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ajat
April 20th, 2004, 09:09 PM
This thread is to discuss the Chinese Yue-chih, which is also spelled as Yuezhi.

Does anyone wish to discuss this tribe and their legacy?

Best Wishes,

ravichaudhary
April 21st, 2004, 12:06 AM
A little background information maybe of some help.

Who are the Yuehchi considered to be?

We come across this word in our History books.

Any school History will have mentioned them along with the Kushans, and most of us know of Kaniska who was a famous ruler of the Kushans.

It is presumed that in Northern Afghanistan, the area covered by the Oxus and the Syr (darya) Rivers, was an area where these tribes lived.

They were supposedly pushed out by another group of tribes, called the Huing Nu, from the borders of China, and they made their way south, and east into India. The Kushans are supposed to be part of these tribes.

This information comes to us from the Chinese, who recorded their contact with these tribes.

The Kushan Empire spread all over from Central Asia, upto Orrisa and down into the South India, Karnataka, Andhra.

Many Jats clans claim their origin from Afghanistan, and more to the point some Jat Clans like the Henga Chaudhries of Mathura claim a Kushan Descent, as do the Kasvan Clan in Rajastan.

What then is the problem?


The problem is

1) Who were these Yueh Zhi?

2) How was this word pronounced?

3) Do they have any relation to the Jats of today?

4) How reliable is the Chinese information ?

ajat
April 21st, 2004, 12:51 AM
Hi Ravi, thanks for the intro….
“1) Who were these Yueh Zhi?”
http://countrystudies.us/mongolia/5.htm
2) How was this word pronounced?
Yue-si or Yueczi.
3) Do they have any relation to the Jats of today?
Maybe or maybe not.
4) How reliable is the Chinese information ?
Don’t know.
Regards,

ravichaudhary
April 21st, 2004, 02:44 AM
That is only the version of some historian who gets to write for the US Library of Congress.

It does not make it correct.

Note that blurb is full of probably, maybe etc etc.

It gets more publicity, and gets self feeding.

It just makes it harder to get another version across.

The source is a partial manuscript called the Ho Han Shu, a record in archaic chinese( about which also there is plenty of argument as to reliabilty, and how the modern translation should be.

Also of how the words should be written pronounced , interpreted, today ?

Western Scholars have been quite happy to accept it uncritically.


Ravi

ajat
April 21st, 2004, 03:35 AM
Hi Ravi,

Ok who were the Yuezhi then?

Regards,

ravichaudhary
April 21st, 2004, 07:56 AM
Sunny Singh (Apr 20, 2004 06:05 p.m.):
Hi Ravi,

Ok who were the Yuezhi then?

Regards,

There were no such things as " Yuezhi"

That sounds like the Yeti , the abonimable snowman

Then the Yuehzhi were "Abonimable Snowmen"

They exist in the Rocky Mountians of the USA too!!


Ravi

abhishek
April 21st, 2004, 07:31 PM
Sunny Singh (Apr 20, 2004 06:05 p.m.):


Ok who were the Yuezhi then?



how about this one?
http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/Eran/Articles/benjamin.html

ajat
April 21st, 2004, 10:49 PM
Hi Ravi,
“There were no such things as " Yuezhi"”
Really? Why did the Chinese record them then?
“That sounds like the Yeti , the abonimable snowman”
Huh?
“Then the Yuehzhi were "Abonimable Snowmen"”
What?
“They exist in the Rocky Mountians of the USA too!!”
I hope you are joking.
Mr Dhama,

Thanks.

ravichaudhary
April 22nd, 2004, 07:45 AM
Abhishek Dhama (Apr 21, 2004 10:01 a.m.):

Sunny Singh (Apr 20, 2004 06:05 p.m.):


Ok who were the Yuezhi then?



how about this one?
http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/Eran/Articles/benjamin.html


***********
Please read the article again

The article tells us nothing about who they were

The article only lauds the alleged Greek civilizing influence, a pre runner to the British colonial expansion 2000 years later ( something I dispute, for the primary evidence is scanty and very thin -see the Yahoo Jathistory list)


Ravi

ravichaudhary
April 22nd, 2004, 07:54 AM
[quote]Sunny Singh (Apr 21, 2004 01:19 p.m.):
Hi Ravi,
“That sounds like the Yeti , the abonimable snowman”
Huh?
“Then the Yuehzhi were "Abonimable Snowmen"”
What?
“They exist in the Rocky Mountians of the USA too!!”


Not quite.

Though , on a lighter note

A variant of the term Jat, is Yeta, for the Y and J are interchangeable, like Jaswant and Yashwant

So we can get Yeta and Yeti, male and female form.

and a Yeti is an abonimable snowman ( elusive) who is supposed to live in the Himalayas, much like "Bigfoot" in the Rocky Mountains.


Ravi

ravichaudhary
April 22nd, 2004, 07:56 AM
What is required is posing the problem in the proper framework.

The English translators of the Chinese manuscripts often use Chinese terminology for non-Chinese people or terms.

For example Paryatra is in Chinese characters -PO-Li-Ye-Ta-LO
Or Mo-Tu-Lo is Mathura

That is when and after the translators could find some, even a, vague correlation to an Indian name.


In many cases, the translators or rather the wannabe Historians simply took the term and used it as nomenclature, i.e. as a defining term.


And the nomenclature stuck

That is how I understand the term Yueh Chi or YeuhZhi to be used.

It is archaic Chinese, which no one really understands, but about which a certain amount of guess work is involved, and it is not a serous problem to anyone, except to some of us who are concerned about it.

So what is the term Yuehzhi and how is it sounded and who does it refer to?

And when we try and decipher that, let us remember we are dealing with an archaic foreign language over 2, 000 years ago!


Ravi

ajat
April 22nd, 2004, 08:45 PM
Hi Ravi,

Let’s just ignore your pose #10 – I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.

Please continue with your Post#11 – I’m all ears.

Good Luck,

ravichaudhary
April 27th, 2004, 03:45 AM
Hukam Singh Pauria, did a detailed research on the term "Jat", its variant names etc.

The connection of the term "Jat" with the term "Yueh Chi" is explored below

Ravi

Extract from: pp 344 to 347

" The Jats, Their origin ., antiquity, and migration" (1993)H S Pauria
Manthan Press, Rohtak, India, ISBN 81-85235-22-8.



" Continuing our quest for more variants of the word "Jat" as an ethnic term, we now turn to central Asiatic countries and their chronicles.

In the countries of the Oxus valley we come across the word "Jatah" or "Jetteh"[75], "Zutt" or "Az-Zutt"[76], "Jith" or "Git"[77] during medieval and early medieval tunes, not only as names of various places including villages, towns, canals, rivers and mountains but also those of the Jat people who inhabited them after their deportation[78] from India. From classical historians and geographers of the first century B.C. as well as from those of first century A.D. have come down to us variants like "Xanthii" or "Zanthii" or "XandHii"[79] "Iatii" or "Iattii"[80] used for the people living on the banks of the Oxus between Bactria, Hyrkania and Khorasmia[81], "Xuthi" or "Zuthi"[82] for those who occupied Karamanian desert and Drangiana[83]. One scholar[84] suggests that those people gave their name as "Zotale" or "Zothale" to the irrigation channel from the Margus river. All these terms are said[85]to be variants of the term "Jit" with their "parental house on the Oxus" and "their original seat or colony in Sindh" as well as "on the Margus ("Zotale" or "Zothale") river".


This reference definitely indicates that the Jats were spread over tbs region bounded by Indus in the east and the Oxus in the West in Central Asia.

This learned scholar seems perplexed in deciding the original habitat of the Jats in spite of the fact that earlier scholars like Pliny, Diodorus Siculus and Megasthenes had claimed that contemporay Indians were indigenous.

Pliny[86] the Indians living in the Indus Valley from the past. Diodorus Siculus[87] asserted that the contemporary Indians were evidently indigenous and Megasthenes [88], who was, in fact, more familiar with northern India of the fourth and third centuries B.C. than any other of his contemporaries, wrote about the people, inhabiting north-western India, that "none was alien and all of them were India's indigenous citizens". These impartial statements of the classical writers amply expose the fallacy of the assertions of those who assign foreign origin to the Jats.

It is a pity that in spite of the corroborative evidence, the Indian origin of the Jats was disputed and repudiated in favour of their Central Asian origin, simply because this theory was propounded by European scholars led by writers like Cunningham and Todd. These theories were readily accepted by their Indian adherents without making any reason or rhyme, simply because of the prestige that European scholars commanded.


THE CHINESE VARIANT - YUEH CHI

We now turn to some other forms of the term "Jat" available to us from the Chinese. During this very period in the region under review several variants were current: "Yat" or "Yata", "Yeta"[91] or "Ye-tha"[92] or "Yet"[93] "Yete" or "Yeti"[94], "Yewti"[95] or "Yuti"[96], "Yuchi"[97] or "Tuc-Chie"[98] or "Yue-Chi" or "Yueh-Chih" [99].

We regard them all as variants of the term "Jat".

Another term "Yueh-Chih", (with its two branches, "Siao-Yueh-Chih" or little Yueh-Chih and "Ta-Yueh-Chih" or great Yueh-Chih, is equally noteworthy.

This term, variously spelt by scholars, comes from archaic Chinese. It was pronounced from the fourth century B.C. to about the first century A.D., as "ngiwatt-sie = ngiwattia" which, according to B. Karlgren [100], points to a foreign word "Gut-tia" in China.

The Chinese adopted this name to designate newly encountered foreigners, probably the Dai or Tai[11] (Dahae or Tahae) of the Iranian writers or the Dadicae of Herodotus. Scholars, earlier, were doubtful if this was the real import of Yueh Chih, but the uncertainty was removed by H.W. Bailey, a keen student it of Chinese language, who [102] identified the Yueh-Chih with the Iatoi or latii, mentioned by Ptolemy and who were the Jats of Cunningham, Todd, Elphinstone etc.[103].

The archaic Chinese pronunciation of "Yueh-Chih" as "ngiwat-teh" might have been responsible for its vernacularization as "Jatah" or "Jeteh" (Yatah or Yattah) till medieval times and "Ywati" for the other forms prefixed with 'Y'. There is every probability that' ngiwattia' was transformed into Gut-tia, and was abbreviated as Guti or Gut in the course of time. (Guti, as a variant, will be described in the sequel).


We may also note that what MacRitchie has observed : namely that the form Jaut of Jat, (which he came across in the Memoires of Lord Combermare), appears to offer the best compromise... with the popular English form of a similar word "Ghat", viz. "Ghaut"[104] which exactly sounds like Chinese, "ngiwat". It is significant, further, that British officers called "Jat" as Gat but in writing that they spelt it as "Gat" or "Gaut"[105].

What is pertinent to our enquiry is the question of the identity of the foreigners for whom the Chinese use the term "Yueh-Chih". Further, from where did these Yueh-Chih penetrate into China? The term obviously would not indicate the neighbouring people like the Mongols and the Turks. It is far more plausible to link this term with terms we have already explored at some length, i.e. the "Getae" and with the "latii" of Ptolemy, the "Jatii" of Pliny, and the Jats of Cunningham, who were natives at that period of the countries between the Sindh and Oxus valleys, and whom we have already identified with "Sakas".

Some of these adventurous tribes of the Sakas from India at Buddha's time penetrated as far as Kucha, (Kusa in Sanskrit [106]) or Lobnor, where, the Chinese gave these aliens the name "Yueh-Chih" which came nearest to their original name in sound. These tribes derived or were given a new name in their new home Kucha or (Kusha) and became famous in history as the Kushanas [106]. Consequently, it was but natural for later historians to regard the Kushanas as a branch of the Yueh- Chih.

There is still a tendency among historians to regard the Jats as the descendents of the Yueh-Chih or to regard them as one of their branches, the Kushanas, but the truth is just the reverse.

The names " Yueh-Chih" and "Kushana" are later names given to Jats or a branch of them who migrated to Central Asian regions from Sindh in ancient period.

Our reading of historical facts, pertaining to the tribal movements to, and in, the Central Asian countries, leads us to the firm conclusion that scholars like Cunningham and Todd, astute and honest though they ere, have discovered the Jat horse as well as the Yueh-Chih cart, but have managed only to put the cart before the horse.

Refernces:


75. Mahil, UjagarSingh; Antiquity of Jat Race, Delhi, 1955, p. 14; Kephart, op.cit., pp. 262, 468. Sykes, Sir Perey; His of Persia, Vol. II. pp. 120, 123. O' Ne al, Cothburn; "Conquests of Tamer Lane, AVON Pubns. inc. 545, Mdison A- e., New York-23, pp. 29,91 ff, 95, 97,103f, 106ff, 110,125,130,232.

76. Strange, op.cit. pp. 244, 331.

77. Ibid., p. 454.

78 Cf. f.n. No. 50 above.
79 Strabo, Geog., XL, 8-2 & 3. Westphal and Westphal, op.cit., pp. 87-88.
80 Pliny, His. Nat., VI, 18. Ptolemy, Geog., VI, 12,14.
81 ASR, Vol., II, (1863-64), p. 55.
82 Ibid. Westphal and Westphal, op.cit., pp. 87-88.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Majumdar, R.C.; op.cit., p. 340.
87 Ibid., p. 235.
88 Diodoros Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, II, 220.
89. Deshraj, Thakur, Jat Itihas, Agra, 1934, p. 95.


90. Dr. Kunudsen, a Norwegian visiting Professor in the Math. Deptt. of the Pb.Univ. in 1970, holds that Yatas are Juts who migrated from the east, probably Ind., to the Scandnavian and the Netherlandic countries in the remote past. Please note that the name Kunudsen is just Indian. Lt. Ram Sarup Joon, His of Jats, p. 4,1967.


91. Law, B.C.; Some Kshatriya Tribes of Anc. Ind., 1975, p. 270.

92. Gankovsky, Yu. V.; The Peoples of Pakistan (an Ethnic His.),
Lahore, 1971,

93. Law, B.C., op.cit., p. 270.

94. Joon, op.cit., p. 4.

95. Chanda, R.P.; op.cit.,1969, p. 35.

96. Mukerji, A.B.; op.cit., p. 39.

97. Desraj, op.cit., p. 65. Joon, op.cit., p. 4. Mahil, op.cit., pp. 13-14. H.G. Wells,op.cit., chapter 28, Sec. 4.

98. Mahil, op.cit., p. 48.

99. Tarn, W.W.; Greeks in Bac. and Ind., p. 286. It was a very popular name and is found in all standard works. E.J. Rapson, Camb. His. of Ind., Ch. XXII, pp.510. Ency. Brit. 13th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 180-81.


100. Mukherjee, B.N.; Kushan Genealogy, Skt. Coll., Calcutta, 1967, p. 37. B.Karlgren, JAOS, 1945, Vol. LXV, p. 77. B. Karlgren, Analytic Dic. Of Chinese and Sino-Japanese, nos. 879 and 1347; Paris, 1923.

101 Mukherjee, B.N.; op.cit., p. 38, Camb. His. Vol. II, pt.I, LVIIIf. JIH, Vol. XII,

102 Mukherjee, B.N., op.cit., p. 39. J. Marquardt, Eranshahr, p. 206, Cf. also E.G. Pulleyblank, Asia Major, ns. 1963, Vol. IX, p. 109; Asia Maj., 1964, Vol. XI, p.6; JRAS, 1966, p. 17. Pulleyblank equates ngiwat-cie + ngiwat-tehy with Iatioi ( = Ywati).

103. Ibettson, Denzil; op.cit., 1916, p. 97.

104. Mac. Ritchie, op.cit., p. 78.

105. Princep, Sett, R. of Sialkot, S. 136; 1865. H.A. Rose, Gloss, of Tribes. and Castes, Vol. Ill, p. 416.

106. Bagchi, P.C.; Ind. and Cen. Asia, Calcutta, 1955, p.68. Mukherjee B.N., op.cit., pp. 6-7,11-12, Sakas also were driven to that region from Ind.; Mukherjee, B.N.; op.cit., pp. 26-27. For Indian rule and influence in Cen. Asia, Cf. A. Kalyanraman, Aryatarangini, vol. II, Bombay, 1970. p. 9, A. Stein also supports it.


107. Ibid. Bagchi holds that Kuci or Kuchi or Kusi is the archaic pronunciation of Kucinam of Kucina from which a genetive plural form would be Kusana. Most ancient name of Khotan was Godana (Ibid. p. 49) which proves the existence of Indians there in the remote past.