Content deleted Content added
→Foundation legend: Fixed an error Tags: Reverted Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit |
Venkatesh Rangan is not even a historian, not WP:RS. |
||
Line 117:
The legend suggests that Khotan was settled by people from northwest India and China, and may explain the division of Khotan into an eastern and western city since the [[Han dynasty]].<ref name="Mallory 2000"/> Others however argued that the legend of the founding of Khotan is a fiction as it ignores the Iranian population, and that its purpose was to explain the Indian and Chinese influences that were present in Khotan in the 7th century AD.<ref name="tremblay"/> By Xuanzang's account, it was believed that the royal power had been transmitted unbroken since the founding of Khotan, and evidence indicates that the kings of Khotan had used an Iranian-based word as their title since at least the 3rd century AD, suggesting that they may be speakers of an Iranian language.<ref name="emmerick 2003 p265">{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko_RafMSGLkC&pg=PA265 |author=Emmerick, R. E. |publisher=Cambridge University Press; Reissue edition |date=14 April 1983|isbn=978-0-521-20092-9|chapter =Chapter 7: Iranian Settlement East of the Pamirs|editor=Ehsan Yarshater |title=The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol III: The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, Part 1 |pages= 265–266 }}</ref>
In the 1900s, [[Aurel Stein]] discovered [[Prakrit]] documents written in [[Kharoṣṭhī]] in [[Niya (Tarim Basin)|Niya]], and together with the founding legend of Khotan, Stein proposed that these people in the Tarim Basin were Indian immigrants from Taxila who conquered and colonized Khotan.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/VIII-5-B2-19/V-1/page-hr/0171.html.en |title=On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks: vol.1 |first=Aurel |last=Stein |page=91 }}</ref> The use of [[Prakrit]] however may be a legacy of the influence of the [[Kushan Empire]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ArWLD4Qop38C&pg=PA170 |title=The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith |first= Susan |last=Whitfield |author-link=Susan Whitfield |page=170 |publisher=British Library |date=August 2004|isbn= 978-1-932476-13-2 }}</ref> There were also Greek influences in early Khotan, based on evidence such as [[Hellenistic art]]works found at various sites in the Tarim Basin, for example, the [[Sampul tapestry]] found near Khotan, tapestries depicting the Greek god [[Hermes]] and the winged [[pegasus]] found at nearby [[Loulan]], as well as [[pottery of ancient Greece|ceramics]] that may suggest influences from as far as the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic kingdom]] of [[Ptolemaic Empire|Ptolemaic Egypt]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/cultural_convergence_in_the_northern_qi_period_a_flamboyant_chinese_ceramic_container_a_research# |title=Cultural Convergence in the Northern Qi Period: A Flamboyant Chinese Ceramic Container |first=Valenstein |last= Suzanne G. |date=2007 |work=The Metropolitan Museum of Art}}</ref><ref name="christopoulos 2012 pp15-20">Christopoulos, Lucas (August 2012), "Hellenes and Romans in Ancient China (240 BC – 1398 AD)," in Victor H. Mair (ed), ''Sino-Platonic Papers'', No. 230, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, p. 26, ISSN 2157-9687.</ref> One suggestion is therefore that the early migrants to the region may have been an ethnically mixed people from the city of Taxila led by a Greco-Saka or an [[Indo-Greek Kingdom|Indo-Greek]] leader, who established Khotan using the administrative and social organizations of the [[Greco-Bactrian Kingdom]].<ref name="christopoulos">{{cite journal |first=Christopoulos |last=Lucas |date=August 2012 |title=Hellenes and Romans in Ancient China (240 BC – 1398 AD) |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |issue=230 |pages=9–20 |issn=2157-9687 |url=http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp230_hellenes_romans_in_china.pdf}}</ref><ref>For another thorough assessment, see W.W. Tarn (1966), ''The Greeks in Bactria and India'', reprint edition, London & New York: Cambridge University Press, pp 109-111.</ref>
===Arrival of the Saka===
| |||