Tashkent

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Tashkent (Uzbek: Toshkent, Тошкент, Russian: Ташкент) is the capital of Uzbekistan and also of the Tashkent Province. It was founded by Taxak Jats. The officially registered population of the city in 2006 was 2.1 million. According to unofficial data, the population is more than 3 million.

Ram Swarup Joon writes in History of the Jats with reference to the Greek historian Strabo that the Takshaks, A Jat clan, named Kardastan as Takshakstan. Later the name was changed to Turkistan and consequently, the inhabitants began to be called -Turks. The capital of this country was originally known as Takshkhand, which changed to Tashkand or Tashkent.

In medieval times the town and the province were known as "Chach". Later, the town came to be known as Chachkand/Chashkand, meaning "Chach City." (Kand, qand, kent, kad, kath, kud--all meaning a city, are derived from the Old Persian, kanda, meaning a town or a city. They are found in city names like Samarkand, Yarkand, Penjikent etc.).

Tashkent is located at 41°18′N, 69°16′E in a well watered plain to the west of the last Altai mountains on the road between Chimkent and Samarkhand.

Tashkent started as an oasis on the Chirchik River, near the foothills of the Golestan Mountains. In ancient times, this area contained Beitian, probably the summer "capital" of the Kangju confederacy.[1]

The principality of Chach, whose main town had a square citadel built around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC.

Hsien-tsang (Xuanzang) mentioned the name of the city as Che-shih. The Chinese chronicles Sujshu, Bejshu and Tanshu mention a possession called Shi or Chzheshi with a capital with the same name since the V c. AD [2].

Under the Samanid dynasty, the city came to be known as Binkath. However, the Arabs retained the old name of Chach for the surrounding region, pronouncing it al-Shash instead. The modern Turkic name of Tashkent (City of Stone) comes from Kara-Khanid rule in the 10th century.

References

  1. ↑ Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1963. "The consonantal system of Old Chinese." Asia Major 9 (1963), p. 94.
  2. ↑ Bichurin, 1950. v. II

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