Kucha
State | Defunct
1 CE to 840 CE
Kucha or Kuche is an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that runs along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin and south of the Muzat River.
(The area lies in present day Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, China; Kuqa City itself is the county seat of that prefecture's Kuqa County).
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The term Tocharian or Tokharian is based on the ethnonym Tokharoi used by Greek historians (e.g.
Ptolemy VI, 11, 6).
The first Greek mention of the Tocharians appeared in the first century BCE, when Strabo presented them as a Scythian tribe, and explained that the Tocharian—together with the Assianis, Passianis and Sakaraulis—had taken part in the destruction of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (present day Afghanistan-Pakistan) in the second half of the second century BCE.
These Tocharians have frequently been identified with the Yuezhi and the later (and probably related) Kushan peoples.
Many scholars believe the Yuezhi originally spoke a Tocharian language.
However, the debate about the origins and original language(s) of the Yuezhi and the Kushan continues, and there is no general consensus.
The geographical term Tokharistan usually refers to first millennium Bactria.
Today, the term is associated with those Indo-European languages known as "Tocharian".
Tocharian A is also known as East Tocharian, or Turfanian (of the city of Turpan), and Tocharian B is also known as West Tocharian, or Kuchean.
Based on a Turkic reference to Tocharian A as twqry, these languages were associated with the Kushan ruling class, but the exact relation of the speakers of these languages and the Kushan Tokharoi is uncertain, and some consider "Tocharian languages" a misnomer.
The term is so widely used, however, that this question is somewhat academic.
Tocharians in the modern sense are, then, defined as the speakers of the Tocharian languages.
The last Greco-Bactrian king, Heliocles I, retreats and moves his capital to the Kabul Valley.
The eastern part of Bactria is eventually occupied by Pashtun people.
The garrison at Hami is withdrawn in 75 after allies of the Xiongnu in Karasahr and Kucha kill the new Protector General of the Western Regions Chen Mu.
Ban Yong, with Zhang Lang, the Governor of Dunhuang, , in 127 attacks seventeen kingdoms, including Karashahr, Kucha, Kashgar, Khotan, and Yarkand.
The Han forces first subdue Karashahr; then …
…Kucha also capitulates, thus opening the route all the way to …
…Kashgar, which, in turn, opens communications once again to the countries further west, such as Ferghana, Kangju (Sogdiana) and the Yuezhi (the Kushan Empire); …
…only Yuanmeng, Weili (Korla) and …
…Weixu (Hoxud) refuse to submit.
The king of Yuanmeng now sends his son to the palace with offerings.
Following this, the Wusun and the countries in the Pamir Mountains stop disrupting communications to the west.
Kumarajiva, a Kuchean Buddhist monk, scholar and translator whose father was from an Indian noble family, and whose mother was a Kuchean princess who significantly influenced his early studies, had first studied teachings of the Sarvastivada schools, later studied under Buddhasvamin, and finally became a Mahayana adherent, studying the Madhyamika doctrine of Nagarjuna.
He is mostly remembered for the prolific translation of Buddhist texts written in Sanskrit to Chinese he carried out during his later life.
His translation of Mahayana Buddhist texts from Indian into Chinese greatly facilitates the spread of Buddhism in China, but political fragmentation retards cultural development.
Emperor Taizong of Tang, after subjugating the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, begins to exert his military power toward the Western Regions, at this time dominated by the Western Turkic Khaganate as well as a number of city-states loosely allied with the Western Turks.
Sogdians and Chinese engage in extensive commercial activities with each other under Tang rule.
The Sogdians are mostly Mazdaist at this time.
Turpan, renamed Xizhou by the Tang after their armies conquer it in 640, has a history of commerce and trade along the Silk Road already centuries old; it has many inns catering to merchants and other travelers, while brothels are recorded as having been numerously available in Kucha and Khotan.
As a result of the Tang conquest, policies forcing minority group relocation and encouraging Han settlement lead to Turpan's name in Sogdian language becoming known as “Chinatown” or "Town of the Chinese".