Bactria
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Bactria (Bactriana, Bākhtar in Persian, also Bhalika in Arabic and Indian languages, and Ta-Hsia in Chinese) was the ancient Greek name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya (Oxus); its capital, Bactra or Balhika or Bokhdi (now Balkh), was located in what is now Afghanistan.
Bactria was bounded on the south by the ancient region of Gandhara. The Bactrian language is an Iranian language of the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family.
The Bactrians are one of the ancestral lines of the modern-day Pashtuns, Tajiks, of Central Asia.
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[edit] Geography
Bactria is basically what is now northern Afghanistan. It is a mountainous region with a moderate climate. Water is abundant and the land is very fertile. Bactria was the home of one of the Iranian tribes. Modern authors have often used the name in a wider sense, as the designation of the whole countries of Central Asia.
[edit] History
Bactria was originally the homeland of Aryan tribes who moved south-west into Iran and into North-Western India around 2000-2500 BCE Later it became the north province of the Persian Empire in Central Asia.(Cotterell, 59) It was in these regions, where the fertile soil of the mountainous country is surrounded by the Turanian desert, that the prophet Zoroaster was born and gained his first adherents. Avestan, the language of the oldest portions of the Zoroastrian Avesta, was once called "old Bactrian".
[edit] Cyrus and Alexander
It is not known whether Bactria formed part of the Median Empire, but it was subjugated by Cyrus the Great, and from then formed one of the satrapies of the Persian empire. After Darius III of Persia had been defeated by Alexander the Great and killed in the ensuing chaos, his murderer Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, tried to organize a national resistance based on his satrapy.
Alexander conquered Sogdiana and Iran without much difficulty; it was only in to the south, beyond the Oxus, that he met strong resistance. After 2 years of bloody war Bactria became a province of the Macedonian empire, but Alexander never successfully subdued the people. After Alexander's death the Macedonian empire was eventually divided up between generals in Alexander's army. Bactria became a part of the Seleucid empire, named after its founder, Seleucus I.
[edit] Seleucid Empire
The Macedonians (and especially Seleucus I and his son Antiochus I) established the Seleucid Empire, and founded a great many Greek towns in eastern Iran, and the Greek language became for some time dominant there. The paradox that Greek presence was more prominent in Bactria than in areas far more adjacent to Greece could possibly be explained by the supposed policy of Persian kings to deport unreliable Greek colonists to this the most remote province of their huge empire.[citation needed]
[edit] Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
Main article: Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
The many difficulties against which the Seleucid kings had to fight and the attacks of Ptolemy II of Egypt, gave Diodotus, satrap of Bactria, the opportunity of making himself independent (about 255 BC) and conquering Sogdiana. He was the founder of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. Diodotus and his successors were able to maintain themselves against the attacks of the Seleucids - particularly from Antiochus III the Great, who was ultimately defeated by the Romans (190 BC).
The Greco-Bactrians were so powerful that they were able to expand their territory as far as India:
- "As for Bactria, a part of it lies alongside Aria towards the north, though most of it lies above Aria and to the east of it. And much of it produces everything except oil. The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Ariana, but also of India, as Apollodorus of Artemita says: and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander...." (Strabo, 11.11.1)
[edit] Indo-Greek Kingdom
Main article: Indo-Greek Kingdom
The Bactrian king Euthydemus and his son Demetrius crossed the Hindu Kush and began the conquest of Northern Afghanistan and the Indus valley. For a short time they wielded great power; a great Greek empire seemed to have arisen far in the East. But this empire was torn by internal dissensions and continual usurpations. When Demetrius advanced far into India one of his generals, Eucratides, made himself king of Bactria, and soon in every province there arose new usurpers, who proclaimed themselves kings and fought one against the other.
Most of them we know only by their coins, a great many of which are found in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. By these wars the dominant position of the Greeks was undermined even more quickly than would otherwise have been the case. After Demetrius and Eucratides, the kings abandoned the Attic standard of coinage and introduced a native standard, no doubt to gain support from outside the Greek minority. In India, the syncretism went even further. Indo-Greek King Menander I (known as Milinda in India), recognized as a great conqueror, even converted to Buddhism. His successors managed to cling to power somewhat longer, but around AD 10 all of the Greek kings were gone.
The weakness of the Greco-Bactrian empire was shown by its sudden and complete overthrow, first by the Sakas, and then by the Yuezhi (who later became known as Kushans), who had conquered Daxia (= Bactria) by the time of the visit of the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian, c. 126 BC.
But then its emergence, isolated thousands of miles from Greece, could only be described as a paradox. However, its cultural influences were not completely undone; an artistic style mixing western and eastern elements known as the Gandhara culture survived the empire for hundreds of years.
[edit] Contacts with China
Bactria (known as Daxia to the Chinese) was visited by the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian in 126 BC.
The reports of Zhang Qian were put into writing in the Shiji ("Records of the Great Historian") by Sima Qian in the 1st century BC. They describe an important urban civilization of about one million people, living in walled cities under small city kings or magistrates. Daxia was an afluent country with rich markets, trading in an incredible variety of objects, coming as far as Southern China.
By the time Zhang Xian visited Daxia, there was no longer a major king, and the Bactrians were suzerains to the nomadic Yuezhi, who were settled to the north of their territory beyond the Oxus. Overall, Zhang Qian depicted a rather sophisticated but demoralized people who were afraid of war.
These contacts immediately led to the dispatch of multiple embassies from the Chinese, which helped to develop the Silk Road.
[edit] Tokharistan
Following the settlement of the Yuezhi (described in the West as "Tocharians"), the general area of Bactria came to be called Tokharistan. From the 1st century CE to the 3rd century CE, Tokharistan was under the rule of the Kushans. They were followed by Sassanides (Indo-Sassanians). Later, in the 5th century, it was controlled by the Khionits and the Hephthalites. In the 7th century, after a brief rule under the Turkish Khaganats, it was conquered by the Arabs.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] References
- Beal, Samuel (trans.). Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Hiuen Tsiang. Two volumes. London. 1884. Reprint: Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1969.
- Beal, Samuel (trans.). The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li, with an Introduction containing an account of the Works of I-Tsing. London, 1911. Reprint: New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1973.
- Hill, John E. 2003. "Annotated Translation of the Chapter on the Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu." Second Draft Edition. [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. [2]
- Watson, Burton (trans.). "Chapter 123: The Account of Dayuan." Translated from the Shiji by Sima Qian. Records of the Grand Historian of China II (Revised Edition). Columbia University Press, 1993, pages 231-252. ISBN 0-231-08164-2 (hardback), ISBN 0-231-08167-7 (paperback).
- Watters, Thomas. On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India (A.D. 629-645). Reprint: New Delhi: Mushiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1973.
- Arthur Cotterell, From Aristotle to Zoroaster, 1998; pages 57-59. ISBN 0-684-85596-8.
[edit] See also
[edit] Archaeological sites
- Termez region [3]
[edit] External links
- Bactrian Gold
- Bactria entries in the Encyclopædia Iranica
