page_title: Tocharians
section_title: Flourishing of the oasis states
hierarchical_section_title: Tocharians / Oasis states / Flourishing of the oasis states
caption_attribution_description: Wooden plate with an inscription in Tocharian B describing a piece of land, either part of a sale contract (Pinault) or a record of a donation (Tamai).
context_page_description: The Tocharians, or Tokharians, were an Indo-European people who inhabited the medieval oasis city-states on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin in ancient times.
  The Tocharian languages, a branch of the Indo-European family, are known from manuscripts from the 6th to 8th centuries AD. The name "Tocharian" was given to them by modern scholars, who identified their speakers with a people who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC, and were known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi. This identification is generally considered erroneous, but the name "Tocharian" remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers.
  Agricultural communities first appeared in the oases of the northern Tarim circa 2000 BC. Some scholars have linked these communities to the Afanasievo culture found earlier in Siberia, north of the Tarim or Central Asian BMAC culture.
  By the 2nd century BC, these settlements had developed into city-states, overshadowed by nomadic peoples to the north and Chinese empires to the east. These cities, the largest of which was Kucha, also served as way stations on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert.
context_section_description: Kucha, the largest of the oasis cities, was ruled by the Bai family, sometimes autonomously and sometimes as vassals of outside powers.
  The government included some 30 named posts below the king, with all but the highest-ranking titles occurring in pairs of left and right. Other states had similar structures, though on a smaller scale.
  The Book of Jin says of the city:
  They have a walled city and suburbs. The walls are threefold. Within are Buddhist temples and stupas numbering a thousand. The people are engaged in agriculture and husbandry. The men and women cut their hair and wear it at the neck. The prince's palace is grand and imposing, glittering like an abode of the gods.
  — Book of Jin, Chapter 97
  The inhabitants grew red millet, wheat, rice, legumes, hemp, grapes and pomegranates, and reared horses, cattle, sheep and camels.
  They also extracted a wide range of metals and minerals from the surrounding mountains.
  Handicrafts included leather goods, fine felts and rugs.
  The Kushan Empire expanded into the Tarim during the 2nd century, bringing Buddhism, Kushan art, Sanskrit as a liturgical language and Prakrit as an administrative language (in the southern Tarim states).
  With these Indic languages came scripts, including the Brahmi script (later adapted to write Tocharian) and the Kharosthi script.
  From the 3rd century, Kucha became a centre of Buddhist studies.
  Buddhist texts were translated into Chinese by Kuchean monks, the most famous of whom was Kumārajīva (344–412/5).
  Captured by Lü Guang of the Later Liang in an attack on Kucha in 384, Kumārajīva learned Chinese during his years of captivity in Gansu.
  In 401, he was brought to the Later Qin capital of Chang'an, where he remained as head of a translation bureau until his death in 413.
  The Kizil Caves lie 65 km west of Kucha, and contain over 236 Buddhist temples. Their murals date from the 3rd to the 8th century.
  Many of these murals were removed by Albert von Le Coq and other European archaeologists in the early 20th century, and are now held in European museums, but others remain in their original locations.
  An increasingly dry climate in the 4th and 5th centuries led to the abandonment of several of the southern cities, including Niya and Krorän, with a consequent shift of trade from the southern route to the northern one.
  Confederations of nomadic tribes also began to jostle for supremacy.
  The northern oasis states were conquered by Rouran in the late 5th century, leaving the local leaders in place.
  The Rouran were replaced in the mid-6th century by the Turks, who then split into western and eastern khaganates.
  The Bai family continued to rule Kucha, as vassals of the Western Turks
  The oldest surviving texts in Tocharian date from this period, and deal with a wide variety of administrative, religious and everyday topics.
  They also include travel passes, small slips of poplar wood giving the size of the permitted caravans for officials at the next station along the road.
caption: Wooden tablet describing a piece of land, Kucha, 6th–7th century
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