Turpan
Turpan or Turfan is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 693,988. The historical center of the prefectural area has shifted a number of times, from Yar-Khoto to Qocho and to Turpan itself.
Names
Historically, many settlements in the Tarim Basin, being situated between Chinese, Turkic, Mongolian, and Persian language users, have a number of cognate names. Turpan or Turfan is one such example. The original name of the city is unknown. The form Turfan, while older than Turpan, was not used until the middle of the 2nd millennium CE and its use became widespread only in the post-Mongol period.History
Turpan has long been the centre of a fertile oasis and an important trade centre. It was historically located along the Silk Road. At that time, other kingdoms of the region included Korla and Yanqi.Along with city-states such as Krorän and Kucha, Turpan was inhabited by people speaking the Indo-European Tocharian languages up to at least the 8th century AD. Manuscripts from the 5th to the 8th century AD shows that the Tocharian A of Qarašähär and Turpan was used in the region for administration and religious texts.
The Jushi Kingdom ruled the area in the 1st millennium BC, until it was conquered by the Chinese Han dynasty in 107 BC. It was subdivided into two kingdoms in 60 BC, between the Han and its enemy the Xiongnu Empire. The city changed hands several times between the Xiongnu and the Han, interspersed with short periods of independence. Nearer Jushi has been linked to the Turpan Oasis, while Further Jushi to the north of the mountains near modern Jimsar.
After the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, the region was virtually independent but tributary to various dynasties. Until the 5th century AD, the capital of this kingdom was Jiaohe.
Many Han Chinese along with Sogdians settled in Turfan during the post Han dynasty era. The Chinese character dominated Turfan in the eyes of the Sogdians. Kuchean speakers made up the original inhabitants before the Chinese and Sogdian influx. The oldest evidence of the use of Chinese characters was found in Turfan in a document dated to 273 AD.
In 327, the Gaochang Commandery was created in the Turfan area by the Former Liang under Zhang Jun. The Chinese set up a military colony/garrison and organized the land into multiple divisions. Han Chinese colonists from the Hexi region and the central plains also settled in the region. Gaochang was successively ruled by the Former Liang, Former Qin and Northern Liang.
In 439, remnants of the Northern Liang, led by Juqu Wuhui and Juqu Anzhou, fled to Gaochang where they would hold onto power until 460 when they were conquered by the Rouran Khaganate.
Gaochang Kingdom
At the time of its conquest by the Rouran Khaganate, there were more than ten thousand Han Chinese households in Gaochang. The Rouran Khaganate, which was based in Mongolia, appointed a Han Chinese named Kan Bozhou to rule as King of Gaochang in 460, and it became a separate vassal kingdom of the Khaganate. Kan was dependent on Rouran backing. Yicheng and Shougui were the last two kings of the Chinese Kan family to rule Gaochang.At this time the Gaoche was rising to challenge power of the Rouran in the Tarim Basin. The Gaoche king Afuzhiluo killed King Kan Shougui, who was the nephew of Kan Bozhou. and appointed a Han from Dunhuang, named Zhang Mengming, as his own vassal King of Gaochang. Gaochang thus passed under Gaoche rule.
Later, Zhang Mengming was killed in an uprising by the people of Gaochang and replaced by Ma Ru. In 501, Ma Ru himself was overthrown and killed, and the people of Gaochang appointed Qu Jia from Jincheng Commandery as their king. Qu Jia at first pledged allegiance to the Rouran, but the Rouran khaghan was soon killed by the Gaoche and he had to submit to Gaoche overlordship. Later, when the Göktürks emerged as the supreme power in the region, the Qu dynasty of Gaochang became vassals of the Göktürks.
While the material civilization of Kucha to its west in this period remained chiefly Indo-Iranian in character, in Gaochang it gradually merged into the Tang aesthetics. Qu Wentai, King of Gaochang, was a main patron of the Tang pilgrim and traveller Xuanzang.
Tang conquest
The Tang dynasty had reconquered the Tarim Basin by the 7th century AD and for the next three centuries the Tibetan Empire, the Tang dynasty, and the Turks fought over dominion of the Tarim Basin. Sogdians and Chinese engaged in extensive commercial activities with each other under Tang rule. The Sogdians were mostly Mazdaist at this time. The Turpan region was renamed Xi Prefecture when the Tang conquered it in 640 AD, had a history of commerce and trade along the Silk Road already centuries old; it had many inns catering to merchants and other travelers, while numerous brothels are recorded in Kucha and Khotan. According to Valerie Hansen, even before the Tang conquest, Han ethnic presence was already so extensive that the cultural alignment of the city led to Turpan's name in the Sogdian language becoming known as "Chinatown" or "Town of the Chinese". As late as the tenth century, the Persian source Hudud Al-Alam continued to refer to the town as Chīnanjkanth.In Astana Cemetery, a contract written in Sogdian detailing the sale of a Sogdian girl to a Chinese man was discovered dated to 639 AD. Individual slaves were common among silk route houses; early documents recorded an increase in the selling of slaves in Turpan. Twenty-one 7th-century marriage contracts were found that showed, where one Sogdian spouse was present, for 18 of them their partner was a Sogdian. The only Sogdian men who married Chinese women were highly eminent officials. Several commercial interactions were recorded, for example a camel was sold priced at 14 silk bolts in 673, and a Chang'an native bought a girl age 11 for 40 silk bolts in 731 from a Sogdian merchant. Five men swore that the girl was never free before enslavement, since the Tang Code forbade commoners to be sold as slaves.
The Tang dynasty became weakened considerably due to the An Lushan Rebellion, and the Tibetans took the opportunity to expand into Gansu and the Western Regions. The Tibetans took control of Turfan in 792.
File:Dunhuang Uighur king.jpg|thumb|Buddhist Uyghur king from Turpan attended by servants. Depicted in Dunhuang Mogao Caves, Western Xia dynasty.
Clothing for corpses was made out of discarded, used paper in Turfan which is why the Astana graveyard is a source of a plethora of texts.
Seventh or 8th century dumplings and wontons were found in Turfan.
Uyghur rule
In 803, the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate seized Turfan from the Tibetans. The Uyghur Khaganate however was destroyed by the Kirghiz and its capital Ordu-Baliq in Mongolia sacked in 840. The defeat resulted in the mass movement of the Uyghurs out of Mongolia and their dispersal into Gansu and Central Asia, and many joined other Uyghurs already present in Turfan. In the early twentieth century, a collection of some 900 Christian manuscripts dating to the ninth to the twelfth centuries was found by the German Turfan expeditions at a monastery site at Turfan.Idikut kingdom
The Uyghurs established a Kingdom in the Turpan region with its capital in Gaochang or Kara-Khoja. The kingdom was known as the Uyghuria Idikut state or Kara-Khoja Kingdom that lasted from 856 to 1389 AD. The Uyghurs were Manichaean but later converted to Buddhism and funded the construction of cave temples in the Bezeklik Caves. The Uyghurs formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. The Uyghur state later became a vassal state of the Kara-Khitans and then as a vassal of the Mongol Empire. This Kingdom was led by the Idikuts or Saint Spiritual Rulers. The last Idikut left Turpan area in 1284 for Kumul and then Gansu to seek protection of the Yuan dynasty, but local Uyghur Buddhist rulers still held power until the invasion by the Moghul Khizr Khoja in 1389.Turfan expeditions
German scientists conducted archaeological expeditions, known as the German Turfan expeditions, at the beginning of the 20th century. They discovered paintings and other art treasures that were transported to the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin.Artifacts of Manichaean and Buddhist provenance were also found in Turfan. During World War II, many of these artifacts were destroyed or looted.
Turfan fragments
, Persian, Sogdian and Syriac documents have been found in Turfan. Turfan also has documents in Middle Persian.All these are known as the Turfan fragments. They comprise a collection of over 40,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments in 16 different languages and 26 different typefaces in different book forms. They are in the custody of the Berlin State Library where their study continues.
These writings deal with Buddhist as well as Christian-Nestorian, Manichaean and secular contents. The approximately 8,000 Old Turkic Buddhist texts make up the largest part of this.
A whole series of Sogdian Buddhist scriptures were found in Turpan, but these date from the Tang dynasty and are translations from Chinese. Earlier Sogdian Buddhist texts could not be found.
Christian texts exist mainly in Syriac and Sogdian, but also as Syriac-Sogdian bilinguals, as well as some Turkish-Nestorian fragments. They include fragments of Sogdian translations of works by Isaac the Syrian.
Manichaean texts survive in Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian and Uyghur; the Sogdian and Uyghur documents show a notable adaptation to Buddhism, but there is also evidence of a reverse influence.
Important parts of the Gospel of Mani were found here, for example. Also, parts of the Arzhang, one of the holy books of Manichaeism were discovered.
Most of the Buddhist texts survive in only fragmentary form. There are several Indian Sanskrit texts from various schools of Mahayana and Hinayana, Uyghur texts that are mostly translations from Sanskrit, Tocharian and, starting in the 9th century, increasingly from the Chinese.
Many of the Uyghur documents and fragments of Buddhist scriptures edited to date include didactic texts and philosophical works. In contrast to the other Buddhist contents, the monastic discipline texts did not seem to be translated, but rather taught and studied in Sanskrit.