Friday, July 26, 2013

Phrom Ge-sar and Khorasan Tegin Shah (680 AD)

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"Khorasan Tegin Shah" (= Tegin, King of the East), known in Chinese sources as Wusan teqin sa, was the second Turk Shahi on the throne of Kabul, succeeding his father Barha Tegin around or after 680 CE. The title "King of the East" may well be understood as a challenge aimed directly at the Umayyad caliph. The actual dominion stretched from Kabulistan to Gandhara and at times also included Zabulistan. Bactria, the land just north of the Hindu Kush, did not belong to his immediate sphere of rule.....The first Rutbil of Zabulistan fell already by 683 or 686/87 CE in a battle against the Arabs, after having been previously allied with them. Around 710 CE it appears that the Kabul Shah temporarily gained suzerainty over Zabulistan, and troops were recruited in Zabulistan for the mutual struggle against the Arabs....In 719/20 CE an embassy was sent by the Tegin of Jibin (Kabulistan) and the iltäbär of Zabulistan (Xieyu) to China to obtain confirmation of their thrones from the Tang emperor. The investiture decree signed by the emperor was sent by messenger back to Jibin and Zabulistan. During his journey through the lands south of the Hindu Kush in around 726 CE, the Korean pilgrim Huichao stayed for some time at the court of the Kabul Shah, who may well have been "Khorasan Tegin Shah". Huichao recorded that Kabul and Zabul were then ruled by Turkic kings, who were Buddhists, and that the King of Kabul was supposed to have been the uncle of the ruler of Zabul.".....http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/showcases/showcase14?language=en

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"Phrom Ge-sar was the successor of Sahi Tegin (700-738 CE) "King of Khurasan'.......the Kushan territories of Gandhāra and Udayana..... in 739, Tegin Shah abdicated the throne of Gandhara in favour of his son, Fu-lin-chi-p'o (also known as Fromo Kesaro, the Bactrian form of his name).........this victory occurred during the Reign of Fromo Kesaro (739-746 AD) and may have contributed to his transformation in later historical tradition into the Tibetan national hero Phrom Ge-sar, whose figure still survives today in the folklore of the territory of ancient Gandhara...The ancient coins read in Bactrian script: "The Glory Increased! The Majestic Sovereign!".. The territory was defined by natural boundaries: the Hindu Kush mountain range ... Beyond the foothills north of Gandhara was the ancient region of Udayana...".

743 AD...."....the supremacy of the Umayyad caliph al-Mahdi and the true conquest of Kabul did not take place until the end of the ninth century. ......An important recent discovery has provided a surprising insight into the events of this epoch. On the coins of some Arab governors, a Bactrian text overstruck on the rim has been discovered...... The reading of the text is as follows: (ppofio Kijaapo fiayo xoaSr/o klSo /So xaz iicavo /opyo o<5o crao /3o oa/3ayo aro i /xo /Jo yaivSo ( Fromo Kesaro, the Majestic Sovereign [is] who defeated the Arabs and laid a tax [on them]. Thus they sent it.)...... These coins formed part of the tax paid by the Arabs to Fromo Kesaro and were over- struck with a legend telling of his victory over them. Obviously, this event occurred during the reign of Fromo Kesaro (739-746) and may have contributed to his transformation in later historical tradition 44 into the Tibetan national hero Phrom Ge-sar, whose figure still survives today in the folklore of the territory of ancient Gandhara."...... HistoryOfCivilizationsOfCentralAsia

"The success of the Turk Fromo Kesaro in overwhelming an intrusive Arab army, sometime between 739-745, may have formed the historic core behind the Gesar epic in Tibet. In the records of the earliest rulers of Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit, whose countries were later overrun by incursive Tibetans, royal ancestry is connected to the Bactrian Gesar."......Harmatta, J.; Litvinsky, B. A. (1999). "Tokharistan and Gandhara under Western Türk rule (650-750)". In Dani, Ahmad Hasan. History of civilizations of Central Asia 3. Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 367–402. ISBN 978-81-208-1540-7. Retrieved 15 July 2011

"Vohra 1996, p. 217 writes that these coins with the title Fromo Kesaro appear to refer to the successor of Sahi Tegin (700-738 CE:Chinese:烏散特勤灑:MC:uo-sân d'ɘk-g'iɘn ṣai=*Horsān tegin šāhi 'Tegin, king of Khurasan'), ruler of the Second Turki Śāhi dynasty at Kapisa-Udyana, whose reign was between 738 and 745 C.E., and who is identified with the 'Frōm Kēsar' (拂菻罽婆: Fúlǐn jìpó:North Western Tang pfvyr-lḭum-kḭe-sâ) of the Tang shu. SeeHarmatta & Litvinsky 1999, pp. 376,380)."....Vohra, Rohit (1996). "Early History of Ladakh: Mythic Lore % Fabulation: A preliminary note on the conjectural history of the 1st millennium A.D.". In Osmaston, Henry; Denwood, Philip. Recent research on Ladakh 4 & 5: proceedings of the fourth and fifth international colloquia on Ladakh. Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 216–234. ISBN 978-81-208-1404-2. Retrieved 16 July 2011.

"The first Rutbil of Zabulistan had declared his independence from the Kingdom of Jibin (Kabulistan) after 680 CE. According to Arab and Chinese sources, he was an older brother of the king of Kabul "Khorasan Tegin Shah" ; after his ascension to the throne, they had a falling out and the first Rutbil founded his own kingdom in Zabul. Initially he must have secured the support of the Arabs. The title Rutbil corresponds to the Turkic iltäbär and is used in Arab sources to refer to the king of Zabulistan from that point on. The personal names of the various rulers are not known from written sources. The end of the Zabul kingdom, which together with Kabul stood at the fore of the long resistance against the Muslim conquerors, finally fell in 870 CE when the Arab general Yaqub bin Laith al-Saffar (r. 861–879 CE) conquered the entire Iranian East from Sistan and definitively defeated Zabul.".... THE RUTBILS OF ZABULISTAN AND THE "EMPEROR OF ROME".....http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/showcases/showcase15?language=en

"The center of the Kingdom of Zabul lay in the city Ghazni, one of the three residences of the king. In the northeast it bordered on Kabulistan and in the northwest it reached into the central Hindu Kush (showcase 12). In the south it included at times the cities of Rakhwad (al-Rukhkhaj) and Bost (near Kandahar, South Afghanistan). In the west the border followed the Helmand River, and the Sulaiman Mountains constituted the eastern border.....The travel diary of the Chinese monk Xuanzang from the first half of the 7th century records that numerous Buddhist stupas supposedly built by the Indian Maurya ruler Asoka (268–232 BCE) existed in Zabul as well as several hundred Buddhist monasteries and several dozen Hindu temples. The temple of the Brahman god Zun was famous far outside the borders of the kingdom and drew thousands of pilgrims annually. When the Arab governor of Sistan, 'Abd al-Rahman bin Samurah, reached Zabul with his troops in 653/54 CE, his path led to the temple of Zun. To demonstrate the impotence of the pagan god against the Muslims, he hacked both arms off the golden statue and tore out its ruby eyes.".....http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/showcases/showcase15?language=en

"Khorasan Tegin Shah" (= Tegin, King of the East), known in Chinese sources as Wusan teqin sa, was the second Turk Shahi on the throne of Kabul (showcases 12, 13), succeeding his father Barha Tegin around or after 680 CE. The title "King of the East" may well be understood as a challenge aimed directly at the Umayyad caliph. The actual dominion stretched from Kabulistan to Gandhara and at times also included Zabulistan. Bactria, the land just north of the Hindu Kush, did not belong to his immediate sphere of rule......Following "Khorasan Tegin Shah"'s ascension to power, a conflict within the royal family must have broken out that caused the older brother of the Kabul Shah to move to Zabulistan and establish his independence there. From then on, Arab sources refer to the ruler of Zabulistan as Rutbil (Turkic iltäbär). Faced with the threat of the Arabs, the two ruling houses remained in close contact and fought side by side against the Muslim enemy. The first Rutbil of Zabulistan fell already by 683 or 686/87 CE in a battle against the Arabs, after having been previously allied with them. Around 710 CE it appears that the Kabul Shah temporarily gained suzerainty over Zabulistan, and troops were recruited in Zabulistan for the mutual struggle against the Arabs.....In 719/20 CE an embassy was sent by the Tegin of Jibin (Kabulistan) and the iltäbär of Zabulistan (Xieyu) to China to obtain confirmation of their thrones from the Tang emperor. The investiture decree signed by the emperor was sent by messenger back to Jibin and Zabulistan. During his journey through the lands south of the Hindu Kush in around 726 CE, the Korean pilgrim Huichao stayed for some time at the court of the Kabul Shah, who may well have been "Khorasan Tegin Shah". Huichao recorded that Kabul and Zabul were then ruled by Turkic kings, who were Buddhists, and that the King of Kabul was supposed to have been the uncle of the ruler of Zabul."....http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/showcases/showcase14?language=en

The Vedas...."The wool of the Gandharis is referred to in the Rigveda. The Gandharas and their king figure prominently as strong allies of the Kurus against the Pandavas in the Mahabharata war. The Gandharas were a furious people, well-trained in the art of war. According to Puranic traditions, this Janapada was founded by Gandhara, son of Aruddha, a descendant of Yayati. The princes of this country are said to have come from the line of Druhyu who was a famous king of the Rigvedic period. The river Indus watered the lands of Gandhara. Taksashila and Pushkalavati, the two cities of this Mahajanapada, are said to have been named after Taksa and Pushkara, the two sons of Bharata, a prince of Ayodhya. According to Vayu Purana (II.36.107), the Gandharas were destroyed by Pramiti (aka Kalika) at the end of Kaliyuga. Pāṇini mentioned both the Vedic form Gandhari as well as the later form Gandhara in his Ashtadhyayi. The Gandhara kingdom sometimes also included Kashmira. Hecataeus of Miletus (549-468) refers to Kaspapyros (Kasyapura i.e. Kashmira) as Gandharic city. According to Gandhara Jataka, at one time, Gandhara formed a part of the kingdom of Kashmir."

"The Jataka also gives another name Chandahara for Gandhara. Gandhara Mahajanapada of Buddhist traditions included territories of east Afghanistan, and north-west of the Panjab (modern districts of Peshawar (Purushapura) and Rawalpindi). Its capital was Takshasila (Prakrit Taxila). The Taxila University was a renowned center of learning in ancient times, where scholars from all over the world came to seek higher education. Pāṇini, the Indian genius of grammar and Kautiliya are the world renowned products of Taxila University. King Pukkusati or Pushkarasarin of Gandhara in the middle of the sixth century BC was the contemporary of king Bimbisara of Magadha. Gandhara was located on the grand northern high road (Uttarapatha) and was a centre of international commercial activities. It was an important channel of communication with ancient Iran and Central Asia. According to one school of scholars, the Gandharas and Kambojas were cognate people. It is also contended that the Kurus, Kambojas, Gandharas and Bahlikas were cognate people and all had Iranian affinities. According to Dr T. L. Shah, the Gandhara and Kamboja were nothing but two provinces of one empire and were located coterminously, hence influencing each other's language. Naturally, they may have once been a cognate people. Gandhara was often linked politically with the neighboring regions of Kashmir and Kamboja."

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….July 2013

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