The Getes by Sundeep S. Jhutti
Number 127 — October, 2003.
The Getes
Author : Sundeep S. Jhutti
Text Wikified By : Ch. Reyansh Singh
"The Getes — Issue 127 of Sino-Platonic papers" is a research paper that establishes the fact that the Goths, Getae, Yuezhi/Yuechi/Yuti, Massagetae/Thyssagetae, Alans and Huns etc are Jats. It is authored by Sundeep S. Jhutti and edited by Victor H. Mair while the associate editors are Paul Robbert & Mark Swofford and it is published by 'Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania' in October, 2003. It's ISSN is 2157-9679 (print) & 2157-9687 (online) and it contains a total of 125 pages in all.
A Jat Portfolio
Sundeep S. Jhutti
Introduction
Iranian-speaking nomads have caught the attention of many societies, from early Greco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese writers to modem scholars intrigued by their unique, somewhat romantic lifestyle as horse-mounted warriors constantly searching for greener pastures, military challenges, and riches. Spread throughout the vast Central Asian steppes, they were known to the Greeks, the Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese. In most early writings, be they Chinese, Persian, etc., these nomads were generally shown in a negative light-partly due to their uncouth ways, partly to their robbing and looting, but mostly due to fear and misunderstanding. As the nomads were typically the enemies of these settled societies, the negative view of them was augmented. It is, therefore, not rare to read in Indian scriptures about the Sakas, Kushans (Da Yuezhi), and even the Hunas (White Huns or Ephthalites) being
considered as Mlecchas (foreigners, outcastes), Asuras (demons), etc. (Dhillon 1994, 15). Similar perspectives are alluded to in Persian or Chinese texts. Such is the fate of all unlettered societies whose history is told by outsiders. As such, they are frequently victims of bias.
Of these Iranian-speaking nomads, the best known were the Scythians, due to their
contact with the West, particularly Greece. According to Webster's Encyclopedia Dictionary, the Scythians were "a nomadic Indo-European people who settled in Scythia before the seventh century B.C. and were displaced by the Sarmatians. They were specially noted in warfare for their mounted archers and in art for their rich gold ornaments. They spoke an Iranian language" (W.E.D. 1988, 900). Since these nomads had no written language their history has been gathered by settled societies, who as aforementioned often were enemies. Therefore, the accounts we have of them not only were scanty, but also tended to be very negative, as settled societies viewed their own civilizations as superior.
Fortunately for our understanding of these Iranian nomads, Herodotus, the father of
history, was intrigued, even compelled, by the ways of the "barbarians," so that he dedicated a
great portion of his Histories solely to the Scythians during the days when the Persian and Egyptian empires were thriving.
Beyond his mythical suggestions of the origin of the Scyths and similar nomads, he was keen in noting another important and more eastern Iranian tribe called the Massagetae, whom he considered to be like the Scythians (Rawlinson 1928, 79). Herodotus writes about the Massagetae:
- Now the Massagetae are said to be a great and warlike nation .... By many they are regarded as a Scythian race .... In their dress and mode of living the Massagetae resemble the Scythians. (Rawlinson 1928, 75, 79)
Although they had very similar customs and shared a common language, this does not necessarily advocate that they were one entity.
The Massagetae of Herodotus were designated by the comprehensive name "Sakas" by the Persians, and it is believed by some scholars that the Saka Tigrakhauda or Peaked-capped Sakas were the Massagetae of Herodotus. In an article in Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age, Leonid T. Yablonsky writes: "Some scholars are inclined to identify the Saka-Tigrakhauda of the ancient Persian inscriptions with the Massagetae of Herodotus and to place them east of the Caspian Sea" (Yablonsky 1995, 250).
In addition, the geographer Strabo applies the comprehensive name Scythian to the Sakas, Dahae, and Massagetae. He states:
- Now the greater part of the Scythians, beginning at the Caspian Sea, are called Daae, but those who are situated more to the east are called Massagetae and Sacae, whereas all the rest are given the general name of Scythians, though each people is given a separate name. They are all for the most part nomads. (Jones 1928, 5: 261)
Thus, the term: "Scythian" was used by later writers sometimes to specify the Scythians proper, but also comprehensively, to address the Sakas, Massagetae, Dahae, and so on. This is especially evident in the works of the Alexandrian age writers who repeatedly called these nomads at "various times, 'Scythian,' 'Massagetae,' or 'Dakhs'" (Yablonsky 1995, 251).
Interestingly, Alexander Cunningham, the former Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India, believed that the Dahae of the Greeks and the Dahyu of the Persians were the same word as the colloquial term daku used in India (Indo-English "dacoit"), which literally means "a robber or enemy." (Cunningham 1888, 32). The Scythians could have been perceived as dacoits by these sedentary societies, and these terms could have been those of reproach (Cunningham 1888, 32).
The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica also holds this view:
- The predatory tribes of Turan [Turkistan] (e.g., Massagetae) seem to have belonged to the same stock [Iranian]. These tribes are distinguished by the Iranian peasants as Daha (Gr. Daai), "enemies," "robbers"; by the Persians as Sacae; and by the Greeks generally as Scythians. (E.B. 1911, 21: 202)
As mentioned previously, the Massagetae were likely a sub-tribe of the Sakas, or more specifically the Saka-Tigrakhauda. The Sakas, in particular, made their way to the Indian subcontinent. In his Guide to Taxila, Marshall, the former Director-General of Archaeology of India, says the following about the Sakian invaders of India:
- Known to the western world under the comprehensive name of Scythians, to the Indians as Sakas, and to the Chinese as Sai or Sai-wang, these invaders came principally from the three great tribes of Massagetae, Sacaraucae, and Dahae, whose home at the beginning of the second century B.C. was in the country between the Caspian Sea and Jaxartes river. (Marshall 1960, 24)
In addition to the tribes mentioned by Marshall, there were many other lesser-known nomadic tribes not mentioned, for example, the Thyssagetae, Tyrigetae, etc., who probably were like the Sakas. Marshall, therefore, believes that the Scythian term was an all-inclusive name applied to all Iranian-speaking Central Asian nomads. Cunningham, on the other hand, referring to the Scythian invaders of India, included the non-Iranian-speaking-Ephthalites or White Huns. He states:
- The different races of Scythians, which have successively appeared on the border provinces of Persia and India, are the following ... Sakas or Sacae, the Su or Sai of the Chinese ... Kushans, or Tochari, the Great Yue-chi of the Chinese ... Kidaritae, or Later Kushans, the Little Yue-chi of the Chinese ... Ephthalites, or White Huns, the Ye-tha-i-lito of the Chinese. (Cunningham 1888, 27)
Tod also classifies the White Huns as a "Scythian" people (Tod 1829, 131). Consequently, the comprehensiveness of the term "Scythian" was caused no doubt by the lack of consistency in the use of the term by the classical writers. Some have argued that the term was used almost exclusively from a geographical perspective by the classical writers to denote invaders from Central Asia (Kephart 1960, 531). Yet another view is that the classical writers
were not effectively able to tell the particular tribes apart, as aforementioned, given that the Alexandrian writers used different terminology for the same people (Yablonsky 1995, 251).
Now it is difficult to believe the Scythians were ever really one ethnic entity, since they were so greatly separated along the vast Central Asian steppes. This is further attested by the non-homogeneous ethnicity even amongst particular tribes themselves (Yablonsky 1995, 241-52). What seems more reasonable is that they were groups of many independent nations with a similar language and culture. Therefore, the comprehensive name "Scythian" probably signifies a
people who shared a common culture, language, and extended geographical area. Names of tribes such as Massagetae, on the other hand, were more geographically specific, referring to, in this case, a tribe east of the Caspian Sea with almost unique, customs.
Leaving tribal origins aside, the history of these Scythian tribes is impressive. They were known by the Greco-Romans to the west, by the Chinese to the east, and by the Indians and Persians to the south. One of the most interesting aspects of these tribes was their mobility as mounted nomads who left little of Eurasia unexplored. In his In Search of the Indo-Europeans, referring to a map of Eurasia, Mallory says:
- Reading from west to east we can include as Iranian speakers the major Iron Age nomads of the Pontic-Caspian steppe such as the Kimmerians (?), Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans. The incredible mobility of these horse-mounted nomads becomes all the more impressive when we recall their westward expansions
- through Europe. Sarmatian tribes not only settled in the Danube region, but during the second century AD, were conscripted to defend the borders of Roman Britain. The Alans traveled as far as France and forced their way south through Spain, ultimately to establish a state in North Africa. (Mallory 1989, 48-49)
This was the case with the Hsuing-Nu (Huns), a nomadic Mongol people, who uprooted the nomadic Yuezhi near the Great Wall of China before the Christian era. The Chinese Emperor Zheng (Shi Huangdi, 246-210 B.C.) linked together the existing frontier walls into a continuous defense system, thereby creating the Great Wall of China (Haywood 2000, 26). As a result the restless Hsuing Nu tribe attacked their neighbors "the Caucasian Wusun and Yuezhi, which led to a wholesale movement of these nomads (Dhillon 1994, 41). Not only were the fleeing Yuezhi uprooted, but so also were a perhaps kindred people, the Sakas, near the Aral Sea (Dhillon 1994, 41). Eventually this chain of events led to these nations appearing on the Indo-Iranian borderlands and settling in these regions (Dhillon 1994, 41). This same movement of tribes was the driving force that finally led the Alans to enter Roman territory (Dhillon 1994, Preface). Haywood provides a good summary of this large-scale movement:
- The rise of the Xiongnu [Huns] had a destabilizing effect on the Iranian nomads to the west. In 170 the Xiongnu inflicted a crushing defeat on the Yue Qi [Yuezhi], who fled westward, unsettling the Sakas, before overrunning the Bactrian kingdom around 135. The Sakas headed south, first to invade the Parthian empire and, around 141, northern India, and were able to occupy much of the northwest without facing much serious opposition. On the western steppes, the Sarmatians defeated and absorbed the Scythians in the 2nd century and by 150 three distinct groups appeared: the Iazygians, the Roxolani, and the Alans. (Haywood 2000, 28)
It does not seem mere coincidence that the time line for the "barbarian" invasions of Rome corresponds very closely to that of the similar invasions of northwest India and northeastern Iran, or that Huns were associated with these assaults. For example, the Alans reached Gaul in A.D. 408 (Dhillon 1994, 91), and the Ephthalites conquered Transoxiana and Bactria around 440 and reached India around 455-460 (Grousset 1970, 67-68).
McGovern provides a bird's-eye view of the movement of these tribes:
- The Sakas, like their neighbors, the Alani, were destined to play an important part in later history. But whereas the Alani spread westward into Europe, the Sakas chose the lands south of them for the seat of their later actions; and at one time they were lords of much of Eastern Iran and Northern India. (McGovern 1939, 40)
And yet this does not appear to be the first such movement of Central Asian tribes. Earlier it was mentioned that the Scythians may have had similar customs and language, but it is doubtful that they were ever one ethnic entity. This statement, however, could be partially untrue. The dominance by one group in particular, the Massagetae, who in post-Alexandrian times were classified as Sarmatians, may have led to some homogeneity across most of the steppes. McGovern wrote, "The decay and eventual downfall of the Scythians was due almost entirely to invasion by their distant kinsmen, the Sarmatians" (McGovern 1939, 38). The Sarmatians were "a member of the nomadic Indo-European people who displaced the Scythians on the lower Don. First the enemies and then the allies of Rome, they were displaced by the Goths in the third century A.D." (W.E.D.1988, 887).
So the Scythians were gradually displaced and absorbed by their distant kinsmen, the Sarmatians. McGovern goes further, to list the Massagetae, Dahae, Alans, and Sacae as Sarmatian tribes (McGovern 1939, 462-64). The term "Sarmatian" gradually began to replace "Scythian" in classical accounts; this was also a Central Asian Iranian-speaking tribe (Littleton and Malcor 2000, 16). Littleton and Malcor call them "Eastern Scythians" (Littleton and Malcor 2000, 16). And for good reason, as the Sarmatians were not much different from Scythians-they
spoke an Iranian language and wore trousers, soft leather boots, and round or peaked caps, although some also went bare-headed (Sulimirski 1970).
Regarding the Sarmatians, Jeannine Davis-Kimball wrote a rather interesting paragraph in her popular book Warrior Women:
- Around 400 B.C., the Sauromatians began to be displaced by people known to the ancients as Simatians or Sarmatians. No one is certain of the origins of these people; although they were also Caucasoids and spoke an Indo-Iranian language, their skeletons revealed a variety of ethnic types, with some being tall and large boned ... while others were shorter and delicate in stature. My theory, based on a number of notable comparisons between funeral offerings, is that some of these people might have been younger generations of Saka who were forced from their territories near the Tien Shan Mountains or the southern Aral Sea by the need for additional summer pasturelands. Around the third century A.D., they began migrating westward and eventually these expert horsemen equipped with sophisticated weapons and armor constituted a real threat to the Roman legions guarding the Danube frontier. The enterprising legionnaires, however, defused the situation by recruiting some of the Sarmatians to join their army. In A.D. 175, more than five thousand of the steppe tribesmen (most likely along with their families) were dispatched to the northern English border to guard Hadrian's Wall, which helped repel incursions into Roman Britain by the Picts and the Celtic Scots. Twenty years later, the Sarmatian regiment was redeployed to Gaul (the ancient designation for France and Belgium) to quell a rebellion. Later they were returned to Britain, and as they grew old, the battle-weary Sarmatians retired to a veteran's home in Lancashire. (It seems as if they had taken to the British climate, proving that almost anything is better than the weather of the steppes.) The Sarmatian presence in Gaul and Roman Britain never ceases to fascinate me-I always wonder how many unsuspecting modern-day Frenchmen and Britons, as well as Americans of those extractions, possess the genes of the ancient steppe warriors. (Davis-Kimball 2002, 32)
So what was the driving force behind the expansion of the Sarmatian tribes who gradually absorbed their kindred Scythian tribesmen? In his book The Sarmatians, T. Sulimirski offers an opinion:
- The destruction by Alexander the Great of the Achaemenid (Persian) monarchy and his subsequent conquest of Bactria and Sogdiana in 330-328 BC also influenced the history and development of all the peoples of Central Asia. Neither the Chorasmians nor the Massagetae were subjugated by Alexander, but as a result of having to fight against the highly trained and organized Macedonian army, they developed new military tactics using armoured cavalry, the 'cataphracti'. Some authors think that the Massagetae owed their conquests solely to the use of this armoured cavalry against weaker adversaries. (Sulimirski 1970, 81)
Sulimirski continues, "In the fourth and third centuries BC, the Massagetae subdued nearly all the nomad tribes of Central Asian north of the Macedonian frontier, eastward to the Tien-Shan Mountains, and possibly many tribes of the Kazakhstan steppes; this led to a tremendous extension of their culture which to a great extent derived from that of Achaemenid Iran" (Sulimirski 1970, 81). Therefore, the battles against Alexander in Bactria and Sogdiana led to a great improvement in the military technology of the Massagetae, who were already essentially a cavalry nation. Moreover, this mechanism led to the expansion of their culture east to China, west to the German frontier, and perhaps even southward to India. So did the Massagetae provide at least some continuity between the vast steppes, before this nation was scattered by the Huns? Are there more precise ways to examine their legacy?
This leads us to the thesis of this article. In a rather bold paragraph in their recent book on The Tarim Mummies, James P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair suggest that there may have been more cohesion among these nomads than was previously believed. They wrote in the following paragraph regarding the Yuezhi nomads near the border of China:
- Da (Greater) Yuezhi, or in the earlier pronunciation d'ad-ngiwat-tieg, has been seen to equate with the Massagetae who occupied the oases and steppe lands of West Central Asia in the time of Herodotus; here Massa renders an Iranian
- word for "Great," hence "Great Getae." ... Others have seen in this word an attempt to capture in Chinese the name of a tribe that is rendered in Greek as the Iatioi who. are recorded in Ptolemy's geography. The original pronunciation has been reconstructed as gwat-ti or got-ti or gut-si, which opens up distant lexical similarities with the Goths (the German tribes of northern and eastern Europe), the Getae (the Dacian, i.e., Balkan, tribes northwest of the Black Sea), the Guti (a people on the borderlands of Mesopotamia), the Kusha (our Kushans), the Gushi (a people mentioned in Han texts and regarded as brigands along with the peoples of Kroran), or a combination of some but not all of the above. (Mallory and Mair 2000, 98-99)
This comparison of like-sounding tribal names, although merely a paragraph in length, could potentially generate volumes of discussion and can help us understand more definitively the nature of the barbarian invasions in ancient Rome, the powerful Kushan Empire in India, the possible origins of the Guti people, the Guti kings of Mesopotamia, and the similarity between the Goths, Getae, and the Yuezhi. Moreover, this opens up the possibility that at least some of the people termed "Scythians" were a single tribe-the Getae. So could there have been a nation of nomads who knew themselves as Gets, Gats, Guts, or Yuts?
This is not the first time that the suggestion has been offered that the Yuezhi could be
related to Goths. In his Tableaux Historiques De L 'Asia, Julius Von Klaproth (1783-1835) wrote:
- Le nom des Yue ti ou Yut rappelled celui des Yuts ou Goths, qui sont venus en Europe: il serait tres possible que les Yutes, arrives en Scandinavie avec Odin, aient ete Ie meme peuple qui, trois siecles avant notre ere, habitair encore ... noor et a I'ouest de la province chinoise de Kan sou. Ceci supposerait l'emigration des Goths de I'Asie centrale posterieure a celle des autres peoples germaniques. (Klaproth 1826, 289)
A rough translation:
- The name of Yueti or Yut recalls that of Yuts or Goths, which came to Europe: it would be very possible that the Yutes who arrived in Scandinavia with Odin, are the same people who three centuries before our era, still inhabited the area ... northwest of the Chinese Kansu province. This would suppose the emigration of the Goths of Central Asia after that of the other Germanic peoples.
This identification between the Yuezhi and the Goths by Klaproth suggests that the tribes involved in the movement of nomads into Roman territory may have been greater than modem scholarship holds. Could it be that the Goths, along with the Alans, were pushed into Europe under pressure from the Huns? Moreover, could these same tribes be found in the Indian and Persian frontiers? The South Asian Jats are one such group that may lead us in the proper direction, as their settlement corresponds geographically with the Indo-Scythian settlement on the Indian subcontinent. Perhaps by examining the customs and characteristics of this living population we can better understand the role the Getae played in history.
Jats, Getae and Yuezhi
According to Williams, "The extent of the Scythian invasion [of India] has been variously estimated. Some scholars believe they virtually supplanted the previous population of [northwest] India, and there seems little doubt that by far the most numerous section of the Punjab population is of Scythian origin" (Williams 1905, 481). We also know that many, if not most, of the Massagetae went to India (Tarn 1966, 306-307). So it would not be outrageous to suppose that the inhabitants of northwest India may be descended from these ancient invaders.
The South Asian Jats are an Indo-European people who number roughly 35 million and follow the three religions of Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism in roughly equal percentages, based on Dhillon's estimates in 1994 (Dhillon 1994, 1). They are found in Northwest India and Pakistan, mainly in the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Kashmir, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. Roughly speaking, Jats are Muslims in the West, Sikh in the center, and Hindus in the East (Rose 1883, 1: 361).
The origins of South Asian Jats became of interest to many who encountered them, but
first from a Western perspective by Father Monserate (1536-1600), a Jesuit priest at the Moghal king Akbar's court. He considered the Jats to be the descendants of the Getae (Maclagan 1990,
154). By the mid-18th century, Joseph De Guignes (1721-1800) would equate the Jats with the Scythians, as well, but this time also with the Chinese Yuezhi (De Guignes 1756, Dhillon 1994, Tod 1829, Elphinstone 1874).
De Guignes, a French Orientalist, believed the Jats of Punjab were descendants of Yuezhi who were known to the Indians under the Kushan Dynasty. James Tod, relying on De Guignes, presented quite an interesting history to the Jats and Rajputs, whom he thought were both descendants of Yuezhi and Getae, as he equated the Getae and Yuezhi. In his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, written in 1829, he says (note Jit, Jat, and Jut are the same):
- [A] translation of the Nehrwalla conqueror's inscription, which will prove beyond, a doubt that these Jit princes of Salpoori in the Punjab, were the leaders of that very colony of the Yuti from Jaxartes, who in the fifth century, as recorded by De Guignes, crossed the Indus and possessed themselves of the Punjab ... .In short, whether as Yuti, Getae, Jats, Juts, or Jauts ... their habits confirmed the tradition of their Scythic origin .... They considered themselves, in short, a distinct class, and, as a Punia Jat informed me, 'their watan (homeland) was far beyond the Five Rivers'. (Tod 1829, 916, 1125)
M. Elphinstone, who revisited the Scythian origin of the Jat in 1874, bolstered De Guignes' comments along with James Tod, and, further, equated the Yuezhi with Getae. Elphinstone says:
- De Guignes mentions, on Chinese authorities, the conquest of the country of the Indus by a body of Yuchi or Getae, and that there are still Jits on both sides of that river .... The account of De Guignes has every appearance of the truth .... My conclusion, therefore, is, that the Jats may be of Scythian descent .... (Elphinstone 1874, 12-17, 226-29; De Guignes 1756, 32)
In his Tableaux Historiques De L'Asia, Klaproth (1783-1835) also identified the Jats with the Yuezhi:
- ... Yue tchi ... prononciation primitive a ete Yue ti. .. or Yue ti est Ie meme mot queYut. Les Yue ti ayant conquis une grand partie de I'Hindoustan septentrional, et principalement les pays arroses par l'Indus .... Quoique l'histoire de l'Inde soit encore couverte d'un voile epais, nous savons pourtant, par des inscriptions sanskrites et d' autres monuments, que les Yut au Jut ont fonde, a I' epoque indique par les auteurs chinois, de puissants empires dan l'Hindoustan; qu'au cinquieme siecle, des prin.ces de leur race regnaient dans Ie Pendjab septentrional, et que, vers I'an 1000 de notre ere, ce people opposa sur l'Indus une resistance opiniatre a Mahmood Ie Gnaznevide; mais qu'il fut repousse au-dela du Setledj. Nous avons vu aussi que les Yue ti recurrent plus tard Ie nom de Ye tao Ils sont sans doute Ie meme peuple que les Getes, vaincus par Tchinghis-khan et par Timour. Les descendants des anciens Yue ti existent encore de no jour dans l'Inde. (Klaproth 1826, 288)
A rough translation:
- ... Yuetchi.. . [was]... originally pronounced Yueti .... Yueti is the same word as Yut. The Yueti having conquered a great portion of Northern India, and mainly the countries that are sprinkled near the Indus .... The history of India is still covered with a thick veil; we know, however, from Sanskrit inscriptions and other monuments, that Yut or Jut were found, at the time indicated by the Chinese authorities, to have powerful empires in India; that in the fifth century, the princes of their race reigned in Northern Panjab; and that, about the year 1000 of our era, these people offered resistance on the Indus against Mahmud of Ghaznavi, but were pushed back beyond the Sutlej. We also saw that the Yueti returned later to the name of Yeta. They are undoubtedly the same people as the Getae, who were overcome by Genghis Khan and Timur. The descendents of the old Yueti still exist today in India.
Now, the Jats offered resistance not only against the Arabs, but also against invaders such as Ghaznavi, Timur, Babar, Jahangir, and eventually the British at Bharatpur and under the Sikh
Empire (Dhillon 1994). This demonstrates the continuity of the existence of these people in India, and the preservation of their martial qualities.
Alexander Cunningham held that the Jats were descended from Strabo's Zanthi and
Ptolemy's Iatioi. In his 1888 work, Coins of the Indo-Scythians, Sakas, and Kushans, he said:
- The Xanthii are very probably the Zaths [Jats] of early Arab writers. As the Zaths were in Sindh to the west of the Indus, this location agrees very well with what we know of the settlement of Sakas on the Indian frontier. In fact the Chinese expressly say that all the dependencies of Hien-siun and Siun-tu (Sindh) were occupied by the ancient tribes of Sai, or Sakas. (Cunningham 1888, 33)
The Xanthii were a sub-branch of the Dahae, as per Strabo, who states, "And as for the Daae, some of them are called Aparni, some Xanthii, and some Pissuri" (Jones 1928, 5: 261). Therefore, Cunningham identified the Jats with the Dahae.
However, in Cunningham's later work, Later Indo-Scythians from the Numismatic Chronicle 1893-1894, he writes of the Jats, "Perhaps they may be the Iatii of Pliny" (Cunningham 1894, 96). B. Prakash, a well-known Indian writer, had the same view as Cunningham: " ... Jartas, who are identical with the Iatioi, who together with the Takhoroi, lived near the northern section of the Jaxartes around Tashkend, according to Ptolemy, and whose modem descendents, called the Jats, are spread over the whole of the Panjab ... (Prakash 1964, 114). Thus, in this case, Cunningham and Prakash identify the Jats with the Iatii.
Interestingly enough, H. M. Elliot and Dowson, in their work The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, cited Alexander Cunningham regarding the Meds and their relationship to Jats:
- The Meds or Mands are almost certainly the representatives of the Mandrueni, who lived on the Mandrus River, to the south of the Oxus River; and, as their name is found in the Panjab from the beginning of the Christian era .. .I conclude they must have accompanied their neighbors, the Iatii, or Jats, on their forced migrations to Ariana and India. In the classical writers, the name is found as Medi
- and Mandrueni; and in the Muhammadan writers, as Med and Mand. (Elliot and Dowson 1867, 528)
Dhillon, in his History and Study of the Jats, adds to these comments, "Mand is a clan of the modern Jat Sikhs" (Dhillon 1994, 53). Hence, the Mands or Meds, along with the Jats, were considered descendants of the Indo-Scythians of the classical writers.
H. A. Rose, who wrote the extensive three-volume work entitled A Glossary of Tribes and Castes of Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province, summarized the view on the Jats in 1883:
- Many of the Jat tribes of the Punjab have customs, which apparently point to non-Aryan origin .... Suffice it to say that both Sir Alexander Cunningham and Col Tod agreed in considering the Jats to be of Indo-Scythian stock. The former identified them with the Zanthi of Strabo and the Jatii of Pliny and Ptolemy, and held that they probably entered the Punjab from their home on the Oxus very shortly after the Meds or Mands, who were also Indo-Scythians, and who moved into the Punjab about a century before Christ. (Rose 1883,2: 363, 1: 58)
Thus Rose summarizes the opinions of the authorities by claiming that the Jats are Indo-Scythians, but leaves the identity of the particular tribes open to conjecture. He does; however, believe as does Cunningham, that the Xanthii of Strabo were the same as the Iatioi of Pliny and Ptolemy. However, in his Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, George Rawlinson, when writing about the original homeland of the Scythian invaders of India, makes the identification between the Jats and the Massagetae:
- Of these tribes the principal were the Massagetae ('great Jits, or Jats'), who occupied the country on both sides of the lower course of the Oxus; the Dahae, who bordered the Caspian above Hyrcania, and extended thence to the latitude of Herat; the Tochari, who settled in the mountains between the upper Jaxartes and the Upper Oxus, where they gave name to the tract known as Tokharistan; the Asii, or Asiani, who were closely connected with the Tochari; and the Sakarauli
Tod's view was that the Jats were Getae and the Getae were the Yuezhi or Yuti (Tod 1829). Now this may appear to be a very bold conclusion, but that does not mean it is implausible. Cunningham was definitely more careful when he identified the Jats with Ptolemy's Iatioi. Can modern conjecture put to rest Tod's claim? Were the Yuezhi a branch of the Getae who appeared on the borders of China? Could the name Yuezhi be a poor Sinitic transcription of Getae?
Laszlo Torday, in Mounted Archers, citing Karlgren and Pulleyblank, believes the name Yuezhi can be reduced to ngwat-ti, then to gwat-ti and finally to ywati (Torday 1997, 160-61). He strongly asserts that Ptolemy's Iatioi was the Chinese Yuezhi: "Ptolemy's Iatioi in the Jaxartes delta [was] the most likely Greek name for the Yueh-shih" (Torday 1997, 402). Further, Torday writes, "using non-linguistic arguments, the German Iranist Marquart, writing at the beginning of this century, had already identified the Iatioi with the Yueh-shih" (Torday 1997, 161). Edwin Pulleyblank came to the same conclusion; he wrote in Why Tocharians? "This led me to the conclusion that .... the name Yueh-chih was the same as that of the Iatioi, a people mentioned in association with the Tocharioi in Ptolemy. The original form of the name may well have been something like *Ywati" (Pulleyblank 2002, 425). Thus modern scholarship has interpreted the Yuezhi as the phonetic Ywati, and has identified the tribe with Ptolemy's Iatioi or Jatioi-as in Latin, an "I" before another vowel is pronounced as the English or Anglo-Saxon "J."
Interestingly enough, much earlier, H. M. Elliot, in his Encyclopedia of Caste, Customs, Rites and Superstitions of the Races of Northern India, wrote about South Asian Jats and suggested the correct pronunciation of Yuezhi to be Yuti (Elliot 1870, 133-34). This, he based on the work of Heinrich J. Klaproth (1783-1835), a German scholar on Chinese and Tartar languages. Elliot writes:
- [T]hese ignorant tribes (Jats), pointing to the remote Ghazni (Afghanistan) as their original seat, the very spot we know to have been occupied by the Yuechi, or, as Klaproth says, more correctly, Yuti, in the first centuries of our era, after the Sakas were repelled back from the frontiers of India, and left the country
- between India and Persia open for their occupation. The Jat tribes no doubt emigrated, not all at once, but at different times, and it is probable that those in the North West are among the latest importations. (Elliot 1870, 133-34)
Thus Klaproth believed that "Yuezhi" was pronounced "Yueti" or "Yut" (Klaproth 1826, 288). When discussing the development of the name Yuezhi, Laufer writes:
- The question arises, however, as to how the character 支 was articulated in early times. The opinions of Klaproth, who adopted the reading Yue-ti, that t may often be replaced by c ... [but] ... Klaproth did not express himself very clearly; he doubtless meant to say that palatal c or ts may develop from dental t, and this, in fact, is a common phenomenon in Indo-Chinese. Moreover, it is justly emphasized by Pelliot that the small dash differentiating at present the symbol 氐ti from 氏 is a comparatively recent affair, so that formerly the latter character might have been read si as well as ti ... there is good reason to assume that also 氏 and likewise 支 were at that period articulated d'i, di, or ti. (Laufer 1917, 10)
So then it is possible that the original word was Yuet, with a dental t. A. Cunningham also used Klaproth's form "Yueti" and took the Da Yuezhi to be the Massagetae; he wrote in Later Indo-Scythians, "By the Chinese the Kushans were called Ta-Yue-ti, or the 'Great Lunar Race' .... That is, if 'Yue' be taken for the 'Moon.' But I incline to take Yue-ti or Gueti, the general name given by the Chinese .... And further, I think that, as Ta means 'Great', the 'Ta-Gweti' must be the Massa-Getae" (Cunningham 1894, 112).
We further know that in Bactria, the Yuezhi had by now been confounded with the Iatioi and Tokhari. Ptolemy wrote:
- The Sogdianoi are bounded on the west by that part of Skythia which extends from the section of the Oxos ... in the south ... as far as the Iaxartes ... on the north ... the most northern section of the Iaxartes is possessed by the Iatioi and the Tokharoi. ... (6.I2.1, 6.I2.4) (Torday 1997, 306)
Thus we have the Jatioi and the Tokharoi on the Jaxartes. Who were the Tokharoi? Pulleyblank, as aforementioned, believed the Jatioi and the Tokharoi were closely associated with each other (Pulleyblank 2002, 425). M. Lin, in "Qilan and Kunlun-The Earliest Tokharian Loan-Words in Ancient Chinese," believes the Yuezhi to be the Tokharoi. He writes, "The Yuezhi people who came from Dunhuang were called Tokharoi in classical Greek works and Tukhara in the ancient Indian texts" (Lin 1998, 477). Further, Rosenfield in his Dynastic Art of the Kushans, says about the Kushans, "the Chinese continued to call these people the Ta (Great) Yueh-chih .... In India, strangely enough, the name Kushan as such never appears in the Puranas, Mahabharata, or other quasi-historical sources. These people must have been denoted by variations of the Tokhari, such as Tuskara, Tushara, Tukhara, Turushka" (Rosenfield 1967, 8).
This leads us to J. Legge who, in his translation of the memoirs of Faxian (a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim to India, A.D. 519), renders a passage: "Formerly, a King of Yue-she raised a large force and invaded this country [Tokharestan], wishing to carry the [Buddha Alms] bowl away" (Legge 1886,34). Legge adds in a footnote, "Dr. Eitel suggests that a relic of the old name of the country may still exist in that of the Jats or Juts of the present day. A more common name for it is Tukhar and he observes that the people were the Indo-Scythians of the Greeks, and the Tartars of the Chinese writers, who were driven on by the Huns ... " (Legge 1886, 34). It is important to add that Tukhar or Takhar is still a Jat and Rajput clan name (Pawar 1993, 325). Moreover, it is a regular title used by Jat and Rajputs in certain regions, and by a kindred tribe known as Thakurs (Ibbetson 1916, 161). Additionally, there still remains a province in Northern Afghanistan, near ancient Bactria, called Takhar, most probably the region of ancient Tokharestan. (Rawlinson 6th 1872, 118).
To summarize, we have Alexander Cunningham, who identified the South Asian Jats with Ptolemy's Iatioi and then equated the Da Yuezhi (Great Yuezhi) with the Massagetae (Great Getae). Adding Torday, Marquart, and Pulleyblank's identification of the Iatioi with the Yuezhi, it is logical to conclude that the Getae were the Yuezhi and the Jats. This also explains the clan names of Takhar and Mand found amongst modem Jats. These branches and tribes must have been once part of the original Iranian Getae.
To add to the Takhars and Mands, we have the modem Dahiya Jats, which Tod finds listed as one of the 36 royal races of Rajasthan. He says the following: "Dahia is an ancient tribe,
whose residence was the banks of the Indus.... and from name as well as from locale, we may
infer that they were the Dahae of Alexander (Tod 1829, 141-42)." An interesting addition to this comment is made by Ibbetson (who performed the 1880 census of India) about the modern Dahiya Jats: "They are probably the Dahae of Alexander" (Ibbetson 1916, 130). McGovern believed the Dahae Sakas were a "branch of the Massagetae" (McGovern 1939, 68).
So it is not mere coincidence that the modern South Asian Jats have major clan names like Dahiya, which is said to be derived from the Dahae branch of Iranian Sakas, and that the Mands or Meds were a Saka tribe. The Yuezhi had one branch, the Tokharioi, who were called Tukharas in India, and their descendants probably still exist in the modern Takhar Jats and Rajputs. Were these not all branches of the original Getae east of the Caspian Sea-the Massagetae? C. Kephart simply states, "The Tokhari were identical with the Yuechi, who alternately were called Getes .... " (Kephart 1960, 525)
It is no wonder that we have writers like Trevaskis who, in The Land of the Five Rivers in 1928, wrote, "But the great mass of the [Scythian] tribes who took more readily to agriculture were called Jats, a name which may possibly be identified with the Latin Getae or Goths" (Trevaskis 1928, 87). By the early 20th century, most authorities accepted the Scythian origin of South Asian Jats, which is affirmed in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, which states, "Some writers have identified the Jats with the ancient Getae, and there is strong reason to believe them a degraded tribe of Rajputs, whose Scythic origin has also been maintained" (E.B. 1911, 15: 280).
By the 1930s authors like MacMunn began to use the words "Jat" and "Scythian" interchangeably, although this terminology was incorrect. In the Martial Races of India, he wrote, "[The] later arrivals [to India], of Jat or Scythian origin, [were] outside the normal Aryan fold as later comers to India .... " (MacMunn 1932, 22). What's more is that MacMunn believed the "Martial Races" of India were somehow all connected to the Scythian descendants: "the martial races, almost without exception, come from some branch or derivative of the great peoples of Northern India who we know as Rajputs and Jats" (MacMunn 1932, 223).
Leaving martial race theories aside, the Jats and Rajputs, as well as Gujars, have been identified as descendants of Scythian invaders, of which many became followers of the Sikh religion. Joseph Davey Cunningham wrote in his famous book, A History of Sikhs, in 1849:
- The plains of Upper India, in which the Brahmans and Kshattriyas had developed a peculiar civilization, have been overrun by Persian or Scythic tribes, from the age of Darius and Alexander to that of Babar and Nadir Shah. Particular traces of successive conquerors may yet perhaps be found, but the main features are: 1) the introduction of the Muhammadan creed; and 2) the long antecedent emigration of hordes of Jats from the plains of Upper Asia. It is not necessary to enter into the antiquities of Grecian Getae and Chinese Yuechi, to discuss the asserted identity of the peasant Jat. ... or try to trace the blood of Kadphises in the veins of Ranjit Singh. (J.D. Cunningham 1849, 4)
Here it should be noted that J.D. Cunningham equates the Greek Getae with the Chinese Yuezhi. Further, in the same book, Cunningham discusses the etymology of the word "Jat." "[We may] derive Jat from the Sanskrit Jyest'ha, old, ancient, and so make the term equivalent to aborigines; but this etymology perhaps too hastily sets aside the sufficiently established facts of Getae and Yuechi emigrations, and the circumstance of Taimur's [Timur's] warfare with Jettahs in Central Asia" (J. D. Cunningham 1849, 299). An interesting addition to this statement was made by C. Twiggs, who, in discussing Timur's Zafarnama, or Memoirs, says, "We know from the 'Zafarnama' of Sharfuddin that Timur, when he invaded India, believed the Jats of the Punjab to be the same race as Tartars whom he met in Central Asia" (Twigg 1870, 318-19). With the generic word "Tartars," I believe he means Sakas or eastern Scythians. This further implies that the Getae kept their tribal identification as Jatae or Jatahs intact as late as Timur's age. Further, Toynbee, in discussing the modem Turkish word "Jatah" or "cheteh," which means "guerilla," wonders, "Is it perhaps derived from the tribal name of the Getae (Massagetae and Thyssagetae) or Jats, who were the nearest Nomadic neighbors of the Oxus-Jaxartes oases in the Achaemenian Age, before they erupted out of the Steppe and poured over the Hindu Kush into the Panjab in the second century B.C.?" (Toynbee 1934, 2: 145). Interestingly, Gibbon, the author of The Decline and Fall of Rome, believes that the "Jatah" of Transoxiana mentioned by Timur were Getes (Gibbon 1850, 6: 249), suggesting the survival of the name of the ancient race in Central Asia.
J. Briggs had this to say as early as 1829, in his History and Rise of Mahomedan Power in India, about Jats: "We have no satisfactory account of these Juts; but there seems reason to
believe them to be a horde of Tartars of the same stock as the Getae so often mentioned in ancient history .... " (Briggs 1829, 1: 81). One after another, British and other historians related the South Asian Jats to Scythian tribes, usually the Yuezhi or the Getae.
Syad Muhammad Latif, a Muslim author, wrote, "A portion of these settlers, the descendents of Masagetae, were called Getes, from whom sprung the modem Jats" (Latif 1891, 56). Even some Indian historians, who are not Jats themselves, claim the Jats are descendants of the Getae. Satya Shrava, in his 1981 work, Sakas in India, said, "The Jats are no other than the Massagetae (Great Getae) mentioned in Diodorus as an off-spring of the ancient Saka tribe.... a fact now well-known" (Shrava 1981, 2-3).
J.F. Hewitt related the Thracian Getae, a tribe mentioned by Herodotus, to the Massagetae and the Jats, stating:
- These Thracian Getae must, as a Northern race of individual proprietors, have held their lands on the tenure existing in the Jat villages, and these Indian Jats, or Getae, have not degenerated from the military prowess of their forefathers, for those Jats who have become Sikhs in the Punjab, are known as some of the best and most reliable Indian soldiers.... Further evidence both of early history and origin of the race of Jats, or Getae, is given by the customs and geographical position of another tribe of the same stock, called the Massagetae, or Great Getae (Hewitt 1894, 482).
We will discuss later the relationship between the Thracian Getae, or Tyrigetae, with the other branches of the Getae.
Massagetae
When first hearing the word "Massagetae," a Sikh would quickly be reminded of Massa Ranghar or the Great Ranghar, a Muslim Rajput, who insulted the greatest Sikh Shrine, the Golden Temple or Harmandar (Durbar) Sahib, by seizing it and making it a dancing hall. Bhagat Singh writes about the Sikh hero Mehtab Singh in the 1740s:
- The Sikhs are generally sensitive to the sanctity of their religious places. When Massa Ranghar of Mandiali converted the holy precincts of the Durbar Sahib, at Amritsar, into a stable and inner sanctuary into a dancing-hall where he used to smoke and drink to the utter desecration of the holy place, Mehtab Singh of Mirarikot rushed to Amritsar from the deserts of Bikaner and cut off the head of the offending Ranghar. (B. Singh 1993, 37)
Mehtab Singh, a Jat Sikh of the Bhangu clan (Dhillon 1994, 73), fled Amritsar on his horse with the Great Ranghar's head on a spear.
It was relatively common for Jat Sikhs in those days to have Persian or Farsi personal names and "Massa" or "Massa Singh" was common. Even today some Sikhs are named Massa Singh, or the "Great" Singh. "Massa" was simply the Persian or Pehlavi equivalent of the Indian "Maha," meaning "great" (Pawar 1993, 364). This is also the view of Elliot, who says "Massa" means "Great" in the PehIavi language (Elliot 1870, 133). The root word "Mas," in the Pehlavi glossary by Nyberb, is believed to mean "great" (Nyberb 1974, 127). Thus it follows that Massagetae means "Great Getae."
The ninth-century work De Universo of Rabanus Maurus clearly states, "The Massagetae are in origin from the tribe of the Scythians, and are called massagetae, as if heavy, that is, strong Getae" (Migne 1864, Col 439). Therefore, we can conclude that the Massagetae are the Great Getae.
Thyssagetae
Little is known about Herodotus's Thyssagetae, other than that they were found east of the river Don (Tanais) (Rawlinson 1928, 241). The land of the Thyssagetae is said to cover the following four rivers: the Lycus, the Oarus, the Tanais, and the Syrgis (Rawlinson 1928, 241).
The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica states:
- Thyssagetae, an ancient tribe described by Herodotus (iv. 22. 123) as occupying a district to the north-east of Scythia separated from the Budini by a desert seven days' journey broad .... From their land four rivers flowed into the Maeotis, but as
- one of them, the Oarus, is almost certainly the Volga ... They seem to have held the southern end of the Urals .... (E.B. 1911, 26: 908)
Regarding the Thyssagetae, John Jamieson believes that, like the Massagetae, this tribe's "primary denomination" was "Getae" (Jamieson 1814, 7). However, he fails to conjecture the meaning. He simply states, "The Massa-Getae .... by many is rendered the greater Getae .... Thyssa-Getae .... owes its origin to some local or characteristic circumstance.: .. "(Jamieson 1814, 8-9). Pinkerton also considers the Massa-Getae and Thyssa-Getae as Scythians and Getae, but does not conjecture their meanings (Pinkerton 1804, 19).
Henry Rawlinson, on the other hand, firmly claims, "The Thyssagetae appear to be a branch of the Gothic family, 'the lesser Goths' as distinguished from the Massa-Getae, 'the greater Goths'" (H. Rawlinson 1880, 16). Therefore, the Thyssagetae were the Lesser Getae, as Rawlinson equated Goths with Getae. Crooke endorses Rawlinson's identification, claiming the Thyssagetae were "the lesser Getae" (Tod 1829, 72). The Getae and Goth connection will be discussed later.
Massagetae and Thyssagetae = Da Yuezhi and Xiao Yuezhi
We have already shown that the Iranian Massagetae can be equated with the obscure Yuezhi that appeared on the borders of China, but can we be more precise? Views equating the Massagetae with the Da Yuezhi are fairly common, such as the statement made by Edgar Knobloch in his Monuments of Central Asia, "This time the nomads were the Yue-Che (Yue-czi) who, according to one authority (Tolstov), could be the same as the Greater Getae or Massagetae" (Knobloch 2001, 15). Tod went further, to equate the Massagetae, the Yuezhi, and the Indian Jats, as he says: "We will merely add, that the kingdom of the Great Getae, whose capital was on the Jaxartes, preserved its integrity and name from the period of Cyrus to the fourteenth century, when it was converted from idolatry to the faith of Islam" (Tod 1829, 127). And, further, Tod says the Yuezhi were basically the Getae: "The Yuchi, established in Bactria and along the Jihun, eventually bore the name Jeta or Yetan, that is to say, Getae. Their empire subsisted a long time in this part of Asia, and extended even to India" (Tod 1829, 78).
But eventually what strengthens the supposition that the Massagetae are the Yuezhi is that the Yuezhi were divided into two groups, the Da Yuezhi and the Xiao Yuezhi, meaning the
"Great" and the "Lesser" Yuezhi, respectively. We have already shown that the Massagetae must mean the Great Getae and Thyssagetae probably means Lesser Getae, thereby suggesting a likelihood of both the Greek and Chinese both not only recognizing the characteristic denomination of this tribe, but also remaining consistent.
Repeating Alexander Cunningham's comments, "By the Chinese the Kushans were called Ta-Yue-ti, or the 'Great Lunar Race' .... That is, if 'Yue' be taken for the 'Moon', But I incline to, take Yue-ti or Gueti, the general name given by the Chinese .... And further, I think that as Ta means 'Great', the 'Ta-Gweti' must be the Massa-Getae" (Cunningham 1894, 112). It also seems possible that the Thyssagetae, who are known the Lesser Getae, as per Rawlinson and Crooke, must correspond with the Xiao Yuezhi, meaning Lesser Yuezhi. Therefore, the Greek and the Chinese must be identifying the same people.
The conclusion is well put by B.S. Dahiya, who wrote about the Massagetae and Thyssagetae, "[T]hese Guti people had two divisions, the Ta-Yue-Che and Siao-Yue-Che, exactly corresponding to the Massagetae and Thyssagetae of Herodotus ... " (Dahiya 1980, 23). Therefore, the Iranian Getae were probably the Yuezhi who appeared strangely on the Chinese frontiers and the Chinese transcribed their name semi-vocally to Yuet with a dental t. This explains the development of the Yueti of Klaproth (Klaproth 1826, 288) or the *Ywati of more recent scholarship.
Some may be apprehensive about reducing the Massagetae and Thyssagetae to branches of the Getae. But this supposition can be strengthened, as there are additional tribes with the denomination Getae, such as the Thracian Tyrigetae, the Euergetae, and the "frozen" Getae, which will be discussed later.
For now, we can remark that it appears that the "Massa" term added to the Getae perhaps denoted their military prowess, as they became famous for their defeat of Cyrus the Great and later their hard-fought battles against Alexander the Great in Bactria and Sogdiana. This compound name may be analogous, therefore, to the naming of "Great Britain." Perhaps this term was known to both the Greeks and the Chinese as the original homeland of the Getae before they spread out in various directions and at various times. If this belief is prudent, then the term "Thyssa," which means "Lesser" Getae, corresponding to the Xiao Yuezhi, may have had a somewhat less spectacular, although no less important, history, hence Lesser Getae. The other
groups of Getae, whose names similarly must have characteristic or regional meanings, will be discussed later.
If our supposition that the Yuezhi and Getae were different names for the same people, then we can more precisely identify the Indo-Scythian invaders of India rather as Getic invaders. Moreover, this identification may further show that the Getes so often talked about by classical writers were originally from the Caspian region. However, before we can claim the Indo-Scythians to be "Getic," we must first examine yet another obscure tribe, known at the Ephthalites or White Huns, who entered India after the Xiao Yuezhi or Kiddara Kushans ...
(Cunningham 1888, 59). This is a tribe whose name may strengthen our belief in the existence of a nation called Getes.
Yetha
The White Huns, or Ephthalites, were known to the Chinese as Ye-tha-i-li-to, a name curtailed to Yetha (Cunningham 1888, 28). Grousset claims the Yetai were known as such by the Chinese since they derive their name from the royal clan of "Yeta" (Grousset 1970, 67). In the Chinese work Sui-Shu the name of this tribe is "I-ta" (Enoki O.N.E. 1998, 135). The Chinese authority Wei Chieh wrote in his His-fan-chi, "I had a personal talk with some Ephthalites and knew that they also called themselves I-t'ein" (Enoki D.N.E. 1998, 135). I-t'ein renders the name phonetically close to the word Jatan, which is the Panjabi plural form of Jat. This etymology will be discussed in detail later, for we will examine some characteristics of the Ephthalites.
McGovern writes in detail about the Yetha:
- The origin and exact ethnic affinities of the Ephthalites are shrouded in mystery. By the contemporary Greek and Roman histories they are frequently referred to merely as Huns. The Hindu legends and traditions regarding the dreaded 'Hunas' also go back to the period of Ephthalites invasions and show that the word Hun must have been intimately associated with the Ephthalites .... We know, however, from various sources that the Ephthalites were a very peculiar group and differed radically from most of the Hunnish groups. Thus, for example, the Byzantine writers are careful to distinguish between the ordinary Huns, such as those who invaded Europe, and the Ephthalites, who are more specifically referred to as
- White Huns. 'The Ephthalites,' says Procopius, a contemporary, 'are of the Hunnish race and bear the Hunnish name, but they are completely different from the Huns we know. They alone among the Hunnish people have white skins and regular features.... The Chinese are always careful to distinguish between the Huns proper or the Hsuing-nu and the Ephthalites, whom they call the Ye-ti-i-li-do or Ye-da.. .. According to one Chinese chronicle the Ephthalites were ultimately of the same origin as the Yueji [Yuezhi] .... (McGovern 1939, 405).
Some authorities claim the name "White Huns," as used by Procopius, is erroneous, but this does not seem to be the case because, in India, Varahamihira refers to a group called Sveta Hunas, and the Persians noted the Spet Hyon or White Huns (Biswas 1973, 27-28).
Kephart believes the Massagetae divided into the Tokhari (Ta Yuezhi) and the White Huns (Yetha) (Kephart 1960, 522-23). T. Watters claims, "[Northwest India] was conquered by the Yeta, i.e., the Yets or Gats, apparently near the end of our fifth century. The Yeta, who were a powerful people in Central Asia, in the fifth century, are also said to have been of the Yue-Chi stock ... " (Watters 1903,200-201). Klaproth also sees the Yeta or Yita as the descendants of the Yuezhi or Yueti (Klaproth 1826, XII, 135). And if we recall, Cunningham holds the Yetha to be the last wave of Indo-Scythians (Cunningham 1888).
The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica states, "Our earliest information about the Ephthalites comes from the Chinese chronicles, in which it is stated that they were originally a tribe of the great Yue-Chi [Da Yuezhi or Massagetae], living to the north of the Great Wall. ... "(E.B. 1911, 9: 680)." The Chinese work Pei-shih states, "[The Ephthalites] are a branch of the Ta-Yueh-chih" (Enoki O.N.E. 1998, 139). Thakur writes, "The annals of three Chinese dynasties assert that the Yetha or Ephthalites were a branch of the great Yue-chi race" (Thakur 1967, 42). Thakur then refers to Ma-tuan-lin:
- Ma-tuan-lin in his Encyclopaedia has given two comments on the origin of the Ephthalites: (i) Ye-ta belonged to the Ta-yue-chi stock but according to some they are a branch of the Kao-che; and (ii) I-tan belonged to the same race as the Ta-yue-chi. (Thakur 1967, 50)
In both cases it seems that the Ephthalites are descended from the Great Yuezhi, and the Ephthalites are also shown as coming from a different origin than the Huns. Enoki discussed the view that the Yetha are descended from the Yuezhi:
- The Ta-yueh-chih=Ephthalites theory was justified by several authors of the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of them not only based themselves upon the statements of the Pei-shi, Chou-shu, and Sui-shu, but also tried to establish the phonetic identity of the name Yueh-chih and Yenta. For instance, Toyohachi Fujita says that Yueh-chih is a transcription of Ghuttal, which changed into Yuttal, Yettal, Haythal, Ephthal. ... On the other hand, S.P. Tolstov had advanced a theory that the name Ephthalite was derived from Gweta-ali which meant in Turkish 'people of Gweta or Yueh-chih.' ... I myself follow the reconstruction of G. Haloun who reads Yueh-chih as *Skudja which means Scythians .... (Enoki O.N.E. 1998, 140)
Enoki lists several authorities that support the Yuezhi and Yetha identification, and his own identification is with the Scythians (or Iranians) (Enoki O.N.E. 1998), endorsing Haloun. However, the weight of authority, the testimony of Chinese accounts, and the phonetic resemblance between Yuezhi or Yueti (Klaproth 1826, 288) with the Yetha or Ita (Enoki O.N.E. 1998, 141, 157) is too strong to ignore. The name Ita used by the Northern Dynasties (Enoki O.N.E. 1988, 157) renders it seemingly close to the Iatii of Pliny, and to the name of Jat or Jata, for that matter. By examining the customs of the Ephthalites, even more strength is added to this theory.
That the Ephthalites practiced sun worship has been suggested by Enoki, who says, "[That] the Ephthalites built their tents with their entrances facing to the east would also imply the practice of sun-worship among them (Enoki O.N.E. 1988, 175). He also adds, "We may also recall the practice of sun-worship among the Massagetae (Herodotus I, 212) and the Kushanians [Ta Yuezhi]" (Enoki O.N .E. 1998, 175). Now the implied practice of sun worship still exists today in the structure of the modem Panjabi villages. For example, the Jats who divide themselves up in pattis (lineages of village founders) almost universally occupy the suraj charda (sunrise) or eastern portion of the village, while the hereditary service tribes usually live on the suraj lenda (sunset) or western portion of the village. Further, Bingley writes about the sun god:
- To the Jat peasant, however, the sun is a godling rather than a god. No shrines are built in his honour, but on Sunday the people abstain from salt ... the first care of the devout villager as he steps out of doors in the morning is to salute the sun, who is, par excellence, the favorite divinity of the rustic. (Bingley 1985, 74-75)
This suggests some sort of reference to sun worship. Further, Enoki suggests that the Yetha worshipped the Fire-god (Mithra) and the God of Heaven (Daeva-Worship), thereby remaining consistent with his idea of the Iranian origin of the Yetha (Enoki O.N.E. 1998, 177).
Based on the coins of the Ephthalites, namely the coins of Khingila (father of Toramana Jauvla), GobI suggests that the later Ephthalites may have followed the practice of skull deformation (GobI 1967, 200-201). At this stage it is difficult to detemine whether they originally practiced this custom or it was adopted (GobI 1967, 200-206). Nonetheless, this practice was prevalent among many of the Sarmatian tribes, most especially, the Alans (Sulimirski 1970).
Another peculiar habit that was unique to the Yetha, as opposed to the other Hunnish groups, was their practice of polyandry. McGovern writes:
- One feature of the Ephthalite social culture is worthy of especial mention, namely the fact that they went in for polyandry, or the custom whereby each woman was allowed to have several husbands .... the various husbands were for the most part brothers, the eldest brother marrying the girl, and the younger brothers being automatically admitted to conjugal rights .... The fact that the Ephthalites went in for polyandry is of especial interest inasmuch as this custom was entirely unknown to the other Hunnish tribes .... (McGovern 1939, 406)
The Massagetae were known to have a similar practice, in which they kept all women in common, and any male had access to the females. Herodotus writes, "Each man has but one wife, yet all the wives are held in common; for this is a custom of the Massagetae ... " (Rawlinson 1928, 80). Enoki notes this as well: "Massagetae, an Iranian tribe inhabiting the course of the Syr Darya
and the north bank of the Aral River, had this custom [polyandry]" (Enoki O.N.E. 1998, 181). Whether this is accurate or not, Pawar claims that certain Jat tribes followed a similar practice as that mentioned by Herodotus (pawar 1993, 303). Minns writes about the Ephthalites:
- They [Ephthalites] had supplanted the Yue-chih, and destroyed the kingdom of the Kushanas. We hear of their polyandry, a primitive Malthusianism which seems to have been endemic in their country, as it is ascribed to the Massagetae, to the Yue-chih and Tu-huo-Io or Tochari, and to the Yi-ta. (Minns 1971,93)
This continuity of custom, even if it may have been circumstantial or economic, does suggest a continuity of race, as there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that some less well-to-do Jats, in certain regions of the Panjab, may have practiced a custom that approximates polyandry up to the late 20th century, though there is not sufficient evidence to permit us to draw solid conclusions (Peter 1963, Singh K.P 1987). An interesting finding by Singh shows that this custom may have been an institution allowed for only by Jat Sikhs because castes of lower affluence did not appear to practice the custom (Singh K.P 1987). But at the same time, the wealthier Jat Sikhs had more than one, or several, wives (Barstow 1928, 158). This was also the case for a Jat whose elder brother had died; he kept his sister-in-law in his house, while still maintaining his marital relationship with his own wife (Barstow 1928, 158.) that is, levirate marriage.
The Jats are well known in India for widow remarriage and allowing for levirate marriage, that is, the marriage of the widow with the younger brother of the deceased. Parmar writes, "Karewa appears to be an offshoot of levirate.. .. it is a custom which is prevalent practically throughout Punjab ... " (Parmar 1975, 67). Even the word "levirate" may be derived from "devar" (in Latin "levir") meaning "husband's younger brother" in Sanskrit. In Panjabi, the word is "deur" (M. Singh 1895, 288).
The practice is generally shunned by orthodox Hindus (Barstow 1928, 157), and this is, generally, the main reason for the social difference between Jats and Rajputs. Ibbetson writes, "Jats and Rajputs ... form a common stock, this distinction between Jat and Rajput being social rather than ethnic ... " (Ibbetson 1916, 100). Rose also claims that Jats and Rajputs have "almost
identical physique and facial character" and "belong to one and the same ethnic stock" since they are "so intermingled and so blended into one people, that it is practically impossible to distinguish them as separate wholes" (Rose 1883, 2: 362). Bingley writes, "In the Punjab, Jat and Rajput tribes are often so closely connected, that it is sometimes extremely difficult to determine to which of these races a tribe really belongs" (Bingley 1985, 47).
The major difference is that the Jat practices widow-remarriage, and the Rajput does not (Ibbetson 1916, 100). The former seems to maintain tribal traditions, while the latter has abandoned this practice, partly perhaps due to their being successful clans at time of conversion, and partly in order to rank amongst the higher Kshatriyas by accepting some Vedic Aryan rites and rituals. Thus the name Raj-put or "son of a king" shows that this term is a title or status given to members of the princely families who accepted Vedic Aryan rites and were formally Hinduized (Dhillon 1994, 82). Baines summarizes the relationship between Jats and Rajputs:
- ... [T]he difference between the communities is social, not racial, the Rajput being a Jat leader who, after being successful in the field or on his estate, bound himself and his family to the strict observance of Brahmanic rules and thus attained the pinnacle of orthodox repute, whilst the rest of his tribe remained Jat in name and in their traditions and practice. (Baines 1912, 43.)
The Gujars, who may represent the Gurjara tribe (Rose 1883, 2: 306), still practice their nomadic life, including vertical transhumance. Baines writes about the Gujars:
- Next to the Jat in rank, and probably akin in origin, comes the Gujar ... [which] ... is now generally affliated to the Gurjara, a tribe which was settled in the neighborhood of the Caspian, and entered India either in company with or at the same time as, the Yetha or White Huna, of whom they are said to have been it branch. (Baines 1912, 44)
Their social position is slightly inferior to that of Jats in that they are essentially nomadic (Rose 1883, 2: 308), but as Rose states, "The Gujar is a fine stalwart fellow, of precisely the same physical type as the Jat ... " (Rose 1883, 2: 308). What's more, Dhillon shows that Jats,
Gujars, and Rajputs have many common clan names (Dhillon 1994, 4). In addition to Jats, Gujars, and agnikula (firebom) Rajputs, Scythian ancestry has also been attributed to the Gakkhars. Cunningham believes they are descendants of the Great Yuezhi, who were from the Hyrkania region (Ibbetson 1916, 168). Trevaskis writes:
- The Gakkhar tribe of Scythians, who occupied the hill plateau of the north-west Punjab, have retained their individuality till today. A brave and savage race ... [which is] ... much given to polyandry and infanticide .... (Trevaskis 1928, 41.)
In any event, the Yetha appear to have significantly influenced the Jat and Rajput people of northwest India Alexander Cunningham has shown that some of the Yetha clan names are Jauvla and Laelih (Cunningham 1894, 247, 252). Rose writes about Zabulistan in Afghanistan, "The name Zabulstan or Zawulstan would appear to mean the 'land of Zabul', and it was also so called, but strictly speaking Zabul was its capital ... Cunningham's identification of Jaulistan with Jabulstan is incontrovertible" (Rose 1883, 1: 40).
Prakash calls the ruling family of the Ephthalites "Jaulas" (Prakash 1966, 58). Dhillon asserts that these two clans are the Jaula or Johl, and the Lalli clans of the Jat Sikhs (Dhillon 1994, 44). Further, there is a very common clan amongst Jat Sikhs called Hans (Dhillon 1994, 140), which could represent the White Huns. Grousset puts it well:
- Yet from the second half of the seventh century the Huns [Ephthalites] of India vanish from history, no doubt either exterminated or absorbed by the Punjabis. Some of their clans most likely succeeded in gaining admission to the Hindu aristocracy, in the manner of the 'Rajput' clan of Gurjara, which may possibly have the same origin. (Grousset 1970, 72).
Amongst Rajputs, the Hun tribe represents one of the 36 royal races of Rajasthan (Tod 1829, 131). Tod recognizes this tribe as the descendants of the White Huns (Tod 1829, 132-33). V.A. Smith believes the White Huns to be the ancestors of the agnikula or firebom tribes of the Rajputs. He says, "[T]here is no doubt that the Parihars and many other famous Rajput clans of
the north were developed out of the barbarian hordes [White Huns] which poured into India during the fifth and sixth centuries" (Smith 1914, 322).
Therefore, it appears that some of the successful clans of the Yetha or White Huns were absorbed into the Jat and Rajput fold, who were themselves simply earlier settlers from Central Asia. And as Biswas notes, on the Ephthalite coins, "The portraits have straight big noses, large eyes, protruding foreheads, thick beards and heavy moustaches and chins like those of the Rajputs and the Jats of the present day" (Biswas 1973, 169). Based probably on physical characteristics, as Biswas has pointed out, some modem scholars have claimed that the Jats, Rajputs, and Gujar were descendants of the White Huns; for example, McGovern writes:
- [M]any scholars believe that the proud Rajput clans of Rajputana [Rajasthan] and stalwart Jats of the Punjab are likewise descended, in part at least, from these ancient invaders [White Huns], even though the Gurjaras [Gujars], the Rajputs and the Jats have long since adopted an Indian language and been absorbed in the vast bulk of Hinduism. (McGovern 1939, 419).
However, it should be noted that an Indian feudatory named Yasodharman of the Malwa repulsed the invading White Huns around 533 A.D., based on the Mandsor Inscription (pawar 1993, 58). In the sixth century A.D., Indian writer Chandragomin made a famous statement commemorating the victory of Yasodharman: "Ajay Jarto Hunan," meaning "the Jats defeated the Huns" (Pawar 1993, 58, Grousset 1970, 71). There has been substantial debate over Yasodharman's origin, for example, Cunningham and Carlleyle claim him to be a "Bains"; Majumdar, an "Aulikara" [Aulak?]; and Dahiya, a "Virk" or "Birk" (Pawar 1993, 58). What is clear is that he was probably a Jat, as "Jarta" has been claimed by many to represent the Sanskritized form of Jat (Pawar 1993, 40-58). This suggests that some Jat tribes pre-dated the occupation of India by White Huns or Yethas. And this has already been demonstrated by the existing Jat clan names of Dahiya, Takhar, and Mand, who had to come before the White Huns.
What's more, an inscription found by Tod in 1820 at a temple near the Chambal River south of Kota reveals the existence of a prince named Salindra (Tod 1829, 914-15). Tod claims that Salindra was a Jat prince and dated the inscription to A.D. 409, "the period of colonization of the Punjab by Getes, Yuti, or Jits, from the Jaxartes" (Tod 1829, 917). To this inscription
Pawar writes, "there is unassailable evidence of the existence of a Jat ruling dynasty over Kota-Bundi as early as 400 A.D. (Pawar 1993, 67). This should be ample testimony of the existence of Jats in India predating the Yetha, and this strengthens the case that "Jat" or "Get" or "Yut" tribes migrated at various times and those found in the Northwest are probably the latest incursions (Elliot 1870, 133-34).
As stated by Klaproth, the name Yetha is very close to the Chinese Yuezhi or Yuti (Klaproth 1826, 288), and more than likely, were a branch of this group. So when Cunningham states, "But the successive Scythian invasions of the Sakas, the Kushans and the White Huns, were followed by permanent settlements of large bodies of their countrymen, which lasted for many centuries ... " (Cunningham 1894, 93), we can replace the word "Scythian" with "Gets" or "Guts". Having now satisfactorily established that the Jats are descendants of the "Indo-Scythians," Gets, Guts, Yuts, or Yets, let us examine the etymology.
Etymology of Jat
If we look up the word "Jat" in the well-respected Panjabi Dictionary by Maya Singh, who was designated to create this lexicon by Denzil Ibbetson (at that time Director of Public Instruction), we find, "The name of a great tribe, descendants of the Massagetae, which forms the backbone of the Punjab peasantry, they are usually farmers and may be of any religion ... " (M. Singh 1895, 485).
It first should be mentioned that Getae is pronounced GUT-AY. Strabo pluralizes the Getae as "Getan" (Jones 1928 3, 221). Further, Russian authors, such as Sulimirski and Yablonsky, pluralize the Getae as Getan. For example, in his book The Sarmatians, Sulimirski wrote, "The evidence of both the ancient authors and the archeological remains point to a massive migration of Sacian/Massagetan tribes from the Syr Delta by the middle of the second century B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes ... also invaded North India" (Sulimirski 1970, 113-14). Yablonsky wrote an article regarding the Massagetae, entitled "Burial Place of a Massagetan Warrior" (Yablonsky 1990), in which he refers to Massagetae individuals with the singular "Massaget" (Yablonsky 1990). So we may take the word "Getan" , i.e., dropping "Massa" (Sanskrit Maha), which means "great," and we are left with the principal denomination, the "Getan." We can compare it to the pluralization of the word "Jat" in Panjabi, "Jatan" (Dhillon 1994, 110); for example, "Jatan De Putar" means "Sons of Jats." This "Jatan" is very close to
"Getan" and' probably represents a palatalization of the latter. Palatalization is "the shifting of a sound so that it is made by the blade of the tongue against the hard palate (notice how your tongue moves when you say keys and then the palatalized cheese), and is a frequent enough sound change in many languages" (Mallory and Mair 2000, 120). In the singular case, then, "Get" (Gut) could be palatalized into "Jat" or "Jut." It should be further mentioned that in Hindi, Jat is pronounced Jaut, rhyming with "hot," which renders it perhaps with a palatalization of "Got".
Further, if we examine "Jat" or "Jut" from the "Yuezhi" or "Yuti" angle, we find that they are again very close. "Yuti," being possibly the semi-vocal Sinitic transcription of Getae, is rendered once again very close to the pronunciation of "Jat" or "Jut." The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, under the subject "Yue-Chi," summarizes this etymology:
- Some authorities consider that the Yue-Chi are the same as the Getae and that the original form of the name was Yut or Get, which is also supposed to appear in the Indian Jat. (E.B. 1911, 28: 944.)
Therefore, Jat < Jut < Yut(i) < Get(i). Moreover, the Jats could be the remnants of the invading Yuts or Guts. This is the view of Dhillon, who attributes it to the rigid Hindu caste system, which involved forced endogamy (Dhillon 1994, 16) and ritual purity. It seems the palatalized form of the tribal name "Getae" was retained intact as "Jettah" or "Jatta" in Transoxiana up until the time of Timur, as testified by his Zafarnama (Twigg 1870, 318-19). Further, even in Punjab today, a term of endearment used to address a Jat is "Jatta" (Pawar 1993, 339). However, those Getic tribes that were noted in the west remained Getae, as in the Thracian Getae, and were later known as Goths by the Roman writers, as will be demonstrated later. So if we believe that the name of the tribe of these ancient invaders remained intact, what about their physical characteristics do they bear the impress of Central Asian origin?
Physical Characteristics of Jats
Risley writes the following about the Jats and Rajputs of Panjab:
- We are concerned merely with the fact that there exists in the Punjab and Rajputana at the present day, a definite physical type, represented by the Jats
- and Rajputs, which is marked by a relatively long (doUcho-cephalic) head; a straight, firmely cut (leptorrhine) nose; a long, symmetrically narrow face; a well-developed forehead, regular features, and high facial angle. The stature is high and the general build of the figure is well proportioned, being relatively massive in the Jats and relatively slender in the Rajputs. Throughout the group the predominant colour of the skin is a very light transparent brown, with a tendency towards darker shades in the lower social strata. (Risley 1915, 49).
Barstow writes about the physical characteristics of the Jat Sikhs, "The Sikh Jat is generally tall and muscular, with well shaped limbs, erect carriage, and strongly marked and handsome features .... In physique his is not surpassed by any race in India, if indeed he is not put at the top of the tree in this respect" (Barstow 1928, 166-67). Stephens writes, "[T]he Jat Sikhs of Central Punjab.... were not predominantly traders, but peasants and retired soldiers, landlords, scions of the princely families; men often of huge physique" (Stephens 1963, 171).
Now the Jats, after being in India for several centuries, obviously intemingled to some degree with the previously settled populations, but still maintained their identity. The main factor is probably the displacement of many of the original inhabitants of the Punjab and surrounding areas toward the interior of India and the forced endogamy of the rigid Hindu caste system, which allows for practically no intermarriage between castes (Dhillon 1994, 16). Although in reality, the situation with the Indo-Scythian populations in the Northwest is that they probably have undergone a process analogous to the American South with regard to the local Dravidian and interleaving Aryan populations once settled there. Moreover, the somewhat allowed institution of hyperagamy may have allowed for women of lower status to marry men of higher status (Barstow 1928, 159). Still the Jats may not be free from elements of subsequent invaders of India, such as the Arabs, Ghaznavids, and Mughals. Therefore, the physical characteristics of the Indo-Scythian descendants in northwest India are discussed by Coon and Hunt who write:
- The second invasion [of India was by] ... peoples who were related to the Scythians and Sarmatians. The tallest people are found in Rajasthan and the Punjab and beards are fullest among the warrior castes and the Sikhs. Most of
- these people have glossy black hair, although brown hair is not uncommon. Reddish and blond hair is extremely rare. Almost all of them have brown eyes of various shades, but one sees light and mixed eyes in rare individuals, particularly among the Sikhs. (Coon and Hunt 1965, 204-206).
Dhillon claims that around seventy percent of Sikhs are of the Jat background (Dhillon 1994, 12). In his Germanic People: Their Origin, Expansion and Culture, Owen writes, "In the shape of face, stature and general physical build the Sikhs approximate the Nordic type" (Owen 1960, 50-51). Further, Rose says, " ... [W]e find to this day in the Punjab a physical type predominating which in many respects resembles that of certain European races, and is radically different from the typical characteristics of the other Indian stocks ... " (Rose 1883, 1:58, 2: 362-63). Although physical characteristics alone probably do not satisfy the more skeptical reader, perhaps a brief analysis of their customs, in addition to the aforementioned practice of levirate marriage, will be helpful.
Keeping Unshorn Hair
A popular myth among some Jat tribes is they are descended from Lord Shiva's hair (Barstow 1928, 70). This myth no doubt is due to unshorn locks of hair being called "Jut" or "Jutan" in the Panjabi language. Dhillon writes, "In the Punjabi language, the word 'Gut' or 'Gutan' means long hair. This could very well be derived from the fact that they or their forefathers ... Scythians ... used to keep long hair" (Dhillon 1994, 1). But probably the reverse is the case; the long hair styIe was perhaps named after the custom of unshorn hair kept by the "Jats; as "[U]ncut hair was a Jat custom ... " (Pettigrew 1975, 25). McLeod also says this in his study of the tenets of Sikh faith; the baptized Sikh was required. to wear unshorn hair. He states: "Uncut hair was a Jat custom ... " (McLeod 1976, 52, 93). This custom, therefore, the Jats must have brought with them upon inception into Sikhism, and later it was crystallized, rather integrated into a tenet of the Sikh faith. As Barstow writes, "Sikhism ... which drew its adherents from all classes, each possessed distinctive manners and customs; the social and numerical preponderance of the Jats, however, carried such weight in the formation of national character, that the customs of the Sikh, whatever his origin, may now be considered as. practically identical with those of the Punjab Jat" (A.E. Barstow 1928, 151). And numerical preponderance seems to
hold true as shown above, so that Dhillon claims around 70% of Sikhs are of the Jat background (Dhillon 1994, 12).
Ancestor Worship
Ancestor worship is believed to have been introduced to India during the Kushan age. Worshippers venerated their ancestors by the religious cult practice of Devaputra or son of heaven (Thapliyal 1979, 139). The practice involved erecting small shrines on the grave of the deceased in honor of the forefathers, called Devakulas (Thapliyal 1979, 140). Said to be learned from the Chinese, this cult; as practiced by the Kushans, was shunned by the native Aryan priests. (Thapliyal 1979, 140).
The Jats of the Panjab worship their ancestors in a practice known as Jathera. Bingley writes:
- The worship of the sainted dead, though contrary to the injunctions of Govind Singh, is universal among Jats, whether Sikh, Sultanis, or Hindus. Small shrines to pitrs or ancestors will be found allover the fields, and there is generally a large one to the Jathera or common ancestor of the clan. (Bingley 1985, 75).
The village Jathera is the shrine of the village founder, who is usually revered by the Jats, especially after weddings, to get the "ancestors on your side" or "Jathera Manuana" (Dhillon 1994, 116).
Rose writes:
- Among the Hindu and Sikh Jats, especially in the north-central and central districts, a form of ancestor worship, called jathera, is common. It is the custom of many clans, or a group of villages of one clan, for the bridegroom at his wedding (biah or shadi) to proceed to a spot set aside to commemorate some ancestor who was either a shahid (martyr) or a man [or woman] of some note. (Rose 1883, 2: 371)
Barstow writes, "Once a year a Zamindar [Landowner] will worship the 'Jathera', or common ancestor of the clan, to whom a large shrine is erected in the neighborhood of the village" (A.E. Barstow 1928, 89). 'Bingley writes, "The worship of the 'Jathera' ... is universal among Jats .... Small shrines to common clan ancestors' 'Jathera' will be found allover the field" (Bingley 1899, 60). Jathera worship is summarized by Dhillon, "Generally, Hindu and Sikh Jats tend to continue to follow their ancient custom of worshipping their common ancestors... it is called "Jathera" worship" (Dhillon 1994, 116).
Venerating one's ancestor is not simply limited to Jats and the Chinese, but exists throughout Central Asia. Talbot-Rice mentions this practice among Slavs: "Among the various practices which the Slavs inherited from the Scythians, the most important consisted in the worship of their ancestors" (Talbot-Rice 1957, 181). This practice was also noted among the Alans; Bachrach writes: "[T]he Alans worshipped or, perhaps more exactly, venerated their ancestors" (Bachrach 1973, 22). Bachrach too believes the Alans learned this practice from the Chinese (Bachrach 1973, 23). We also know that the Goths worshipped their ancestors or heroes (Wolfram 1988, 106). Does this cultural similarity suggest an intimate relationship between these tribes?
But Jathera worship is not limited to village founders or ancestors, but also martyrs or heroes. Fenech in his Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition, alludes to the variety of martyrs in Panjab, in particular those of headless martyrs (Fenech 2000, 197). One such example of a headless martyr is that of a Sandhu Jat named Kala Mahar or Kala Pir, a notorius cattle thief near Lahore, who is rumored to have fought even after being decapitated (Rose 1883, 1: 283). Another example is that of Jogi Pir of Kuli Chahilan near the city of Moga (perhaps named after Saka King Maues or Moga (Dhillon 1994, 107), which has now a regional fair dedicated to his honor (Walia 2002, 43). Jogi Pir was a Chahil Jat (Rose 1883, 1: 281) who was digging a well, when enemies attacked and decapitated him (Walia 2002,43). Rumor has it, that the body stayed alive and continued carrying a basket of mud (Walia 2002, 43). So in this case, Jogi Pir was not necessarily a martyr, but a victim who died a violent death, which would be a bir (Fenech 2000, 165). Other martyrs who suffered such fates would sometimes manifest into malevolent spirits that Punjabis called hirs, bhuts, baitals, prets, and churels. (Fenech 2000, 165).
There are still other peculiar beliefs amongst Jats that appear Indo-Iranian, such as the
existence of bhuts, churels, and Nuris, which are spirits of men and women that died a violent
death and haunt victims, or more benevolent spirits such as paris that are analogous to fairies (Bingley 1985, 78-79). Still further, there exist witches called Daans, who attack only men, who can be identified by their feet and sometimes their faces, which are said to be inverse or pointing backwards. More specific mythology will be discussed later, for now we will turn to sword veneration.
Veneration of the Sword
Tod writes about the modem Rajput, "The Rajput slays buffaloes, hunts and eats boar and deer .... [H]e worships his horse, his sword, and the sun, and attends more to the martial song of the bard than to the litany of the Brahman .... " (Tod 1829, 82).
The modem Sikh prayer called Ardas makes reference to some form of sword worship or veneration, even before mentioning any of the Sikh gurus, which suggests that showing respect to the sword was very important to the Sikhs at that time. The Ardas says:
- Ik onkar waheguruji ki fateh. Sri bhaguati ji sahae. Var Sri Bhagauti ji ki patshahi 10. Pritham bhagauti simir kai, Guru Nanak lain dhiae ... Vaheguri ji ka Khalsa! Vaheguru ji ki Fateh! (Doabia 1976, 252, 258)
This translated to:
- God is one; All victory is of the wondrous Guru. May the respected sword [Bhagautiji] (God in the form of the destroyer of evil-doers) help us! Var [Ode] of the respected sword, recited by the tenth guru. First remember the sword; then remember and meditate upon Guru Nanak .... The Khalsa belongs to god!; all victory is the victory of god! (Doabia 1976, 253, 259).
Ammianus Marcellinus shows how sword veneration was practiced by the Alans:
- There the man is judged happy who has sacrificed his life in battle.:. as glorious spoils of the slain there tear off their [enemies'] heads [and] ... a naked sword is
- fixed in the ground and they reverently worship it as their god of war. (Rolfe 1939, 393-95).
It probably all goes back to the sword worship of the Scythians; as Wolfram puts it: "That Ares-Mars, in the form of the sword, was the divine father of the Scythians, Getaes, Goths, and Gauts was known to ancient ethnography, which they never tired of mentioning" (Wolfram 1988, 109).
It should be noted that the reference to sword worship by Marcellinus also shows that the Alans decapitated their opponents. This was also practiced by Jats, as appears in the case of Mehtab Singh beheading Massa Ranghar (B. Singh 1993, 37), but also much earlier. Lane-Poole writes:
- To restore order Mas'ud [invaded India 1033 A.D.] appointed Tilak, the Hindu, to take command in the Punjab. The Hindu paragon set out to chastise Niyaltagin (Mahmud Ghaznavi' s treasurer). At last the news came that the barber's son [Tilak] had routed Niyaltagin, and that the Jats had caught the fugitive viceroy [Niyaltagin] and cut off his head, which they sold to Tilak for a hundred thousand pieces of silver. (Lane-Poole 1970, 40-43).
Could it be that the Alans were descendants of or closely related to the same people that invaded north India-the Getes? Beyond the similarity in customs, physical characteristics, and tribal name continuity, clan name is perhaps another way to trace the movement of the Getic tribes in various parts of the world.
Clan Names
Peoples' clan or surnames are very dear to them, because they help to keep alive the historical record of one's father, grandfather, and so on. Though the usefulness of the clan name is limited in that it can be changed and it is usually only reflects patrimony, it can be a useful tool in determining ancestry. Many clan names can be traced back to one common ancestor.
The Jats of Panjab have several clan names that overlap virtually identically with those of certain European tribes; for example, Gill, Mann, Birk, Bains, Dhillon, Maur or Moore, Lally, Hans, Herr, JobI, Chiller, Sandher, etc., overlap with German, French, and English names. These examples are by no means insignificant but in fact are very well known Jat clan names. Dhillon provides an extended list of these names, and he strongly suggests that the Jat clan names are neither corrupted nor borrowed (Dhillon 1994).
It is often claimed that these clan names were borrowed by the Jats during British Imperial days. But the second Anglo Sikh war, in which the Sikhs lost and were annexed into British India, occurred in 1849, and within 35 years Rose published his A Glossary of Tribes and Castes of Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province, in which he recorded these very clan names (Rose 1883), which had been collected by Ibbetson for census data for the 1880 Census (Ibbetson 1916). It is difficult to believe that the Jats would merely adopt British names on such a large scale and so quickly; for example, the number of Gills, as reported by Ibbetson, was around 125,000 in 1880 (Ibbetson 1916, 121). Furthermore, this supposed adoption of clan names from the British should have been prevalent throughout India, including areas that had been under British rule for longer periods, and one would expect them to have been recorded by the British themselves (Dhillon 1994, 87). There does not appear to be any significant documentation of intermarriage between Jats and the British (Dhillon 1994, 87). Therefore, the overlapping clan names are significant, because they do not appear to be coincidental, and they seem to be widespread.
Beyond the overlapping clan names, linguists tell us that tribes are never really exterminated and that the name of a tribe continues to live on. Let us see if we can systematically map the movement of the Getae people in time and space by looking at the aforementioned cultural attributes and the survival of the name Getae. First, we shall discuss a peculiar group of the Getae, known as the Euergetae, that was known at a very early date to be living near Seistan or Sakasthan, a circumstance that suggests that an eruption of Getae may have taken place towards Afghanistan, prior to the general movement of Getae into India under pressure from the Yuezhi, who in turn came under pressure from the Huns.
Euergetae - The "Good" Getae
The Euergetae, also known as the Ariaspians, dwelt in the Seistan area at the time of Alexander's invasion of Afghanistan, roughly 328 B.C. Earlier, around 529 B.C., when Cyrus the Great of Persia was waging war against the Massagetae he had "received substantial help from the Ariaspian people. . . [who dwelled] .... in a region that corresponds to the modem Seistan." (Rapson 1921, 297). McCrindle says about the Euergetae, "Their name was the Ariaspoi. Cyrus gave them the honorific title of 'Benefactors' in consideration of the services that they had rendered to him in his Skythian expedition. They must have occupied a district lying along the course of the Etymander or Helmund River. Alexander spent two months in their territory and treated them with great consideration" (McCrindle 1901, 89).
Alexander, probably well aware of the history of the Ariaspians, continued using the descriptive title of "Euergetae" and called them that (Rapson 1921, 297). Classical writers, therefore, mention these people as "Euergetae." As cited by McCrindle, Strabo writes, "Alexander came to the Euergetai, who Cyrus so named ... " (McCrindle 1901, 89). Further, classical writers Arrian, Curtius, and Diodoms also mention the Euergetae (Kephart 1960, 529).
Kephart describes their location more precisely: "A tribe named Ariaspae, living on the Etymandros River, in Seistan, where the Helmund empties into Hamun Lake, at the Iranian-Afghanistan boundary, supported Alexander against the Scythians. Its members were called Euergetae, meaning 'Anti-Getae,' which further identifies the Getae as then dominant in Bactria" (Kephart 1960, 529). Here the name "Euergetae" has been translated to "benefactors" and "anti-Getae," but perhaps a better translation is the compound name Euer-Getae or "Good Getae," applied conceivably in respect for assisting Cyrus and the Macedonians against their warlike "bad" brethren, the Central Asian Massagetae. Moreover, the other name of the tribe, Ariaspians, indicates that they were probably horse-mounted nobles, as "Aria" means "noble" and "aspa" is Persian for "horse."
The Thracian Getae
The Thracian Getae, like the Euergetae, must have experienced an early migration from Scythia into Thrace, since by Herodotus's times they were confounded with other Thracians, but still were not extinguished by name or habits. The Getae, as known to the Greco-Romans, were an ancient tribe from Thrace, of uncertain origin. Frequently, they appeared in ancient literature as Scythians or Dacians (Leake 1967, 13). The first to document the Getae was Herodotus who,
as he writes in his history, believed the Getae were more brave and honest than the average Thracian. Herodotus writes, "The Getae are the noblest as well as the most just of the Thracian tribes" (Rawlinson 1928, 232). Herodotus further mentions the Getic worship of the god of immortality, Zalmoxis, who is said to be a student of Pythagoras (Rawlinson 1928, 233). Further, it is mentioned by the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica that, "They were experts in the use of the bow and arrows while on horseback" (E.B. 1911, 11: 911). This leads us to recall the Scythians, more specifically the Dahae, who were well known as horse-mounted archers (Dhillon 1994, 39). Rostovtzeff, although not believing in the Scythian origin of the Getae, offers an interesting comment:
- It is a curious coincidence that the features of armament and costume-bow, spear, and battle-axe-which distinguish the warriors whom we have supposed to be Cimmerians, are reported as characteristic of the Massagetians, whose name recalls that of the Getians, a Thracian people. (Rostovtzeff 1922, 41).
The characteristic weapons used by the Getae were also noted by Tod, who writes:
- Again when we find the 'homage to the sword' performed by all the Getic races of antiquity in Dacia, on the Baltic, as well as by the modern Rajput, shall we draw not the conclusion from this testimony of the father of history, who declares that such rites were practiced on the Jaxartes in the very dawn of knowledge? (Tod 1829, 653-54).
An interesting description of their dress is provided by Dio Chrysostom, a mid-first-century writer from Prusa (Turkey), who suggests that the Getae were Scythians:
- Here in your city (Rome) from time to time are to be seen persons, some of whom are wearing felt caps on their heads-as today certain of the Thracians who are called Getae do, and as Spartans and Macedonians used to do in days gone by-and others wearing a turban and trousers, as I understand Persians and Bactrians and Parthians and many other barbarians do ... (Crosby 1951, 5: 179).
Crosby adds an interesting footnote attached to the name "Getae": "A tribe in southern Russia which seems to have piqued the curiosity of Dio. He wrote a special treatise on them, but it is no longer extant" (Crosby 1951, 5: 178). It seems that Dio probably knew or believed that the Getae were the Massagetae.