Then followed the overthrow of the Yué-chi themselves by the Yé-tha (Ye-tha-i-li-to) of the Chinese records, that is, the Ephthalites, or so-called "White Huns," of the Greek and Arab writers, who about 425 A.D. overran Transoxiana, and soon afterwards penetrated through the mountain passes into the Kabul and Indus valleys. Although confused by some contemporary writers (Zosimus, Am. Marcellinus) with Attila's Huns, M. Drouin has made it clear that the Yé-tha were not Huns (Mongols) at all, but, like the Yué-chi, a Turki people, who were driven westwards about the same time as the Hiung-nu by the Yuan-yuans (see above). Of Hun they had little but the name, and the more accurate Procopius was aware that they differed entirely from "the Huns known to us, not being nomads, but settled for a long time in a fertile region." He speaks also of their white colour and regular features, and their sedentary life[689] as in the Chinese accounts, where they are described as warlike conquerors of twenty kingdoms, as far as that of the A-si (Arsacides, Parthians), and in their customs resembling the Tu-Kiu (Turks), being in fact "of the same race." On the ruins of the Indo-Scythian (Yué-chi) empire, the White Huns ruled in India and the surrounding lands from 425 to the middle of the sixth century. A little later came the Arabs, who in 706 captured Samarkand, and under the Abassides were supreme in Central Asia till scattered to the winds by the Oghuz Turki hordes.
From all this it has been suggested that—while the Baktrian peasants entered India as settlers, and are now represented by the agricultural Játs—the Yué-chi and Yé-tha, both of fair Turki stock, came as conquerors, and are now represented by the Rájputs, "Sons of Kings," the warrior and land-owning race of northern India. It is significant that these Thákur, "feudal lords," mostly trace their genealogies from about the beginning of the seventh century, as if they had become Hinduized soon after the fall of the foreign Yé-tha dynasty, while on the other hand "the country legends abound with instances of the conflict between the Rájput and the Bráhman in prehistoric times[690]." This supports the conjecture that the Rájputs entered India, not as "Aryans" of the Kshatriya or military caste, as is commonly assumed, but as aliens (Turki), the avowed foes of the true Aryans, that is, the Bráhman or theocratic (priestly) caste. Thus also is explained the intimate association of the Rájputs and the Játs from the first—the Rájputs being the Turki leaders of the invasions; and the Játs their peaceful Baktrian subjects following in their wake.
The theory that the haughty Rájputs are of unsullied "Aryan blood" is scarcely any longer held even by the Rájputs themselves; they are undoubtedly of mixed origin. But the definite physical type which H. H. Risley[691] describes as characteristic of Rájputs and Játs in the Kashmir Valley, Punjab and Rajputana, shows them to be wavy-haired dark-skinned dolichocephals, linked rather with the "Caucasic" than the "Mongolian" division.
The Uigurs.
Nearly related to the White Huns were the Uigurs, the Kao-che of the Chinese annals, who may claim to be the first Turki nation that founded a relatively civilised State in Central Asia. Before the general commotion caused by the westward pressure of the Hiung-nu, they appear to have dwelt in eastern Turkestan (Kashgaria) between the Usuns and the Sacae, and here they had already made considerable progress under Buddhist influences about the fourth or fifth century of the new era. Later, the Buddhist missionaries from Tibet were replaced by Christian (Nestorian) evangelists from western Asia, who in the seventh century reduced the Uigur language to written form, adapting for the purpose the Syriac alphabet, which was afterwards borrowed by the Mongols and the Manchus.
The Orkhon Inscriptions.
This Syriac script—which, as shown by the authentic inscription of Si-ngan-fu, was introduced into China in 635 A.D.—is not to be confused with that of the Orkhon inscriptions[692] dating from 732 A.D., and bearing a certain resemblance to some of the Runic characters, as also to the Korean, at least in form, but never in sound. Yet although differing from the Uiguric, Prof. Thomsen, who has successfully deciphered the Orkhon text, thinks that this script may also be derived, at least indirectly through some of the Iranian varieties, from the same Aramean (Syriac) form of the Semitic alphabet that gave birth to the Uiguric[693].
It is more important to note that all the non-Chinese inscriptions are in the Turki language, while the Chinese text refers by name to the father, the grandfather, and the great-grandfather of the reigning Khan Bilga, which takes us back nearly to the time when Sinjibu (Dizabul), Great Khan of the Altai Turks, was visited by the Byzantine envoy, Zimarchus, in 569 A.D. In the still extant report of this embassy[694] the Turks (Τοῦρκοι) are mentioned by name, and are described as nomads who dwelt in tents mounted on wagons, burnt the dead, and raised to their memory monuments, statues, and cairns with as many stones as the foes slain by the deceased in battle. It is also stated that they had a peculiar writing system, which must have been that of these Orkhon inscriptions, the Uiguric having apparently been introduced somewhat later.
Originally the Uigurs comprised nineteen clans, which at a remote period already formed two great sections:—the On-Uigur ("Ten Uigurs") in the south, and the Toghuz-Uigur ("Nine Uigurs") in the north. The former had penetrated westwards to the Aral Sea[695] as early as the second century A.D., and many of them undoubtedly took part in Attila's invasion of Europe.
The Assena Turki Dynasty.