Kashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is a city in the Tarim Basin region of southern Xinjiang, China. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, located near the country's border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. For over 2,000 years, Kashgar has been a strategically important oasis on the Silk Road linking China with Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and has a population of 711,300 people. Kashgar's urban area covers, although its administrative area extends over.
At the convergence point of widely varying cultures and empires, Kashgar has been under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol and Tibetan empires. The city has also been the site of a number of battles between various groups of people on the steppes.
Now administered as a county-level city, Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture, which has an area of and a population of approximately 4 million as of 2010. Kashgar was declared a Special Economic Zone in 2010; it is the only city in western China with this designation. Kashgar also forms a terminus of the Karakoram Highway, the reconstruction of which is considered a major part of the multibillion-dollar China–Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Etymology
The earliest recorded names of the city are Shufu and Shule. Shufu originally referred to Kashgar's old city inhabited by the Uyghurs, while Shule referred to the new city built by Han Chinese settlers, located from the old one.The origin of the name Kashgar is not known for certain and is the subject of academic debate. The Roman geographer Ptolemy, in his work Geography, refers to the city as Kasi. The Buddhist scholar Xuanzang meanwhile recorded the name Kasha after passing through the city in 644. The name Kashgar did not appear in Chinese records until the Song dynasty, but it was likely to have been used orally long before then. British archaeologist Aurel Stein argued that the name Kashgar came into use in 716, sometime after the raids on the city by Qutayba ibn Muslim, the then Arab governor of Khurasan. However, Stein's contemporary, the Scottish historian H. A. R. Gibb, argued that Qutayba never made it as far as Kashgar, and Stein was likely conflating Kashgar with another city.
The English name Kashgar is derived from the Russian name, which itself is derived from the Persian name . H. W. Bailey, an English scholar who specialised in the Iranian languages, proposed that may have been the indigenous name of the city, with the Eastern Iranian suffix - being attached later on. Archaic English spellings of Kashgar include Cascar
and Cashgar. The modern Chinese name Kashi is a shortened form of the longer and less-frequently used Kashiga'er. The Chinese government's official spelling for Kashgar in the Uyghur language is . The historical spelling is still used by some Uyghurs today.
History
Kashgar is located at the convergence point of widely varying cultures and empires, it has been under the rule of the historically Chinese, Turkic, Mongol, and Tibetan empires. The city has also been the site of a number of battles between various groups of people on the steppes.Han dynasty
The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han dynasty envoy travelled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west.Another early mention of Kashgar is during the Former Han, when in 76 BC the Chinese conquered the Xiongnu, Yutian, Sulei and a group of states in the Tarim Basin almost up to the foot of the Tian Shan range.
Ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus, which is in a "Kasia Regio", probably exhibiting the name from which Kashgar and Kashgaria are formed. The country's people practised Zoroastrianism and Buddhism before the coming of Islam.
In the Book of Han, which covers the period between 125 BC and 23 AD, it is recorded that there were 1,510 households, 18,647 people and 2,000 persons able to bear arms. By the time covered by the Book of the Later Han, it had grown to 21,000 households and had 3,000 men able to bear arms.
The Book of the Later Han provides a wealth of detail on developments in the region:
More particularly, in reference to Kashgar itself, is the following record:
The Kushans
The Book of the Later Han also gives the only extant historical record of Yuezhi or Kushan involvement in the Kashgar oasis:However, it was not very long before the Chinese began to reassert their authority in the region:
From an earlier part of the same text comes the following addition:
The first passage continues:
Three Kingdoms to the Sui dynasty
These centuries are marked by a general silence in sources on Kashgar and the Tarim Basin.The Weilüe, composed in the second third of the 3rd century, mentions a number of states as dependencies of Kashgar: the kingdom of Zhenzhong, the kingdom of Suoju, the kingdom of Jieshi, the kingdom of Qusha, the kingdom of Xiye, the kingdom of Yinai, the kingdom of Manli, the kingdom of Yire, the kingdom of Yuling, the kingdom of Juandu, the kingdom of Xiuxiu, and the kingdom of Qin.
However, much of the information on the Western Regions contained in the Weilüe seems to have ended roughly about, near the end of Han power. It is not confirmed whether this is a reference to the state of affairs during the Cao Wei, or whether it refers to the situation before the civil war during the Later Han when China lost touch with most foreign countries and came to be divided into three separate kingdoms.
Chapter 30 of the Records of the Three Kingdoms says that after the beginning of the Wei Dynasty the states of the Western Regions did not arrive as before, except for the larger ones such as Kucha, Khotan, Kangju, Wusun, Kashgar, Yuezhi, Shanshan and Turpan, who are said to have come to present tribute every year, as in Han times.
In 270, four states from the Western Regions were said to have presented tribute: Karashahr, Turpan, Shanshan, and Kucha. Some wooden documents from Niya seem to indicate that contacts were also maintained with Kashgar and Khotan around this time.
In 422, according to the Songshu, ch. 98, the king of Shanshan, Bilong, came to the court and "the thirty-six states in the Western Regions" all swore their allegiance and presented tribute. It must be assumed that these 36 states included Kashgar.
The "Songji" of the Zizhi Tongjian records that in the 5th month of 435, nine states: Kucha, Kashgar, Wusun, Yueban, Tashkurghan, Shanshan, Karashahr, Turpan and Sute all came to the Wei court.
In 439, Shanshan, Kashgar and Karashahr sent envoys to present tribute.
The kingdoms of Kucha, Kashgar, Wusun, Yueban, Tashkurghan, Shanshan, Karashahr, Turpan and Sute all began sending envoys to present tribute in the Taiyuan reign period.
In 453 Kashgar sent envoys to present tribute, and again in 455.
An embassy sent during the reign of Wencheng Di from the king of Kashgar presented a supposed sacred relic of the Buddha; a dress which was incombustible.
In 507, Kashgar sent envoys in both the 9th and 10th months.
In 512, Kashgar sent envoys in the 1st and 5th months.
Early in the 6th century Kashgar is included among the many territories controlled by the Yeda or Hephthalite Huns, but their empire collapsed at the onslaught of the Western Turks between 563 and 567 who then probably gained control over Kashgar and most of the states in the Tarim Basin.
Tang dynasty
The founding of the Tang dynasty in 618 saw the beginning of a prolonged struggle between China and the Western Turks for control of the Tarim Basin. In 635, the Tang Annals reported an emissary from the king of Kashgar to the Tang capital. In 639 there was a second emissary bringing products of Kashgar as a token of submission to the Tang state.Buddhist scholar Xuanzang passed through Kashgar in 644 on his return journey from India to China. The Buddhist religion, then beginning to decay in India, was active in Kashgar. Xuanzang recorded that they flattened their babies heads, tattooed their bodies and had green eyes. He reported that Kashgar had abundant crops, fruits and flowers, wove fine woolen stuffs and rugs. Their writing system had been adapted from Indian script but their language was different from that of other countries. The inhabitants were sincere Buddhist adherents and there were some hundreds of monasteries with more than 10,000 followers, all members of the Sarvastivadin School.
At around the same era, Nestorian Christians were establishing bishoprics at Herat, Merv and Samarkand, whence they subsequently proceeded to Kashgar, and finally to China proper itself.
In 646, the Turkic Kagan asked for the hand of a Tang Chinese princess, and in return the Emperor promised Kucha, Khotan, Kashgar, Karashahr and Sarikol as a marriage gift, but this did not happen as planned.
In a series of campaigns between 652 and 658, with the help of the Uyghurs, the Chinese finally defeated the Western Turk tribes and took control of all their domains, including the Tarim Basin kingdoms. Karakhoja was annexed in 640, Karashahr during campaigns in 644 and 648, and Kucha fell in 648.
In 662 a rebellion broke out in the Western Regions and a Chinese army sent to control it was defeated by the Tibetans south of Kashgar.
After another defeat of the Tang Chinese forces in 670, the Tibetans gained control of the whole region and completely subjugated Kashgar in 676-8 and retained possession of it until 692, when the Tang dynasty regained control of all their former territories, and retained it for the next fifty years.
In 722 Kashgar sent 4,000 troops to assist the Chinese to force the "Tibetans out of "Little Bolu" or Gilgit.
In 728, the king of Kashgar was awarded a brevet by the Chinese emperor.
In 739, the Tangshu relates that the governor of the Chinese garrison in Kashgar, with the help of Ferghana, was interfering in the affairs of the Turgesh tribes as far as Talas.
Soon after the Chinese pilgrim monk Wukong passed through Kashgar in 753. He again reached Kashgar on his return trip from India in 786 and mentions a Chinese deputy governor as well as the local king.