張騫 Zhang Qian. The Secret Envoy of Han Emperor Wu in Search of the Arsi (Yuezhi) and the Fall of the Græco-Bactrian Kingdom. (Annotated Compilation of Eastern and Western Sources)

These identifications also help us to realize that the Arsi, ruling Daxia from Lanshi in
the times of the Former Han (206 BCE – 25 CE), are still ruling from there at the beginning of
theLater Han (26 CE), i.e., over a hundred and fifty years later. This means that the Arsi had
been confined to Tachar for a long time — held in check by their immediate western neighbors,
the awesome Parthians, suzerains of a vassal Saka state in Bactra. The Parthians even
tried to drive the Arsi out of Tachar again. Trogus, in the Epitome of Justin, tells us that Artabanus
attacked the Tochari, in about 123 BCE. The Parthian king is killed in action and the
situation remains undecided. About two generations later, in the first century BCE, the Arsi
break through the Hindukush rampart and establish themselves in the Kabul Valley. A full
century later still it is the founder of a new dynasty who unites all Arsi forces under his command.
With this, he is finally in a position to attack the mighty Parthians and drive them out
of three key positions: Kabul, Bactra and Taxila — in that order.
(3) STRABO’S LIST OF FOUR.
Zhang Qian clearly describes the Daxia as the indigenous population of Eastern Bactria.
With this, it can be shown that the Daxia, or Tacharians, have never been conquering nomads.
With Zhang Qian we know that the Tachari had dwelled in the land of their name
since at least many centuries — and under a wide range of foreign invaders: Achaemenid
Persians, Alexander the Great, Bactrian Greeks, Central Asian Sakas and then the Far
Eastern Arsi, who all left their mark on the Tacharian language.
It has often been repeated that Strabo lists four, but Trogus only two conquering nomad
nations in connection with the fall of Greek Bactria — and that the Chinese sources know
just one such nation, the Arsi. This study establishes the fact that the Chinese historians, too,
speak of t w o conquering peoples. In the ›Hanshu‹ we are told something of prime importance
– overlooked in all translations: the 塞 王 Saiwang or “ Royal Sakas” had briefly ruled
in Daxia/Tachar before they were evicted from this part of Bactria by the Arsi.
With Trogus corroborated by the ›Shiji‹ and the ›Hanshu‹, Strabo’s vexed list becomes the
main target for the concluding investigation. One name on that list has always been questioned.
It will be shown that, in fact, t w o names do not belong on that list: the Pasiani and
the Tachari. Strabo left an unpublished manuscript when he died. It contained hundreds of
marginal notes. With this we may assume that Strabo had added the two names in the margins
of his manuscript – as a gloss on his Asioi. The unknown editor of his Geography took it
for granted that Strabo wanted to add these two names to his list — which so far included
only the Asioi (Arsi) and the Sakaraukai (Saiwang). Strabo in Amaseia had used the very
same source as before him Trogus in Rome: the ›Parthian History‹ of Apollodoros of Artemita.
In the past, the fall of the Greek kingdom in Bactria has always been reconstructed in a
way which remained in contradiction to this or that part of the historical evidence. Based on
a step by step evaluation of both the Western and Eastern sources, quoted verbatim, this study
outlines the complex sequence of historical happenings which lead to the destruction of
Greek power north of the Hindukush.
Thus, new insight is gained in a number of different topics. The more important are:
— The genuine Tacharians have for centuries been firmly settled in Tachar/Tocharistan;
— the conquering Arsi were confined to Tachar, or Eastern Bactria, for over 150 years, held in
check by the more powerful Parthians;
— in this long time the Arsi become known as the new (or pseudo-) Tacharians;
— the balance of power, in favor of the Parthians so far, is only reversed by the mid-first century
CE when a self-proclaimed Arsi king manages to evict the mighty Parthians from the
Kohistan, Western Bactria, the Panjab, and finally the whole of the Indus Valley. With this,
the foundations were laid for a new superpower in Central and South Asia: that of the Arsi
under the Kushan dynasty. Ptolemy, in the later 2nd century CE, splashes the name Tachori
(and variants) over all the places where the Arsi had been in the past three hundred years,
culminating in his calling the last “ ordos” of the Arsi in the Far East — close to Han China,
the Zhaowu 昭 武 of the Chinese sources (modern Zhangye 張 掖 ) — Qog£ra (Thogara).
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