According to most specialist scholars, the Hephthalites adopted Bactrian as their official language, just as the Kushans had done, following their settlement in Bactria/ Tokharistan. Bactrian was an Eastern Iranian language, but was written in the Greek alphabet, a remnant of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the 3rd–2nd century BCE. Bactrian, beyond being an official language, was also the language of the local populations ruled by the Hephthalites.  The triple-crescent crown in this Penjikent mural (top left corner), is considered as a Hephthalite marker. 7th-early 8th century. The drawing referenced by Kageyama is located in According to historian André Wink, "...in the Hephthalite dominion Buddhism was predominant but there was also a religious sediment of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism."Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early medieval India. André Wink, p. 110. E. J. Brill. Balkh had some 100 Buddhist monasteries and 30,000 monks. Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery, later known as Naubahar. There were Christians among the Hephthalites by the mid-6th century, although nothing is known of how they were converted. In 549, they sent a delegation to Aba I, the patriarch of the Church of the East, asking him to consecrate a priest chosen by them as their bishop, which the patriarch did. The new bishop then performed obeisance to both the patriarch and the Sasanian king, Khosrow I. The seat of the bishopric is not known, but it may have been Badghis–Qadištan, the bishop of which, Gabriel, sent a delegate to the synod of Patriarch Ishoyahb I in 585.Erica C. D. Hunter (1996), "The Church of the East in Central Asia", Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 78(3): 129–142, at 133–134. It was probably placed under the metropolitan of Herat. The church's presence among the Hephthalites enabled them to expand their missionary work across the Oxus. In 591, some Hephthalites serving in the army of the rebel Bahram Chobin were captured by Khosrow II and sent to the Roman emperor Maurice as a diplomatic gift. They had Nestorian crosses tattooed on their foreheads. David Wilmshurst, The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East (East and West Publishing, 2011), pp. 77–78.Mehmet Tezcan, "On 'Nestorian' Christianity Among the Hephthalites or the White Huns", in Li Tang and Dietmar W. Winkler (eds.), Artifact, Text, Context: Studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia (Lit Verlag, 2020), pp. 195–212. Local populations under the Hephthalites The Hephthalites governed a confederation of various people, many of whom were probably of Iranian descent, speaking an Iranian language.  Several cities, such as Balkh, Kobadiyan and possibly Samarkand, were allowed to send regional embassies to China while under Hephthalite control. Several portraits of regional ambassadors from the territories occupied by the Hephthalites (Tokharistan, Tarim Basin) are known from Chinese paintings such as the Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, originally painted in 526–539 CE. They were at that time under the overlorship of the Hephthalites, who led the embassies to the Southern Liang court in the early 6th century CE. A century later, under the Tang dynasty, portraits of the local people of Tokharistan were again illustrated in The Gathering of Kings, circa 650 CE. Etienne de la Vaissière has estimated the local population of each major oasis in Tokharistan and Western Turkestan during the period to around several hundreds of thousands each, while the major oasis of the Tarim Basin are more likely to have had populations ranging in the tens of thousands each. In India, these invading people were called Hunas, or "Sveta Huna" (White Huns) in Sanskrit. The Hūṇas are mentioned in several ancient texts such as the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Purāṇas, and Kalidasa's Raghuvaṃśa. The first Hunas, probably Kidarites, were initially defeated by Emperor Skandagupta of the Gupta Empire in the 5th century CE.Ancient India: History and Culture by Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, p.69  In the early 6th century CE, the Alchon Hun Hunas in turn overran the part of the Gupta Empire that was to their southeast and had conquered Central and North India. Gupta Emperor Bhanugupta defeated the Hunas under Toramana in 510, and his son Mihirakula was repulsed by Yashodharman in 528 CE.Ancient Indian History and Civilization by Sailendra Nath Sen, p.220  Encyclopaedia of Indian Events and Dates by S. B. Bhattacherje, p.A15  The Hunas were driven out of India by the kings Yasodharman and Narasimhagupta, during the early 6th century.India: A History by John Keay, p.158  History of India, in Nine Volumes: Vol. II by Vincent A. Smith, p.290  Possible descendants A number of groups may have descended from the Hephthalites. Avars: suggestions have been made that the Pannonian Avars were Hepthalites who went to Europe after their collapse in 557 CE, but this is not adequately supported by archaeological or written sources. Pashtuns: The Hephthalites may have contributed to the ethnogenesis of Pashtuns. Yu. V. Gankovsky, a Soviet historian on Afghanistan, stated: "Pashtun began as a union of largely East Iranian tribes, which became the initial ethnic stratum of the Pashtun ethnogenesis dating from the middle of the first millennium CE, and is connected with the dissolution of the Hephthalite confederacy." Gankovsky, Yu. V., et al. A History of Afghanistan, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982, p. 382 Durrani: The Durrani Pashtuns of Afghanistan were called "Abdali" before 1747. According to linguist Georg Morgenstierne, their tribal name Abdālī may have "something to do with" the Hephthalite. Morgenstierne, Georg. "The Linguistic Stratification of Afghanistan." Afghan Studies 2 (1979): 23–33. This hypothesis was endorsed by historian Aydogdy Kurbanov, who indicated that after the collapse of the Hephthalite confederacy, they likely assimilated into different local populations and that the Abdali may be one of the tribes of Hephthalite origin. upright=1.35|A Khalaj coin of the 8th century CE on the Hephthalite model, imitating Sasanian king Peroz I (438–457), whose crowned bust appears on the obverse. On the reverse: Shiva standing holding trident, with legend to left χαλαγγ or χαλασσ ("Khalaj") in Bactrian. Khalaj: The Khalaj people are first mentioned in the 7th–9th centuries in the area of Ghazni, Qalati Ghilji, and Zabulistan in present-day Afghanistan. They spoke Khalaj Turkic. Al-Khwarizmi mentioned them as a remnant tribe of the Hephthalites. However, according to linguist Sims-Williams, archaeological documents do not support the suggestion that the Khalaj were the Hephthalites' successors, while according to historian V. Minorsky, the Khalaj were "perhaps only politically associated with the Hephthalites." Some of the Khalaj were later Pashtunized, after which they transformed into the Pashtun Ghilji tribe. The Khalaj West of the Oxus, by V. Minorsky: Khyber.ORG. ; excerpts from "The Turkish Dialect of the Khalaj", Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol 10, No 2, pp 417–437 (retrieved 10 January 2007). Kanjina: a Saka tribe linked to the Indo-Iranian KumijisBosworth, C.E. "The Rulers of Chaghāniyān in Early Islamic Times" Iran. Vol. 19 (1981), p. 20 and incorporated into the Hephthalites. Kanjinas were possibly Turkicized later, as al-Khwarizmi called them "Kanjina Turks". However, Bosworth and Clauson contended that al-Khwarizmi was simply using "Turks" "in the vague and inaccurate sense". Karluks: (or Qarlughids) were reported as settled in Ghazni and Zabulistan, present-day Afghanistan, in the thirteenth century. Many Muslim geographers identified "Karluks" Khallukh ~ Kharlukh with "Khalajes" Khalaj from confusion, as the two names were similar and these two groups dwelt near each other.Minorsky, V. "Commentary on Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam's "§ 15. The Khallukh" and "§ 24. Khorasanian Marches" pp. 286, 347–348 Abdal is a name associated with the Hephthalites. It is an alternate name for the Äynu people. According to Orhan Köprülü, Abdal of Turkey might be descended from the Hepthalites. Albert von Le Coq mentions the relation between Abdals of Adana and Äynus of East Turkestan, by them having some common words, and by both referring to themselves as Abdals and speaking an exclusive language among themselves. It also appears as a sub-tribe of the Chowdur Turkmen, Kazakhs and Volga Bulgars.
According to most specialist scholars, the Hephthalites adopted Bactrian as their official language, just as the Kushans had done, following their settlement in Bactria/ Tokharistan. Bactrian was an Eastern Iranian language, but was written in the Greek alphabet, a remnant of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the 3rd–2nd century BCE. Bactrian, beyond being an official language, was also the language of the local populations ruled by the Hephthalites. . The triple-crescent crown in this Penjikent mural (top left corner), is considered as a Hephthalite marker. 7th-early 8th century. According to historian André Wink, "...in the Hephthalite dominion Buddhism was predominant but there was also a religious sediment of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism."Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early medieval India. André Wink, p. 110. E. J. Brill. Balkh had some 100 Buddhist monasteries and 30,000 monks. Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery, later known as Naubahar. There were Christians among the Hephthalites by the mid-6th century, although nothing is known of how they were converted. In 549, they sent a delegation to Aba I, the patriarch of the Church of the East, asking him to consecrate a priest chosen by them as their bishop, which the patriarch did. The new bishop then performed obeisance to both the patriarch and the Sasanian king, Khosrow I. The seat of the bishopric is not known, but it may have been Badghis–Qadištan, the bishop of which, Gabriel, sent a delegate to the synod of Patriarch Ishoyahb I in 585.Erica C. D. Hunter (1996), "The Church of the East in Central Asia", Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 78(3): 129–142, at 133–134. It was probably placed under the metropolitan of Herat. The church's presence among the Hephthalites enabled them to expand their missionary work across the Oxus. In 591, some Hephthalites serving in the army of the rebel Bahram Chobin were captured by Khosrow II and sent to the Roman emperor Maurice as a diplomatic gift. They had Nestorian crosses tattooed on their foreheads. Local populations under the Hephthalites The Hephthalites governed a confederation of various people, many of whom were probably of Iranian descent, speaking an Iranian language. . "Just as later nomadic empires were confederations of many peoples, we may tentatively propose that the ruling groups of these invaders were, or at least included, Turkic-speaking tribesmen from the east and north, although most probably the bulk of the people in the confederation of Chionites and then Hephhtalites spoke an Iranian language. In this case, as normal, the nomads adopted the written language, institutions and culture of the settled folks." Several cities, such as Balkh, Kobadiyan and possibly Samarkand, were allowed to send regional embassies to China while under Hephthalite control. Several portraits of regional ambassadors from the territories occupied by the Hephthalites (Tokharistan, Tarim Basin) are known from Chinese paintings such as the Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, originally painted in 526–539 CE. They were at that time under the overlorship of the Hephthalites, who led the embassies to the Southern Liang court in the early 6th century CE. A century later, under the Tang dynasty, portraits of the local people of Tokharistan were again illustrated in The Gathering of Kings, circa 650 CE. Etienne de la Vaissière has estimated the local population of each major oasis in Tokharistan and Western Turkestan during the period to around several hundreds of thousands each, while the major oasis of the Tarim Basin are more likely to have had populations ranging in the tens of thousands each. In India, these invading people were called Hunas, or "Sveta Huna" (White Huns) in Sanskrit. The Hūṇas are mentioned in several ancient texts such as the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Purāṇas, and Kalidasa's Raghuvaṃśa. The first Hunas, probably Kidarites, were initially defeated by Emperor Skandagupta of the Gupta Empire in the 5th century CE.Ancient India: History and Culture by Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, p.69 . In the early 6th century CE, the Alchon Hun Hunas in turn overran the part of the Gupta Empire that was to their southeast and had conquered Central and North India. Gupta Emperor Bhanugupta defeated the Hunas under Toramana in 510, and his son Mihirakula was repulsed by Yashodharman in 528 CE.Ancient Indian History and Civilization by Sailendra Nath Sen, p.220 . Encyclopaedia of Indian Events and Dates by S. B. Bhattacherje, p.A15 . The Hunas were driven out of India by the kings Yasodharman and Narasimhagupta, during the early 6th century.India: A History by John Keay, p.158 . History of India, in Nine Volumes: Vol. II by Vincent A. Smith, p.290 . Possible descendants A number of groups may have descended from the Hephthalites. Avars: suggestions have been made that the Pannonian Avars were Hepthalites who went to Europe after their collapse in 557 CE, but this is not adequately supported by archaeological or written sources. Pashtuns: The Hephthalites may have contributed to the ethnogenesis of Pashtuns. Yu. V. Gankovsky, a Soviet historian on Afghanistan, stated: "Pashtun began as a union of largely East Iranian tribes, which became the initial ethnic stratum of the Pashtun ethnogenesis dating from the middle of the first millennium CE, and is connected with the dissolution of the Hephthalite confederacy." Durrani: The Durrani Pashtuns of Afghanistan were called "Abdali" before 1747. According to linguist Georg Morgenstierne, their tribal name Abdālī may have "something to do with" the Hephthalite. This hypothesis was endorsed by historian Aydogdy Kurbanov, who indicated that after the collapse of the Hephthalite confederacy, they likely assimilated into different local populations and that the Abdali may be one of the tribes of Hephthalite origin. upright=1.35|A Khalaj coin of the 8th century CE on the Hephthalite model, imitating Sasanian king Peroz I (438–457), whose crowned bust appears on the obverse. On the reverse: Shiva standing holding trident, with legend to left χαλαγγ or χαλασσ ("Khalaj") in Bactrian. Khalaj: The Khalaj people are first mentioned in the 7th–9th centuries in the area of Ghazni, Qalati Ghilji, and Zabulistan in present-day Afghanistan. They spoke Khalaj Turkic. Al-Khwarizmi mentioned them as a remnant tribe of the Hephthalites. However, according to linguist Sims-Williams, archaeological documents do not support the suggestion that the Khalaj were the Hephthalites' successors, while according to historian V. Minorsky, the Khalaj were "perhaps only politically associated with the Hephthalites." Some of the Khalaj were later Pashtunized, after which they transformed into the Pashtun Ghilji tribe. Kanjina: a Saka tribe linked to the Indo-Iranian Kumijis and incorporated into the Hephthalites. Kanjinas were possibly Turkicized later, as al-Khwarizmi called them "Kanjina Turks". However, Bosworth and Clauson contended that al-Khwarizmi was simply using "Turks" "in the vague and inaccurate sense". Karluks: (or Qarlughids) were reported as settled in Ghazni and Zabulistan, present-day Afghanistan, in the thirteenth century. Many Muslim geographers identified "Karluks" Khallukh ~ Kharlukh with "Khalajes" Khalaj from confusion, as the two names were similar and these two groups dwelt near each other.Minorsky, V. "Commentary on Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam's "§ 15. The Khallukh" and "§ 24. Khorasanian Marches" pp. 286, 347–348 Abdal is a name associated with the Hephthalites. It is an alternate name for the Äynu people. According to Orhan Köprülü, Abdal of Turkey might be descended from the Hepthalites. Albert von Le Coq mentions the relation between Abdals of Adana and Äynus of East Turkestan, by them having some common words, and by both referring to themselves as Abdals and speaking an exclusive language among themselves. It also appears as a sub-tribe of the Chowdur Turkmen, Kazakhs and Volga Bulgars.
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.
D
The drawing referenced by Kageyama is located in
D
David Wilmshurst, The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East (East and West Publishing, 2011), pp. 77–78.Mehmet Tezcan, "On 'Nestorian' Christianity Among the Hephthalites or the White Huns", in Li Tang and Dietmar W. Winkler (eds.), Artifact, Text, Context: Studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia (Lit Verlag, 2020), pp. 195–212.
A
. "Just as later nomadic empires were confederations of many peoples, we may tentatively propose that the ruling groups of these invaders were, or at least included, Turkic-speaking tribesmen from the east and north, although most probably the bulk of the people in the confederation of Chionites and then Hephhtalites spoke an Iranian language. In this case, as normal, the nomads adopted the written language, institutions and culture of the settled folks."
A
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A
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A
.
A
.
A
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D
Gankovsky, Yu. V., et al. A History of Afghanistan, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982, p. 382
D
Morgenstierne, Georg. "The Linguistic Stratification of Afghanistan." Afghan Studies 2 (1979): 23–33.
D
The Khalaj West of the Oxus, by V. Minorsky: Khyber.ORG. ; excerpts from "The Turkish Dialect of the Khalaj", Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol 10, No 2, pp 417–437 (retrieved 10 January 2007).
R
KumijisBosworth, C.E. "The Rulers of Chaghāniyān in Early Islamic Times" Iran. Vol. 19 (1981), p. 20
Kumijis