Editing Saka (section)

=== Southern migrations ===
[[File:Kalchayan Prince (armour).jpg|thumb|Model of a Saka/[[Kangju]] [[cataphract]] armour with neck-guard, from [[Khalchayan]]. 1st century BC. [[Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan]], nb 40.<ref name="SPL56">{{cite book |last1=Frantz |first1=Grenet |title=Splendeurs des oasis d'Ouzbékistan |date=2022 |publisher=Louvre Editions |location=Paris |isbn=978-8412527858 |page=56}}</ref>]]
The Saka were pushed out of the Ili and Chu River valleys by the [[Yuezhi]].<ref name="B_290">{{harvnb|Baumer|2012|p=290}}</ref><ref name="Benjamin" /><ref name="ChineseHistory" /> An account of the movement of these people is given in [[Sima Qian]]'s ''[[Records of the Grand Historian]]''. The Yuehzhi, who originally lived between Tängri Tagh ([[Tian Shan]]) and [[Dunhuang]] of [[Gansu]], China,<ref>{{cite book |author1=Mallory, J. P. |author2=Mair, Victor H. |name-list-style=amp |page=[https://archive.org/details/tarimmummiesanci00mall/page/58 58] |year=2000 |title=''The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West'' |publisher=Thames & Hudson. London |isbn=0-500-05101-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/tarimmummiesanci00mall/page/58 }}</ref> were assaulted and forced to flee from the [[Hexi Corridor]] of Gansu by the forces of the [[Xiongnu]] ruler [[Modu Chanyu]], who conquered the area in 177–176 BC.<ref>Torday, Laszlo. (1997). ''Mounted Archers: The Beginnings of Central Asian History''. Durham: The Durham Academic Press, pp. 80–81, {{ISBN|978-1-900838-03-0}}.</ref><ref>Yü, Ying-shih. (1986). "Han Foreign Relations," in ''The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 BC – A.D. 220'', 377–462. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 377–388, 391, {{ISBN|978-0-521-24327-8}}.</ref><ref>Chang, Chun-shu. (2007). The Rise of the Chinese Empire: Volume II; Frontier, Immigration, & Empire in Han China, 130 BC – AD 157. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 5–8 {{ISBN|978-0-472-11534-1}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Di Cosmo|2002|pp=174–189}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Di Cosmo|2004|pp=196–198}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Di Cosmo|2002|pp=241–242}}</ref> In turn the Yuehzhi were responsible for attacking and pushing the Sai (''i.e.'' Saka) west into Sogdiana, where, between 140 and 130 BC, the latter crossed the [[Syr Darya]] into Bactria. The Saka also moved southwards toward the Pamirs and northern India, where they settled in Kashmir, and eastward, to settle in some of the oasis-states of Tarim Basin sites, like Yanqi (焉耆, [[Karasahr]]) and Qiuci (龜茲, [[Kucha]]).<ref>Yu Taishan (June 2010), "The Earliest Tocharians in China" in Victor H. Mair (ed), ''Sino-Platonic Papers'', Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, pp. 13–14, 21–22.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/benjamin.html |title= The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia |first=Craig |last=Benjamin }}</ref> The Yuehzhi, themselves under attacks from another nomadic tribe, the [[Wusun]], in 133–132 BC, moved, again, from the Ili and Chu valleys, and occupied the country of [[Daxia]], (大夏, "Bactria").<ref name="yu 2010 p13">{{harvnb|Yu|2010}}: "The Daxia 大夏 people in the valley of the Amu Darya came from the valleys of the rivers Ili and Chu. From the {{transliteration|en|Geography}} of Strabo one can infer that the four tribes of the Asii and others came from these valleys (the so-called "land of the Sai 塞" in the {{transliteration|zh|Hanshu}} 漢書, ch. 96A). "</ref><ref>Bernard, P. (1994). "The Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia". In Harmatta, János. ''History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250''. Paris: UNESCO. pp. 96–126. {{ISBN|92-3-102846-4}}.</ref>
[[File:Cult of Heavenly horse bronze horse ancient finial Bucephalus Ancient Akhal Teke.jpg|thumb|The Heavenly Horse, commonly known as the Ferghana Horse, is an ancient ceremonial bronze finial. It originates from Bactria, dating back to the 4th-1st century BC, and was skillfully crafted by Saka tribes.]]
The ancient Greco-Roman geographer [[Strabo]] noted that the four tribes that took down the Bactrians in the Greek and Roman account – the ''[[Asioi]]'', ''Pasianoi'', ''Tokharoi'' and ''Sakaraulai'' – came from land north of the Syr Darya where the Ili and Chu valleys are located.<ref name=Rene>{{Cite book |last=Grousset |first=Rene |title=The Empire of the Steppes |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=1970 |isbn=0-8135-1304-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/empireofsteppesh00prof/page/29 29–31] |url=https://archive.org/details/empireofsteppesh00prof/page/29 }}</ref><ref name="yu 2010 p13" /> Identification of these four tribes varies, but ''Sakaraulai'' may indicate an ancient Saka tribe, the ''Tokharoi'' is possibly the Yuezhi, and while the Asioi had been proposed to be groups such as the Wusun or [[Alans]].<ref name=Rene /><ref>{{harvnb|Baumer|2012|p=296}}</ref>

[[File:SakastanMap.jpg|thumb|Map of [[Sakastan]] ("Land of the Sakas"), where the Sakas resettled c. 100 BC]]
[[René Grousset]] wrote of the migration of the Saka: "the Saka, under pressure from the Yueh-chih [Yuezhi], overran Sogdiana and then Bactria, there taking the place of the Greeks." Then, "Thrust back in the south by the Yueh-chih," the Saka occupied "the Saka country, Sakastana, whence the modern Persian Seistan."<ref name=Rene /> Some of the Saka fleeing the Yuezhi attacked the [[Parthian Empire]], where they defeated and killed the kings [[Phraates II]] and [[Artabanus I of Parthia|Artabanus]].<ref name="B_290" /> These Sakas were eventually settled by [[Mithridates II of Parthia|Mithridates II]] in what become known as [[Sakastan]].<ref name="B_290" /> According to [[Harold Walter Bailey]], the territory of [[Drangiana]] (now in Afghanistan and Pakistan) became known as "Land of the Sakas", and was called Sakastāna in the Persian language of contemporary Iran, in Armenian as Sakastan, with similar equivalents in Pahlavi, Greek, Sogdian, Syriac, Arabic, and the [[Middle Persian]] tongue used in [[Turfan]], Xinjiang, China.{{sfn|Bailey|1983}} This is attested in a contemporary [[Kharosthi]] inscription found on the [[Mathura lion capital]] belonging to the Saka kingdom of the [[Indo-Scythians]] (200 BC – 400 AD) in [[North India]],{{sfn|Bailey|1983}} roughly the same time the Chinese record that the Saka had invaded and settled the country of ''Jibin'' 罽賓 (i.e. [[Kashmir]], of modern-day India and Pakistan).<ref name="theobald 2011 saka">Ulrich Theobald. (26 November 2011). "[http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Altera/sakas.html Chinese History – Sai 塞 The Saka People or Soghdians]." ''ChinaKnowledge.de''. Accessed 2 September 2016.</ref>

[[Iaroslav Lebedynsky]] and [[Victor H. Mair]] speculate that some Sakas may also have migrated to the area of [[Yunnan]] in southern China following their expulsion by the Yuezhi. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the [[Dian Kingdom]] of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing.{{sfn|Lebedynsky|2006|p=73}} The scenes depicted on these drums sometimes represent these horsemen practising hunting. Animal scenes of felines attacking oxen are also at times reminiscent of [[Scythian art]] both in theme and in composition.{{sfn|Mallory|Mair|2008|pp=329–330}}
[[Pre-modern human migration|Migrations]] of the 2nd and 1st century BC have left traces in Sogdia and Bactria, but they cannot firmly be attributed to the Saka, similarly with the sites of [[Sirkap]] and [[Taxila]] in [[outline of ancient India|ancient India]]. The rich graves at [[Tillya Tepe]] in [[Afghanistan]] are seen as part of a population affected by the Saka.{{sfn|Lebedynsky|2006|p=84}}

The [[Shakya]] clan of India, to which [[Gautama Buddha]], called ''Śākyamuni'' "Sage of the Shakyas", belonged, were also likely Sakas, as [[Michael Witzel]]<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Attwood|first1=Jayarava|title=Possible Iranian Origins for the Śākyas and Aspects of Buddhism|journal=Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies|date=2012|volume=3}}</ref> and [[Christopher I. Beckwith]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Beckwith|first=Christopher I.|author-link=Christopher I. Beckwith|title=Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RlCUBgAAQBAJ|year=2015|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-6632-8|pages=1–21}}</ref> have alleged. The scholar Bryan Levman however criticised this hypothesis for resting on slim to no evidence, and maintains that the Shakyas were a population native to the north-east Gangetic plain who were unrelated to Iranic Sakas.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levman |first1=Bryan Geoffrey |title=Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures |journal=Buddhist Studies Review |date=2014 |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=145–180 |doi=10.1558/bsrv.v30i2.145 |url=https://www.academia.edu/27981814 |issn=1747-9681|doi-access=free }} "The evidence for this final wave is however, very slim and there is no evidence for it in the Vedic texts; for their western origin, Witzel relies on a reference in Pāṇini (4.2.131, madravṛjyoḥ) to the Vṛjjis in dual relation with the Madras who are from the northwest, and to the Mallas in the Jaiminīya Brāhamaṇa (§198) as arising from the dust of Rajasthan. Neither the Sakyas nor any of the other eastern tribes are mentioned, and of course there is no proof that any of these are Indo-Aryan groups. I view the Sakyas and the later Śakas as two separate groups, the former being aboriginal."</ref>