@@ Yagnobis of Tajikistan @@
Arash
There are only 2000 Yagnobis left in Tajikistan. They speak an ancient
Iranian language called "Sogdian".
The Glories of Sogdiana
by Albert E. Dien
The almond groves of Samarqand,
Bokhara, where red lilies blow.
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand
The grave white-turbaned merchants go.
Oscar Wilde*
Western Turkestan, the area of modern Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan, was an
important area in the history of the Silk Road. It was the area through
which the Road passed, and the inhabitants were very much involved in the
commercial activity which took place along its route. This area, known
variously as Transoxiana (that is, across the Oxus, or the Amu Darya) or
Eastern Iran (meaning really the eastern extension of Iranian culture) is a
fascinating area, well worth exploring. It is an area where a number of
cultures met, that of the Greco-Roman world, of Iran and India, and to some
extent even China. It is a dry, semi-arid area, containing the fearsome Kara
Kum and Kyzyl Kum deserts, traversed by some rivers from which water could
be diverted into agriculture, and thus support some cities with large
populations, really an oasis culture. Trade and agriculture supplied the
economic basis of what were important cultural centers. But at the same
time, the area abutted on the steppes, and there was almost constant
pressure from nomads to the north and east, across the Syr Dary, to move in
with their herds and to raid, and if successful, to become the rulers of
this rich land. It was in effect the early-comers fending off the
late-comers, because the inhabitants of Transoxiana were an Iranian
population who had themselves moved in from the steppes and who had settled
down.
The area can be divided into three parts, Sogdiana, Ferghana and Khorezm.
Sogdiana was made up of the Zaravshan and Kashka Daryā river valleys,
Ferghāna is along the upper Syr Daryā River, and Khorezm is in the delta
region of the Amu Daryā. The Achaemenid empire conquered the area in the 6th
century BC, and the names of these areas are recorded in the list of Cyrus'
conquests at Behistun. But then the Persians had to defend the area against
the nomad peoples, and in fact, Cyrus was killed in 530 BC while fighting
the Massagetae to the east of the Caspian. There followed periods of rule by
the Seleucids, the Bactrian Greeks, the Parthians, the Kushans, and then a
new nomadic group, the Hephthalites (or White Huns) fresh off the steppes,
who helped put an end to the Kushan empire. Then came the Sasanians, whose
rule lasted until their conquest by the Arabs in the 7th-8th centuries.
Ferghāna was especially noted for its horses, and these early on attracted
the attention of the Chinese who wanted to improve the breed they used for
their cavalry. An envoy was sent to purchase the desired animals, but was
not only turned down, but was killed. General Li Guangli was then sent in
104 BC with an army of 60,000 over the Pamirs to seek revenge and to bring
back the Ferghana horses, known to the Chinese as "blood-sweating" or
"heavenly" horses. Li besieged the city of Tashkent, but failed to take it
and returned with the remnant of his army. Reaching the frontier of China,
he asked for permission to proceed on to the capital. This was denied him,
reinforcements were sent, and he was told not to come back without the
horses. This gave him added determination, and the second expedition was
successful, returning in 101 BC with 1000 horses. This marked the start of
Chinese activity in the area west of the Pamirs, which was sporadic to be
sure, but which did not end until the defeat of a Chinese army by a joint
Turkish-Arab force in 732.
Sogdiana was more actively involved with the Silk Road. The names of its
major cities, Samarkand and Bukhārā, must call to mind the area and
significance they had for the Silk Road. Even in the earliest period, before
those cities were founded, the Sogdians were the major participants in the
Silk Road caravans, their language became the lingua franca across Asia,
their alphabet the source of later alphabets to the east, they carried with
them such religions as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Nestorian
Christianity. They were a strong presence in the markets of the capitals of
China, and some letters of the early 4th century, found in a tower of the
Great Wall, reveal that the various Sogdian colonies in Central Asia kept in
touch with the "home office" in Samarkand.
The several Sogdian principalities, mostly small, were formed in antiquity,
and some minted their own coinage. Many were at least nominally subject to
Samarkand, but their situation would change with each new "super power" that
exerted control over the area. For a time, for example the Turkish khagans
on the steppes supported the Sogdian rulers, protected Sogdian trade, and
employed Sogdians as officials and diplomats. The Chinese were also treated
as overlords in the 7th century, but as distant ones, and Sogdiana suceeded
in gaining its independence. During that 7th century there was rapid
development of the capital at Samarkand, there was an expansion of trade, as
evidenced by the abundance of coins, there was progress in silk weaving and
handicrafts, and the Sogdian merchants not only thronged the Silk Road east
to west, but also the "Fur" road, north to the Urals. The many silver and
gilded vessels found through Central Asia and in China are now believed to
have been manufactured in Sogdiana, not in Iran to the west.
With the coming of the Arabs in the later half of the 7th century, there
were important changes. Iran had been conquered and there were raids across
the Amu Darya, but in the early 8th century, the conquest of Transoxiana
began in earnest. The governor-general of Khurāsān, the great general
Qutayba ben Muslim, in 706 to 712, took over, and the local rulers became
the vassals of the Arabs. There were some local uprisings, the area suffered
from the campaigns, some of the cities being abandoned or destroyed, and
with the change in the caliphate dynasty, from the Umayyads to 'Abbāsids, in
750, came large scale conversions to Islam.
We must not think that the Sogdians were simply passive subjects of the
various powers which came to rule over them. During and between those
periods of outside rule, a number of city-states had grown up, very
decentralized, with an elite of knightly landowners lording it over large,
irrigated estates, and rich merchants who were on a social par with the
knights. Though some scholars have likened the social and political
situation to that of feudalism, actually that is going too far. There was
little stability in succession of rule, and it would seem that the
community, or some segment of it, had a say in the selection of rulers.
Bukhara, for example, had no ruler, and in the case of Pendzhikent, the city
had its own income and own officials. Sogdian society thus displayed a
highly developed economy but a weak state system, with little
centralization. It was this lack of centralization that made the area so
vulnerable to the attack of the Arabs.
Pendzhikent (= Five Cities) has been partly excavated by the Russian
archaeologists. This city was on a bluff overlooking the Zarafshan River,
some 65 kilometers southwest of Samarkand, on what had been the Silk Road.
It had been founded in the 5th century, was used as the capital of the
Hephthalites who conquered Sogdiana in 509, and was a thriving metropolis
when it was destroyed by the Arabs in the early 8th century. Remnants
lingered on until the 9th, when it was eclipsed by Samarkand and Bukhārā,
and abandoned to the desert. It was divided into two parts, the shahristan
or citadel and the city proper. On the hill, there were the citadel, the
palace of the ruler, several temples and the richer houses. The rest of the
city contained houses of the landed aristocracy, the merchants and shops. A
full third of the houses had superbly executed murals and wood carvings,
indicating an extraordinary level of wealth. The houses were 2 to 3 stories
and had many rooms, including principal halls, resembling the palace on a
smaller scale. The large number of shops and craftmen's workshops along the
major streets and in special bazaars were of course of smaller size, and
were located in front of the larger houses, but without a doorway connecting
the two parts. It would seem the shops were leased to the tradesmen. These
tradesmen had smaller houses, still with two stories and several rooms, and
perhaps a painting in a niche, to parallel the large murals in the richer
homes.
Murals found in the temples and other houses aroused great interest when
they were first reported. The murals include religious themes, such as one
believed to depict the Sogdian burial rite, illustrating the death of the
god Syavush, representing the dying year, and his rebirth in a background
scene. Some mourners are shown cutting their faces, a Central Asian
practice, also reported among the Turks. The genre scenes are important,
illustrating national epics, including that of Sohrab and Rustam, a metaphor
for the struggle between the Iranians and the Turkish nomads. One sees
battles between knights, hunts on horseback, various holiday entertainments,
processions and nobles sitting at banquets, holding their goblets in a
delicate manner, a harpist which has been said to be the most beautiful
painting in the world, and so forth. These refer to specific episodes or may
simply represent the ideal of the good life of the wealthy Sogdian. The
clothing is Persian, or Sasanian, but one also may note Indian and
Hellenistic traces in the renderings. From these we can gain a glimpse of
the elegant, prosperous and vibrant society which had developed here.
An important find was the castle of Mt. Mugh, some 200 kilometers east of
modern Samarkand, in the upper Zarafshan valley, in the Mugh foothills. A
vast number of documents were found, some on paper, others on wood and
leather, which had been in the archives of the ruler of Pendzhikent, dating
from 717 to 719. The languages include mostly Sogdian, but also Turkish,
Chinese and Arabic, the latter being the correspondence with the Arab
governor of the area. The prince lived in a castle which had been built as a
fortress with thick outer walls and massive towers, all made of sun-baked
mud bricks. The rooms were in the form of barrel-vaulted halls connected
with each other by narrow corridors. Included in the finds were all sorts of
coins, seals, silver and bronze vessels, fragments of cotton and silk, and a
partial panel from a shield showing a warrior of a type that one finds later
in Islamic Iran. In 722 the prince rebelled and was captured and killed. The
castle was then abandoned, and became filled with sand.
Another city was Varaksha, in the Bukhārā oasis; it had been the capital of
a fief in the area, abandoned in the 9th century. Here, too, one found high
towers and walls, and a palace with many rooms. These were roofed with flat
ceilings resting on columns, and opening onto a great central hall. The
reception room had a buit-in bench (or sufa) around the walls, and carved
stucco and murals for decoration. The paintings there and in other rooms are
characterized by red backgrounds. One has hunters on elephants being
attacked by tigers and griffins, One also finds a seated king surrounded by
his courtiers. Other murals were found which depict that saga of Sohrab and
Rustam.
Finally there is Afrāsiāb, the ancient Samarkand, the site being on the
outskirts of the modern city. In the mid and late 7th century, the two great
powers in this area were the Western Turkish khanate, out on the steppes to
the north, and Tang China, which was at its height of strength and glory.
The Chinese sources describe Samarkand as being fertile and producing good
horses, and dominant militarily. The people drank and Iiked to sing and
dance in the streets! The king wore a felt hat decorated with gold and
precious stones. The women coiled their hair and covered their heads with a
black scarf to which were attached golden flowers. They were good at
commerce, loved profit, and the young men at twenty would go out to other
countries to seek their fortunes, and were to be found wherever there was a
profit to be made. The king of Samarkand had married a Western Turkish woman
(probably related to the khan) and they were counted as subjects of the
Turks. To play both sides, envoys from Samarkand came to the Chinese court
in 627 and again in 631, and the city was accepted as a vassal only after
sending a lion to the emperor. Their tribute sent each year included yellow
peaches and silver peaches (these are perhaps varieties of peaches).
Obviously, Samarkand felt it was important to have powerful friends,
especially one so far away that there was danger in recognizing it as
sovereign. To fit Samarkand into the table of organization of the Chinese
empire, sometime after 650 the kingdom was named the Kangju
Governor-generalship, and the king, Varhumān, was made governor-general.
As at Pendzhikent, the buildings at Afrāsiāb were decorated with murals. A
special museum on the outskirts of Samarkand displays one of the more
spectacular of these, much as it would have originally covered the walls of
a large audience hall. The interpretation of the mural has been a subject of
much debate. The Russian scholar Boris Marshak believes that the mural was
meant to make the case for the legitimacy of the ruler Varkhumān. One sees
depicted various religious ceremonies, envoys from various countries,
including the Turks and the Chinese, paying their respects, and the
manifestation of the three virtues of the Sogdians: riches, bravery and
wisdom. Thus the mural gives us a sense of the political and social patterns
of the Sogdians, and their conception of royal power with its legal basis.
In the words of Prof. Marshak, "The murals of Afrāsiāb are not only a
monument of magnificent art but also the result of a social and political
development where the stable tradition of the city-state limited the power
of the local monarch and of his foreign sovereigns, obliging them both, as
well as all the neighboring countries to respect the beliefs and the laws of
Samarkand."
Bibliography:
Aleksandr Belenitsky, Central Asia. Cleveland and New York: World Publishing
Company, 1968.
L.I. Al'baum, Zhivopis' Afrasiaba. Tashkent, 1975.
Guitty Azarpay, Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
Boris Marshak, "Le programme iconographique des peintures de la 'Salle des
ambassadeurs' ą Afrasiab (Samarkand)," Arts Asiatiques 49 (1994), pp. 5-20.
This article is dedicated to Ann Britton, a great fan of all things Sogdian.
*Cited by Richard Frye, Bukhara: The Medieval Achievement (University of
Oklahoma Press, 1965), p. [2].
http://www.silk-road.com/artl/sogdian.shtml
http://www.sanskrit-sanscrito.com.ar/indexcopy.html
http://www.iranian.com/History/2001/July/Sogdiana/
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/sogdlet.html
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/iran/sogd/sogdmss.htm
http://www.chakhma.narod.ru/eng/silkroad/road1.htm
http://www.charm.ru/coins/misc/sogd-silver.shtml
http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/centralasia/centralasia.html
http://www.livius.org/ro-rz/roxane/roxane.htm