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The Hephthalites, Ephthalites, Ye-tai, White Huns, or in Sanskrit as the Sveta Huna, were a nomadic confederation in Central Asia who expanded their domain westward in the 5th century. At the height of its power in the first half of the 6th century, the Hephthalite Empire controlled territory in present-day Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India and China. ==Earlier history== The stronghold of the Hephthalites was Tokharistan on the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, in what is present-day northeastern Afghanistan. By 479, the Hephthalites had conquered Sogdia and driven the Kidarites westwards, and by 493 they had captured parts of present-day Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin in what is now Northwest China. The Hephthalites invaded India for the first time in the 5th century and were defeated by Emperor Skandagupta of the Gupta Empire.〔''Ancient India: History and Culture'' by Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, p.69〕 By the end of the 5th century, the Hephthalites overran the part of the Gupta Empire that was to their southeast and conquered Central and North India.〔 Emperor Bhanugupta of the Guptas defeated the Huns under Toramana in 510.〔''Ancient Indian History and Civilization'' by Sailendra Nath Sen, p.220〕〔''Encyclopaedia of Indian Events and Dates'' by S. B. Bhattacherje, p.A15〕 Later the Hephthalites were defeated and driven out of India by the Indian kings Yasodharman and Narasimhagupta in 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〕 Christopher I. Beckwith, referring to Étienne de la Vaissière, says the Hephthalites should not be called White Huns. According to de la Vaissiere, the name of the Hephthalites was not mentioned alongside that of the White Huns. In Chinese chronicles, the Hephthalites are called ''Yanda'' or ''Yediyiliduo'' or "Bikova", while older Chinese sources of c. 125 call them ''Hua'' or ''Hudun'' and describe them as a tribe living beyond the Great Wall in Dzungaria.〔''Columbia Encyclopedia''〕 Elsewhere they were called the Xionites or "White Huns", known to the Greeks as ''Ephthalite'', ''Abdel'' or ''Avdel'', to the Indians as ''Sveta Huna'' ("White Huns"), or ''Turushka'',〔(Historical Sketch of Buddhism and Islam in Afghanistan ), Alexander Berzin, Berzin Archives〕 to the Armenians as ''Haital'', and to the Persians and Arabs as ''Haytal'' or ''Hayatila'', while their Bactrian name is ηβοδαλο (''Ebodalo'').〔 According to most specialist scholars, the spoken language of the Hephthalites was an Eastern Iranian language, but different from the Bactrian language written in the Greek alphabet that was used as their "official language" and minted on coins, as was done under the preceding Kushan Empire.〔Enoki, Kazuo: "On the Nationality of the White Huns", ''Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tokyo Bunko'', 1959, No. 18, p. 56. Quote: "Let me recapitulate the foregoing. The grounds upon which the White Huns are assigned an Iranian tribe are: (1) that their original home was on the east frontier of Tokharestan; and (2) that their culture contained some Iranian elements. Naturally, the White Huns were sometimes regarded as another branch of the Kao-ch’e tribe by their contemporaries, and their manners and customs are represented as identical with those of the T’u-chueh, and it is a fact that they had several cultural elements in common with those of the nomadic Turkish tribes. Nevertheless, such similarity of manners and customs is an inevitable phenomenon arising from similarity of their environments. The White Huns could not be assigned as a Turkish tribe on account of this. The White Huns were considered by some scholars as an Aryanized tribe, but I would like to go further and acknowledge them as an Iranian tribe. Though my grounds, as stated above, are rather scarce, it is expected that the historical and linguistic materials concerning the White Huns are to be increased in the future and most of the newly-discovered materials seem to confirm my Iranian-tribe theory." here or ("Hephtalites" ) or ("On the Nationality of the Hephtalites" ).〕〔Xavier Tremblay, ''Pour une histore de la Sérinde. Le manichéisme parmi les peoples et religions d’Asie Centrale d’aprés les sources primaire'', Vienna: 2001, Appendix D «Notes Sur L'Origine Des Hephtalites», pp. 183–88 «Malgré tous les auteurs qui, depuis KLAPROTH jusqu’ ALTHEIM in SuC, p113 sq et HAUSSIG, ''Die Geschichte Zentralasiens und der Seidenstrasse in vorislamischer Zeit'', Darmstadt, 1983 (cf. n.7), ont vu dans les White Huns des Turcs, l’explication de leurs noms par le turc ne s’impose jamais, est parfois impossible et n’est appuyée par aucun fait historique (aucune trace de la religion turque ancienne), celle par l’iranien est toujours possible, parfois évidente, surtout dans les noms longs comme ''Mihirakula'', ''Toramana'' ou ''γοβοζοκο'' qui sont bien plus probants qu’ ''αλ''- en ''Αλχαννο''. Or l’iranien des noms des White Huns n’est pas du bactrien et n’est donc pas imputable à leur installation en Bactriane () Une telle accumulation de probabilités suffit à conclure que, jusqu’à preuve du contraire, les Hepthalites étaient des Iraniens orientaux, mais non des Sogdiens.» Available here or here ()〕〔Denis Sinor, "The establishment and dissolution of the Türk empire" in Denis Sinor, "The Cambridge history of early Inner Asia, Volume 1", Cambridge University Press, 1990. p. 300:"There is no consensus concerning the Hephthalite language, though most scholars seem to think that it was Iranian."〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hephthalite Empire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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