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Sogdians in China: a Short History and Some New Discoveries

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Sogdians in China: a Short History and Some New Discoveries Sogdians in China: A Short History and Some New Discoveries Étienne de la Vaissière École pratique des hautes études Sciences historiques et philologiques, Paris The Sogdians were the inhabitants of can still be found in many recent books chants and men of low origins. They fertile valleys surrounded by deserts, or articles, makes Alexander the Great wish to exchange their goods and con- the most important of which was the the villain of the story. Due to the di- duct trade, under the pretext of pre- Zeravshan valley, in today’s Uzbekistan saster which befell Sogdiana during his senting gifts” [Han shu, Hulsewé 1979, and Tajikistan. This Iranian-speaking campaigns there in 329-328 BCE, the p. 109]. The Sogdians were doing ex- people had a fifteen-centuries-long his- Sogdians would have been forced to actly the same thing at the same time, torical identity between the sixth cen- emigrate as far east as China. The cre- and the first testimonies, in 29 and 11 tury BCE and the tenth century CE ation of the Sogdian trading network BCE, on a Sogdian in China might also when it vanished in the Muslim, Per- between Samarkand and China thus be found in the Han shu: “If in view of sian-speaking world. Although the was a by-product of the Greek conquest these considerations, we ask why Sogdians constructed such famous of the Achaemenid Empire. Needless [Kangju] sends his sons to attend [at towns as Samarkand and Bukhara, to say, there is nothing in the available the Han court], [we find] that, desir- they are quite unknown. Only special- sources to support such an idea, which ing to trade, they use a pretence ists on the Silk Road know that they survived only because of its classical couched in fine verbiage” [Han shu, were among the main go-betweens of flavor and its familiar ring to the Hulsewé 1979, p. 128]. Kangju, a no- the exchanges in the steppe, in Cen- historian’s ears. In fact the Chinese, madic state, the center of which was tral Asia, and in China during the first Yuezhi, Bactrians, Indians and in what is now the southern part of the millennium CE, and especially between Sogdians who created the historical Silk Tashkent oasis, included Sogdiana dur- the fifth and the eighth centuries CE. Road did not need Greek help. Trade is ing the first century BCE. This desire During this period, the “inland silk road” yet another item that should be re- to trade was a Sogdian one. and the “Sogdian trading network” are moved (after irrigation, town-planning almost synonymous. The contemporary and state-formation) from the long list It is difficult to understand the next step Sogdian, Chinese, Arabic, Byzantine, of supposed Greek influences in the his- in the establishment of Sogdian com- and Armenian sources describe the tory of Central Asia. The list of real in- munities in China. It seems that some Sogdians as the great traders of Inner fluences is already full enough with of the ambassadors and their families Asia. They managed to sell their prod- coinage, iconography and the alpha- settled in China, especially in Gansu. ucts - musk, slaves, silverware, silk and bet (in Bactria)! Some late genealogies of Sogdian fami- many other goods - to all the surround- lies in China seem at least to imply such ing peoples. A Greek text describes It has long been known that Chinese a reconstruction. We know on a firm their trading embassies to Byzantium, diplomacy towards the nomads in the textual basis that as early as 227 CE, some caravaneers’ graffiti prove that second century BCE was instrumental in Liangzhou (Gansu), when a conquer- they were in India, Turkish vocabulary in creating in Central Asia and further ing army was approaching from the is a testimony to their cultural and eco- west, in Parthia, a market for Han prod- South, “The various kings in Liangzhou nomic power in the Turkish steppe... ucts, especially silk. Chinese embas- dispatched twenty men including Zhi sies traveled with thousands of bolts Fu and Kang Zhi, the ennobled leaders But their main market was always of silk but at very irregular intervals. of the Yuezhi and Kangju Hu, to re- China. The Chinese branch of their net- The merchants in northwestern India ceive the military commander, and work is by far the best known, and in and eastern Iran were quick to appre- when the large army advanced north China the number of new discoveries ciate the potential for this exchange they competed to be the first to re- on the Sogdians is quickly growing. and followed the steps of the Chinese ceive us” [Sanguo zhi, 4, p. 895]. The ambassadors back to China. As Du Qin, Hu from Kangju are the Sogdians, while When did the first Sogdian arrive in a Chinese statesman, put it in 25 BCE, the Yuezhi are the traders from Bactria China to trade? Various answers have “There are no members of the royal and Gandhara, the Kushan Empire cre- been given to this quite simple ques- family or noblemen among those who ated by the Yuezhi tribes. The leaders tion, but one of the most popular, which bring the gifts. The latter are all mer- of the biggest trading communities in 23 Gansu were sent to the invading army, generation moved into the main Chi- 669), was translator in the Imperial and the Sogdians were already on a nese towns, and some Sogdians man- Secretariat of the Tang. Another son, par with the greatest merchants of An- aged to reach the court. For instance, Shi Daoluo (d. 658) was a soldier. A tiquity, the Kushan ones. the biography of An Tugen in the Bei grandson, Shi Tiebang (d. 666), was shi (chap. 92 p. 3047) describes how in charge of an army horse-breeding The next step in the history of the An Tugen’s great grandfather came farm near Guyuan. Shi Daode (d. 678), Sogdians in China is provided by the from Anxi (western Sogdiana) to the from another branch of the Shi clan, “Sogdian Ancient Letters.” These let- Wei and established himself in Jiuquan and his uncle, Shi Suoyan, who is bur- ters were left in the ruins of a Han (the western end of Gansu). Later on, ied in same graveyard, were also mem- watchtower, 90 kilometers west of An Tugen rose from the position of mer- bers of the military and officialdom. We Dunhuang in 313. Sir Aurel Stein dis- chant to Grand Minister of the North- know also by name many other mem- covered them there in 1907. They were ern Qi in the middle of the sixth cen- bers of the family. Some of these sent by some Sogdian traders from tury. names are simply transcriptions of Gansu to the West. One of them was Sogdian names: Shewu is the honor- sent from Gansu to Samarkand and de- New discoveries from Guyuan in the ific personal name, but the public name scribed the political upheavals in North- Chinese province of Ningxia (Southern was Pantuo. Shewu was pronounced ern China. The Xiongnu, who were then Ordos) provide a very good example Jia-mut, and Pantuo banda; together sacking the main towns there, were of Sogdian families in China who did they provide Jimatvande, a well-known called for the first time in an Indo-Eu- not achieve such high distinction. Six Sogdian name, “servant of Demeter”, ropean language by the name which graves of one Sogdian family have been which was only divided in two halves would be theirs in Europe a century excavated there [Luo Feng, 1996 and for the need of the interpretatio sinica. later: the Xwn, Huns. The letter de- 2001]. According to its name, the fam- The first names of the next generation scribed also the ruin of the Sogdian ily should have originated from the sound Chinese, except in the elder trading network in these towns: “The Sogdian town of Kesh (Shahr-i Sabz, branch: Shi Hedan and his son Shi last emperor, so they say, fled from in Uzbekistan), and the texts of the Huluo have first names that seem to Luoyang because of the famine and fire funerary epitaphs describe indeed how be transcriptions. After so many gen- was set to his palace and to the city, the family and the palace was burnt and the city migrated [destroyed]. Luoyang is no more, Ye is from the no more! [...] And, sirs, if I were to western write to you about how China has fared, countries. it would be beyond grief: there is no The archaeo- profit for you to gain from it [...] [in] logical con- Luoyang... the Indians and the tent of these Sogdians there had all died of starva- looted tombs tion” [Sims-Williams, 2001, p. 49]. But confirms the same text describes a Sogdian net- these west- work well established in Gansu which ern links, as was still there a century later. A Chi- some Byzan- nese text explains how “Merchants of tine and that country [Sogdiana] used to come Sasanian in great number to the district Liang coins, a seal [the present Wuwei in Gansu] to trade. stone in- When Guzang [i.e. Wuwei] was con- scribed in quered [by the Wei in 439] all of them Pahlavi, and were captured. In the beginning of the a Zoroastrian reign of Gaozong [452-465] the king symbol were [of Sogdiana] sent embassies to ask found there. for their ransom” [Wei shu, Enoki 1955, The great Ory CNRS/F. © Copyright p. 44]. grandfather, The Sogdian Sabao and ambassador An Jia negotiating with a Miaoni, and Qaghan The fifth and sixth centuries were cer- the grandfa- tainly the high days of Sogdian emi- ther, Boboni, “served their country in erations in China, some of the mem- gration to China.
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