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Keay makes an interesting point that helps explain why the Yueh-chi (Kushanas) were on the move in the first place, essentially painting a domino theory. Here is the relevant passage, in which Keay is continuing comments related to prior movements.
"Chinese sources tell of the construction of the Great Wall in the third century BC and the repulse of various marauding tribes. Forced to head west and eventually south, these tribes displaced others in an ethnic knock-on effect which lasted many decades and spread right across central Asia. The Parthians from Iran and the Bactrian Greeks from Bactria had both been dislodged by the Shakas coming down from somewhere near the Aral Sea. But the Shakas had in turn been dislodged by the Yueh-chi who had themselves been driven west to Sinkiang by the Hiung-nu. The last, otherwise the Huns, would happily not reach India for a long time. But the Yueh-chi continued to press on the Shakas, and having forced them out of Bactria, it was sections or clans of these Yueh-chi who next began to move down into India in the second half of the first century AD."[1]
Gupta, Om. Encyclopaedia of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Gyan Publishing House, 2006. ISBN8182053897, 9788182053892.
Contains significant amounts of material plagiarized from Wikipedia articles. (Some other books from the same publisher also have this problem). There is no practical way of determining which material came from Wikipedia, and which came from other sources. Further, widespread plagiarism is an indication of poor scholarship. For those reasons, and according to Wikipedia policy, WP:CIRCULAR, I will be deleting all citations to the book. However I will not delete the material that cites it, as there's no indication that the material is inaccurate. For more background, see WP:RSN#Circular references: Gyan Publishing and ISHA Books, or the archive after it goes there. Will Bebacktalk 00:11, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Information
Does Loulan has any relation with Karhana during Kushan era ? They were rulers of Karhana known as Loulan ( Old name Kroraina) which was situated on silk road.Please guide if any clue or information is available with anyone.
Karhana belongs to Gurjar or Gujjar caste of hindu religion.
I have never come across mention of any such connection in many years of study of this region. That, of course, does not mean it does not exist - only that, if so, it is not commonly known. Hope this is of some small help. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 10:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Too many images?
On my browser the article is becoming very hard to read because of the large number of images, some of which crown out all text and overlap one another. Do we really need so many images? If the answer is yes, would there be any objection to at least reducing the size of them to thumbnails so that the text can be read in a continuous flow? I will make a couple of adjustmetns to correct rendering problems that I see on my display. Since browsers and screen resolutions vary, what you see when you view the page may differ from what I see. I did the upper part of the article, and now I can actually read the text in a continuous flow. Unless there is objection I would like to do the rest of the article, or have someone else give a try. Is there any way the number of images can be cut? Buddhipriya 05:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi Buddhipriya. Thanks for all the great work on the article. I am not so enthousiastic though about the minuscule 100px images and the caption going down in long columns... any compromise size possible? PHG 05:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Certainly we can experiment. If you want larger images, you need to consider not putting multiple images into the same section. One image per section may be enough. Some of these images may be redundant, or can be done in gallery formats as is done with some of them now. Some of the captions are too long, in my opinion. Getting multiple viewers to give feedback would help, because rendering issues vary on different systems. If the article is going to have so many images another idea would be to invite one of the WikiFairies to work just on layout issues. For articles that are art-intensive, moving the article toward Featured status needs to include a review of the art. My main issue is just that I could not even read the text in a continuous flow. Are you open to trying to recruit one of the Fairies? Buddhipriya 06:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Sure, let's go for the fairies. This does feel like we are working towards an FA... although I think a lot of material would still have to be added to get there. Regards. PHG 06:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the fairies, they vary a lot in their artistic style. Do you want to invite one? You may want to look over their portfolios or just look at their own user pages to see if you like any of them. We could also just compile a list of possible nominees. Getting the right one may take some effort. Regarding the content issues, I have not even begun to do content entry except for one test edit (which so far has not been reverted). My first goal was to figure out what is going on here and get the critical apparatus for notes in place. My overall sense is that the article has a lot of good material but that it would be good to add less new material and get some references in place on some of the old material. Buddhipriya 06:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Active Wikifairy list (here are some that show active edit histories currently and which may be candidates (let's identify several):
No one has commented on this, so I will try asking one of them to simply look at the page and comment on it. We may or may not be able to attract help, but it is worth a try to get independent opinion. And by all means go ahead and experiment by changing or reverting changes I have made if they have created particular problems on your screen. Currently I prefer the changes to the way it was before, as now I can read the text. But gradual experimentation is certainly needed. Buddhipriya 04:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Fairydust from Nihonjoe
The first thing I did was make the notes smaller using the {{reflist}} template. At first glance, I'd say it might be good to make an article listing coins used by the empire. There's got to be 30+ coin images in this article, and removing those (or all but a couple) would go a long way to cleaning up this article. As for the other images, it would be good to have those familiar with this topic to rank which images they think are the most important. In a way, this article is lucky to have this many images to choose from, but somewhere along the way those adding the images got just a little carried away. :-) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Joe, thanks for the first dose of dust! I hope you will help facilitate further work on the layout. I like your suggestion about a new article just for the coins. I have no particular knowledge of that topic, but I am sure that one of the other editors would be able to migrate some of the content. The overall article length is going to be an issue as more text content is added, so considering moving this special topic out is something that other editors may wish to consider seriously. I do not care which images are kept, as my main concern is just that there are so many of them that the text itself has display problems. I encourage you to help us think through how to improve the article layout. Buddhipriya 04:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, the first thing that needs to be done to do that is figure out which images are most important to keep. Since I am completely unfamiliar with the topic, I don't know which would be the best. I could just go through and remove the ones I thought were less important, but I wanted to give someone more familiar with the topic time to help in that respect. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Dear all. Coins are quite central to the history of the Kushans, as there is little epigraphical evidence besides them. I'd rather keep a fair quantity of them, and perhaps balance with more content at the same time as you may format the layout better. Please let's give some time to work on this. Best regards. PHG 05:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Let's see if we can get some other editors to express opinions on this. I could not find any policy guideline on this, so I asked for opinion about FAC guidelines: [1]. Even if the number if images is not cut, we still have to do something about the layout so you can read the text. I did find the statement that "In general, galleries are discouraged in main article namespace" in WP:IUP#Photo_galleries. And here are the MOS guidelines, which address some of the problems I have been raising with inability to read the text due to having so many images overlapping: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Images. One of the MOS guidelines is to not sandwich text between images on the left and right. There seems to be no way to avoid that if there is more than one image in a short section. I just tested the first section (removing the px specification, which is also an MOS issue), and the cramping of the text is apparent on my screen. Buddhipriya 06:50, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
And by the way, I thought Joe would be a good contributor because he may be familiar with some of the issues related to use of non-English characters (the problem with Greek that I have previously mentioned). ॐ गं गणपतये नमःBuddhipriya 07:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree with PHG that getting rid of coins will be dicey: for a lot of the major personages coins are the only evidence we have, let alone image. But I do see that the page is rather swolen with little gold disks. Perhaps there's a happy medium that can be reached? --Iustinus 10:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
This is why I suggested above that we needed someone familiar with the subject to indicate which images we absolutely needed to keep in the article, and which we might be able to do without in the main article. If you can make such a list, that would be helpful when cleaning things up. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I can see that this is going to be somewhat challenging, so perhaps we could start by looking at the issue of using multiple images in the same subsection, which causes a great deal of formatting disruption on my browser. Since we have a MOS guideline not to sandwich text between images on the left and right, could we begin by looking for layouts that specifically violate that guideline? I will try to find one like that now in the article as an example. Buddhipriya 18:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Coins article
Did this not ever happen? There are still a lot of images, and I wanted to work on that (unless I missed something somewhere, which is why I'm checking now). Dreambeaver(talk) 20:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
dates of reign of Kanishka
What is the source for the dates of the reigns as given? I have a print source that dates Kanishka's reign from A.D. 78 rather than the later date given in the text of the article. Could someone please get back on this dating issue. Thanks. ludahai 魯大海 (talk) 15:58, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
It looks like there are a couple separate sources. What is your print source? Dreambeaver(talk) 01:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Well the dates mentioned in the text are most probably wrong. It's a verifiable fact that the calender "Saka Samvat" was started by Kanishka 1 in 78 AD, but the text here says the Kushan Dynasty itself came into being in 80 AD. It is advised to the editors that the unverified data either be removed or tagged unverified.Priyanka6514 (talk) 11:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Priyanka6514 (talk • contribs) 11:01, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Origins
In the quote from John Keay, is "Shakas" a typographical error? It follows "Sakas", which appears earlier in the same quote.CorinneSD (talk) 20:44, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Corinne, John Keay is a journalist not a historian and should not be used as a source. --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:58, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Tocharian
I have reverted this edit, which moved Tocharian from regional languages to official languages. While the empire did expand in the 2nd century to include the Tocharian-speaking cities of Kucha and Agni, we know that the language of the empire was Bactrian. Kanguole 23:10, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
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Is there any source for the root of name "Kushan"? Is it a Tocharian, Iranian or another language name? --Wario-Man (talk) 04:16, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
From the cited source,
The name Kushan derives from the Chinese term Guishang, used in historical writings to describe one branch of the Yuezhi—a loose confederation of Indo-European people who had been living in northwestern China until they were driven west by another group, the Xiongnu, in 176–160 B.C.[2]
—Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 08:08, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, I saw similar sentence in Origins section before opening this section: "Chinese sources describe the Guishuang (貴霜), i.e. the Kushans..." My question: Is "Guishang" or "Guishuang" a pure Chinese name or from another language? e.g. Kushan from Chinese Guishang/Guishuang from Language X? Plus does it have a specific meaning? --Wario-Man (talk) 09:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
According to the "Kushans" chapter of the UNESCO History of Civilizations of Central Asia, the name Kușana appears on coins and inscriptions from the area dating to the early 2nd century. The Chinese name Guishuang occurs in a report from 125, and probably refers to the same people. No etymology is mentioned. Other sources characterize Guishuang as a Chinese transcription of Kushan, which does seem more plausible than the Met's story that these people took their name for themselves from the Chinese term. Kanguole 09:48, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Silver tetradrachm of Kushan king Heraios (1-30 CE) in Greco-Bactrian style. Obv: Bust of Heraios, with Greek royal headband. Rev: Horse-mounted King, crowned with a wreath by the Greek goddess of victory Nike. Greek legend: ΤΥΡΑΝΝΟΥΟΤΟΣ ΗΛΟΥ - ΣΑΝΑΒ - ΚΟϷϷΑΝΟΥ "The Tyrant Heraios, Sanav (meaning unknown), of the Kushans". The name "Koshanoi" already appears on their coinage from 1-30 CE (here attached). It would be interesting to know if there are Chinese sources anterior to that..... It seems to me that they only mentioned the term "Yuezhi" initially.पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 10:29, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
According to the Yuezhi article, the first mention of the "Guishang" in Chinese would be from the Book of Han (completed in 111 CE), thereby postdating the first "ΚΟϷϷΑΝΟΥ" (pronounced "Koshanoi") coinage by nearly a century. It doesn't seem that the Kushans adopted their name from the Chinese, but the other way around. Also Guishang (貴霜) really just looks like a Chinese phonetic transcription (it is meaningless as such, since the characters just mean "Noble frost"). पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 04:04, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Tarim Basin
I find various unsourced/dubious claims in the article about the Kushan Empire stretching into the Tarim Basin. However, an authoritative source states:
Earlier researchers thought that they were introduced into the administration of the Kingdom of Shan-shan as a result of Kushan rule there. Later, however, it became clear that the Tarim basin had never been subject to the Kushans and the emergence of Kharosthi script there cannot be explained by that theory.[1]
So, this needs to be looked into. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:37, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
"Emperor Kanishka was a great patron of Buddhism; however, as Kushans expanded southward, the deities of their later coinage came to reflect its new Hindu majority."
This sentence which had the latter part added concerning Hindu majority was included with these sources:
Grégoire Frumkin (1970). Archaeology in Soviet Central Asia Brill Archive. pp. 51, which makes no mention of Hinduism or coinage
Rafi U. Samad (2011). The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Algora Publishing. pp. 93, this is an unreliable source, since Rafi U. Samad has no academic specialization in this field.
André Wink, Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: The Slavic Kings and the Islamic conquest, 11th-13th centuries, (Oxford University Press, 1997), 57, makes no mention of Hinduism, coinage or religion.
Therefore, this part, "however, as Kushans expanded southward, the deities of their later coinage came to reflect its new Hindu majority." has no source to support it. Also, Hinduism in the infobox has no reliable source either. --Kansas Bear (talk) 06:26, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your research! Let's correct that, I don't know exactly where it comes from, and it does sound suspicious (especially the " new Hindu majority" part). In all fairness however, we'll have to say somewhere that Kushan coinage incorporates greatly Hindu deities (Shiva especially), actually largely more than Buddhist symbolism [2][3][4] (although Iranic deities are by far the most numerous on Kushan coins, and a few doubts (but not many) have been raised about the identification with Shiva p.87). In particular Wima Kadphises seems to have been a follower of Shiva, whom he depicts on his coins with all attributes, with the legend "Sarvalogaisvara" (probably "worshipper of Shiva") [5][6].... My understanding is that it seems rather fair to say that Hinduism was part of the Kushan pantheon. Describing "a majority" is much more dubious though, since according to Kushan coinage at least, the religious focus was rather Iranic. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 06:34, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
The "Hindu majority" stuff come from this edit.पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 07:48, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
I reverted IP's edits due to their bad edit summaries.[7][8] As you see they are just rants rather than clear reasons. But I didn't touch IP's edits anymore because it seemed they may had a point. I myself have problem with "Common languages" in infobox. Where are sources for unofficial regional languages and liturgical language? Are those entries random guesses just based on Kushan's territories? --Wario-Man (talk) 08:49, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
It's all good, Wario-man. I just noticed the sources in question and decided to check them. About 90% of the time the sources check out but sometimes it's just a bunch of garbage. I will be checking the latest sources posted by पाटलिपुत्र, once I get home and we can go from there. --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:24, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Nice, it would be great if you or the other editors find more reliable sources for spoken languages by Kushans and their subjects. Also adding a new section to article like "Language" or "Culture and language" is really helpful for the readers. --Wario-Man (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction, James A. Millward, page 25, states Kushan coins depicted Hindu gods.
Emergence of Viṣṇu and Śiva Images in India: Numismatic and Sculptural Evidence, Osmund Bopearachchi, [9], states Hindu gods on Kushan coins.
The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes, Raoul McLaughlin, page 82, states Kushan coins had Indian gods on them.
I would suggest adding numismatic information to the article and building from there, since nothing should be in the lead that is not in the article(per Wikipedia:LEAD). Also, so far Hinduism appears to have embraced by Vima Kadphises, so it can be placed in the infobox with a real source not a misrepresented one. Thoughts? --Kansas Bear (talk) 01:48, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
UNDUE and speculative content
I have removed a highly speculative (the author associates Kushans with Turushkas and then Turushkas with Turkish people, and thus finally Kushans with Turkish people) and WP:UNDUE content from the lede[10]. The editor who added the content should explain why it's not WP:UNDUE and must be on the lede. Their edit summary ("Restored referenced content.") was quite irrelevant, as the content was not removed for being unsourced. Puduḫepa 12:06, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Even if the source was of high quality, we shouldn't ignore the fact that the vast majority of academic sources suggest an Indo-European background for the Yuezhi, whom the Kushans belonged to. This leaves the Turkic theory out of the window. HistoryofIran (talk)
The source does not even use the word "Turkic", it says "Turkish" :) Puduḫepa 12:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
I am not aware that there is so much certainty about the origins of the Kushans that we should just label them as "Indo-European" or "Iranian" and throw the rest away. Actually, there are no certainties at all. There are quite a few sources mentioning the possiblity of Turkic origins, and it also appears in near contemporary Indian writings (the Rajatarangini). For the sake of balance, the least we can do in a sentence describing the various theories about their origins, is to mention this Turkic thesis as well. Some sources:
"The names of the Kushan kings indicate prolong Iranian contacts. It has however been suggested that they were Turk by origin." in Codrington, Kenneth de Burgh (2017). Bosworth, C. Edmund (ed.). The Turks in the Early Islamic World. Routledge. p. 133. ISBN978-1-351-88087-9.
"KANISKA AND THE KUSHAN EMPIRE They have been called Turks by some scholars, Tokharians by others; clearly, they were Central Asiatic horse people." in Prebish, Charles S. (2010). Buddhism: A Modern Perspective. Penn State Press. p. 46. ISBN978-0-271-03803-2.
"On the nationality: The main foundation on which to discuss this problem is the physical characteristics reflected in portraits of the Kushan kings (Kujula Kadphises, Wima Kadphise, Kaniṣka and Huviṣka) in the extant coins and statues. On these characteristics, there are always different views among scholars. Some find Turkic attributes in them, some, the Iranian element, and some find others.", "Some words and titles connected with the Yuezhi 月氏 or the Kushans can be explaned by the Türkic languages. In the Rājataraṅgiṇī (I, 170) there is a reference to the fact that the Türkic ruler in Gandhāra claimed his ancestor was Kaniṣka, and maybe this is not merely boasting." in YU, Taishan (July 2011). Mair, Victor H. (ed.). "The Origins of the Kushans"(PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers, University of Pennsylvania. 212.
"Gandhara Turkic kings of later generations considered King Kanishka to have been their ancestor. Kalhana stated in his work Rdjatarangini (1.70) that King Kanishka and other emperors and kings of the Kushan Dynastv were Turushkas, i.e., Turks (cf. Zhang 1936: 20)." in Mair, Victor H.; Anthropology (1998). The Bronze Age and early Iron Age peoples of Eastern Central Asia. University of Pennsylvania University Museum of Archaeology. p. 769. ISBN978-0-941694-63-6.
For reference, the Rajatarangini says: "Then there ruled in this very land the founders of cities called after their own appellations the three kings named Huska, Juska and Kaniska (...) These kings albeit belonging to the Turkish race found refuge in acts of piety; they constructed in Suskaletra and other places monasteries, Caityas and similar edificies." in Pandit, Ranjit Sitaram (1935). River Of Kings (rajatarangini). p. Verses 168-173., in the Indian original they are called Turushka in V.D, Mahajan (2016). Ancient India. S. Chand Publishing. p. 330. ISBN978-93-5253-132-5.
I need time to check these sources thoroughly, but authors from the 1930s are outdated. Puduḫepa 13:57, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Puduḫepa: You can just click on the links above, they should tranfer you to each page in question. पाटलिपुत्रPat(talk) 14:41, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
My comments on the sources provided:
This article appears to be a lecture given by a certain Kenneth de Burgh Codrington in 1944. I would say this source is questionable per WP:RS AGE.
This is a book of about Buddhism, and the article cited is one by a certain Stefan Anacker. Anacker is a writer on Buddhism who does not appear to be a reliable source on the Kushans. This is not a good source.
This 2011 article by the Chinese historian Yu Taishan is a presumably reliable source. However, Taishan himself states that "this [Turkic] theory is inadequate". On the Turkic theory, Taishan cites a 1902 work, a 1912 work, and a 2002 work by a certain Mehmet Tezcan. These works do not appear to be reliable sources, as they are either outdated or written by a non-notable scholar.
While the editor of this journal is Victor H. Mair, the author of the article in which this claim is made remains unknown. The citation is from 1936 by a certain "Zhang". As the statement remains unattributed and the citation is outdated, it is not reliable.
This statement remains unattributed. As the author of the statement remains unknown, it is not reliable. The statement cites Aurel Stein on the Kushans belonging to "the Turkish tribe". Stein died almost 80 years ago. WP:RS AGE applies here.
This is a 12th century primary source which is of little use to determine either the origin of the Kushans (who lived 1,000 years earlier), or the views of modern scholarship on the origin of the Kushans. Krakkos (talk) 15:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Kansas Bear and Krakkos: What do you think about this? WP:FRINGE? In my opinion, even Iranian origin should be removed from the lead section (per WP:WEIGHT). Plus why not moving all of them to "Origins"? --Wario-Man (talk) 06:31, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I think we should determine due weight by what is written in reliable sources. A. K. Narain, a scholar who has written widely on the Yuezhi and the Kushans, writes:
"They [the Yuezhi] are, by almost unanimous opinion, Indo-Europeans, probably the most oriental of those who occupied the steppes." – Roux, Jean-Paul (1997). L'Asie Centrale, Histoire et Civilization [Central Asia: History and Civilization] (in French). Fayard. p. 90. ISBN978-2-213-59894-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |subscription= and |registration= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
I think the Indo-European, possibly Tocharian, origins of the Yuezhi belongs in the lead, as this theory appears to be overwhelmingly accepted in scholarship. At the same time, the origins of the Yuezhi should not be given much space, as this article is about the Kushans, not the Yuezhi. I think most of the content about the origins of the Yuezhi belongs in the section Kushan Empire#Origins. The theory of an Iranian origin for the Yuezhi belongs in that section, as that theory appears to be a minority view. The Turkic theory seems like a fringe view. Apparently, there was a Turkic Turushka dynasty in medieval India, who "had their own psycho-training system called Turan yoga" and claimed the descend from the Kushans. Peoples such as the Franks and Picts claimed descent from the earlier Scythians, but no serious scholar would use that as evidence that the Sctyhians were Celtic or Germanic. Likewise, the descent claims of the Turushka offer no credible evidence of a Turkic origin for the Yuezhi. As HistoryofIran stated, this leaves the Turkic theory out of the window. Krakkos (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Krakkos: afaik, origin of the Turushka is disputed. Puduḫepa 13:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Puduḫepa: Interesting. That makes the case for including Turkic theories in this article even weaker. Krakkos (talk) 13:36, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I think we can have a new section named "Descent claims". Plus these paragraphs should be rewritten; they are primary sources. Have any expert cited or interpreted these stuff?
Origins => The 12th century historical chronical from Kashmir, the Rajatarangini, describes the Kushans as Turushka (तुरुष्क), thought to mean "Turkish"...
Kushans and Buddhism => The 12th century historical chronical Rajatarangini mentions in detail the rule of the Kushan kings and their benevolence towards Buddhism...
I mean are these claims really related to the Kushans or just descent claims? --Wario-Man (talk) 13:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Having a descent claims section is certainly better than including this information in the origins section. Krakkos (talk) 13:53, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
That tamga image comes from the Turkic World website.http[REMOVE THIS TO GET THE REAL URL]://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/30_Writing/301Tamgas/KushanTamgas.gif The website belongs to Barefact, and is one the MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. The tamga image does not seem legit in my opinion. Krakkos (talk) 13:52, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
The image itself seems to be referenced from "Art and mythology of the Sakas" by A.K. Akishev, 1984 (mentioned at the top of the image). The image is probably an original work by the uploader rather than a copy from Akishev, since it not formatted as an exhibit in a publication. As to the tamghas themselves, several are otherwise listed in publications related to Kushan coinage as in here, and their seem to be corresponding, although I cannot find at this point the sub-variations, which are probably minor variations seen on coinage... Would anyone have access to "Art and mythology of the Sakas"?? पाटलिपुत्रPat(talk) 14:32, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I removed it. Any content coming from that website is problematic and unreliable because it's related to this case: Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Tirgil34. Back to the topic; so what do you guys want to do with the origins? My suggestion: Keep the IE/Yuezhi in the lead, move the rest to the proper section(s); e.g. Origins, Descent claims, and Speculations.
I think that's a good idea, it will make the lead cleaner anyway. पाटलिपुत्रPat(talk) 14:45, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I also agree with your suggestion. Krakkos (talk) 15:05, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I don't think the article needs a section like "Speculations" or "Origins, Descent claims, and Speculations"- WP:PROFRINGE would be inevitable due to such a section. Except for the "speculations" part, I agree with your suggestion. Puduḫepa 15:14, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I have now made an attempt at changing the article in accordance with the consensus reached in this discussion. Krakkos (talk) 15:52, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
That was just an example and not a real/proper name for the related section(s). Of course, we shouldn't promote fringe & outdated stuff. --Wario-Man (talk) 08:46, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
The Tocharian bit is also speculative and out of place for the lead. We know that the Kushans spoke Bactrian (an Iranian language), and there is no record of the language of the Yuezhi in Gansu. Some authors speculate, mainly on geographical grounds, that they originally spoke Tocharian and switched to Bactrian when they arrived in Bactria. Narain is one such, going so far as to identify Gansu as the Indo-European urheimat. Mallory and Mair (Tarim Mummies, p281) use Narain's theory as an example of baseless speculation about the Yuezhi, remarking "Seldom has a tail so small wagged a dog so large." Their own view (p. 318) is that the Yuezhi were among pastoralists who arrived on northern Xinjiang some time after the Tocharians were already farming in oases in the northern Tarim.
The main evidence is the name Yuezhi (月氏) itself, recorded only in Chinese characters whose contemporary pronunciation is uncertain. Different authors have proposed different readings, which they have then compared with names known from classical sources, e.g. *Ywati : Iatioi (Pulleyblank 1996), Gu(t)-t'i : Gutium (Henning 1978), *Tokʷar : Tokharoi (Beckwith 2009). (The usual Old Chinese reconstruction, e.g. Baxter 1992, is something like *ŋʷjat-djeʔ.)
Pulleyblank himself ("Peoples of the steppe frontier in early Chinese sources", 1999) says "linguistic evidence for this, or any other, identification of the Yuezhi language is admittedly slight."
Beckwith does claim his identification is "quite certain", among the statementss of which a review in JAOS says "these identifications remain controversial, rather than established, for most scholars" (Hitch 2010).
Loewe & Shaughnessy 1999 refers to a footnote citing Pulleyblank 1996, i.e. a repeat of that citation.
Roux is being cited for remarks well outside his specialism.
Is even the assertion that Kushans were Indo-Europeans that well attested? Currently, the only two sources for this claim in the lead happen to be Narain and Roux, who are being challenged by other scholars per the above. Of course the Tocharians themselves are well attested as Indo-Europeans, as remains of the Tocharian languages show. But, per Kanguole, if the connection between Kushans and Tocharians is teneous and unproven, we cannot assume automatically that the Kushans were Indo-Europeans. From what I've seen so far, the origins of the Kushans remain quite obscure, and in that case we should only list theories about their origins as theories, not as facts. पाटलिपुत्रPat(talk) 10:54, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
"Uncertainities" should not be an excuse to fill the LEDE with UNDUE and outdated theories. Puduḫepa 11:04, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
It is well established that the Kushans spoke Bactrian, an Iranian (and therefore Indo-European) language. What, if anything, that says about "origins" is another matter. Kanguole 12:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
The assertion that the Kushans were of Indo-European origin is not merely a "claim" by Narain and Roux. They state that this assertion is "generally accepted" by "almost unanimous opinion". Krakkos (talk) 12:55, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm really OK with a wording such as "it is generally accepted that they were Indo-European", just as your sources do, rather than the bluntly affirmative "The Yuezhi were an Indo-European nomadic people" we currently have [11]. For the Tocharians hypothesis, I guess the current "possible origin" [12] wording is appropriate. पाटलिपुत्रPat(talk) 13:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
You are right in pointing out that the suggested Tocharian origins of the Yuezhi have yet to be proven. Still, reliable sources attest that this is often suggested. The question is whether those suggestions belong in the lead or not. The skepticism you're citing from Mallory, Hitch and Pulleyblank is concerned with suggested Tocharian origins, not suggested Indo-European origins. Roux is a university professor who has published widely on Central Asian history. He is certainly qualified to report on the scholarly consensus on the origins of the Yuezhi. Krakkos (talk) 12:55, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I've modified the lede[13]. I'd like to ping @Joshua Jonathan:, as he is a large and regular contributor to Indo-European and South Asian topics. Puduḫepa 11:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Funny, I noticed this thread this morning. I did some searches on the disputed terms, and added some info. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I have improved the article with important information with source. If you disagree please discuss it here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4643:C8EC:0:7599:76D3:3AF0:D15C (talk) 12:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, but I can't see the point of this addition. Not an improvement. पाटलिपुत्रPat(talk) 14:10, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Also, the source is a self-published book (that has been pushed on this article several times in the past). Kanguole 14:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Your source is not WP:RS. --Wario-Man (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
