The Rise And Fall Of The Hephthalite Empire

• published: 18 May 2015
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The Hephthalites (or Ephthalites), also known as the White Huns and known in Sanskrit as the Sveta Huna, were a nomadic confederation in Central Asia in Late Antiquity. At the height of its power in the first half of the 6th century, the Hephthalite Empire controlled territory in present-day Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India and China. The stronghold of the Hephthalites was Tokharistan on the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, in what is present-day northeastern Afghanistan. By 479, the Hephthalites had conquered Sogdia and driven the Kidarites westwards, and by 493 they had captured parts of present-day Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin in what is now Northwest China. The Hephthalites invaded India for the first time in the 5th century and were defeated by Emperor Skandagupta of the Gupta Empire. By the end of the 5th century, the Hephthalites overran the part of the Gupta Empire that was to their southeast and conquered Central and North India. Emperor Bhanugupta of the Guptas defeated the Huns under Toramana in 510 CE. Later the Hephthalites were defeated and driven out of India by the Indian kings Yasodharman and Narasimhagupta in the early 6th century. Christopher I. Beckwith, referring to Étienne de la Vaissière, says the Hephthalites should not be called White Huns. According to de la Vaissiere, the name of the Hephthalites was not mentioned alongside that of the White Huns. In Chinese chronicles, the Hephthalites are called Yanda or Yediyiliduo, while older Chinese sources of c. 125 AD call them Hua or Hudun and describe them as a tribe living beyond the Great Wall in Dzungaria. Elsewhere they were called the Xionites or "White Huns", known to the Greeks as Ephthalite, Abdel or Avdel, to the Indians as Sveta Huna ("White Huns"), or Turushka, to the Armenians as Haital, and to the Persians and Arabs as Haytal or Hayatila, while their Bactrian name is ηβοδαλο (Ebodalo). According to most specialist scholars, the spoken language of the Hephthalites was an Eastern Iranian language, but different from the Bactrian language written in the Greek alphabet that was used as their "official language" and minted on coins, as was done under the preceding Kushan Empire. Etymology Although the Hephthalite Empire was known in China as Yàdā (嚈噠), Chinese chroniclers recognized this designated the leaders of the empire. The same sources document that the main tribe called themselves huá (滑). The modern Chinese variation Yanda has been given various Latinised renderings such as "Yeda", although the corresponding Cantonese and Korean pronunciations Yipdaat and Yeoptal (Korean: 엽달) are more compatible with the Greek Hephthalite. According to B.A. Litvinsky, the names of the Hephthalite rulers used in the Shahnameh are Iranian. According to Xavier Tremblay, one of the Hephthalite rulers was named "Khingila", which has the same root as the Sogdian word xnγr and the Wakhi word xiŋgār, meaning "sword". The name Mihirakula is thought to be derived from mithra-kula which is Iranian for "the Sun family", with kula having the same root as Pashto kul, "family". Toramāna, Mihirakula's father, is also considered to have an Iranian origin. In Sanskrit, mihira-kula would mean the kul "family" of mihira "Sun", although mihira is not purely Sanskrit but is a borrowing from Middle Iranian mihr. Janos Harmatta gives the translation "Mithra's Begotten" and also supports the Iranian theory