
• Davis-Kimball, Jeannine. 2002. Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines. Warner Books, New York. 1st Trade printing, 2003. ISBN 0-446-67983-6 (pbk).
• Bulletin of the Asia Institute: The Archaeology and Art of Central Asia. Studies From the Former Soviet Union. New Series. Edited by B. A. Litvinskii and Carol Altman Bromberg. Translation directed by Mary Fleming Zirin. Vol. 8, (1994), pp. 37–46.
• Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. John E. Hill. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
• Hill, John E. 2004. The Peoples of the West from the Weilue 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE. Draft annotated English translation.
• Lebedynsky, Iaroslav. (2006). Les Saces: Les <<Scythes>> d'Asie, VIII^e av. J.-C.-IV^e siècle apr. J.-C. Editions Errance, Paris. ISBN 2-87772-337-2 (in French).
• Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1970. "The Wu-sun and Sakas and the Yüeh-chih Migration." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 33 (1970), pp. 154–160.
• Puri, B. N. 1994. "The Sakas and Indo-Parthians." In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Harmatta, János, ed., 1994. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, pp. 191–207.
• Thomas, F. W. 1906. "Sakastana." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1906), pp. 181–216.
• Yu, Taishan. 1998. A Study of Saka History. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 80. July, 1998. Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania.
• Yu, Taishan. 2000. A Hypothesis about the Source of the Sai Tribes. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 106. September, 2000. Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

External links[link]

• Scythians/Sacae: Article by Jona Lendering
• Article by Kivisild et al. on genetic heritage of early Indian settlers
• Indian, Japanese and Chinese Emperors

v t e Provinces of the Achaemenid Empire (Behistun, Persepolis, Naqsh-e Rustam, Susa, Susa foundation charter, and Daiva inscriptions) Across the sea Akaufaka Arabia Arachosia Aria Armenia Assyria Babylonia Bactria Cappadocia Caria Chorasmia Dahae Drangiana 1t Egyptian Satrapy / 2nd Egyptian Satrapy Eber-Nari Elam Gandhara Gedrosia Hyrcania Ionia Indus Libya Maka Media Parthia Persia Quadia Saka Sardis Sattagydia Skudra Sogdia Yehud See also Districts of the Achaemenid Empire according to Herodotus