Dayuan

The Dayuan (Chinese大宛, Pinyin Dayuan, literally: Great yuan, Wade- Giles: Ta - Yuan ) were an ancient people in the Ferghana Valley in Central Asia. They are described in the Shiji of the Chinese historian Sima Qian in the early Han Dynasty and the Han Shu, in connection with the travels of Zhang Qian about 130 BC and its encounters with this people.

These chronicles of the Empire of China describe the Dayuan as a settled people with a Indo-European culture. Their way of life was very similar to that of the Bactrians in the Greco- Bactrian Kingdom. The Dayuan be described as skilled craftsmen and wine lovers.

It is hypothesized that it was at the Dayuan to descendants of the Greeks who were settled by Alexander the Great around 329 BC in the Ferghana Valley. These Greek colonies flourished under the influence of the Hellenistic Seleucid and Graeco- Bactrians, until they were isolated by 160 BC by an invasion of the Yuezhi. It is also speculated that the name component Yuan is a transliteration of the words Yona or Yavana that describe the word Ionians in Pali. Then Dayuan would (literally: Great Yuan) actually mean Great Ionians. It is not yet clear whether Dayuan possibly finds Tajik in today's word.

The contact between Dayuan and Chinese is considered a historical key event because it contributed to an early cultural exchanges between the ancient European ( Greek here) and the Chinese culture. This meeting solidified the importance of the Silk Road that had stock, the central connection between East and West, both for the exchange of goods as also formed of cultural identity and from the 1st century BC to the 15th century.

• 2.1 Sedentary city dwellers
• 2.2 Indo-European trains
• 2.3 Interactions with the Empire of China
• 2.4 An era of East- West trade and cultural exchange

The history of Dayuan

The Hellenistic heritage

The region of Ferghana was around 329 BC, conquered by Alexander the Great and expanded to its most advanced base in Central Asia. He founded the fortified city of Alexandria Eschate (Greek Αλεξανδρία Έσχατη, " Alexandria the Farthest " ) in the southwest of the Ferghana valley, on the south bank of the river Syr Darya ( in antiquity: Jaxartes ), at the site of the present city of Khujand in Tajikistan. Alexander left the city surrounded by a six-kilometer long brick wall and left a garrison of veterans and wounded. There is the hypothesis that they are descendants of Greeks from Alexandria Eschate at the Dayuan.

The total area of Bactria, Transoxiana and Fergana remained under the control of the Seleucids to v. 250 AD The region then explained under their governor Diodotus I. independence and formed henceforth the Graeco - Bactrian kingdom, the Dayuan formed the northern part this kingdom in Ferghana.

The Greco- Bactrian Kingdom

The Graeco - Bactrians held their territory and could even expand it. According to the Greek historian Strabo, they were able to expand their empire and the Phryni to the Seres (China). There are even indications that they extended their expeditions as far as Kashgar in Xinjiang, which led to the first contact of Chinese and Western culture around 200 BC. Several archaeological finds of statuettes and other representations of Greek soldiers speak north of the Tian Shan For this thesis, these discoveries are exhibited in the museum of Urumqi.

Rule of Saken

To 160 BC were the tribes of the Sakas, in the east remaining Scythians, called by the Chinese the Sai - Wang, in the Ferghana Valley. Originally, the Sakas settled in the Ili valley near the Issyk- Kul Lake. After the Yuezhi, an Indo-European nomadic people who were called by the Greeks Tocharians, had been expelled from the Xiongnu from their angestammtem area, this fell within the field to a Ili and drove the Sakas, who invaded again in the territory of Dayuan. In the Han Shu is found to the following passage:

When Zhang Qian the Dayuan 128 describes BC, he mentions not only the urban population Warriors " use up arrows from horseback ," possibly a description of the Sakas. In this case, the sedentary Dayuan continued to live under the rule of the nomadic Sakas.

For this theory also argues that, in a report on the war against China from 106-101 BC, in which the Dayuan had allied themselves with the Sogdern ( Sogdiana ), the sakische name Mu - Kua for the king of Dayuan found in the chronicles. The name could be found on Maues, an Indo- Scythian king, go back.

The invasion of the Yuezhi

The Han Shu describes that the Yuezhi were defeated by the Wu -sun in the year 155 BC, again devastating, and then Ili left. They fell into the territory of Dayuan one, crossed it, and eventually settled north of the Amu Darya ( in antiquity: Oxus ) in present-day Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan down. They cut the Dayuan definitely on the Graeco- Bactrians.

The Dayuan initially remained a strong nation, from 130 BC, by the influence of the Yuezhi more leaning on the Empire of China and maintained a large number of contacts and trade relations to there. The Yuezhi, however, adapted parts of the Hellenistic way of life and especially the Greek writing of the Dayuan, until the kingdom of the Yuezhi finally by 125 BC continued to expand to the south and later founded in India from the 1st century Kushan.

The Dayuan in Chinese chronicles

About 130 BC, at the time of travel of Zhang Qian, the Dayuan be described as inhabitants of a region west of the Empire of China, in the Ferghana valley. In the Han Shu states:

The Shiji is the following passage, which describes the position of the Yuezhi beyond the Oxus:

The Shiji describes further then that the Yuezhi, first east of the Dayuan, the Tarim Basin, and then settled by the Xiongnu under their military leader Mao Tun Khan in the year 176 BC, were defeated and fled through the territory of Dayuan west.

Sedentary city dwellers

The lifestyle of the Dayuan was the further south living Bactrians very similar, writes Zhang Qian. In Shiji there is the following passage:

In the Han Shu is found to continue:

The Dayuan were so unlike the Yuezhi, the Wu -sun or the Xiongnu city dwellers.

Indo-European trains

Next to her craftsmanship and her love is described for wine:

Supposedly, the wine was even introduced by the travels of Zhang Qian of the Dayuan in the Chinese Empire. So it says in the Shiji:

Interactions with the Chinese Empire

The reports of Zhang Qian, who was actually sent in vain to close an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu, Emperor Han Wudi excited when Chinese interest in building the commercial contacts with the inhabitants of Bactria, Parthia and the Ferghana Valley. So reported Sima Qian:

The Chinese began then, a large number of ambassadors, around ten per year to send to these countries. They even reached the Seleucid Syria.

The Chinese were very interested in the strong and tall horses of the Dayuan, which they called " sky horse " called. These animals were of great importance in the fight against the Xiongnu. After the Dayuan refused to provide these horses in large numbers to China, the Chinese sent in the year 104 BC, an army under General Li Guangli after Ferghana. This army was defeated because it was ill-prepared and their opponents underestimated. Thus, the Shiji describes the plan:

After this defeat, China sent a 100,000 strong army, which was awarded after negotiation 3,000 horses. In the confrontation, it did not succeed the Chinese to take the capital of the Dayuan.

As a result of this defeat, the Dayuan were tributary to China and first in the short term under the suzerainty of the Suoche (Chinese:莎车) made ​​from Yarkant. There is evidence that the Kingdom of Dayuan still existed in the time of the three kingdoms period and during the Jin Dynasty, at that time but there was no diplomatic contact with the Chinese Empire more.

After this raid the Chinese Empire was concerned the relationship with the West to return to normal. A peace treaty between China and the Dayuan was closed and set up the message again. Even now frequented regularly caravans between China and Bactria.

An era of East- West trade and cultural exchange

Finally, the Silk Road was established in the 1st century AD, it served not only as a gateway of China to the west, but also strengthened the contact with the peoples of the Tarim Basin, as well as the Dayuan, Parthians and Bactrians.

The trade expanded soon and was mainly due to the hunger of Rome by silk, very strong. The state pointed to so that the Roman Senate in the 1st century also adopted a number of edicts that banned the wearing of silk, which independently by at least three contemporary Roman authors ( Strabo, Seneca, and Pliny the Elder ) has been reported.

This was also the time when Buddhism and Graeco- Buddhism spread along the Silk Road and reached towards the end of the 1st century China.