Early Hunic Invaders of Central Asia That Influenced the History of India, China, and Eurasia, the Erection of Great Wall and Dark Period of Indian History

Early Hunic Invaders of Central Asia that influenced the history of India, China, And Eurasia, the Erection of Great Wall and Dark Period of Indian History: By: Bipin Shah Dark Period of Indian history: During my world travel and visit to the Great Wall of China, I could not help wonder the real reasons for building such a massive wall at great cost of life and sacrifices? We always admire such monumental structure and cataloged them as “Great wonder of the world “. This and the pyramids are similar topics of the history that are often unknown to the public and never questioned or taught in the school. This type of subject not only intrigues me but compels me to investigate further. I decided to investigate further and found out how neatly this world event indirectly fits in to the puzzle of Indian subcontinent’s history, when Purana writers and the history keepers lost control of the Indian history and their genealogy of the Indian rulers. The Indian historian considers this to be the dark period of Indian history that began with the fall of Mauryan Empire and lasted until the rise of Gupta Empire. This is a total period of 500 to 550 years. During this period of uncertainty, India witnessed a massive influx of the foreign tribes from its borderland that was displaced as a result of chain reaction that started in the Northern China. India unwittingly became a melting pot of various ancient ethnicities during this “dark period” of the Indian history for which much remains unknown. Purana dismisses this event with one simple sentence: “Mlechha will rule India.” A similar melting process is now taking place in countries like America, Australia, Canada and South America but in a peaceful and orderly ways and the key driver for modern migration is the same that is just “economics”. However, during pre historical period, it was not orderly and civilized. The attacking invaders were savage and brutal soldiers of army who plundered everything and took the women. This resulted in the formation of mixed ethnicities and gene pools between various ancient races and ethnicities with the different anthropological and physical characteristics. This should serve as a reminder that the humanity is so mixed that there is no clear gene pool of the old world that exists today. The Great Walls of China: The Great Wall of China stretches from Shanhaiguan the east, to Lop Lake in the west that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. According to Chinese archaeological survey, using satellite imageries have concluded that the China emperor Ming’s walls measure roughly 5,475 miles. This is made up 3,885 miles sections of actual wall, 225 miles of trenches and 1,390 miles of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Once everything is taken into account, the entire defensive structure will measure out to be 1 approximately 13,170 miles. The oldest section of the wall is dated to 5th century BC to prevent fellow Chinese ruling states to attack each others. The Han emperor Huangdi (220- 206 BC) built the western section to prevent the Mongolian Xiongnu tribe from North attacking the farmlands of Han kingdom. The successive emperors over several centuries used the slaves, soldier, criminals serving sentences and ordinary people to build this massive wall. The great wall is now designated as UNESCO world heritage site and one of the wonder of the ancient world. It serves as a reminder of the human spirit and effort that equates to no lesser value than sending a man to the moon during 20th century AD. Obviously many sacrificed their life in building this and other monuments of the world like pyramids ,Taj Mahal, Grand Mosque, coliseum, and countless other ancient monuments. The individual personal stories of the builders are unknown is now buried with them. Warring States Of Ancient china: In a Comparative chronology of India and china, when India emerged as a united country under Mauryan rule, the china was factionalized into warring states. Much of Northern part of China was inhabited by wild tribes of Mongol, Hun and Turkic ethnicities that constantly menaced their southern agriculturalist states of the south. This period of instability continued in China during 476 BC - 221 BC. During this initial stage, the ruling powers of individual southern warring states had began to build the defensive walls to protect themselves against each others. The state of Chu was the first to build a wall, followed by the Yan, Wei, Zhao and Qin Shi Huang (Huangdi). During warring state days, Qin Shi Huang (259 BC – 210 BC), personal name Zhao Zheng or Chao Cheng was the king of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC. He ruled until his death in 210 BC at the young age of 49. He called himself as the First Han emperor “Shǐ Huangdi” or Huangdi. Huangdi, (Qin Shi Huang) became a pivotal figure in Chinese history. After unifying China, he and his chief advisor Li Si passed a series of major economic and political reforms. He undertook gigantic projects, including building and unifying various sections of the Great Wall of China, the now famous city-sized mausoleum guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army, and a massive national road system, all at the expense of numerous lives. To ensure stability, Qin Shi Huang outlawed and burned many books and buried some scholars alive, he ordered General Meng Tian to connect the existing walls and to extend them further as a front line defense against possible invasion of the Hunic barbarians. This Hunic confederacy of Xiongnu tribes of Inner Mongolia of the north steppe was mostly made up of amalgam of Sino-Tibetan origin of Altaic (Turkic) and Mongoloid Hunic tribes. 2 Great Wall of China- at “Mutianyu” section near Beijing, China- Picture from the author’s visit in 2009 Today, the best known and most visited sections of the wall are at Badaling, Mutianyu, Simatai and Jinshanling and these were built during the later Ming Dynasty. They were all built to protect the people and territories situated south of the wall from a perpetual threat of raids and invasion by the enemies such as Mongols and later Huns. Initially, these walls among warring states were made mostly by stamping earth and gravel between board frames. Up on consolidation of warring states into a single Chinese empire by the first Han emperor, the walls were reinforced with stones from nearby mountains and subsequent Ming emperors continue to improve the fortification and construction techniques. 3 Chinese worker Building wall Chinese soldier Guarding the wall Barbarian –Xiongnu Hunic Tribe of North Stretch of Wall covering Massive Terrain 4 Panoramic view of the walls Xiongnu-Early Hunic Tribe referred as “Barbarian of the North Mangolia” Strabo, a Greek historian applied a generic label to all western central Asian tribes of Steppe beyond Anatolia as “Scythians”, based on similarity of customs and practices that he found on horse riding, bow shooting and other behaviors found consistent with the nomadic warrior group. However, Strabo did not travel beyond Persian borders to Eastern nomadic steppes. All horse riding pastoral nomads employed similar military tactics although their worshipping and cultural habits vary. Greeks, had very shallow and limited knowledge beyond east of Pamir mountain, therefore, Alexander, the great, who received the map form Archimedes, showed the end of the world near the valleys of the Afghanistan. The early Historians of middle ages relied heavily on similar characterization while ignoring the more precise identification made by neighboring regional countries like Persia, India and China. The access, availability and data from earlier historical texts of China and India have redefined some early observation. It is also should be noted that early Sanskrit Purana scholars were guilty of same crime by applying generic labels such as “Mlecchas” to all foreign tribes. The Romans and Persians employed the same labeling to equate all alien tribes that were not like them. The Xiongnu (Mongolian-Hsiung-nu); Chinese, Хүн or Хүннү, Khün or Khünnü; 匈奴匈奴匈奴 ; pinyin: Xiōngnú; Guangyun (Middle Chinese): Xiongnu (English), Xwn for Sogdinians, probably Old Turkic Qun were ancient pastoral nomadic-tribe that formed a state and confederacy located north of China in Inner Mongolia. Most of the information on the Xiongnu comes from Chinese sources. Very little are known of their titles and names and whatever the information that are presented from Chinese translation of ancient records and other observers of the past that are the subject to reinterpretation. An outside observer renders the verdict on other people they never encountered before based on their own personal experience and unseen alien behavior of others rather than understanding their culture in its totality. These nomadic tribes of North china depended on grazing lands for their animals with limited vegetation and agricultural resources. Their survival dependent on the access of grazing lands for their domesticated animals. The meat and dairy products from the animal provided the 5 food while skin hide provided clothing and tents for nomads. Primarily of Bronze Age culture, they were fierce and warlike nomads and excelled in horse riding and “hit and run” military strategy. Later they developed the access to the Iron Age weapons that produces devastating effect on other neighbors. Hans Kingdom was one of the most effected kingdoms of the warring states to suffer from Hunic raids. In order to counter the barbarians from the north, they sought military alliance with Yueh-Chinh. Yueh-Chinh for its own reasons declined the offer.

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