User:Kansas Bear/Ashina tribe

The Ashina (Middle Chinese: (Guangyun) ), also known as Asen, Asena, or Açina, were the ruling dynasty of the ancient Göktürk Khaganate. It rose to prominence in the mid-6th century when the leader, Bumin Qaghan, revolted against the Rouran Khaganate. The two main branches of the family, one descended from Bumin and the other from his brother Istämi, ruled over the eastern and western parts of the Göktürk confederation, respectively.

History
The name "Ashina" first appeared in the Chinese records of the 6th century. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia infers that between the years 265 and 460 the Ashina had been part of various late Xiongnu confederations. By about 460 they were subjugated by the Rouran, who ousted them from Xinjiang into the Altay Mountains, where in 552 during a political crisis in the Rouran Khaganate, Bumin, head of the Turkic-speaking Ashina tribe, successfully defeated his overlords. The new khaganate was known as the Tǜrk/Gokturk empire, which flourished until a civil war split the khaganate in 581.

Multiple members of the Ashina clan served as generals in the Tang dynasty military. The general Ashina She'er led a campaign against Kucha and against Karasahr in 648. His brother, Ashina Zhong, was also a Tang general. Ashina Mishe and Ashina Buzhen joined Su Dingfang's military expedition against the Western Turkic Khaganate in 657. After the fall of the Eastern and Western Khaganates, the head of the Ashina tribe, Ilterish Qaghan founded the Second Turkic Khaganate in 682. It would last until 745, when the Uyghurs killed Özmiş Khagan.

After the collapse of the Göktürk empire from the Uyghurs, branches of the Ashina clan moved westward to Europe where they became the kaghans of the Khazars, and possibly other nomadic peoples with Turkic roots. The Ashina clan constituted a noble caste throughout the steppes. Similarly, the Bashkir historian and Turkolog Zeki Validi Togan described them as a "desert aristocracy" that provided rulers for a number of Eurasian nomadic empires. Accounts of the Göktürk and Khazar khaganates suggest that the Ashina clan was accorded sacred, perhaps quasi-divine status in the shamanic religion practiced by the steppe nomads in the first century CE.

Legends
According to the New Book of Tang, the Ashina were related to the northern tribes of the Xiongnu, in particular they were of Tiele tribe by ancestral lineage. As early as the 7th century, four theories about their mythical origins were recorded by the Book of Zhou, Book of Sui and Youyang Zazu.

These stories were sometimes pieced together to form a chronologically coherent narrative of early Ashina history. However, as the Book of Zhou, the Book of Sui, and the Youyang Zazu were all written around the same time, during early Tang dynasty, whether they could truly be considered chronological or rather should be considered competing versions of the Ashina's origin is debatable. These stories have parallels in folktales and legends of other Turkic peoples, for instance, the Uyghurs and also Indo-European tribes like the Wusun.

Etymology
Researchers such as H. W. Haussig, S. G. Klyashtorny, A. N. Bernstamm, C. V. Findley, Rona-Tas and R. N. Frye have pointed out that the origin of the Ashina is from the Iranian Saka or possibly Wusun.

Findley assumes that the name "Ashina" comes from one of the Saka languages of central Asia and means "blue" (gök in Turkic). The color is identified with the east, so that Göktürk, another name for the Turkic empire, meant the "Turks of the East". This idea is seconded by the Hungarian researcher András Róna-Tas, who finds it plausible "that we are dealing with a royal family and clan of Saka origin". "The term bori, used to identify the ruler's retinue as 'wolves', probably also derived from one of the Iranian languages", Carter Vaughin Findley has observed.

According to Peter B. Golden, the name "Ashina" appears to derive from an Iranian or Tokharian term. Golden adds that the name is "noted in an inscription written in Sogdian (the principal language of the Silk Roads) dating to 582, the earliest inscription known thus far from the Türk Empire".

H. W. Haussig and S. G. Kljyashtorny suggest an association between the name and the compound "kindred of Ashin" ahşaẽna - Old Persian, which can get quite satisfactory etymological development. This is so even in East Turkestan; then the desired form would be in the Sogdian 'xs' yn' k (-әhšēnē) "blue, dark"; Khotan-Saka (Brahmi) āşşeiņa (-āşşena) "blue", where a long -ā- emerged as development ahş-> āşş-; in Tocharian A āśna- "blue, dark" (from Khotan-Saka and Sogdian). The Saka etymology ashina (<āşşeiņa ~ āşşena) with the value "blue" (the color of the sky) is phonetically and semantically flawless.

The name "Ashina" was recorded in Ancient Arab chronicles in the form, "Shane".

Analysis of written sources and traditions
S.G. Klyashtorny studied the legends of the Ashina clan in comparison with historical evidence. The dynastic chronicle Sui Shu carries information that is realistic at its basis, the historiographical value of which now seems undeniable,
 * "and offered to share the early history of the tribes Tÿrk of two consecutive periods: Gansu-Gaochan when the ancestors of the Turks Ashina formed from Posthun and local Iranian tribes on the territory of Eastern Turkestan (III c. BC – 460 AD), and the Altai, when the established Turkic ethnic group moved into the territory of the Mongolian Altai (AD 460–552)"

Based on the similarities between the ancestor myths of the Wusun's, the Ashina clan's, and later Turkic peoples, Denis Sinor and Sergei G. Klyashtorny suggested that the Wusun and/or Sogdians could represent an Indo-European and Iranian influence on, or even provided the origin of, the royal Ashina Türks.

Orientalists A. N. Bernstamm and D. G. Savinov also suggested the Saka-Wusun origin of the Ashina clan. They point out that according to the Sui Shu, the Ashina ancestors were some "mixed Hu (northwestern barbarian) ethnos". A. N. Bernshtamm in the preface to Collection of information by N. Bichurin 1950 noted that the Chinese term "Hu" (barbarians, i.e. "not Chinese") had been identified with the name of the Turks. However, according to Bernshtamm, in Chinese, especially in areas of East Turkestan and Central Asia, as a rule (with a few exceptions), this term is understood as not just the Turkic tribes but also the settled, mainly Sogdian population.

Sogdians played a huge role in the political, cultural, economic and trade activities of the Turkish Empire. They have, for example, performed important diplomatic missions with rulers, led embassies to the court of Iranian shahs, controlled trade silk. Sogdian preachers engaged in spreading Manichaeism, Christianity (Nestorianism), and Buddhism among the nomads.

These circumstances lead to the conclusion that the tribe Ashina formed in Pingliang as a loose confederation of "mixed Hu". In this area, during the formation of the tribe (III c. BC – 460 AD), the Indo-European populations, Iranians and Tocharian languages, were predominant. Later on, the Ashina fled to Gaochang, where after 460 AD, they fell under the rule of Juan-Juan and were relocated to the southern spurs of the Altai. Ashina were artisans, and they were mainly engaged in metallurgy.

As suggested by D. G. Savinov, in the new places of settlement, including the territory of their newly created possessions, Ashina faced local tribes, the native proto-cultural substrate. Apparently, this time may include the first acculturation processes, initiating the formation of the ancient Turkic historical and cultural complex. Since the beginning of the active military and political activities the Ashina were joined by a variety of Turkic peoples. The name of the new state was Tÿrk (helmet, based on the geographical features of the Altai), and respectively, the population of the state has adopted the name of the Turks. The word became the name of the Ashina ruling dynasty.

A detailed study of the origin of Ashina is conducted by sinologist S. P. Guschin. He notes that from the legend of the origin of Ashina, we know that "Tukyue ancestors come from a reigning house, who lived to the north of the Huns." The title saki tribes in Chinese sounds like - "Shohei" (索诃), which coincides with the characters about the "reigning house with" (索國).

In the Chinese dictionary, the dialectal reading of character "Shohei" is given in the form of "saak" (索). Also in Chinese phonetic bases character 索 = sāk / sâk, is set in its old reading.