11-06-2005, 06:36 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-mitradena+Nov 5 2005, 09:12 AM-->QUOTE(mitradena @ Nov 5 2005, 09:12 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->However, what evidence do you have that the Yueh chi called themselves Jats?
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Hukam Singh Pauria, did a detailed research on the term "Jat", its variant names etc.
The connection of the term "Jat" with the term "Yueh Chi" is explored below
Ravi
*********
Extract from: pp 344 to 347
" The Jats, Their origin ., antiquity, and migration" (1993)H S Pauria Manthan Press, Rohtak, India, ISBN 81-85235-22-8.
" Continuing our quest for more variants of the word "Jat" as an ethnic term, we now turn to central Asiatic countries and their chronicles.
In the countries of the Oxus valley we come across the word "Jatah" or "Jetteh"[75], "Zutt" or "Az-Zutt"[76], "Jith" or "Git"[77] during medieval and early medieval tunes, not only as names of various places including villages, towns, canals, rivers and mountains but also those of the Jat people who inhabited them after their deportation[78] from India. From classical historians and geographers of the first century B.C. as well as from those of first century A.D. have come down to us variants like "Xanthii" or "Zanthii" or "XandHii"[79] "Iatii" or "Iattii"[80] used for the people living on the banks of the Oxus between Bactria, Hyrkania and Khorasmia [81], "Xuthi" or "Zuthi"[82] for those who occupied Karamanian desert and Drangiana[83]. One scholar[84] suggests that those people gave their name as "Zotale" or "Zothale" to the irrigation channel from the Margus river. All these terms are said[85]to be variants of the term "Jit" with their "parental house on the Oxus" and "their original seat or colony in Sindh" as well as "on the Margus ("Zotale" or "Zothale") river".
This reference definitely indicates that the Jats were spread over tbs region bounded by Indus in the east and the Oxus in the West in Central Asia.
This learned scholar seems perplexed in deciding the original habitat of the Jats in spite of the fact that earlier scholars like Pliny, Diodorus Siculus and Megasthenes had claimed that contemporay Indians were indigenous.
Pliny[86] the Indians living in the Indus Valley from the past. Diodorus Siculus[87] asserted that the contemporary Indians were evidently indigenous and Megasthenes [88], who was, in fact, more familiar with northern India of the fourth and third centuries B.C. than any other of his contemporaries, wrote about the people, inhabiting north-western India, that "none was alien and all of them were India's indigenous citizens". These impartial statements of the classical writers amply expose the fallacy of the assertions of those who assign foreign origin to the Jats.
It is a pity that in spite of the corroborative evidence, the Indian origin of the Jats was disputed and repudiated in favour of their Central Asian origin, simply because this theory was propounded by European scholars led by writers like Cunningham and Todd. These theories were readily accepted by their Indian adherents without making any reason or rhyme, simply because of the prestige that European scholars commanded.
THE CHINESE VARIANT - YUEH CHI
We now turn to some other forms of the term "Jat" available to us from the Chinese. During this very period in the region under review several variants were current: "Yat" or "Yata", "Yeta"[91] or "Ye- tha"[92] or "Yet"[93] "Yete" or "Yeti"[94], "Yewti"[95] or "Yuti"[96], "Yuchi"[97] or "Tuc-Chie"[98] or "Yue-Chi" or "Yueh- Chih" [99].
We regard them all as variants of the term "Jat".
Another term "Yueh-Chih", (with its two branches, "Siao-Yueh-Chih" or little Yueh-Chih and "Ta-Yueh-Chih" or great Yueh-Chih, is equally noteworthy.
This term, variously spelt by scholars, comes from archaic Chinese. It was pronounced from the fourth century B.C. to about the first century A.D., as "ngiwatt-sie = ngiwattia" which, according to B. Karlgren [100], points to a foreign word "Gut-tia" in China.
The Chinese adopted this name to designate newly encountered foreigners, probably the Dai or Tai[11] (Dahae or Tahae) of the Iranian writers or the Dadicae of Herodotus. Scholars, earlier, were doubtful if this was the real import of Yueh Chih, but the uncertainty was removed by H.W. Bailey, a keen student it of Chinese language, who [102] identified the Yueh-Chih with the Iatoi or latii mentioned by Ptolemy and who were the Jats of Cunningham, Todd, Elphinstone etc.[103].
The archaic Chinese pronunciation of "Yueh-Chih" as "ngiwat-teh" might have been responsible for its vernacularization as "Jatah" or "Jeteh" (Yatah or Yattah) till medieval times and "Ywati" for the other forms prefixed with 'Y'. There is every probability that' ngiwattia' was transformed into Gut-tia, and was abbreviated as Guti or Gut in the course of time. (Guti, as a variant, will be described in the sequel).
We may also note that what MacRitchie has observed : namely that the
form Jaut of Jat, (which he came across in the Memoires of Lord
Combermare), appears to offer the best compromise... with the popular
English form of a similar word "Ghat", viz. "Ghaut"[104] which
exactly sounds like Chinese, "ngiwat". It is significant, further,
that British officers called "Jat" as Gat but in writing that they
spelt it as "Gat" or "Gaut"[105].
What is pertinent to our enquiry is the question of the identity of
the foreigners for whom the Chinese use the term "Yueh-Chih".
Further, from where did these Yueh-Chih penetrate into China? The
term obviously would not indicate the neighbouring people like the
Mongols and the Turks. It is far more plausible to link this term
with terms we have already explored at some length, i.e. the "Getae"
and with the "latii" of Ptolemy, the "Jatii" of Pliny, and the Jats
of Cunningham, who were natives at that period of the countries
between the Sindh and Oxus valleys, and whom we have already
identified with "Sakas".
Some of these adventurous tribes of the Sakas from India at Buddha's
time penetrated as far as Kucha, (Kusa in Sanskrit [106]) or Lobnor,
where, the Chinese gave these aliens the name "Yueh-Chih" which came
nearest to their original name in sound. These tribes derived or were
given a new name in their new home Kucha or (Kusha) and became famous
in history as the Kushanas [106]. Consequently, it was but natural
for later historians to regard the Kushanas as a branch of the Yueh-
Chih.
There is still a tendency among historians to regard the Jats as the
descendents of the Yueh-Chih or to regard them as one of their
branches, the Kushanas, but the truth is just the reverse.
The names " Yueh-Chih" and "Kushana" are later names given to Jats or
a branch of them who migrated to Central Asian regions from Sindh in
ancient period.
Our reading of historical facts, pertaining to the tribal movements
to, and in, the Central Asian countries, leads us to the firm
conclusion that scholars like Cunningham and Todd, astute and honest
though they ere, have discovered the Jat horse as well as the Yueh-
Chih cart, but have managed only to put the cart before the horse.
References:
75. Mahil, UjagarSingh; Antiquity of Jat Race, Delhi, 1955, p.
14; Kephart, op.cit., pp. 262, 468. Sykes, Sir Perey; His of
Persia, Vol. II. pp. 120, 123. O' Ne al, Cothburn; "Conquests of
Tamer Lane, AVON Pubns. inc. 545, Mdison A- e., New York-23, pp.
29,91 ff, 95, 97,103f, 106ff, 110,125,130,232.
76. Strange, op.cit. pp. 244, 331.
77. Ibid., p. 454.
78 Cf. f.n. No. 50 above.
79 Strabo, Geog., XL, 8-2 & 3. Westphal and Westphal, op.cit.,
pp. 87-88.
80 Pliny, His. Nat., VI, 18. Ptolemy, Geog., VI, 12,14.
81 ASR, Vol., II, (1863-64), p. 55.
82 Ibid. Westphal and Westphal, op.cit., pp. 87-88.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Majumdar, R.C.; op.cit., p. 340.
87 Ibid., p. 235.
88 Diodoros Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, II, 220.
89. Deshraj, Thakur, Jat Itihas, Agra, 1934, p. 95.
90. Dr. Kunudsen, a Norwegian visiting Professor in the Math.
Deptt. of the Pb.Univ. in 1970, holds that Yatas are
Juts who migrated from the east, probably Ind., to the Scandnavian
and the Netherlandic countries in the remote past. Please note that
the name Kunudsen is just Indian. Lt. Ram Sarup Joon, His of
Jats, p.4,1967.
91. Law, B.C.; Some Kshatriya Tribes of Anc. Ind., 1975, p. 270.
92. Gankovsky, Yu. V.; The Peoples of Pakistan (an Ethnic His.),
Lahore, 1971,
93. Law, B.C., op.cit., p. 270.
94. Joon, op.cit., p. 4.
95. Chanda, R.P.; op.cit.,1969, p. 35.
96. Mukerji, A.B.; op.cit., p. 39.
97. Desraj, op.cit., p. 65. Joon, op.cit., p. 4. Mahil, op.cit.,
pp. 13-14. H.G. Wells,op.cit., chapter 28, Sec. 4.
98. Mahil, op.cit., p. 48.
99. Tarn, W.W.; Greeks in Bactria. and India., p. 286. It was a very
popular name and is found in all standard works. E.J. Rapson, Camb.
His. of Ind., Ch. XXII, pp.510. Ency. Brit. 13th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 180-81.
100. Mukherjee, B.N.; Kushan Genealogy, Skt. Coll., Calcutta, 1967,
p. 37. B.Karlgren, JAOS, 1945, Vol. LXV, p. 77. B. Karlgren, Analytic
Dic. Of Chinese and Sino-Japanese, nos. 879 and 1347; Paris, 1923.
101 Mukherjee, B.N.; op.cit., p. 38, Camb. His. Vol. II, pt.I,
LVIIIf. JIH, Vol. XII,
102 Mukherjee, B.N., op.cit., p. 39. J. Marquardt, Eranshahr, p. 206,
Cf. also E.G. Pulleyblank, Asia Major, ns. 1963, Vol. IX, p.
109; Asia Maj., 1964, Vol. XI, p.6; JRAS, 1966, p. 17. Pulleyblank
equates ngiwat-cie + ngiwat-tehy with Iatioi ( = Ywati).
103. Ibettson, Denzil; op.cit., 1916, p. 97.
104. Mac. Ritchie, op.cit., p. 78.
105. Princep, Sett, R. of Sialkot, S. 136; 1865. H.A. Rose,
Gloss, of Tribes. and Castes, Vol. Ill, p. 416.
106. Bagchi, P.C.; Ind. and Cen. Asia, Calcutta, 1955, p.68.
Mukherjee B.N., op.cit., pp. 6-7,11-12, Sakas so were
driven to that region from Ind.; Mukherjee, B.N.; op.cit., pp. 26-
27. For Indian rule and influence in Cen. Asia, Cf. A.
Kalyanraman, Aryatarangini, vol. II, Bombay, 1970. p. 9, Aurel Stein
also supports it.
107. Ibid. Bagchi holds that Kuci or Kuchi or Kusi is the
archaic pronunciation of Kucinam of Kucina from which
a genetive plural form would be Kusana. The ancient name of
Khotan was Godana (Ibid. p. 49) which proves the existence of
Indians there in the remote past.
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JatHistory/message/1429
Hukam Singh Pauria, did a detailed research on the term "Jat", its variant names etc.
The connection of the term "Jat" with the term "Yueh Chi" is explored below
Ravi
*********
Extract from: pp 344 to 347
" The Jats, Their origin ., antiquity, and migration" (1993)H S Pauria Manthan Press, Rohtak, India, ISBN 81-85235-22-8.
" Continuing our quest for more variants of the word "Jat" as an ethnic term, we now turn to central Asiatic countries and their chronicles.
In the countries of the Oxus valley we come across the word "Jatah" or "Jetteh"[75], "Zutt" or "Az-Zutt"[76], "Jith" or "Git"[77] during medieval and early medieval tunes, not only as names of various places including villages, towns, canals, rivers and mountains but also those of the Jat people who inhabited them after their deportation[78] from India. From classical historians and geographers of the first century B.C. as well as from those of first century A.D. have come down to us variants like "Xanthii" or "Zanthii" or "XandHii"[79] "Iatii" or "Iattii"[80] used for the people living on the banks of the Oxus between Bactria, Hyrkania and Khorasmia [81], "Xuthi" or "Zuthi"[82] for those who occupied Karamanian desert and Drangiana[83]. One scholar[84] suggests that those people gave their name as "Zotale" or "Zothale" to the irrigation channel from the Margus river. All these terms are said[85]to be variants of the term "Jit" with their "parental house on the Oxus" and "their original seat or colony in Sindh" as well as "on the Margus ("Zotale" or "Zothale") river".
This reference definitely indicates that the Jats were spread over tbs region bounded by Indus in the east and the Oxus in the West in Central Asia.
This learned scholar seems perplexed in deciding the original habitat of the Jats in spite of the fact that earlier scholars like Pliny, Diodorus Siculus and Megasthenes had claimed that contemporay Indians were indigenous.
Pliny[86] the Indians living in the Indus Valley from the past. Diodorus Siculus[87] asserted that the contemporary Indians were evidently indigenous and Megasthenes [88], who was, in fact, more familiar with northern India of the fourth and third centuries B.C. than any other of his contemporaries, wrote about the people, inhabiting north-western India, that "none was alien and all of them were India's indigenous citizens". These impartial statements of the classical writers amply expose the fallacy of the assertions of those who assign foreign origin to the Jats.
It is a pity that in spite of the corroborative evidence, the Indian origin of the Jats was disputed and repudiated in favour of their Central Asian origin, simply because this theory was propounded by European scholars led by writers like Cunningham and Todd. These theories were readily accepted by their Indian adherents without making any reason or rhyme, simply because of the prestige that European scholars commanded.
THE CHINESE VARIANT - YUEH CHI
We now turn to some other forms of the term "Jat" available to us from the Chinese. During this very period in the region under review several variants were current: "Yat" or "Yata", "Yeta"[91] or "Ye- tha"[92] or "Yet"[93] "Yete" or "Yeti"[94], "Yewti"[95] or "Yuti"[96], "Yuchi"[97] or "Tuc-Chie"[98] or "Yue-Chi" or "Yueh- Chih" [99].
We regard them all as variants of the term "Jat".
Another term "Yueh-Chih", (with its two branches, "Siao-Yueh-Chih" or little Yueh-Chih and "Ta-Yueh-Chih" or great Yueh-Chih, is equally noteworthy.
This term, variously spelt by scholars, comes from archaic Chinese. It was pronounced from the fourth century B.C. to about the first century A.D., as "ngiwatt-sie = ngiwattia" which, according to B. Karlgren [100], points to a foreign word "Gut-tia" in China.
The Chinese adopted this name to designate newly encountered foreigners, probably the Dai or Tai[11] (Dahae or Tahae) of the Iranian writers or the Dadicae of Herodotus. Scholars, earlier, were doubtful if this was the real import of Yueh Chih, but the uncertainty was removed by H.W. Bailey, a keen student it of Chinese language, who [102] identified the Yueh-Chih with the Iatoi or latii mentioned by Ptolemy and who were the Jats of Cunningham, Todd, Elphinstone etc.[103].
The archaic Chinese pronunciation of "Yueh-Chih" as "ngiwat-teh" might have been responsible for its vernacularization as "Jatah" or "Jeteh" (Yatah or Yattah) till medieval times and "Ywati" for the other forms prefixed with 'Y'. There is every probability that' ngiwattia' was transformed into Gut-tia, and was abbreviated as Guti or Gut in the course of time. (Guti, as a variant, will be described in the sequel).
We may also note that what MacRitchie has observed : namely that the
form Jaut of Jat, (which he came across in the Memoires of Lord
Combermare), appears to offer the best compromise... with the popular
English form of a similar word "Ghat", viz. "Ghaut"[104] which
exactly sounds like Chinese, "ngiwat". It is significant, further,
that British officers called "Jat" as Gat but in writing that they
spelt it as "Gat" or "Gaut"[105].
What is pertinent to our enquiry is the question of the identity of
the foreigners for whom the Chinese use the term "Yueh-Chih".
Further, from where did these Yueh-Chih penetrate into China? The
term obviously would not indicate the neighbouring people like the
Mongols and the Turks. It is far more plausible to link this term
with terms we have already explored at some length, i.e. the "Getae"
and with the "latii" of Ptolemy, the "Jatii" of Pliny, and the Jats
of Cunningham, who were natives at that period of the countries
between the Sindh and Oxus valleys, and whom we have already
identified with "Sakas".
Some of these adventurous tribes of the Sakas from India at Buddha's
time penetrated as far as Kucha, (Kusa in Sanskrit [106]) or Lobnor,
where, the Chinese gave these aliens the name "Yueh-Chih" which came
nearest to their original name in sound. These tribes derived or were
given a new name in their new home Kucha or (Kusha) and became famous
in history as the Kushanas [106]. Consequently, it was but natural
for later historians to regard the Kushanas as a branch of the Yueh-
Chih.
There is still a tendency among historians to regard the Jats as the
descendents of the Yueh-Chih or to regard them as one of their
branches, the Kushanas, but the truth is just the reverse.
The names " Yueh-Chih" and "Kushana" are later names given to Jats or
a branch of them who migrated to Central Asian regions from Sindh in
ancient period.
Our reading of historical facts, pertaining to the tribal movements
to, and in, the Central Asian countries, leads us to the firm
conclusion that scholars like Cunningham and Todd, astute and honest
though they ere, have discovered the Jat horse as well as the Yueh-
Chih cart, but have managed only to put the cart before the horse.
References:
75. Mahil, UjagarSingh; Antiquity of Jat Race, Delhi, 1955, p.
14; Kephart, op.cit., pp. 262, 468. Sykes, Sir Perey; His of
Persia, Vol. II. pp. 120, 123. O' Ne al, Cothburn; "Conquests of
Tamer Lane, AVON Pubns. inc. 545, Mdison A- e., New York-23, pp.
29,91 ff, 95, 97,103f, 106ff, 110,125,130,232.
76. Strange, op.cit. pp. 244, 331.
77. Ibid., p. 454.
78 Cf. f.n. No. 50 above.
79 Strabo, Geog., XL, 8-2 & 3. Westphal and Westphal, op.cit.,
pp. 87-88.
80 Pliny, His. Nat., VI, 18. Ptolemy, Geog., VI, 12,14.
81 ASR, Vol., II, (1863-64), p. 55.
82 Ibid. Westphal and Westphal, op.cit., pp. 87-88.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Majumdar, R.C.; op.cit., p. 340.
87 Ibid., p. 235.
88 Diodoros Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, II, 220.
89. Deshraj, Thakur, Jat Itihas, Agra, 1934, p. 95.
90. Dr. Kunudsen, a Norwegian visiting Professor in the Math.
Deptt. of the Pb.Univ. in 1970, holds that Yatas are
Juts who migrated from the east, probably Ind., to the Scandnavian
and the Netherlandic countries in the remote past. Please note that
the name Kunudsen is just Indian. Lt. Ram Sarup Joon, His of
Jats, p.4,1967.
91. Law, B.C.; Some Kshatriya Tribes of Anc. Ind., 1975, p. 270.
92. Gankovsky, Yu. V.; The Peoples of Pakistan (an Ethnic His.),
Lahore, 1971,
93. Law, B.C., op.cit., p. 270.
94. Joon, op.cit., p. 4.
95. Chanda, R.P.; op.cit.,1969, p. 35.
96. Mukerji, A.B.; op.cit., p. 39.
97. Desraj, op.cit., p. 65. Joon, op.cit., p. 4. Mahil, op.cit.,
pp. 13-14. H.G. Wells,op.cit., chapter 28, Sec. 4.
98. Mahil, op.cit., p. 48.
99. Tarn, W.W.; Greeks in Bactria. and India., p. 286. It was a very
popular name and is found in all standard works. E.J. Rapson, Camb.
His. of Ind., Ch. XXII, pp.510. Ency. Brit. 13th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 180-81.
100. Mukherjee, B.N.; Kushan Genealogy, Skt. Coll., Calcutta, 1967,
p. 37. B.Karlgren, JAOS, 1945, Vol. LXV, p. 77. B. Karlgren, Analytic
Dic. Of Chinese and Sino-Japanese, nos. 879 and 1347; Paris, 1923.
101 Mukherjee, B.N.; op.cit., p. 38, Camb. His. Vol. II, pt.I,
LVIIIf. JIH, Vol. XII,
102 Mukherjee, B.N., op.cit., p. 39. J. Marquardt, Eranshahr, p. 206,
Cf. also E.G. Pulleyblank, Asia Major, ns. 1963, Vol. IX, p.
109; Asia Maj., 1964, Vol. XI, p.6; JRAS, 1966, p. 17. Pulleyblank
equates ngiwat-cie + ngiwat-tehy with Iatioi ( = Ywati).
103. Ibettson, Denzil; op.cit., 1916, p. 97.
104. Mac. Ritchie, op.cit., p. 78.
105. Princep, Sett, R. of Sialkot, S. 136; 1865. H.A. Rose,
Gloss, of Tribes. and Castes, Vol. Ill, p. 416.
106. Bagchi, P.C.; Ind. and Cen. Asia, Calcutta, 1955, p.68.
Mukherjee B.N., op.cit., pp. 6-7,11-12, Sakas so were
driven to that region from Ind.; Mukherjee, B.N.; op.cit., pp. 26-
27. For Indian rule and influence in Cen. Asia, Cf. A.
Kalyanraman, Aryatarangini, vol. II, Bombay, 1970. p. 9, Aurel Stein
also supports it.
107. Ibid. Bagchi holds that Kuci or Kuchi or Kusi is the
archaic pronunciation of Kucinam of Kucina from which
a genetive plural form would be Kusana. The ancient name of
Khotan was Godana (Ibid. p. 49) which proves the existence of
Indians there in the remote past.