Hephthalite Empire: A Visual History

The Hephthalites, called White Huns by Byzantine writers and Huna in India, were a Central Asian people who from about 440 ruled Bactria, Sogdia and eastern Iran from around Kunduz. They killed the Sasanian shah Peroz in 484 and made Persia pay tribute for decades, and their kings Toramana and Mihirakula overran north-western India, hastening the fall of the Guptas. Around 557-560 the Sasanian Khosrow I and the newly risen Turkic Khaganate destroyed their empire between them; small Hephthalite principalities survived in Afghanistan until the Arab conquest.

When it existed: the era ribbon

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Hephthalite territory

Timeline of the Hephthalite Empire

1. 440
   Hephthalites established in Bactria
2. 469
   Peroz captured and ransomed
3. 484
   Peroz killedPersia pays tribute.
4. 498
   Kavad restored with Hephthalite help
5. 500
   Toramana in India
6. 528
   Mihirakula defeated
7. 557
   Turks and Persians destroy the HephthalitesCompleted by 560.

Origins

The Hephthalites appear in Chinese sources as the Yeda, a people from the Altai region who displaced the Kidarites in Bactria in the 450s-460s. They spoke an Iranian (Bactrian) language at least officially, practised polyandry according to Chinese accounts, and used the Bactrian Greek script. Their origin, Turkic, Iranian or otherwise, is disputed.

Persia humbled

The Sasanian Peroz I fought them three times: captured and ransomed in 469, and in 484 lured into a trench-trap and killed with most of his army. Persia paid tribute for years and the Hephthalites installed Kavad I on the Persian throne in 488 and restored him in 498. Sasanian silver flowed to Central Asia, and Hephthalite power reached the Tarim Basin cities.

India and destruction

Toramana conquered the Punjab, Rajasthan and Malwa around 500; his son Mihirakula, a Shaivite tyrant, was defeated by Yashodharman of Malwa and the Gupta Narasimhagupta around 528 and retreated to Kashmir. In Central Asia, Khosrow I allied with the Turkic khagan Istami; between 557 and 560 they crushed the Hephthalites, dividing their lands at the Oxus. Hephthalite princes lingered at Chaghaniyan and Zabulistan for another century.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Sasanian Empire (224 to 651)
• Gupta Empire (320 to 550)
• Kushan Empire (30 to 375)
• First Turkic Khaganate (552 to 603)
• Rouran Khaganate (330 to 555)
• Western Turkic Khaganate (603 to 742)
• Pushyabhuti dynasty (Harsha's empire) (500 to 647)

8 surprising things about the Hephthalite Empire

1. Peroz's daughter was among the hostages left with the Hephthalites after his first defeat, and his second defeat came from breaking an oath sworn on that occasion.
2. The Hephthalites' name for themselves may survive in 'Abdel' or 'Hebtal', found on their coins.
3. Byzantine writers said the White Huns were the only Huns with fair skin who lived under a king and laws.
4. Chinese sources report Hephthalite brothers sharing one wife, who wore a hat with as many horns as she had husbands.
5. The Hephthalites' defeat of Peroz was won by digging a hidden trench across the battlefield.
6. Their conquests in India ended the Gupta golden age and are remembered in Indian tradition as an age of terror.
7. Hephthalite coins imitate Sasanian designs so closely that they were long misidentified.
8. The Turkic-Sasanian carve-up of the Hephthalite lands led directly to war between those two powers over the silk trade.

Sources

• Hephthalites Wikipedia
• Hephthalite Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Hephthalites World History Encyclopedia
• Etienne de la Vaissiere, 'Is There a Nationality of the Hephthalites?', Bulletin of the Asia Institute 17 (2003) Bulletin of the Asia Institute

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