Central Asia: A Textbook History is the
textbook of the history of all Central Asia,
East and West, that is East Central Asia

(Tibet and Xinjiang) and West Central Asia
(Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, and Turk-menistan) from the
ancient time to the present in any language,
Eastern or Western. The author has written
it mainly for students, scholars, and teachers
of the history of Central Asia.

Rs 275

Central Asia: A Texlbook History is the textbook of the history of all Central
Asia, East and West, that is East Central Asia (Tibet and Xinjiang) and
West Central Asia (Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and
Turkmenistan)

from

the ancient

time

to the present

in any language,

Eastern or Western. The author has written it mainly for students, scholars,
and teachers of the history of Central Asia.
Professor

Ram

Rahul, a native of Delhi, is the first Indian

academic

of

Central Asia and the doyen of Central Asia. He has travelled extensively in
Central Asia and written quite a bit on the different aspects of its history.

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2023

https://archive.org/details/centralasiatextoO000rahu

Central Asia:

A Textbook History

Central Asia:
A ‘Textbook History

Ram

Rahul

Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

ISBN 81-215-0888-6
First published 2000
© 2000, Ram Rahul
All rights reserved including those of translations into other languages.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written
permission of the publisher.

Typeset, printed and published by
Munshiram

Manoharlal

Publishers Pvt. Ltd.,

Post Box 5715, 54 Rani Jhansi Road, New Delhi 110 055.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements
CHAPTER

|

Parameters

CHAPTER 2

12

Tibet
CHAPTER 3

50

Xinjiang

CHAPTER 4

77

Amu-Syr Doab
CHAPTER 5

104

Tsarist/Soviet Turkestan

CHAPTER 6
Autonomous

Central Asia

123

CHAPTER 7
States of West Central Asia

Postface
Bibliography

128
139
142

Central Asia

facing, p. |

Preface

ENTRAL AsiA, the central region of the continent of Asia,

has been the scene of recorded history during more
than two thousand five hundred years. And yet there is no
history of all Central Asia nor its textbook in any language,
Eastern or Western. There are only accounts of certain of its
periods, dynasties, realms,

characters,

etc. My aim to write

Central Asia: A Textbook History is due to my professional
interest in the history of this vital region of Asia from the
ancient time to the present.
Central Asia: A Textbook History of facts, no myths or theories.
It has three sections—(1) East Central Asia, that is, Tibet and
Xinjiang, (2) West Central Asia, i.e. Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan,

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and (3) Contem-

porary Central Asia, i.e. autonomous East Central Asia and
states of West Central Asia. I begin it by defining the concepts
and parameters of Central Asia. I end it by recapitulating my
account.
I hope Central Asia: A Textbook History is useful to the
students and teachers of the history of Central Asia and its
other readers. Thus I hope it serves its purpose as a textbook
history of all Central Asia.
RAM RAHUL
New Delhi

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7

CENTRAL
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Acknowledgements

AM THANKFUL to P.C. Chandok (Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi), M.A. Faroogi (Indian Council of Historical
Research, New Delhi), M.K. Gupta (New Janta Book Depot,

New Delhi), P.S. Manola (Oxford University Press, New Delhi),
S. Shankar (Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi). and R.K:S.

Yadava (Gurgaon) in the preparation of the manuscript of
Central Asia: A Textbook History for publication.

CHAPTER 1

Parameters

ENTRAL AsIA, the central region of the continent of Asia
between Mongolia and China proper in the east, India,
Bhutan, Nepal and Afghanistan in the south, Iran in the west
and Russia in the north, comprises two, almost equal, parts—

East Central Asia (Tibet and Xinjiang) and West Central Asia
(Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan). It has high mountains, great lakes, long rivers and big
deserts. Diverse peoples—the Hans, Tibetans, Tajiks and Turks
—inhabit it. The domain of chieftains of tribes, kings, priest
kings and emperors, it is, and has always been, a crucial part
of Asia and an important part of the world. It has been the
crossroads of civilizations, the movements of peoples and
ideas, and the battleground of armies. In the ancient time,

Buddhism and Islam spread from Central Asia to East Asia.
Buddhism made an abiding impact on the cultures of China
and Korea and Japan. Islam is the living faith of the Dungans
(Tungans)' of China. In the medieval time, science (mathe-

matics and astronomy)

spread from Central Asia to West

Asia, and Europe.

There are several definitions and concepts of Central Asia.
Central Asia has inaptly been called ‘Inner Asia’ and ‘Inmost
Asia’. It is neither inmost? nor inner nor innermost’ Asia. It is
just Central Asia. At best, Inner Asia is countries which have
'Chinese

Muslims,

now

known

as the

Huis

of the

Ningxia

Hui

Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
"George N. Roerich,

Trails lo Inmost Asia, New Haven: Yale University

Press, 1932.

“Ralph P. Cobbold, Jnnermost Asia, London, 1900.

Zn

CENTRAL ASIA:

no seaboard

such

A TEXTBOOK

as Mongolia,

Laos,

HISTORY

Bhutan,

Nepal

and

Afghanistan. Up to the time of Pope Innocent IV (1190-1254;
r. 1243-54), who

sent the Franciscan

monk

Giovanni

de

Piano Carpini to Guyuk Khan (r. 1246-48), in 1245', Europe
knew Central Asia as Tartary, the land of the Tartars’.

According to the Chinese concept, Central Asia is Xz (Hs7)
Yu, the land west of China proper. The Ili River basin, although
politically part of Central Asia, is geographically and anthropologically part of East Asia. China was the first country to
appear in Central Asia in the time of the first Han dynasty
(206 Bc-ap 4). According to the Indian concept, Central Asia

is the land north of the Himalaya range of mountains. Ladakh
and Spiti, although politically part of South Asia, are geographically and anthropologically part of Central Asia. India’s
connection with Central Asia traces to remote past, anterior

to the migration of Turkic people there. According to the
Iranian concept, Central Asia is the land north of Khurasan
(Khorasan, Horasan), the land of the Sun. Marv (pronounced

Merv, modern Mary) and Sarakh, although politically part of
Central Asia, are geographically part of West Asia. Kurush/
Cyrus the Great (r. 550-529 sc) made West Central Asia part

of his empire, founding the city of Cyropolis on the J(Y)axtartes River (medieval Jayhun, modern Syr Darya), c. 545 Bc.
With the advance of Russia eastward in the seventeenth
century, there also has been the Russian, and Western (as
seen from the west) concept of Central Asia as the land east
of the Caspian Sea (Persian: Darya-e Khajar).
There also are several dimensions and aspects of Central
Asia, especially the dimensions of geography and anthropology. The configuration of Central Asia is high mountains,
great lakes, long rivers and big deserts. The demography of
Central Asia is diverse: the Tibetans, Tajiks and Turks inhabit
it. Certain aspects of Central Asia such as imperialism are
considerable. Until recently, borders, tribal and/or political,
‘de Rachelwiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khan, London,
“That is, the Tatars.

1971.

PARAMETERS

3

in Central Asia changed with the shifts in tribal and/or political power there.
Chomolungma (Cho mo rlung ma)', now on the TibetNepal border, is the highest uplift of the landmass of the
world. Koko Nor in northeast Tibet and Mapham Tso (mTsho)

in West Tibet are the great lakes of East Central Asia. The
Tsangpo

(gIsang po), the Brahmaputra

of India, and the

Singye Bab, the Sindh/Indus of India, in West Tibet and the

Sita/Tarim and the Ili in South and North Xinjiang are its
long rivers. The desert in South Xinjiang is the biggest desert
of the world. The Tsaidam on the east edge of Tibet and the
Turpan (Turfan) Depression in West Xinjiang are below the
level of the sea, the Turpan Depression being the lowest part
of the landmass of the world.
Tibet is an ancient land of an ancient people. Now it is an
autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
It marches along the Xinjiang-Uygur autonomous region of
the PRC in the north and China proper in the east. It touches
Myanmar/Burma

and borders India, Bhutan

and Nepal in

the south and west. The Tibetans also spread in Myanmar and
in the Yunnan, Sichuan and Gansu provinces of China. The
ancient Chinese knew Tibet as T’u-fan. The ancient Indians
knew it as Bhota’, the Arabs called it Tubot (Tubot is Arabic for

mTo po/ bod, Upper Tibet). The indigenous name for Tibet is
Po, spelt Bod. The name

Tibet derives from the Arabic Tubot.

Due to its dominance by the lamas of the Gelug School of the
Buddhism of Tibet in the modern time, the Westerners have
called it Lama Land’. James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon gave it
the sobriquet of Shangrila.
Most of Tibet is a plateau, Tsaidam being its lowest part.
Human habitation in Tibet is at an average ten thousand feet
above the level of the sea. If at some places it is at lower levels,
at others it is as high as fourteen thousand feet. By reason of
-such

height, Tibet is scanty of vegetation,

not enough

'Mount Everest.
2The name Bhola is the Sanskrit variant of Bod, Tibet.
*William W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, New York, 1891.

to

4

CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

sustain life. The sources of the great rivers of Asia—the
Huang He (Ho) and the Kinsha Kiang (later becoming the
Yangze (Yangtze Kiang) of China and the Brahmaputra and
Sindh

(Indus)

of India, which

flow into the Pacific and

Indian oceans—lie in Tibet'. The Tsangpo is the longest of
Tibet’s waterways. Flowing from west to east through the
southern and most populous part of Tibet, it collects, throughout its great length in Tibet, the melting snows of the northern
slopes of the Himalaya. Until 1950 the Tibetans used to cross
it or run it in the yak hide crocles. Like the Sanskrit word
Ganga, the Tibetan word Tsangpo means “purifier”. And, like

the Ganga, the Tsangpo means this particular river. The
Tsang Chhu’, the Tsang River, is its main northern tributary.
Ethnically, the people of Tibet are of the Mongoloid stock,
but they go by the names of the regions of their country such
as, from east to west, Amdova, Khamba, Uba, Tsangpa, Ngaripa.

There also are further valley subdivisions such as, again from
east to west, Baba, Ralungpa, Popa, Tingnpa, Kyrongpa, Purangpa
and so on. Occupationally, they are Dokpa (Brok pa, nomad)
and Rongpa (gRong pa, valley) —the pastoral and agricultural
people.
Bon, the cult of animism, sorcery and magic, was the
official religion of ancient Tibet. Mount Tise and Lake
Mapham,

Mount

Kailash

and Lake

Manas

of the Sanskrit

tradition, in West Tibet are the most sacred places of Bon.
The Bonpas, the adherents of the Bon faith, go around them

from right to left. They always keep sacred objects on their
left side. The Tibetan Buddhists Nangpa/Insiders call the

Bonpas Chhippa (Phyipa)/Outsiders. The symbols of Bon
(pronounced: Phon) such as the Yung dung (gYung drung)*
can still be seen in Lamayuru, Ladakh (La dvaks). The present

Lamayuru Gonpa (mGon pa)/Monastery was originally a
Bon site. Shang Shung (later Guge) in West Tibet was the
domain of Bon in the ancient time. Bon is still a living faith
‘Also the Dzi Chhu (Salween), and the Dza Chhu
*Chhu is Tibetan for “river”, “stream”, “water”.

"The right to left Swasteka (sutastitka).

(Mekong).

PARAMETERS

5

in Tibet, its borderlands and the regions of Tibetan language
and culture. The present Bon institutions and practices bear
the deep impact of the Buddhism of Tibet. The folk religion
and Buddhism of Tibet also have strong elements of Bon.
The geographical names in Tibet such as Amnye Machhen
on Tibet’s eastern border, Cho-molungma (now on the NepalTibet border) and Chomolhari on the Bhutan-Tibet border,

Yarlung etc. are mostly from the Bon period of ancient Tibet.
Like the shaman, the priests of the pre-Zoroastrian, preBuddhist and pre-Muhammadan societies of Central Asia,
the shen—the priests of the Bon—invoke

sky, air, and earth,

mountains and mountain passes, lakes and rivers. They also
work as the history and medicine men of the Bonpa society
of Tibet and its border lands.
Xinjiang (Sinkiang) is an ancient land. It borders Mongolia
and the PRC province of Qinghai (Chinghai) in the east. It
marches along Tibet and India in the south, it straddles
Afghanistan and Tajikistan in the west and it is adjacent to
Kyrgyzstan (Kyrkyzstan), Kazakstan and Russia, in the north.
The name Xinjiang (Chinese for “New Territory”) is only

from AD 1767, when the Manchu court of China merged the
Tarim region south of the Tianshan range, and the Ili region,
north of it, to form it.
In the ancient time, the Chinese knew the entire land west

of Changan (Ch’ang-an), the capital of China then, as Xi Yu
(Hsi Yu), the Western Regions. The Chagatai period knew it
as Mogolistan, the Mongol land. Since then, it has been the

eastern
(130468)

part of what the Moroccan
called

Turkistan,

traveller Ibn Battuta

the land of the Turks.

In the

modern period, it has been known as Kashgaria or Alti Shahr,
the “Six Cities” of Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Aksu, Kucha
and Turpan. It has also been called the “heart”,' the “pulse”?

and the “pivot” of Asia.
'RE. Younghusband,

The Heart a of Continent, London,

1917.
"Ellsworth Huntington, 7he Pulse of Asia, Boston, 1917.
‘Owen Lattimore, Pivol of Asia, Boston, 1950.

1896, revised,

6

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

The Tianshan, the Celestial Mountain range divides Xinjiang into the northern and southern parts. The southern
part is bigger than the northern part. The northern part is
mainly pasture land. Urumqi

(Urumch’i)', the capital, is in

the northern part. Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan and other
cities are in the southern part. The Turpan Depression and
the Desert are also in the southern part.
The Ili River in the northern part and the Tarim River in
the southern part are the main rivers of Xinjiang. The Tarim
River is the lifeline of the southern part. The Manas River is
the granary of the northern part. The Ili, the joint waters of
the Kunges, Tekes and Yulduz rivers, which rise in the
Tianshan range, flows north into Lake Balkhash, the greatest
lake of Central Asia, in East Kazakstan. The Tarim, the joint
waters of the Yarkand, Khotan and other rivers, which rise in

the Karakoram and Kunlun (pronounced: Kuenluen) ranges
of mountains’, flows east into Lake Lob Nor.

The people of diverse ethnic and linguistic origins such as
the Han, Uygur, Kirgiz, Kazak, Mongol, Manchu, ‘Tajik, Balti

and others live in Xinjiang. The Uygurs, the most numerous,

constitute nearly half of its population. They also spread in
Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. The Hans (population almost
equal to the Uygur population) have been in the Sita/Tarim
Basin for much longer than the Uygurs. They are, in a way,
the indigenous people of Xinjiang. They mainly live in the
cities. Historically, the Garloks and Uygurs are the main
branches of the Turki stock in Xinjiang. The Kazaks and
other Turks came to Xinjiang in the mid-eighteenth century.
The people of Indian origin lived in the kingdoms of the
oases up to the advent of the Uygurs from the Orkhon region
of present-day Mongolia in the ninth century ap. The scholar
pilgrims Faxian (Fa-hian, 337-422), Xuan Zung (Hsuan Tsang,
596/602-64) and others to India in the fifth-seventh centuries

mention them; they mention their kings, their religion—
Buddhism—and their viharas/monasteries. They also mention
their Sanskrit language and scripts.
'An Oyrat Mongol place-name.
*South of Yarkand and Khotan.

PARAMETERS

“I

West Central Asia extends from Iran and the Caspian Sea
in the west to the Tianshan range and China in the east and
from Siberia in the north to Afghanistan in the south. Parthia,

Khwarizm and Sogd (Bukhara, Samarkand and Panjikand)
were the main entities of West Central Asia in the ancient
time. What is West Central Asia now was Bukhara once and
what was Bukhara once is West Central Asia now. Shamanism,

the cult of nature worship, was the faith of the people of
prehistory in ancient Central Asia.
West Central Asia has high mountains, great lakes, long
rivers and big deserts. The highest mountain peaks of West
Central Asia are in the Pamir region—bam-e dunia, the “roof
of the world”. They have been named and renamed several
times. The Soviet period knew them as Lenin, Communism

and Chaika' (Seagull, named after the call sign of the first
woman cosmonaut). Its great lakes are Issyk Kul’ in Kyrgyzstan
and Balkhash in East Kazakstan. {ssyk Kul, situated in a fold
of the Tianshan range, is a vast inland sea. The Kyrgyzes (cyrillic spelling) built their first settlement there after their
arrival there from Siberia in the tenth century. Its long rivers,
i.e. the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, rise in the Pamir and

Tianshan ranges in the east and flow into the Aral Sea in the
north. The ancient Greeks called them Oxus andJ(Y)axartes.
The Arabs called them Sayhun and Jayhun. The Zarafshan
River rises in the Western Pamir range and disappears in the
Kyzylkum Desert. The Chu (pronounced: Chui) River rises in

the Tianshan range and disappears in the steppes of
Kazakstan. The big deserts are the Karakum in Turkmenistan
and Kyzylkum in Kazakstan.
Bukhara’ is an ancient land. The tribes of ancient Central
Asia nomadized there. It was the stomping ground of
Alexander the Great (356-323 Bc) of Macedon

(Macedonia).

Its glory resounds in legend, folklore and song. Its history
-'Chaika of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904).
?Kul is Turki for “lake”.
3The name Bukhara derives from Sogdian Vihara, “Temple”, the site of

a Zoroastrian temple.

8

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

and culture are fascinating indeed. It emerged as an important
city of Central Asia in the late fifth and early sixth centuries
Ap. Except for the sacred places connected with Prophet
Muhammad

(c. 570-633),

it has been

the nucleus

of the

Sunni theology and learning of Islam since the tenth century.
Tajikistan is an ancient land of an ancient people. It borders
Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and the Xinjiang region
of China. The Tajiks are the most ancient people of the
Iranian stock. They first adhered to the fire and light religion
of Zarathustra (Zoroaster from the Greek form of his name)

of the sixth century Bc or earlicr. Even now there are vestiges
of the folk culture of Zoroastrism among the Ismayli/Moulai
Tajiks of the Pamir valleys. The Tajiks were the first people in
Central Asia to convert to Islam. They are adherents of both
the Sunni and Shii sects of Islam. The Tajiks in the Pamir
region, called Galcha, are purest of the people of the Iranian
stock. The Tajiks also spread in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and
Xinjiang/China. The Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Slavs (Russians and
Ukranians) and Germans also inhabit Tajikistan.
Turkmenistan is an ancient land. It was one of the sixteen
localities created by Ormuzd. The Parthian Empire, southeast of the Caspian Sea, thrived there. The

Parthians

built

their capital first at Hyrcania (Greek: Hezatompylos; modern
Gurgan) and then at Nisa, and a splendid civilization. Marv
(modern Mary) was a great centre on the caravan Silk Route
in the ancient time. Islam first came to Marv in ap 651. Abd
Allah al-Ma’mun (786-833), the eldest son of Khalifa Ha’run
al-Rashid (r. 786/789-809), entered Marv in 809.
Present-day Turkmenistan borders Kazakstan in the north,

Uzbekistan in the north and north-east, Afghanistan in the
south-east and [ran in the south and the Caspian Sea in the
west. The

Turkmens

also spread in Afghanistan,

Iran and

Uzbekistan. History placed them in Afghanistan and Iran.
The Turkmens are not the indigenous people of Turkmenistan: they are the descendants of the Irano-Aryans and the
Uygurs. The name Turkmen first appears in the Islamic sources
in the tenth century. There are several tribes, sub-tribes and

PARAMETERS

clans of the Turmens.

9

Historically, the Tekes (Tekkes) and

the Yomuds have been more prominent than others. The
Turkmen language belongs to the Oguz group of the Turki
languages. It is now the most standard of all the languages of
the Eastern and Western Turks. The Uzbeks, Kazaks, Tatars,
Slavs (Russians, Belorussians and Ukranians), Baluchis and

Armenians also inhabit Turkmenistan.
Uzbekistan is the centre of West Central Asia. It borders
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the east, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan in the south and south-west and Kazakstan in the
north. The Uzbeks also spread in Turkmenistan, Kazakstan,

Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China and Afghanistan. The Tajiks,
Kazaks,

Slavs, Tatars, Jews and Koreans

also inhabit Uzbe-

kistan.
The Uzbeks of the Dasht-i-Kipchak, the Kipchak Steppe’,
north-east of the Caspian Sea, were the last nomad conquerors
of West Central Asia, where they emerged towards the end of
the fifteenth century. They were of mixed Mongol and Turk
origin. They had adopted Islam, its Sunni sect, before emerging in West Central Asia. Khwarezm (pronounced: Khorezm)
was the last to fall to them in the seventeenth century. Before
their adoption of Islam, they were Shamanists like the other

Altaic and Siberian peoples.
There are several Uzbek tribes, sub-tribes and clans in
Uzbekistan. The Uzbeks, who took to the sedentary and
village mode of life, are the Sarts of the Russian chronicles.
The Uzbeks, who continued their nomadic way oflife, became

known as the Kipchak. The Kipchaks of Namangan in Fergana
(Arabic: Farghana) and the Kyrgyzes are close to each other
in their mode of life. The Kipchaks adopted the Kyrgyz mode
of life. Like the other tribes north and west of the Caspian
Sea, the Uzbeks first appear in the history of West Central
Asia in the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries. They were nomads
then. After arriving in the lands between the Amu Darya and
Syr Darya in the beginning of the sixteenth century, they
adopted the agrarian mode of life in the oases. The present'The Zolotaya Orda, “Golden Horde” of the Russian annals.

10

CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

day Uzbeks do not consider themselves as the Turks but as a
group like the Turks.
Kazakstan is on the borderline of the Eurasian continent.
It borders Mongolia, China and Kyrgyzstan in the east and
south-east, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in the south and
south-west, the Caspian Sea in the west and Russia in the
north. The Kazaks also spread in Mongolia, the Altai district
of Xinjiang/China, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and Russia. In the recent time, they had also spread in

Afghanistan and Iran: they had been repatriated from there
recently. The

Slavs

(Russians

Uzbeks, Tatars and Koreans

and

Ukranians),

Germans,

also inhabit Kazakstan.

The Kazaks do not appear in Central Asia before the sixteenth century. Muhammad Haydar Dugl’at, the author of
the

Tarnkh-i-Rashidi,

was

the first to mention

them

in the

Uzbek context. He also mentioned the name Kazak separately.
He called the Kyrgyz Kirakir. Before the Soviet delimitation of
West Central Asia in 1924, the Russians, and the Westerners,

called the Kazaks Kyrgyzes and the Kyrgyzes Kara Kyrgyzes. The
names Kazak and Uzbek were originally political, not ethnical.

Kyrgyzstan borders China in the east, Tajikistan in the
south, Uzbekistan in the west and Kazakstan in the west and

north. The Kyrgyzes are an ancient people. The Kyrgyzes of
the Yenisai (Yenisei) River basin in Siberia destroyed the
Uygur prominent (744-840) centred at Kara Balgasun on the
upper reaches of the Orkhon River in present-day Mongolia.
The Uygurs moved westwards. The Kyrgyzes call their present
homeland Altyn Beshik, “Golden Homeland”, situated between
the Alatau and Tianshan ranges. The Kyrgyzes adopted Islam
in the fourteenth century. Shamanism, their pre-Islamic faith,

still has the strong hold on them. The Kyrgyzes also spread
in Kazakstan, the Xinjiang region of China, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan.

The

Uzbeks,

Slavs

(Russians

and

Ukranians),

Germans and Tajiks also inhabit Kyrgyzstan.
Up to the Mongol invasion of Central Asia in 1220, there
were also other important centres such as Khwarezm (Arabic
spelling, modern Khiva) on the left bank of the lower Amu

PARAMETERS

i

Darya and Marv. Of course, they were not of the splendour
of Bukhara. Until 1924, modern West Central Asia had
consisted of two parts: (1) Russian Turkestan and (2) Uzbek
khanates.
The above sets the framework of Central Asia: A Textbook

History. It describes the history of the vital centre of Asia
from

the ancient

time

to the present

It underlines

the

importance of the history of Central Asia in Asia, and the
world. It is the first textbook of its kind. As such, it will be

useful to students and teachers of Central Asia. I hope other
readers of Central Asia will also find it useful.

CHAPTER 2

Tibet

Sy[ Is an ancient land of an ancient people, but its
ancient history is obscure. There are no historical sources
of the prehistory Tibet. Tibet had no system of writing then,
although, according to the Bon faith of ancient Tibet, it had
a definite system of recording events. According to the
historical sources of ancient China, the Qiang (Ch’iang)
tribe of the Tibetan ethnic stock of the Koko Nor region
harried its northern frontier up to the third century Ap. Like
all the non-Han tribes of the north-west frontier of ancient
China, the Qiangs were the allies of the Songnu (Hs:ung-nu)
tribe in the time of Shan-yu' Madun

(Matun, r. 209-124 Bc).

As the later day Tangut (Chinese: Ho-hsi, Hsi-hsi) of Gansu
(Kansu), the Qiangs were also the allies of the Liao state
(911-1125). They created their own state in the eastern region
of Koko Nor in Ab 982, which Chingiz Khan (Chhinggis Qan,
1165-1227) destroyed in 1227. The royal house of the erstwhile
princely state of Sikkim in the Eastern Himalaya claimed
descent from the Tanguts as the Minyaks of Amdo.
SONGTSEN

REALM

Tibet emerged in history with Tsenpo? Songtsen Gampo?
(bTsan po Srong btsan sgam po, Ap 605-49) of the Yarlung
(Yar glungs) Valley of Kongpo

(rKong po), who succeeded

‘Chieftain
*Chief, king.

“The epithet Gampo denotes “high power”, po being the ending suffix
as in Balpo (ancient Nepal), Sogpo (Mongol), etc.

TIBET

13

his father Tsenpo' Namthi Songtsen (gNga’ khri Srong btsan
circa r. AD 570-620) as its first historical king at the age of 13.
Namthi Songtsen had the pastoral and nomadic tribes of
Central Tibet. Songtsen Gampo might not have been the
first king of Tibet, but he certainly was its first historical king.
Nyathi Tsenpo, the first king of Tibet according to the Bon
tradition, had descended from heaven. According to the
Buddhist tradition of Tibet, he had gone from India in the
late second century Bc via the Kur Chhu, the upper reaches
of the Manas River of Bhutan and Assam, India, which rises
in Tibet. According to folklore, he built the first castle Yamphu

Lakhar in the Yarlung Valley.
Tsenpo Songtsen Gampo made out of his tribesmen strong
warriors.

He

unified

U

(dbUs)

and Tsang

(gTsang)',

the

central region of Tibet. His horsemen galloped from Bhutan
in the south to Bru sha (modern Baltistan and Gilgit) and
Tajik (sTag zik) in the west. His armies overran the Chinese
provinces of Sichuan (Szechwan) and Gansu (Kansu). Kongpo

remained semi-autonomous. According to the Chinese
sources, with the cooperation of King Narendradeva of Nepal,
he retributed in 648 the ill-treatment of the Chinese envoy
Wang Hiuen-tse to King Harshavardhana (606-47/48) by
Arjuna/Arunanshva, the minister of King Harshavardhana
of the kingdom of Sthaneshvara-Kanyakubj (modern Thanesar Kanauj), North India.

King Songtsen Gampo introduced many measures in Tibet.
He transferred his capital from the Yarlung Valley, south of
the Tsangpo River, to the bank of the Kyi Chhu (sKyi Chhu),
a northern tributary of the Tsangpo River. He built there a
castle, the

Potala. Later, the Potala became

the site of the

palace of the Dalai Lama. He proclaimed Lha chhos dGe pa
bchu (Ten Rightoous Principles) and the Mi chhos gTsang ma
bChu druk (Sixteen Principles of Pure Social Conduct), Tibet’s

first ethical and social codes.
King Songtsen married Bhrikuti (Tibetan: Khri btsun Bel
sa) of Nepal in 639. He married the Royal Princess Wencheng
'The Tibetans consider U and Tsang as Po, i.e. Tibet proper.

14

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

(Wench’eng, Tib: Kongjo Gya sa) in 641. Wencheng was the
daughter of Emperor Tai zong (T’ai-tsung, r. 626-49), the
son and successor of Gao Zu (Kao-tsu, r. 618-26), who founded
the Tang (T’ang) dynasty (618-907) of China ousting the Sui

dynasty (581-618). King Songtsen had also married a Qiang
princess. Bhrikuti took with her the images of Bodhisattva
Akshobhya and Maitreya and Tara (Tib: Dolma/sGrol ma).

To enshrine them, King Songtsen built the Jo Khang’, theJo
Khang faced south towards India. It is the most holy place in
Tibet. More than thirteen centuries have gone by since its
construction, but it is still as fresh a structure as though it has
been constructed only recently. Princess Wencheng brought
with her a sandalwood image of the Buddha, which had gone

from India to China via Khotan

(North-East Central Asia).

To enshrine it King Songtsen constructed the Ramochhe (Ra
mo

chhen)

in the north

of Lhasa.

It faced

east towards

China. It is still extant. The sandalwood image of the Buddha

had been transferred from the Ramochhe to the Jo Khang
after the death of King Songtsen.
Among others, King Songtsen had able blonpo (ministers).
Gar Tongtsen (mGar sTong btsan yul zung) served as envoy

to Nepal. He went to China to receive Princess Wencheng.
He also acted as regent to King Mangsong Mangtsen (Mang
srong Mang btsan, r. 669-76), the grandson of King Songtsen.
His sons played great roles in building the Tibetan empire.
For the need of a system of language communication, Song-

tsen sent Thonmi and others to Kashmir in 632 to study
Sanskrit and devise the script and alphabet for the Tibetan
language. On return from India, Thonmi devised the Tibetan
script and alphabet on the model of the script and alphabet
of North India. He dropped some of the Indian letters as the
Tibetan language had no need of them. For some of the
sounds peculiar to the Tibetan language, he made separate
letters adding a stroke on some letters, thus forming ts, tsh,
zand dz, including a as a consonant, etc. He also wrote the
‘Popularly known as the temple of Chho Rinpochhe (Chhos Rin po
chhen).

TIBET

15

grammar of the Tibetan language. He was thus the first
grammarian of Tibet. According to tradition, Songtsen and
Thonmi together translated, in the script and alphabet devised
by the latter, several Sanskrit works. Only a few of those translations survive now. The first translation of Sanskrit works
into Tibetan thus began in the time of King Songtsen.
King Songtsen accepted Buddhism, which helped by the
efforts of missionaries from India such as Acharyas Shantirakshita (Tib: Shiba tsho, d. 797) of the Nalanda Vihara of

Magadha, India, Atisa Deepankara Srijnana (980-1054) of
the Vikramasila Vihara of Magadha and others had a deep
impact on the subsequent destiny of Tibet. Before the acceptance of Buddhism by King Songtsen, the Tibetans were in a
primitive state, although, presumably the contact between
them and the Indians had been long. Of course, there is no
record of the first contact between them. Buddhism opened
a vision for developing Tibet from a primitive to a civilized
country. On his death in Phanyul in 649, the kingdom comprised the upper Huang He (Ho)! region in the east, the
upper Himalaya region in the south and the Pamir region in
the west.
King Songtsen had five wives. But only his chief Tibetan
wife, Queen Mongza Thichham Nyandongteng (Mong bza’
Khri Ichham mnyan dong stang), bore him the heir, Gungsong. King Songtsen also had by his Nepalese wife Bhrikuti
a son who had died during his lifetime. Mangsong Mangtsen
(Mang srong Mang btsan, r. 649-67), the grandson of King

Songtsen, succeeded him. King Mangsong Mangtsen paled,
yet he defeated the forces of Emperor Gao Zong (Kao-tsung,
r. 649-83)

when

the latter tried to recover

the territories

which his grandfather had taken from China.

Thisong Mangje (Khri Srong Mang re, r. 667-704), the
son of King Mangsong Mangtsen, married Princess Wun Sin_ kong, a daughter of Emperor Gao Zong. He died in 704,
during a campaign in the Moso country (Tib: ‘Jeng) in the
later day Yunnan of China. Thide Tsugten (Khri Ide gTsug
'He (Ho) is Chinese for “river”.

16

CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

rtan, r. 704-755), the infant son of Thisong Mangje, ascended
the throne. Finding an infant on the throne of Tibet, China

tried to recover its territories from Tibet. Emperor Zhang
zang (Chung-tsung, r. 705-10) gave his daughter Chin-ch’eng
(Tib: Kim sheng) in marriage to King Thide Tsugten in 710.
She died in 739. Thide Tsugten also married a Mo-so princess,
Ma Thitsun (Ma Khri btsun), who bore him a heir, Lhabon
(Lhas bon). Lhabon died before Thide Tungten.
Thisong

Detsen'

(Khri Srong Ide btsan,

742-800),

born

near Samye (bSam yas) on the Tsangpo River, south-east of
Lhasa, succeeded his father Thide Tsugten in 756. With the
resumption of the struggle with Emperor Xuan Zong (Hsuantsung, r. 712-56) over Khotan (Tib: Li Yul), the forces of
Tibet took most of what now are China’s Gansu (ancient
Long-hsi) and Sichuan (ancient Ba Shu)* provinces and
parts of North Yunnan (ancient Tian) in 763. They sacked

Ch’ang’an (now Xian), the capital of Tang China, in the
valley of the Wei River, Shaanxi, and put up Guang-bu, a
Tang prince, on the throne. The Emperor had fled. Dunhuang
(Tun-huang),

the frontier town

in the heart of the Gobi

Desert and near the western end of the Great Wall of China,

fell to Tibet in the reign of Emperor De Zong (Te-tsung, r.
779-804) in 781 and remained in its possession up to 848.
The Uygurs helped the Chinese against the Tibetans. In

order to terminate the conflict, which had gone on since the
first year of Emperor Su Zong (Su-tsung, r. 756-62), China
and Tibet concluded their first bilingual treaty in the reign
of Emperor De Zong at Ch’ing-shui in Gansu in early 783.
King Thisong invited Acharya Shantirakshita of the Nalanda
Vihara in Magadha, India. Following this event, there were
portents of certain natural calamities in the country. The
protagonists of the Bon faith said that the gods of Tibet,
enraged at the introduction of Buddhism, were punishing
the people with these visitations. The legendary Padmasambhava, also of Nalanda, contended with the protagonists
"Pronounced Deutsen.

*Shu being the western part.

‘TIBET

of the Bon faith. His place in the pantheon

17

of Tibetan-

Buddhism is next to that of the Buddha (Bc 560-483) himself.

Tibetans reverently call him Guru Rinpochhe or bLob dpon
Rinpochhe, “Precisions Teacher”. King Thisong sent Acharya
Shantirakshita to Samye.
According to the direction of Acharya Shantirakshita, King
Thisong Detsen founded c. 775 the first Buddhist dgonpa/
monastery at Samye on the model of the Odantapuri Vihara,
founded by King Dharmapala (765-815) of the Pala dynasty
(750-1060) in Magadha. Padmasambhava consecrated it.
When the construction of the Samye Monastery was proceeding, Acharya Shantirakshita sent for twelve monks from
Nalanda for the ordination of Tibetan monks, perhaps as a
precaution, for the rules laid down a quorum of five monks

for the purpose. They ordained in 779 the first seven Tibetans
—Yas shis dbang po, Gtsang dpal byangs, Rma Rin chhen
mchhog, Tshul khrim dbang po srung pa, Khon kLu dbang
po, Lha’i dbang po srung pa and Pagor Vairochana. Vairochana became the first abbot of the Samye Gonpa. Rma
Rinchhenchhog emerged as the first lotsawa (lo tsa ba'), translator from Sanskrit into Tibetan. The Tibetans call Shantirakshita mKhan chhen Bodhisattva. His profound scholarship is
evident from his Jattva Sangraha.
After the death of Acharya Shantirakshita at Samye of a
kick from a horse in 997, Chinese ho-shang/Buddhist monks

(perhaps from Khotan/Liyul) in Tibet created some trouble
regarding the method of attaining enlightenment. Thereupon, to avert the crisis, King Thisong invited Acharya Kamalasheela, the chief disciple of Acharya Shantirakshita, from
Nalanda.

In 792, he held the logical debate

between

the

Chinese monks and Kamalasheela at the Samye Monastery to
determine the right method of attaining enlightenment.
The Indian view—the gradual progress—triumphed over
the Chinese view—the instant progress. Hashang acceded to
'The term lolsawa, translator of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into

Tibetan, abandoned after such great translators as Vende Yas shes ilde and
Rin chhen bzang po situ panchhen

(1700-74) was an exception.

18

CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

the Indian view by garlanding Kamalasheela. There is no
mention of the language of the debate. Since then Mount
Hapu, south of Samye, has been a place of pilgrimage. Even
now lamas and pious people go on pilgrimage to it every year
in the month of May of the Tibetan calendar.
King Thisong Detsen had proclaimed Buddhism as the
state religion of Tibet in 779. He had made his wife, Queen
Yas shes mtsho rgyal, the head of religious affairs for her
steadfast faith in the teaching of the Buddha, and honour of
the panditas and lotsawas. Thereby, he made his monarchy
of the theocratic type. As the patron of the new religion
Buddhism, the Tibetans proclaimed him Chhogyal, the
Righteous King. However, when Thisong Detsen died after
the enthronement of Prince Mune Tsenpo (sMu nyas bTsan
po, r. 797-804), his funeral rites were performed according

to the Bon custom.
Thisong Detsen had several wives and sons. Muthi Tsenpo,
his younger son, succeeded him (Thisong Detsen had abdicated). Muthi Tsenpo had been brought up in an atmosphere
charged with the Bodhisattva ideal—renunciation of one’s
own salvation for removing the suffering of others. In persuit
of this ideal, he endeavoured to remove economic

inequal-

ity among the people of Tibet by the equal distribution of
wealth. His experiments, which encouraged idleness on the

one hand and resentment on the other, frightened the
nobility, including his mother Tshepongza Magyal donkar
(Ishe spong bza rMa rgyal Idon skar) of the Bon nobility. He
died of poison. Tea from China came to Tibet during his
reign.
Thide Songtsen or Senaleg (Khri Ide Srong btsan, r. 80415) succeeded his younger brother Muthi Tsenpo.
Before the time of Thide Songtsen, Tibetan translations
from other languages had been carried on haphazardly. He
introduced the method of translation

(still unexcelled)

to

preserve at least eighty per cent of the equivalents of the
original vocabularies in an ingenious way. These works, compiled in 814, have been known as Mahavyutpatti(s), included

TIBET

19

in the Tanjur (bsTan gyur) of the codex of the Buddhism of

Tibet. The system of having definite words for all roots,
prefixes and suffixes, which thus evolved, has been found to

be invaluable for the purpose of the restoration of the original
texts.

Thitsug Detsen (Khri Tsugs Ide btsan), also known as Repachan (Ral pa chan, r. 816-38), the youngest son of Muthi
Tsenpo, succeeded him, superseding his elder brother Prince
Darma. Emperor Mu Zong (Mu-tsung, r. 821-25) thought of
an alliance with him (Thitsug Detsen). The Uygur Turks of
Karabalgasun on the Orkhon River of the Uygur Khaganate',
who were then threatening the Tibetan position in Khotan/
Liyul, influenced the rapprochement between China and
Tibet, which made a treaty,” based on parity, at Ch’ang’an in
821-22. Eventually, the alliance between China and the Uygurs
led to Tibet’s withdrawal from Khotan. Tibet had lost Dunhuang in 831. The Uygurs-had helped the Tang rulers to
suppress the rebellion of General An Lu-shan in 755 during
the reign of Emperor Su Zong (r. 756-62). The power of the
Tang dynasty was on the decline then. The decline of the
Uygur Khaganate had also begun by the end of the eighth
century. The Kyrgyzes from the the valley of the Yenisei River
drove out the Uygurs in 840. The Kyrgyz Khaganate on the
Orkhon River also did not last long.
Repachan had the events of his reign recorded chronologically. He also introduced a system of weights and measures
in the country. Buddhism made its greatest penetration in
Tibet, especialy the rendering of the Sanskrit Buddhist works
of Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and Vasubandhu into the Tibetan
language. He venerated the Buddhist monkhood and endowed state land to the monasteries for the first time and
authorized them to collect taxes and revenue in the assigned
_

'The Orkhon funerary inscriptions (Ap 732-35), dedicated to Bilga, the

Khagan of the Turk Khaganate and his brother and general Kul Tegin.
Bilga, Tumen of the Chinese chronicles, was the first Khagan of the Turk

Khaganate.
Text inscribed on a rdoring/stone pillar at Lhasa.

20

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

lands. Darma, the superseded prince, took the opportunity
to malign Repachan and his monks, including the rumour
that Ben Chhenpo Dangka Pekyi Yontan (Bran ka dpal kyi
yontan), the monk Lonchhen

(Great Minister) of Repachan,

had intimate relations with Queen Nantshulma. Repachan

sentenced them (the Lonchhen and the queen) to death.
Owing to the slur on her honour,

Nantshulma

committed

suicide. Ben Chhenpo fled north, ultimately caught and
executed. The Bon conspirators killed Repachan in the
garden of the Shampa Palace, east of Lhasa, in 838.
After the assassination of Repachan,

Darma

(r. 838-42),

nicknamed Lang Darma (gLang Dar ma), Darma the Bull, by
Tibetan Buddhist monks because of his bull-like size, ascended

the throne. He outlawed Buddhism. He rewarded Wegyal
(sBas rgyal), the assassin of Repachan, by appointing him
Lonchhen. He started to persecute the Buddhists in 841. He
closed down not only the Buddhist monasteries, but even the
Tsuglag Khang and removed the image of the Buddha from
the Jo Khang. He ordered the Buddhist monks to take to
secular life. The custom of sticking out one’s tongue as greeting, complete subordination, allegedly started in the time of
King Darma. King Darma banished from Lhasa even his
eldest monk brother Tsangma (gTsang ma). Tsangma established a principality in the then East Bhutan. Several ancient
Bhutanese clans claimed descent from him.
According to the lore of Tibetan Buddhism, the persecution
of Buddhists had failed. Certain Buddhist monks had escaped
to Kham, East Tibet, taking the Buddhist “texts” with them.

Those Buddhist monks, who had escaped to Kham and had
taken the Buddhist texts with them, returned to Central
Tibet. They not only renovated the old Buddhist monasteries,
but also established new ones.
The collapse of the realm of the Songtsen house began
then, although it continued for a couple of generations. It
was beyond the power of the sons of King Lang Darma to
maintain its former glory. Osung (Od Srungs), the son of the
Junior Queen Tshepong Za possessed the western part and

TIBET

2]

Yumtan, the son of the Senior Queen sNaram Za, possessed
the eastern part. The descendants of Osung and Yumtan left
Lhasa, and moved west and east.
With the murder of King Lang Darma by a Tibetan Buddhist

monk in 842, the monarchy of the Songtsen line had collapsed
in 842-50 and Tibet lost its domain in China and Central
Asia. From then to the establishment of the theocracy of the

Buddhism of the Sakya pa (Sa skya pa) Sect by the alien Mongols in the 1260s, there was no state, no central authority in
Tibet, and the rise of petty feudal chieftains and seigneurial
estates and principalities in the country. The eastern part of
Tibet splintered into small principalities such as Tsongkha in

Amdo on the Gansu border of China. The history of these
borderland principalities is obscure, especially their position
vis-a-vis each other and with the Five Dynasties and the Song
(Sung) dynasty (960-1279) of China.The process of disintegration of Tibet completed by the beginning of the tenth
century.
Tashi Tsen (bKra shis btsan), the lord of Purang (sPu’rang),

Ngari (mNgah ris), of the western part invited Kyide Nyimagon (sKyi Ide Nyi ma mgon, 900-930), the second son of
Khortsen (Khor btsan), to his capital Taglakhar (sTag la
khar) and gave his only daughter Doza Khorchong (‘Bro
bza’khor skyong) in marriage to him. He also appointed
Kyide Nyimagon his successor, who thus became the lord of
Ngari, that is Purang, Guge and Gartok, and of the adjacent
countries of Ladakh (La dvaks) and Spiti (sPi ti). This is the

first instance of the system of marriage in which the resident
son-in-law inherits the patrimony of his father-in-law. This
social custom of Tibet was like another of its social customs,

that is polyandry—the system of marriage of one wife for all
brothers in a family. Both systems of marriage concerned
inheritance, mainly land.
_ King Nyimagon gave his kingdom to his three sons Pelgyigon (dPal gyi mgon), Tashigon (bKra shis mgon) and Detsu-

gon (IDe gtsug mgon). Detsugon received Guge. Mangda,
the eldest son of Pelgyigon, who succeeded

him, became

a

on,

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

Buddhist monk with the name of Lha Lama Yeshi Od (Lha
bla ma Yas shes ’Od, c. 970-1040).
KINGDOM

OF GUGE

Yeshi Od founded the Tholing Gonpa (Thod gling dGon
pa), the first Buddhist
1000.

His

descendants

monastery
have

in West Tibet, around

been

known

as_

Chhogyal,

“Righteous Kings”. The Kingdom of Guge, formerly Shang
Shung, flourished up to 1679 when Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso
(bLo bsang rgya mtsho 1617-82) declared war against Ladakh.
It dominated

even

Spiti. Antonio

da Andrada,

the Portu-

guese Jesuit from Goa, who visited Tsaparang, the capital of
the Kingdom of Guge, via Shrinagar and Badrinath of Raja
Mahipat Shah (r. 1622-31) of Garhwal, in 1624, mentioned it

in his account. He visited Guge several times between 1624
and 1641.
Chhogyal Yeshi Od perceived the degeneration of Buddhism, the heritage of his ancestors. He sent Lama Rinchhen
Zangpo (Rin chhen bZang po, 958-1055), the abbot of the
Tholing Gonpa, and others to Kashmir to study Buddhism
there. Kashmir being a hot place for people from Tibet, out
of them only Rinchhen Zangpo and Legpai Sherab (Legs pai
Shes rabs) returned alive. Rinchhen Zangpo built many
monasteries and temples in Guge, Ladakh and Spiti, several
of them still extant. He performed the funeral rites of King
Yeshi Od. He also associated himself with Acharya Atisha
Deepankara Srijnana, shortly Atisha (982-1054) of Vikramasila

Vihara in Magadha, India, who went to Guge in 1042.
Yeshi Od had invited Acharya Atisha Deepankara Srijnana.
Atisha had not been able to accept his invitation then. Chhogyal Yeshi Od again resolved to send for a teacher from India.
In order to collect the amount of gold required for the
purpose, he went to the Changthang (Byang thang) mountains. There the men of the khan of the Karluk Turk tribe of
Yarkand' captured him. Prince Changchhub Od went to
Yarkand to obtain the release of his uncle, Chhogyal Yeshi, in
"The suffix kand in Yarkand is Sogdian for “city”, “town”, “village”.

TIBET

23

1040. The khan of Yarkand demanded ransom. Before going
to fetch the required amount, Prince Changchhub went to
see Chhogyal Yeshi in prison.
Yeshi Od said to Prince Changchhub not to waste the gold,
saying: “You know that I am already an old man. Even if Ido
not die now, I shall not live more than ten years. If you give
away this gold, you will not be able bring a teacher from
India, and to reform Buddhism. How well it will be, if you will
leave me to die here in the cause of Chhos' and, by sending
that gold to India, bring a teacher. Besides, what reliance can
you put on this king, that even after getting the required
amount

of ransom,

he will release me? So, my son, do not

trouble about me, but send men to India to bring Atisha.
This time, when he will think of the cause and of my imprisonment, for its sake he will surely do us the favour of visiting

our country. If he is not able to come, then bring some other
teacher from among those under him.” So saying Chhogyal
Yeshi blessed Prince Changchhub by placing his hands upon
his head. This incident became the theme ofa secular dance
drama in Western Tibet.
Changchhub entrusted Gungthangpa Nagtso Tshuthim
(Nag mtsho Tshul khrims) of Gungthang’, to bring Acharya
Atisha. Gungthangpa had once before been to India. The
touching resolution of King Yeshi Od moved Ausha this time.
On proper occasion, he informed Sthavira Ratnakarapada
(Ratnakarashanta), the head of the Vihara Sangha. It was
difficult for Ratnakarapada to consent to Atisha to leave
Vikramasila in the circumstance of the time. Anyway, when
Atisha reached Tsaparang, via Nepal, King Changchhub
received him royally. From West Tibet, Atisha moved east to
Central Tibet, dying at Narthang, in 1054.
As the first reformer of Tibetan Buddhism, Atisha restored
the Buddhist discipline in the Buddhist monasteries there.
He translated Sanskrit works into Tibetan with the help of
‘Dharma, that is, Buddhism.

*Kyirong (sKyi rong) of the Tibet frontier with Nepal. Kyirong was a
border principality of Tibet then.

24

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

lotsawas and revised such works as had been translated before
him.The original works of Atisha, including his Bodhipathapradeepa, are available no longer, but their translations have

been preserved in the Tanjur (s7an ‘gyur). Domton

(‘Bron

ston, 1005-64), the pupil of Atisha, wrote the life of Atisha.

The passing of Atisha marked the end of the period of
ancient Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism of the pre-Atisha period
has since been known

as the

rNyingma'/Old

Tradition and

that of the post-Atisha period as the gSarma/New Tradition.
All the sects of the New Tradition, i.e. the Sa skya, bKa brgyud

and dGe lugs revere Atisha equally.
Marpa (Mar pa, 1012-99) founded the Kagyu (bKa’ gyut)
Sect. He had studied under Naropa (d. 1038), one of the 84
siddhas/ saints (Tib: dubdob) of India. Illustrious Milarepa (Mi

la ras pa, 1040-1123) of the Kargyu Sect is the greatest Buddhist
saint of Tibet. His parents had been adherents of the Nyingma
Sect. His biography re bisun Kah bum by Rechung is the
sacred book of the Kargyu Sect. It also reflects the social conditions and customs which prevailed in the Tibet countryside
in the eleventh century.
Lama Lobzang Dakpa (bLa ma bLo bzang Grags pa, 1357-

1419) of village Tsongkha of Amdo, North-East Tibet, founded
the Gelug Sect of the Buddhism of Tibet in the beginning of
the fifteenth century. The Gelug Sect even traced its origin
to Acharya Atisha. Tsong-khapa was among the spiritual
descendants of Lama Domton. The Kadam (bKa’gdams)
Sect of Acharya Atisha converged into the Gelug Sect. So the
Gelug Sect is also known as the New Kadam Sect.
With the end of the translation activity from Sanskrit into
Tibetan from the middle of the seventh century to the middle

of the fourteenth century, the great monk scholar Lama
Buton Rinchhen Dub (Bu ston Rin chhen Grub, 1290-1364),

of the Shalu Monastery in Tsang, systematized and compiled
all the translated works into bKa’ ‘gyur and bsTan ‘gyur in
1340. Very few works have been added to the two collections
since then. Their first, wood printing blocks have been at the
‘Founded by Padmasambhava.

TIBET

25

Narthang Monastery, near the Tashilhunpo

(bKra shis Ihun

po) Monastery in Shigatse, (Shika rtse), Tsang.
REGENCY OF MONGOL

CHINA

The theocratic form of governance of Tibet began, when
Kublai’ Khan

(Ch: T’ai-tsu, b. 1215; r. 1260-95), a grandson

of Chingiz Khan (Chhinggis Qan’, 1167-1227), and the second
son of Ogodei Khan (r. 1228-42°), the third son and successor

of Chingiz Khan, and the younger

brother of Mongu

(Mongke) Khan (r. 1251-59), became khan of China in 1259.

He created the state of Sakya and made Lama Lodo Gyaltshen
Phapa (bLo gros rGyal mtshan ’Phags pa, 1235/1239-80),
the nephew and disciple of the Sakya Pandita, Kunga
Gyaltshen (Kun dga’ rGyal mtshan, 1182-1251) of the Sakya
Sect, the vicegerent of the Mongols in Tibet, in 1260. Lama
Phapa, thus was the first religious hierarch to rule Tibet. Of
course, the Sakya theocracy as an institution was from 1271.
Kublai Khan

(r. 1260-94)

designated

Lama

Lodo

shen Phapa (Mongol: Bagvalama Lodoizamtsun)

Gyalt-

Kuo-shih,

the State Preceptor, in 1261 and 7i-shih (Mongol: Gv’sh), the

Imperial Preceptor, residing in Beijing (Peking), in 1269. He
himself adopted Buddhism and made it the official religion
of the Central Asian part of Mongol China. This placed Tibet
and China on the mchhod yon, spiritual-temporal relationship,
implying the supremacy of the superior of the Sakya Sect of
Tibet over the emperor of China. On the instructions of
Kublai Khan, Lama Phapa devised a square (durbalyin) script,
called the Phapa script, based on the Tibetan alphabet for
the Mongol language in 1269.
Kublai Khan authorized supervision of the regency at
Sakya by lay Ponchhen (dPon chhen), administrators holding

the charge of civil affairs in Chokhasum (Chol kha gsum), i.e.
‘Mongol: Qubilai Qan; Chinese transcription: Hu-pilie Han; Persian
transcription: Qublay or Qubilay Qan.
*The Supreme

Khan, the Mongol

title of Turkic origin for Temujin.

“The youngest son of Chingiz Khan.

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A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

and U-Tsang!.

1275), the first Ponchhen

Grumpa Shakya Zangpo

(d.

appointed in 1268, organized the

administration of Tibet as Thikor Chusum (Khri skor bChuk-

gsum), “Thirteen Myriarchies”, system. The system excluded
Sakya proper and the appanages of the Mongol princes in
Central Tibet, inclusive of the appanages of the Mongol
princes of the Il-khan Mongol dynasty (1256-1335/54) of
Persia. The office hswang-cheng-yuan of the Mongol court in
Beijing established in 1264, directed Tibetan affairs.
Sakya continued as a principality up to 1951, when the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) overwhelmed Tibet. The

Sakya alliance with Mongol China changed the political map
of Tibet: it unified Tibet again in one sovereignty, although
under an alien authority. The Sakya theocracy was short. The

Sakya succession was from uncle to nephew. The medieval
period of Tibet had started with the Sakya rule of the country.
The

Deb ther dmar po/Red Annals,

compiled

by the Sakya

hierarch Tshal pa Kun dga’ rdo rje (1309-65) in 1346, covers
the Sakya period from 1271 to 1342.
PHAGMODU

REGIME

The grand lamas of the other sects of the Buddhism of Tibet,
especially the grand lamas of the Digung (’Bri’gung) School
of the Kagyu Sect, emerged supreme in the politics of Tibet
in the fourteenth century. Prince Chhangchhub Gyaltshen
(1302-73) of the Phagsmodubpa family* of Nedong (pronounced: Neudong), one of the thzkors in the Tsangpo Valley,
who

overthrew

the Sakya

regime

in 1350,

changed

the

administrative system of Tibet, establishing the dzong (rdzong)
system in place of the thikor system. He promulgated Shel che
bchuk gsum in the place of Mi chhos gTsang ma bchuk druk of
King Songtsen, the first historical king of Tibet.
The Phamodu rule in Tibet was simultaneous with the
Ming dynasty (1368-1644) of China. Emperor Wan Li (r. 1573'Ngari, West Tibet, was not a part of the Sakya domain.
“A thikor of ten thousand homesteads administered by a lay man.
“Heirs to the Digung School of the Kagyud Sect.

TIBET

27

1620) invited Dalai Lama Yontan Gyatso (1588-1617) of the

Gelug Sect to Beijing in 1615. He had also invited Dalai
Lama Sonam Gyatso (bSo nams rgya mtsho), the abbot of
the Depung (Bra spungs) Monastery, 1543-88), the second
rebirth of Lama Gedun Dub (dGe ’dun grub, 1391-1475), in

1583. To gain Ming patronage, prominent lamas of the
different sects and schools and secular manor lords of Tibet
went to Beijing all the time. The benevolence of the Ming
emperors bestowed the ula (Ch: Yi-shan) system in its regions
bordering Tibet.
EV,
The Dalai Lama line had traced
to Lama Gedun Dub, the
principal disciple and ewphew of Lama Tsongkhapa, who
had founded the Gelug Sect to reform Tibetan Buddhism.
Lama Sonam Gyatso had been the teacher of Phamodu
Dakpa Jungne, an adherent of the Kagyu Sect. Dakpa Jungne
supported Lama Sonam Gyatso to extend the work of his
predecessors. When Dakpa Jungne died in 1564, the Phamodu
royal family requested him (Lama Sonam Gyatso) to perform
the funeral rites.
Lama Sonam Gyatso took Buddhism to Altan Khan (r.
1543-83), the Khan of the Tumet Mongol tribe of the Ordas
region and of all Mongols. Altan Khan received Lama Sonam
Gyatso with royal pomp on the shore of Koko Nor and
praised him for his wide (dalai) knowledge, bestowing the
title Dalai blama rDo rje ’Chhang', “Holder of the Thunderbolt”,
on Lama Sonam Gyatso and Lama Sonam Gyatso conferring
the title Chhos kyi rGyal po (Sanskrit: Dharmaraja) /“Righteous
King”, on Altan Khan. This was the second spread of Buddhism among the Mongols. The Gelug dignitaries applied
the title Dalai Lama or Tale Lama retrospectively to Gendun
Dub (dGe ’dun, 1391-1475) and Gendun Gyatso (dGe ’dun
rGyal mtsho,

1475-1542),

the first and second hierarchs of

the Gelug Sect.” After Altan Khan’s death in 1583, Lama
Sonam Gyatso returned to Koko Khoto in 1585 to perform
the funeral rites of Altan Khan. He passed away there itself.
‘Sanskrit:

Vajradhara.

*Pierre Dalattre,

Tales of a Dalai Lama, London,

1972.

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Supported by the Tshurphu Monastery of the Karma School
of the Kagyu Sect, Tonyot Dorji (Don yod rDo rje) of Rinpung,
East Tsang, the minister of the Phamodu polity and relative
of the Phamodu royal family by marriage, seized power in
1481. Ngawang Jigdak, the last Rinpungpa ruler, w. = a man
of letters who translated several works from Sanski.t into
Tibetan. The people nicknamed him Gyalpo Pandita/“King
Scholar”.
Tseten

Dorji

(r. 1618-22)

rebelled

against the Rinpung

regime and seized power in 1618, taking the title Depa Tsangpa,
“Lord of Tsang”, the title later changing to Desi Tsangpa. The
Desi Tsangpas patronized the Karmapa school of the Kagyu
Sect, and suppressed the Gelug Sect.
Gushi Khan (Tib: sTanzin Chhos kyi Gyalpo, 1582-1655)
of the Khoshot Mongol tribe of Horyul, the Koko Nor region,
marched into Amdo and Kham in 1635 and into U in 1641.
He defeated Desi Tsangpa Karma Tenchong (r. 1622-42) and
put him to death in 1642. He united U and Tsang. Excepting
certain minor princelings, Karma Tenchong was the last
secular

ruler of Tibet.

Gushi

Khan

had

already,

in 1639,

defeated and executed the king of Beri, the adherent of Bon,
in Kham, and the ally of Karma Tenchong. Gushi Khan, as
the patron of the Gelug Sect, the Mongols also invaded
Bhutan to protect the Monpa monasteries. Gushi Khan
offered Tibet to Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso (1617-82), and

proclaimed himself Gyalpo (rGyal po) /“King of Tibet”. This
created the Dalai Lama as a political institution. And this is
how the Gelug Sect acquired political power in Tibet. Gushi
Khan had moved, along with his retainers, from the Ili basin,

North-East Central Asia, to Koko Nor in the 1630s.
Initially, the lay and religious lords of Tibet resisted the
authority of Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso. The Gelugpas had
confiscated or burnt the monasteries of the Jonang Sect
founded by Lama Taranath (1573), one of the greatest personalities of the history of Tibet. The Gelugpa hierarch had
branded its teachings—sunyata as an essential quality that
exists independently of phenomena—as heresy. Lama Tara-

TIBET

29

nath was the first Tibetan to write the history of Buddhism in
India!. Born in Tsang, Tibet, Lama Taranath died in Mongolia,

where he founded several monasteries. His successors became
the grand lamas of the Khalkha Mongols. But when Dalai
Lama Losang Gyatso acted as one who belonged to all the
traditions of Tibet, including the Bon, the lay and religious
potentates of Tibet acknowledged him as the supreme pontiff
of the country. The emergence of the Dalai Lama as the head
of Tibet ended the sectarian and secular schisms in the
country.
GrELUGPA

THEOCRACY

Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso organized his government on the
principle of Chhos snd gShung brel, the government of religion
and politics, that is the system of governance in which both
monks and laymen take part. The integration of religion and
politics strengthened even the social status of the theocracy
in Tibet. Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso declared Lhasa, founded
by King Songtsen, to be the pontitical seat and the political
capital of Tibet®. Lhasa eventually became the cultural and
commercial capital as well even though Shigatse and other

old centres retained their importance. The Dalai Lama also
began to build the Potala Palace in 1645, moving there from
the Drepung Monastery in 1650.
When Emperor Shun Zhi (Shun Chih’, 1636-62), who had

moved from Mukden to Beijing (—Ming China had fallen to
the Manchus in 1644), began to reign in 1650, the Manchu
imperial court invited Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso to Beijing.
The Dalai Lama went there in 1652. The Manchu imperial
court had also invited Panchhen Lama Chhokyi Lobzang
Gyaltsen (bLo bzang Chhos kyi rgyal mtshan 1567-1687) of
the Tashilhunpo Monastery, who had declined the invitation
on account of his old age.
Alka Chattopadhyay, Calcutta, 1970.
*Ninth son of Emperor Abahai (1582-1643), eighth son of Nurhachi
(1559-1626).
°F. Spencer Chapman, Lhasa: the Holy City, London, 1939.

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HISTORY

The boy emperor Shun Zhi welcomed Dalai Lama Losang
Gyatso with reverence. He conferred great honours on the

Dalai Lama, specially the title Dalat Lama Dorje Chhang. The
Dalai Lama gave Emperor Shun Zhi the title Gnam gyi Tha
jams dbyangs gong ma bdag po chhen po. This equation between
the Manchu Emperor and the Dalai Lama established the
mchhod yon, the donor-donee relationship between them.
Emperor Shun Zhi had a Buddhist upbringing. His mother
Empress Dowager Bumbutai (Ch: Hsiao-Chuang, 1613-88)
was a Buddhist Mongol princess. And so were his wives and
concubines. Hence his reverence for the Dalai Lama.
On return from China, Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso took
many measures. The officials of Tibet were in the habit of
wearing a variety of costumes. He decreed that they wear the
court robes of ancient Tibet. He issued strict rules prescribing the type, even the shape and size of hats to be worn on
ceremonial occasions and feast days. He gave the title Panchhen
(a Sanskrit-Tibetan hybrid, short for Pandita Chhenpo) on his

and his predecessor’s teacher Lama Losang Chhokyi Gyaltshen and declared him to be the incarnation of Opamed/
Amitabha Bodhisattva.
The war against Ladakh in 1679 was one of the last acts of
Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso. He did so on the plea of harassment of the Gelugpa monasteries in Ladakh. He appointed
the Khoshot Mongol Lama Khungteji of the Tashilhunpo
Monastery as the commander of the Mongol-Tibetan army
against Ladakh. Khungteji first concluded a treaty of friendship in perpetuity with Bushahr/Khunu to secure his southern
flank. Bushahr and Guge had good neighbourly relations,
especially border trade.
The war with Ladakh involved Tibet with Mughul India,

then suzerain of Ladakh. A Mughul army under Fidai Khan,
the son of Governor Ibrahim Khan of Kashmir, chased the
Mongol-Tibetan army from Basgoto Lake Panggong in 1682.
Lama Mipham Wangpo of the Dukpa school of Ralung of the
Kagyu Sect as the plenipotentiary of Dalai Lama Losang
Gyatso to Gyalpo Delek Namgyal (r. 1666-95) of Ladakh,

‘TIBET

31

settled the terms ceding Ngari, except Village Mensar near
Mount Kailas and Lake Manas, to Tibet. The peace treaty
concluded in 1683 fixed the Ladakh-Tibet border at the
Lhari Chhu near Demchok and regulated trade relations

between Ladakh and Tibet. The annual Shung Tsong’ from
Tibet and the triennial Lopchak from Jammu and Kashmir,
which continued up to 1962, originated in the treaty of 1683.
The Shung Tsong (Government Trader) supplied Ladakh
with 200 chests of China brick-tea.
Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso was not entirely free from the
stipulations of the mchhod yon relationship. The Manchu
imperial court did not like his conferring the title Boshogtu
(Blessed) in 1678 on Galdan Khan

(Tib: dGa’ Idan; b. 1632/

44; r. 1676-97) of the Choros clan of the Western, Oyrat
Mongol tribes, the rival of the Manchus. The alliance of his

Desi Sanggye Gyatso (1653-1705) with Galdan Khan led to
complications for Tibet in the early 1700s. After defeating
the Northern Khalkha Mongols in 1688, Galdan Khan had
asked Emperor Kangxi (K’ang Hsi, r. 1661-1722) of Manchu
China to return

the Khalkhas, who had fled south to Lake

Dolon, he began hostilities in Khalkha Mongolia in 1690.
Kangxi defeated him in Juun Modo, “Hundred Trees”, in
1697. Anu Khatun, Galdan Khan’s wife, who had fought
shoulder to shoulder with him, fell in this battle.

Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso wrote extensively. He wrote not
only his own autobiography but also the biographies of the
Third and Fourth Dalai Lamas. He knew Sanskrit and cultivated it. He encouraged Tibetans to study in India. The
modern period of ‘Tibet started, in a way, in his time. Jesuit
J. Grueber and the Belgian Count D’Orville travelled via
Lhasa from China to India in 1661-62.
Tsangyang Gyatso (1683-1706), the rebirth of Dalai Lama
Losang Gyatso enthroned in 1696, was an unusual Dalai
Lama. He composed and sang fine autobiographical songs.
Lazang Khan, the Mongol king of Tibet since 1703 and the
great grandson of Gushi Khan, criticized the living style of
‘Commonly

known

as Chapa, tea merchant.

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Tsangyang Gyatso. He declared Tsangyang Gyatso a fraud
and replaced him by the twenty five-year old Yeshi Gyatso of
the Chakpori Medical College on the edge of Lhasa as the
true rebirth of Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso. He had Tsangyang
Gyatso taken to the Mongol camp at Lhalu near Lhasa.
The Tibetans, who considered even the living style of
Tsangyang Gyatso to be the test of their faith in the Dalai
Lama, strongly resented the treatment meted out to him by
Lazang Khan. They resisted his deposition of Tsangyang
Gyatso. The lamas of the Drepung Monastery, along with
those of Sera, attacked the party taking him (Tsangyang
Gyatso) to the Mongol camp and guarded him.

Lazang Khan killed Desi Sanggye Gyatso in 1705 and
contrived the murder of Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso in
Koko Nor in 1706. The Tibetans looked for help to Chhewang
Arabtan (b. 1643; r. 1697-1727), the ruler of the Oyrat Mon-

gols of the Ili Valley and the nephew of Galdan Khan. An
expedition commanded by Chhewang Dondub (d. 1750),
the cousin of Chhewang Arabtan, took Lhasa on 30 Novem-

ber~1 December 1717. Lazang Khan died while escaping
northward. Chhewang Dondub imprisoned his Dalai Lama,
Yeshi Gyatso. Thus ended the influence of the Khoshot
Mongols in Tibet.
The elimination of Lazang Khan, especially the political
situation in Tibet then, was most disquieting to Emperor
Kangxi, the second Manchu emperor of China and the third
son of Emperor Shun Zhi and the grandson of Bumbutai.
With a remarkable volte-face Kangxi put himself as the
champion of legitimacy. After keeping Kesang Gyatso (170857), the rebirth

of Dalai

Lama

Tsangyang

Gyatso,

under

surveillance at the Kumbum Monastery in Amdo for nearly
ten years, he recognized him (Kesang Gyatso) as the seventh
Dalai Lama. A detachment, commanded by General Yen
Hsi/Yin T’i, a great grandson

of Abahai, escorted

Kesang

Gyatso from Kumbum to Lhasa. It entered Lhasa on 16
October 1720 and drove the Oyrat Mongols of the Ili Valley

TIBET

33

from Tibet. It installed Kesang Gyatso on the throne in the
Potala. The Mongols and Tanguts of Koko Nor, imbued with
religious feeling, had followed the Manchu army to Lhasa
and assisted it greatly. This was the first instance of troops
from China ever entering Lhasa. The Manchu court of
Emperor Yong Zhang (Yung Ch’eng), the third emperor of
Manchu China, (b. 1678; r. 1722-35) withdrew its armies
from Tibet in 1723. But, in 1727, it established an office and

a garrison at Lhasa. From then until the fall of the Manchu
dynasty of China

in 1912,

the Manchu

court

stationed

an

amban, a Manchu mandarin, and a military escort in Tibet.
The arrangement of 1720 did not work well. And the
Manchu imperial court removed both Dalai Lama Kesang
Gyatso and his father Sonam Dargye from Lhasa to their
native village Garthar in Lithang, and Derge, in 1728 for
seven years. It did so because the Dalai Lama had proved to
the rallying-point for certain Tibetans, who had sparked off

a civil strife in Tibet in 1727. Emperor Yung Ch’eng transformed the Yung-ho Kung, the palace in which he lived
before becoming emperor, into a temple of Lama Buddhism
in 1732.
General Jalangga (d. 1747), who arrived in Lhasa in September

1728, placed Tibet under

the rule of Dalai Lama

Kesang Gyatso and its civil administration under Sonam
Gyalpo of Khangchhen. He had placed Kham under the
jurisdiction of Sichuan (Szechwan) in 1725.
Sonam Tobgye Phola, who had suppressed the civil strife
in August 1728, had suspected the Dalai Lama to be under
the influence of, his councillors Ngapho Dorji Gyalpo of
Kongpo, Lumpa Tashi Gyalpo of Tsang and Jarawa Lodo
Gyalpo with Sonam Gyalpo Khangchhen as their leader.
Their execution on 1 November 1727 led to the rise of his
(Phola’s) power. Sonam Gyalpo had been murdered on 5
August 1727. Phola also intervened in the civil strife in
Bhutan in 1730. His intervention resulted in the establishment
of the supremacy of Tibet over Bhutan.

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OF MANCHU

CHINA

Prince Gyurmi Namgyal, the younger son and successor of
Phola on the latter’s death on 12 March 1747, wanted to end

the Manchu influence in Tibet. He requested the removal of
the Manchu garrison, Ambans Fuch’ing and Labdon sensing
trouble invited him to their yamen (office) ostensibly for a
conference

on

11 November

1750,

and

then

assassinated

him. The supporters of Gyurmi Namgyal incited an antiManchu riot and besieged and burnt the Manchu yamen.
They killed Labdon and many of the civilian staff as well as
the escort. Fuch’ng committed suicide. Qian Long (Ch’ien
Lung, r. 1736-96; d. 1799), the fourth son of Emperor Yung

Ch’eng and the fourth Manchu emperor of China, appointed
General

Bandi

(d. 1755), who had promulgated

orders of

Emperor Kangxi on the zoning of areas in Tibet, Sichuan
and Yunnan in 1725, in their place and sent a military force
from Sichuan to restore Manchu authority. The Manchu
court made four Tibetans of equal rank in charge of civil
affairs, placing Dalai Lama Kesang Gyatso at the apex.
Bhutan had intervened in the struggle for succession in
Koch Bihar, India. The claimant had sought the help of the
government of the British East India Company (Calcutta).
The British government drove the Bhutanese soldiers from
Koch Bihar. Panchhen Lama Lobzang Palden Yeshi (173780) interceded with Warren Hastings, the first Governor
General of Fort William (Calcutta) from 1774-85, on behalf

of Bhutan, which had been under the suzerainty of Tibet
since the 1730s. Dalai Lama Jampel Gyatso (1759-1804) was
minor then. Warren Hastings, availing himself of the intercession of the Panchhen Lama, sent George Bogle to him via
Bhutan to open trade relations between India and Tibet.
Bogle was the first Englishman to visit Tibet. The Regent of
Tibet and the Manchu amban refused to permit Bogle to visit
Lhasa. Bogle cultivated intimacy: with the family of the
Panchhen Lama. He even married a Tibetan lady, described

as a sister of Panchhen Lama Lobzang Palden Yeshi. Warren
Hastings also sent Captain Samuel Turner to Shigatse, also

TIBET
via Bhutan, in 1783. The Manchu

35
amban

and the regent of

Tibet also refused his request to visit Lhasa.
Tibet was also on the course of conflict with Nepal then.
Its conflict with Nepal traced to the first half of the seventeenth
century when Raja Pratap Malla (c. 1624-75) of the Kingdom
of Kathmandu circulated his pure silver coins in Tibet vide
a settlement made by Bhim Malla, a relative and minister of
King Pratap Malla, with certain Tibetans of Tsang. He had
overrun Kuti (Tib: Nyanam’), a Tibetan principality then on
the Nepal-Tibet border, in 1630. Bhim Malla had intended to
go up to the sacred mountain Tsebri in the valley of the
Phong Chhu, the main branch of the Kosi River of Nepal and
India, to pay homage to the shrine of the Indian siddha
Phadampa Sengge in Village Lankor in Tingri, Tsang. The
settlement was beneficial to Kathmandu, because Tibet paid
for those coins struck in the name of Pratap Malla in silver
or provided the bullion required for their minting from
which Kathmandu deducted a certain percentage of silver.
Later, Kathmandu

sent debased silver coins to Lhasa.

After Prithvinarayan Shah of the Kingdom of Gorkha (r.

1742-68) had conquered the Malla kingdoms of the Nepal
Valley, Kathmandu and Lhasa tried to solve the coinage
issue. But before its solution, another problem, which deteriorated relations between Nepal and Tibet, was Tibet’s help
to Sikkim? during Nepal’s war with it (Sikkism) in 1779. Yet

another problem further complicated the situation between
them. On the death of Panchhen Lama Lobzang Palden
Yeshi, his younger brother and regent of Panchhen Lama
Tenpa-i Nyima (1781-1852), appropriated his personal wealth
without sharing it with Lama Chhodub Gyatso of the
Kangbachhen Monastery of Shamar, Red Hat, Karma school

of the Kagyu Sect, the younger brother of the deceased
Panchhen

Lama.

Lama

Chhodub

Gyatso,

along with

his

'Nyanam (gNanan) also often described as Gungthang.
*Nepali: Sukhim; Tibetan: Dejong (Bra rjongs), later pronunciation
Denzong (Bra rdzong).

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entourage, went over to Nepal in order to score off his
brother. The Nepalese court gave him asylum.
Dissatisfied with Tibet’s reply to its demand concerning
the devalidation of Nepalese coins circulating in Tibet and
the purity of salt sent by Tibet to Nepal, Nepal invaded Tibet
in July 1788. The Gorkha darbar' of Nepal also requested the
government of the East India Company

(Calcutta) for assis-

tance in its conflict with Tibet. Dalai Lama Jampel Gyatso
wrote to Lord Charles Cornawallis, the Governor-General

Fort William

(Calcutta) from

of

1786 to 1793, to desist from

helping Nepal. He was the first Dalai Lama ever to address a
communication to the British government in India.
The Gorkha invaders withdrew from Tibet in May 1789 on
certain terms made in Kerung, payment of 300 dotse’ ingot of
silver bullion, approximately 50,000 Nepalese rupees, annually
by Tibet to Nepal, etc. The Nepalese delegation had included
the Shamar Lama and the Tibetan delegation had included
the father of the boy Panchhen Lama.
The Gorkhas invaded Tibet again, and looted the Tashilhunpo (Nep: Tasirimbu) Monastery in Shigatse (Nep: Digarchi). Emperor Qian Long sent a large expeditionary force
under General Fu K’ang-an against the Gorkhas (Ch: Kuo-erk’ao) on 22 November 1791. The Manchu force defeated the

Gorkhas, chasing them almost up to the gates of Kathmandu.
The Gorkha court agreed not to raise any claim based on the
coinage issue, return the property from the Tashilhunpo
Monastery and surrender the remains of the Shamar Lama,

who had died on 3 July 1792 in the meantime, and his wife
and entourage. Above all, it also agreed to send an envoy to
China every five years with presents for the Manchu emperor.
The Manchu Court appointed General Fu K’ang-an amban
in Tibet. On his suggestions, it issued a set of Imperial Regulations for the governance of Tibet in 1793, authorizing the
"The term darbar generally means “court” and, by implication, government.
*Dotse was a monetary unit only for calculations. There was no coin of
this denomination.

TIBET

37

amban at Lhasa to deal with the Dalai Lama directly and
supervise his treasury without interfering with his personal
funds. This strengthened his (amban’s)status. The regulations

also restricted the routing of all communications with foreign
countries,

especially Nepal,

Sikkim

and

Bhutan,

through

him and all correspondence addressed to the Dalai Lama by
foreign countries to be made known to him, and replied by
him. The amban, however, was not to take part in the gover-

nance of Tibet.
Emperor Qian Long, as the patron of the Gelug Sect, also
issued a decree concerning the procedure of the choice and
appointment of the high Gelug lamas. Names of boys written
on slips of paper were to be placed in a golden urn. The
Dalai Lama, or the Panchhen Lama if the choice was that of

the Dalai Lama, was to pick out a slip at random in
presence of the amban and high Gelug dignitaries. The
whose name appeared on the slip, was to be appointed
high lama subject to the Manchu emperor granting him

the
boy,
the
the

patent

also

of investiture,

later, the Manchu

government

extended this procedure to the choice and appointment of
the high Gelug lamas in Mongolia.
Tibet also got involved with Jammu in the early 1840s.
General Zorawar Singh, who had taken Zangskar and Ladakh
for Maharaja Ranjeet Singh (r. 1791-1839) of the Panjab
(Punjab) in 1834, invaded West Tibet in May 1841, taking
Ruthok, Guge and Purang with Taglakhar in Purang as his
headquarters. He even posted his men close to the borders
of Kumaun (Kumaon) and Nepal. The Khenpo of the Shiwaling Monastery in Taglakhar escaped to Almora in the British

territory. The Tibetans, encircling the Dogra soldiers and
shooting General Zorawar Singh, defeated the Dogras near
Lake Manas on 12 December 1841. Eventually, the Dogras
rallied under Diwan Hari Chand and pursued the Tibetans.
Tibet sued for peace. The peace took the form of exchange
of letters on 17 September 1842. Those letters reaffirmed the
old trade connection between them and confirmed the
authority of Jammu over Ladakh. The treaty established the

38

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

status quo before the war, that is, Ladakh of Gyalpo Thondup
Namgyal (r. 1820-34). Diwan Hari Chand took the Tibetan
representatives Kalons Surkhang and Shata to Jammu for
ratification. The British government demarcated the LadakhTibet border in 1847. The Manchu government had taken
no part in the Jammu-Tibet War of 1841-42 and the NepalTibet war of 1855-56;

it then had been

involved with the

Westerners at the southern gates—the sea-ports.
The treaty between China and Britain (and France), signed

to conclude the Second Anglo-Chinese War (1856-60) at
Aigun on 27 June 1858 and ratified by the convention signed
at Beijing on 24 October 1860 during the reign of Emperor
Xian Fang (Hsian Feng, r. 1851-61), allowed Christian mission-

aries to travel and preach in the interior of China. The
Roman Catholic Mission Etrangers (Lazarists) of Paris lost
no time to penetrate into Kham.' This alarmed the Gelug
dignitaries, and the government of Tibet forbade the entry
of missionaries as well as travellers into Tibet. When the
missionaries showed copies of the treaties of 1858 and 1860
to the Tibetan officials from Lhasa, they said they did not
acknowledge the authority of the government of Emperor
Sian Fang.
The first military clash Tibet had with a Western power
occurred in Sikkim during the time of the young Dalai Lama
Thubten Gyatso (1876-1933) on 21 March 1888. The British
Indian troops drove the Tibetan troops out of Lingtu, chasing
them up to Yatung across the Dzelap La in the Tomo Valley,
commonly known as the Chhumbi Valley, inside Tibet. Dalai
Lama Thubten Gyatso, assumed power in 1893, He executed
the Regent, the Demo Rinpochhe of the Tangyeling Temple
and confiscated his estates and meadows in 1899.
The British and Manchu governments concluded a convention relating to Sikkim and Tibet and signed by Marquis
Henry Charles Keith Lansdowne, the Viceroy of India from
'French missionaries had tried to reach Bathang, Kham, on the ChinaTibet border even earlier from the side of Assam, India. The Mishmi
tribesmen had murdered Fathers Krick and Bourray on the Mishmi-Tibet
border in 1854.

TIBET

39

1888 to 1894, and Sheng T’ai, the Manchu amban in Tibet
from

1890-92,

in Calcutta

on

17 March

1890, recognizing

British protectorate over Sikkim and defining the SikkimTibet border along the upper reaches of the Teesta River.
Sheng T’ai, who travelled from Lhasa to Calcutta and back,

was the first Manchu amban in Tibet to do so. He died in
Lhasa in 1892. The British and Manchu governments also
signed at Darjeeling on 8 December 1893 a set of regulations
relating to border trade, pasturage and communications.
The Anglo-Chinese regulations of 1893 gave Yatung and its
environments to the government of British India. The
Government of the Dalai Lama ignored the Anglo-Chinese
convention and refused to comply with the regulations: It
regarded Sikkim as its vassal.
The British government realized that the Manchu government of China had no authority in Tibet. It had also heard
rumours of Russian influence in the counsels of Lhasa. Lord
George Nathaniel Curzon, the Viceroy of India from 1899 to
1905, dispatched a mission (which later converted itself into

a military expedition) to Tibet in the summer of 1903 to
negotiate with the Dalai Lama. Sidkyong Tulku, the Maharaj
Kumar (Crown Prince, d. 1907) of Sikkim, and Ugyen Wangchhuk,' the Ponlop (dPon lop, Governor) of Tongsa of Bhutan,
accompanied
cousin

it. Dawa

of Ugyen

Penjor, the Ponlop of Paro and the

Wangchhuk,

was

then

hostile

to

the

government of British India. The Nepal-Tibet treaty of 1856
had bound Nepal to help Tibet in the event of an invasion.
However, Maharaja Chandra Shamsher, the Prime Minister
of Nepal, offered yaks as transport animals to the British

military expeditionto Tibet. When the expeditionary force
advanced on Lhasa, Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso accompanied
by Lama Agvan Dorjiev (1853-1938)of Buriyatia, Russia,
escaped on 30 July 1904 to Manchu Mongolia.
The British and Tibetan officials signed a convention in
the Potala at Lhasa in the presence ofYer T’ai, the Manchu
'A son of Ponlop Namgyal of Tongsa and founder of the Wangchhuk
dynasty and monarchy of Bhutan in 1907.

40

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

amban in Tibet from 1903-12, and the agents of Bhutan and
Nepal, on 7 August 1904, which affirmed the Anglo-Chinese

Convention of 1890. The Anglo-Tibetan convention of 1904
forbade Tibet to have relations with foreign powers. It regarded China as non-foreign. It allowed British trade agents
to be established at Gyantse, and Garthok (Gartok) in West

Tibet, in addition to Yatung where a British trade agent had
been established under the Anglo-Chinese convention of
1890. It imposed an indemnity of Rs 75,00,000 on Tibet, later

reduced to Rs 25,00,000 and the occupation of the Chhumbi

Valley, south of the central ridge of the Himalaya (the Tibetans
themselves suggested it), by the British government in lieu of
the indemnity.
The Manchu government regarded the Anglo-Tibetan
Convention as an imposition. But it signed a convention with
the British government in Beijing on 27 April 1906 to confirm
the conventions of 1890 and 1904. By the Anglo-Chinese
Convention of 1906, the British Government recognized the
suzerainty of China over Tibet. On 1 January 1908, the British government of India vacated the Chhumbi Valley on the
Manchu government paying the indemnity on behalf of
Tibet.
The Dalai Lama returned from Mongolia to Tibet in
September 1906. While at the Kumbum Monastery in Amdo
in North-East Tibet, he managed to visit Peking on 27 September 1908. He lodged in the Yellow Temple originally
built, outside the north wall of the city, for Dalai Lama Lo-

sang Gyatso (1617-82), the first ever Dalai Lama

to visit

China. Emperor Pu-i (r. 1908-12) and Dowager Empress Tz’u

Hsi (Yehonala, 1835-1908) received him with respect. Their
government described him as “loyal and submissive vicegerent” in place of his former designation “Great, Good,
Self-Existent Buddha”. The Manchu government thus implied
that Tibet was subordinate to China. it is noteworthy that
Dalai Lama Thubtan Gyatso did. not enjoy the prestige of
Dalai Lama Losang Gyatso.

At Beijing, the Dalai Lama also met the diplomatic repre-

TIBET

4]

sentatives of foreign countries. When he met the British representative,

he said that he had been misinformed

about

British intention in 1903-04 and that he now wished for friendship with Britain. He also addressed a letter to the British
monarch, King Edward VII (r. 1901-10). He left Beijing for
Lhasa on 21 October 1908. The Manchu government, sensing
the slipping away of Tibet, despatched imperial troops from
Ch’engtu, Sizhuan, under Generals Zhao Erfang (Chao Erh-

feng) and Lien-yu to enforce its authority. On the advance of
the imperial troops on Lhasa on 12 February 1910 during

the Losar Monlam Chhemmo festival, the Dalai Lama along
with his entourage, fled to India. The Manchu government
deposed him.
The imperial troops, called the Szechwan army, even
crossed the north-east frontier of India at several points and
established the western limit of Manchu China at Menilkarai
in the Sadiya frontier tract, the Lohit district of present-day
Arunachal

Pradesh,

in 1911. The

Depa of Po, the border

principality between Kongpo and Zayul, south-east Tibet,
escaped to Assam, India. In his absence, his wives administered

Po. The
quarters
married
her. He

government of Assarn kept him at Sadiya, the headof its Eastern and Central Frontier Tracts. There he
a Khamti Buddhist woman and had a daughter by
died on the east bank of the Dibang River, which

rises on the east side of the 13,000-foot Abroka Pass, the
divide between the Eastern and Central Frontier Tracts then,

in 1913 while returning to Kanam, the capital of the principality of Po, from Sadiya. The government of Assam moved
the Khamti lady and her daughter from Sadiya to Shillong,
the capital of Assam. The government of the Dalai Lama
annexed Po in 1927 and merged it with Mar Kham in East
Tibet.
The revolution in China on 10 October 1911 quickly
spread to Tibet. Unpaid for months, the Chinese soldiers did
much damage to life and property in Lhasa. The Tibetans
besieged the Chinese garrison and routed the Chinese troops
elsewhere in the country. Eventually, on 6 January 1913,

42

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

except the merchants, Resident Chung-yin and the Chinese
troops left Lhasa by way of Kalimpong, Bengal (India). The
government

of Yuan

Shi-kai

(1859-1916),

President

of the

Republic of China founded by Sun Yatsen on 1 January
1912, put Chung-yin to death in 1915 for leaving his post of
duty against orders. President Yuan also voiced China’s claim
to Tibet.
On return to Lhasa from India in the spring of 1912, Dalai
Lama Thubten Gyatso issued a proclamation which the
Tibetans regarded as the declaration of the independence of
Tibet. The

two escapes

(1904-08)

and

(1910-12)

of Dalai

Lama Thubten Gyatso and varied experiences made him
familiar with the complex of power politics in Central Asia
then. He sought to gain recognition of the independence of
Tibet through the priest-patron relationship with another
power. The British government could only offer mediation
between Tibet and China. It held a tripartite Anglo-ChineseTibetan

conference

at Simla

(Shimla now)

in 1913-14

to

resolve the question of the political status of Tibet. The
tripartite conference split Tibet into two parts—Inner and
Outer (as seen from China). Inner Tibet was to be directly

under China and Outer Tibet was to be autonomous under
the Dalai Lama, with a Chinese political agent stationed at
Lhasa.
The tripartite Anglo-Chinese-Tibetan conference broke
down because of the differences over definition of borders
between China and Tibet. The tripartite delegates, however,
initialed a draft agreement. The Dalai Lama was not happy
with it. The government of the Republic of China

(ROC)

repudiated it. Initially, it had been reluctant even to attend
this conference. Whatsoever, the political status of Tibet visa-vis China remained unresolved.
The British and Tibetan delegations concluded an agreement respecting their India-Tibet border from the BhutanIndia-Tibet triyunction to the India-Burma-China trijunction.
It also extended east to the Isu Razi Pass on the Burma-China
border. Burma (Myanmar now) was part of British India

TIBET

:

43

then. The Assam-Tibet borderline came to be called the
McMahon Line after Henry McMahon, the British delegate
and foreign secretary of the government of British India.
Owing to the association of the Pemako Valley, south of the
central ridge of the Assam Himalaya, with the legendary
Padmasambhava and for goodwill, the British government of
India conceded it to Tibet.
The aim of the Dalai Lama of freedom from China made
his government quite assertive. Its forces led by Kalon Lama
Champa Tendor defeated the Chinese forces of General Liu
Tsan-ting in the hostilities along the China-Tibet border. Due
to the preoccupation of the British Government with the
World War (1914-18), it was quiescent. However, committed
to the settlement of the Sino-Tibetan issue, it authorized its

Consul Eric Teichman (in West China) to mediate—the truce

of Rongbatsa—between General Liu Tsan-ting and Kalon
Lama Champa Tendor, August 1918, pending the final
settlement of the Sino-Tibetan boundary dispute. The truce
boundary ran through Kham, with the Khamba people of
the Tibetan race dwelling on both sides of it. The British
authorities now omitted the words “Inner” and “Outer” in
their discussion on Tibet with China.
On British advice’ in 1922, the government ofTibet started
to modernize its army. The question of one-fourth contribution to be made by the administration of the Tashilhunpo
Monastery and its estates of the Panchhen Lama resulted in
much misunderstanding between Lhasa and Shigatse.
Panchhen Lama Chhokyi Nyima (1883-1937) as the head of
the Tshilhunpo Monastery felt that the levy made his position
untenable, and protested to Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso.
When

his protest proved futile, he, along with a number of

his officials, fled to China via the Changthang route on 15
November 1923. The government of the Republic of China
received him warmly.
The Manchu court had always tried to reach the Panchhen
Lama since 1727. It had suspected the efforts of Panchhen
'C.A. Bell, Tibet: Past and Present, Oxford,

1924.

44

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

Lama Lobzang Palden Yeshi (1737-80) to establish contacts
with the governments of the British East India Company
(Calcutta) and Maharaja Prithvinarayan Shah of Nepal during the minority of Dalai Lama Jampel Gyatso in the 1770s.
His death in Beijing was perhaps unnatural. Empe~or Qian
Long had invited him in the context of the issue f the
Torgut Mongols from the Volga region of Russia. The Manchu
government also tried to set Panchhen Lama Chhokyi Nyima
on the vacant throne in the Potala in the absence of Dalai
Lama Thubten Gyatso in 1910. The Panchhen Lama did go
over to Lhasa, but he did not take the vacant throne.

His

escape to China in 1923 gave the government of China a
powerful lever to restore its position in Tibet.
Before passing away on 17 December 1933, the Dalai
Lama strenuously strove for the return of Panchhen Lama
from China. He even negotiated with President Chiang Kai-

shek to facilitate his return. The government of the Republic
of China, then in Nanjing (Nanking), sent General Huang
Mu-sung to Lhasa to convey their condolences on the passing
away of Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso. It also authorized him
to negotiate the status of Tibet as part of China. General
Huang reached Lhasa on 25 April 1934. Nothing came out

of his proposals and the counter-proposals of the government
of the Regent of Tibet, the abbot of Reting Monastery. The
obsequies over, Huang left Lhasa, leaving behind Liu P’uchen and Chang Wei-pei. He returned to China via Nepal
and India. The government of the Republic of China, how-

ever, organized in 1939 the province called Sikang consisting of the Tibetan area of Kham, east of Chhamdo

on the

Dza Chhu/Salween River, under its occupation since 1932.
General Wu Chunghsin (Chairman, Commission of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs) travelled to Lhasa via India for

the installation ceremony of Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso on 22
February 1940. He set up the office of the Commission of
Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs in Lhasa under Kung Ch’ingtsung in April 1940.
The draft constitution of China in 1945 accorded special

‘

TIBET

45

status to Tibet, along with Outer Mongolia.
On 8July 1949, the Tibetan government asked Shen Tsunlien, the head of the office of the Commission of Mongolian
and

Tibetan

Affairs,

and

other

Chinese

officials

to leave

Tibet. Tenzing Gyatso, the sixteen-year old Dalai Lama, assum-

ed his full religious and secular power on the request of his
government after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the
People’s Republic of China (PRC), founded by Mao Zedong
(1893-1976)

and associates in Beijing on

1 October

1949,

entered Tibet on 7 October 1950. He had been the youngest
Dalai Lama ever to assume his full power. The fall of Chhamdo,

Kham, on 17 October 1950 compelled his government to
seek terms with the Government of the People’s Republic of
China. On

18 December

1950, the Dalai Lama moved from

Lhasa to Yatung, close to the Sikkim border, in order to be
able to cross over to India, if necessary.
When Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of
China on | October 1949, he referred to a telegram from the
ten-year old Panchhen Lama Kesang Tsetan (1939-89) asking
for the “liberation” of Tibet. The boy Panchhen Lama Kesang
Tsetan had fallen into the hands of the Chinese communists
on 5 September 1949. The government of the boy Dalai
Lama sent a delegation to Beijing, headed by Kalon Ngabo
Ngawang Jigmi, former governor of Chhamdo. The Dalai
Lama sent a telegram to Mao Zedong pledging cooperation
with the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese and Tibetan

delegations concluded in Beijing on 23 May 1951 a 17-point
agreement on “Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet”.
This agreement placed the foreign relations, communications and defence of Tibet under the PRE Government. It
provided autonomy to Tibet in its internal affairs. It separated
religion and politics, but enjoined the PRC Government not

to change the status of the Dalai Lama and other grand
lamas of Tibet and not to interfere in the religious beliefs of
the Tibetan people. The government of Tibet agreed to
assist the PLA to consolidate the western defences of the
People’s Republic of China. Panchhen Lama Kesang ‘Tsetan

46

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

and his officials returned to Shigatse, Tibet. The arrangement
under the Sino-Tibetan agreement of 1951, the first written

agreement

between

China

and Tibet since the Chinese-

Tibetan treaty of Ap 821/822, conformed with the arrange-

ment between Mongol China and Tibet and between Manchu
China and Tibet. The Republic of China and Tibet had
reached no understanding.
RECAPITULATING

GELUGPA THEOCRACY

The family of the Seventh Dalai Lama Kesang Gyatso was the
first to be ennobled. The Eighth Dalai Lama Jampel Gyatso
was the first Dalai Lama to address a communication to the
British government in India. The families of the Eighth and
Twelfth Dalai Lamas united in matrimony. The Ninth-Twelfth
Dalai Lamas played no notable part in the life of Tibet. Several of them died before they came of age to assume power.
The visit of Thomas Manning to Tibet in 1811 was the highlight of the time of the Ninth Dalai Lama, Lungthok Gyatso.
Manning was the first Englishman to reach Lhasa and the first
Westerner to have an audience with a Dalai Lama except for
Ippolito Desideri, the Italian Jesuit, who had an audience with
the Dalai Lama of Lazang Khan. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama
Thubten Gyatso became involved in the politics of AngloRussian tussle for supremacy in Central Asia. The present
Fourteenth Dalai Lama was the youngest Dalai Lama ever to

assume full power. All the Dalai Lamas from the Seventh to
the Fourteenth have been from ordinary peasant families. All
this, especially how these peasant families, transformed into
royal families, is fascinating sociologically. Apart from the
theocracy of the Gelug Sect in Tibet and the proliferation of
its incarnate lamas and increase of their privileges, the Sect
itself cannot claim any special place in the theology of Tibetan
Buddhism or literature and the arts of Tibet.
TiBeT, INDIA AND CHINA

The advance of the troops of the People’s Liberation Army
(PLA) into Tibet to liberate it from feudal stranglehold and

TIBET

47

superstition created a rift between the governments of the
Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China over
the sovereign/suzerain position of China in Tibet. Delhi
suggested the solution of the problem by peaceful means.
Beijing resented it, regarding it as India’s interference in
China’s internal affairs. Indian diplomacy failed to convey
properly the concern of the Government ofIndia to the PRC
Government in the matter, especially the change in the
political status of India. The Government of the sovereign,
independent India did not rename the offices the British
government of India had established in Tibet. The political
elites of Beijing saw no change in India except the name of
the nation and the national flag. The Government of India
then changed its Mission in Lhasa to Consulate General
under thejurisdiction of its Embassy in Beijing, and its Trade
Agencies in Tibet under its supervision.
The governments of the People’s Republic of China and
the Republic of India concluded in Beijing on 29 April 1954
an agreement on trade and communications between India
and the Tibet region of the People’s Republic of China by
which the Government of India gave up its rights in Tibet
which it had inherited as the successor of the British government in India on 15 August 1947. It also withdrew its military
escorts from its Trade Agencies in Yatung and Gyantse and
handed over its resthouses and post and telegraph facilities
to the authorities of the Government of People’s China in
Tibet. The most important part of the China-India agreement
was the acceptance of Tibet, in the preamble, by the Government of India as an integral part of China.
Dalai Lama Tenzing Gyatso, along with Panchhen Lama
Kesang Tsetan, came to India on 23 November 1956 to partici-

pate in the celebration of the 2500th Buddha anniversary. He
did not want to return to Tibet, perhaps because of the
‘situation in Tibet not being normal then. He asked Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for asylum in India. The request of
the Dalai Lama was embarrassing to the Government of India.
It had given assurance to the PRC Government that the visit

48

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

of the Dalai Lama could neither be used nor allowed to be
used for political intrigue.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke to Prime Minister
Zhou Enlai, who hapnened to be in India then. Zhou said to

Nehru that the PRC Government would respect Tibetan
autonomy in accordance with the Sino-Tibetan agreement of
1951. So on Nehru’s suggestion that the situation in Tibet
might improve, the Dalai Lama returned to Tibet. He also
invited Nehru himself to see the situation there. In view of
the situation

in Tibet

then,

the PRC

Government

asked

Nehru to cancei his visit. Perhaps it had no alternative.
An uprising against the Chinese rule (beginning in Amdo
and Kham,

North-East Tibet, especially after the reform

to

liberate the Tibetans of feudalism in 1959) erupted in Lhasa
on 10 March 1959. The Dalai Lama escaped from there in the
night on 17 March. Before fleeing Tibet, he and most of his
entourage had repudiated the Sino-Tibetan agreement of
1951. On entering India on 31 March, he requested for
asylum for himself and for his entourage. W.D. Shakabpa
even wrote a book—Tibet: a Politicul History! to express the
views of the old guard.
After decades of arrival in India, Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso
sent five fact-finding delegations to Beijing and Tibet between
1979 and 1985. He made a five-point proposal before the US
Congress in Washington DC in 1987 and the European Parliament in Strassbourg, France, on 15 June 1988 for autonomy

for Tibet within the framework of the People’s Republic of
China. On 20 March 1989, Beijing said: “Any issue is open for
discussion except the question of Tibetan Independence”.
Thereafter, Beijing never missed an occasion to emphasize
the political connection between China and Tibet since the
anc‘ent time, and resented any outside attempt to disrupt it
as interference in its internal affairs.
On the suasion of US Vice President, Albert Gore, a devotee

of the Dalai Lama, the US Government accentuated the
Sino-Tibetan issue on the plea of human rights in the early
'New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967.

~.

TIBET

49

1990s, even appointing a special coordinator for Tibet on 1
November 1997. Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first lady
of the USA,

also became

a devotee

of Dalai Lama

Tenzin

Gyatso in 1998. President Jiang Zemin, during his nine days
state visit to the United States of America (USA) from 26
October to 3 November 1997 emphasized, in different places

and under different auspices, the inseparability and inalienability of Tibet from China. He also then emphasized
human rights in Tibet as an internal affair of China. President
Bill Clinton

(William Jefferson

Clinton),

during his nine

days state visit to China from 26 June to 3 July 1998, appealed
to President Jiang Zemin to meet Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso
for a dialogue to diffuse the tension. The Chinese governmert
agreed to it but rejected any US mediation on Tibet. Whatsoever, for the Dalai Lama asyium in India has not been dreary.

His asylum in India along with his entourage, on the other
hand, has been and is responsible for all the abnormality
between China and India.

CHAPTER 3

Xinjiang
INJIANG IS an ancient land of non-indigenous people. It is
Xie Far West of China. It has had different names in history. Its present name Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
is from 1955. It will be no distortion of history to name it X2
Yu, the Western Territory, or any other such name.
The Hsiung-nu/Huna, the Hsian-pei, the Jujan', the Ch’iang’ and other non-Han northern nomadic tribes menaced
ancient China. The Siongnus (Hsiung-nus) constantly harried
it. The Ch’in dynasty, which unified China in 221 Bc constructed the Great Wall to ward off the Siongnus Emperor Wu Ti
(reign 141-86 Bc) of the Western, First Han dynasty of China
(206 8c-AD 4) sent his minister Prince Ch’ang Ch’ien (Ch’ang

Kien) twice during 141-15 Bc
who had been defeated by
the son of Shan-yu Bumen’
and who had been driven
Gansu

to the Yueh-chih/Kushana tribe,
Shan-yu Motun (r. 209-174 Bc),
of the Siongnu tribe, in 176 Bc
west from their homeland in

(Kansu) during the time of Shan-yu Chichu

(r. 174

160 Bc). Prince Ch’ang, who had aimed to form an alliance
with the Yueh-chih against the Siongnu, reached the Yuehchih in c. 128 Bc, but did not succeed in his aim. The Siongn-

us captured him. He escaped the Siongnu captivity, and
returned to China in 128 sc. Ch’ang Ch’ien was the first
Chinese to visit Xi Yu, the Western Regions. Xi Yu, present'The Jujan, ethnically close to the Hsian-pei, assumed the title Xagan/
Great Lord in the fourth century Ap.
“Assumed to be of Tibetan origin, as the Tanguts, they formed the Hsi
Hsia state (986-1227).
“The first Shan-yu, the Great Chieftain, of the Siongnu tribe.

XINJIANG

51

day Xinjiang, which first opened up to China then, has ever
since remained in its manifest or vague possession.
The geographical connection between China and Central
Asia thus forged by Ch’ang Ch’ien led to the establishment
of the caravan route, later called the “Silk Route”, between
East and West in 115 Bc. Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen,

the German

geographer-explorer, was the first to use the

evocative term for this route. The Silk Route, the first trans-

continental, borderless commercial and diplomatic route in
history, brought ancient China and imperial Rome in a sort
of relationship. There was much traffic' along the Silk Route.
This is so obvious from the Chinese government to set up the
offices of the Superintendent of State Visits and the Superintendent for Tributary States.
The need to contain nomad pressure determined the
policy of the Han dynasty in East Central Asia. The conquest
of Ta Yuan by General Li Kuang-li in 101 Bc led to the elimination of the Siongnu from Xi Yu, and the establishment of
China’s sway there. General Cheng Chi set up the office of
Hsi-yu Tu-hu, the Protector of the Western Regions at Chadir
in 60 Bc. The Han court appointed him Xi-yu Tu-hu. Emperor
Ming (r. 58-76) of the Eastern, Second Han dynasty of China
(AD 25-220), which moved its capital from Ch’ang-an (modern
Xian, Hsi-an) to Loyang, took measures to guard the Silk and
other caravan routes through Central Asia. General Tu Ku

reduced the kings and princes of the oases kingdoms of
the desert between the Kunlun and Tianshan ranges of
mountains. He set up military agricultural colonies in the
oases and built post stations along the main route. Political
and commercial interests demanded even the appointment
of interpreters under the Protector. He sent Pan Ch’ao (32102); to establish the office of the Protector General at

Kucha (Kuche, Ch: Ch’iu-tzu) in 73-74. After the fall of the
Mongol dynasty of China (1271-1368), the Chinese position
-in Central Asia had been tenuous.

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KINGDOMS OF OASES

The kingdoms! of the oases of the Western Regions began to
come into existence before the end of the second century BC.
From towards the end of the reign of Emperor Kuang-wu (AD
25-57) to about 73, several of them rose to power. The first
oasis kingdom, which became a dominant force in the Western
Regions, was Sha-ch’e/Yarkand, whose king (named Hsien

in Chinese, r. AD 33-61) even tried to take the entire Western

Regions. Other kingdoms of the oases also contended for
supremacy there. Yu-tien/Khotan

(modern Ch: Hetian) sub-

dued Sha-ch’e. Lou-lan in the vicinity of the western shore of
Lob Nor, once the largest lake in China, was active up to the

Sung-Yuan period. Emperor Kuang-wu’s inability to intervene,
owing to internal

conditions

in China

then,

enabled

the

Siongnus to restore their power there. Pan Yung, the son of
General

Pan

Ch’ao,

made

efforts

to recover

the Western

Regions from them.

General Tu Ku defeated the Siongnus in ap 74. He took Yutien, Sha-ch’e and Shu-le between 74 and 100. He had captur-

ed Andian, the capital of Ta Yuan, and imposed an indemnity
of 1,000 stallions in 104-102 Bc. China had set up, within its

military establishment, an office of horse purchase that dealt
directly with the pastoral suppliers of horses. Its writ, though
nominal, then ran up to the Kushana domain in the west.
The Arabs under Ziyad b. Salih, the general of Abu Muslim
(official name

Abd

al-Rahman

b. Muslim)

of the Abbasid

Khilafat (749-1258) of Baghdad, routed the army of General

Kao

Hsien-chin

(of Korean

origin)

in the battle of Taraz

(later Aulia Ata) to the west of the Bishkek, the capital of

present-day Kyrgyzstan, on the Talas River in July 751. China
then withdrew from Andijan to its Western Region. Its interest
in the lands to its north and west was to protect itself from
incursions of the non-Han nomadic tribes there.
The rule of Tibet in 17 Yul, the collective Tibetan name for
the Khotan-Kashgar region, in the seventh-ninth centuries
'Such as Kucha, Aksu, Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Loulan, Niya. Cadota

in the Min-feng County in the present site of Niya.

XINJIANG

ay)

extended over the people of Indo-Iranian origin. The kings
of the oases’ kingdoms bore Sanskrit names. The location of
the kingdom of Khotan

(Sans: Kostana)

on the Silk Route

gave it prosperity. Archaeological expeditions sponsored by
the government of British India and the Count Kojui Otani
of Japan in the beginning of the present century, dug up the
great past of this sand-buried ancient kingdom. Their literary
finds shed much light on ancient China, India and Iran.
According to a legend of the Buddhism of Central Asia,
Prince Kunal, a son of Emperor Ashoka (r. 369-332 Bc) of the
Maurya Dynasty of India, founded Khotan. Buddhism spread
there in the first century aD, in 84 Bc according to the Li yul
long btsan pa/Li yul chhos kyi lo rgyus, the chronicles of Liyul.
Emperor Ming (r. AD 58-76) sent a mission to Khotan in ap
65 for acquiring Buddhist monks and texts.
The Buddhist monks such as Kumarajiva (344-413) of
Kuche/Kuche (Ch: trans: Qiuchi) influenced the develop-

ment of Buddhism even in China. In Chang’an (Xian now),
the capital of the then China, he engaged himself in the
work of translation of Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Chinese,

including

Ma-ming pu-sa Chuan,

the life of Ashvaghosha.

According to the tradition of the Buddhism of China, Kumara-

jiva! so impressed Emperor Yao Chang (r. 386-417) of the
Toba Wei dynasty of China (386-556) that he (Emperor Yao

Chang) assigned ten girls to live with him (Kumarajiva) so
that his qualities of mind should be transmitted to offspring.
And children were born. Kumarajiva said to his associates:

“You need only take the lotus that grows out of the mud and
leave the mud.”
Khotan, a major stage place on the Silk Route, was a tributary of China until its conquest by the Tibetans in ap 670.
The people of many races met there. The Chinese and the
Indians first met there. The people speaking Indo-Iranian
languages lived in the oases’ kingdoms of the Sita region.
'Kumarajiva’s father was from Kashmir. His mother Princess Jiva was a
Tukharika from Tukhara

range.

(Ch: Ta Xia/Ta hsia), north of the Hindukush

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After the collapse of the Uygur empire (744-840) in the
Orkhon region of present-day Mongolia, the Uygurs (Ch:
Hui-hu) moved to Gansu and rose to power in Hami and Tur-

pan (Turfan), the eastern half of the Tianshan range and the
northern fringe of the Sita basin, in 840. They merged within
the Indo-Iranian

peoples and became

a dominant

ethnic

group there. Some of the Indo-Iranian peoples withdrew
into the fastnesses of the Pamir mountains. The westward
movement of the Uygurs thus was an important event in the
history of the Sita region. The Kyrgyzes from the valley of the
Yenisei River in Siberia, who had driven away the Uygurs

from Orkhon, were driven back in the tenth century.
KARAKHAN

DyNASTY

The Toguz Oguz clan of the Uygurs established the Karakhan
dynasty (c. 940-1125) at Balasagun in the valley of the Chu
Valley. Satok Bugra Khan (d. 955), the khan of Kashgar, was
the first prince of the Karakhan dynasty to adopt Islam in
945. His role as the ruler was pivotal, for the completion of
the process, even though he may not have been the first to
do so. His tomb is in Upper Arushi about 10 kms from

Kashgar.
Kadir Khan Yusup (Yusuf, r. 1015-32) of the right or eastern part of the Karakhan domain', the supreme Karakhan
potentate, spread Islam eastwards from Kashgar—the religious
wars of the eleventh-twelfth centuries. The Khotanis resisted
for long the advance of Islam. Arslan Khan (r. 1032-55), who
led the Muslim troops, died in the last battle. But his soldiers
won. The place of his death, later called Ordam Padshah, “the

place of the King”, became a place of pilgrimage.
dhist monks of Liyul escaped to Tibet and China.
khans are the /likhs of the Arabic sources.
Before the advent of Islam, the language of
basin was not Turki. The Uygur dialect was the

The BudThe Karathe Tarim
first Turki

'The Karakhan dynasty followed the practice of the bipartite system of
ancient Turk imperial rule. The Karakhan court moved its political centre
to Kashgar in the eleventh century.

XINJIANG

55

dialect to be reduced to alphabet writing in the time of
Muhammad Bugra Khan I] (r. 1057-1102). It eventually acquired the status of the Eastern Turki language. The Uygur script
developed from the Sogdi script. The vertical Kitan and
Mongol scripts, and eventually the Manchu script', developed
from it. Mahmud

al-Kashgari, a Karakhan

scion, wrote

his

Diwan Lughat at-Turk in the Arabic language and script in

Baghdad in 1072/1077.2 Kashgari’s Lughat is, an encyclopaedia of information on the ethnography, languages and
history of the Turks up to his time. His grave site is 30 kms
south of Kashgar City on a hill overlooking his native village
of Azig.
The period of the Karakhan dynasty is noteworthy in the
context of the creation of Turki literature, for example the

Kutadku Bilik (Happiness Bringing Knowledge) of Hajip
(Chancellor) Yusup Khan of the Court of Muhammad Bugra
Khan. Hajip Yusup, born in Balasagun, wrote it in verse in
Turki in Kashgar in 1068/1070. It related to the duties of a
ruler to his people.
.
KARAKYTAI DyNASTY

The Karakytais*® of the Ch’i-tan (Kitan) Turk tribe of East Asia

overthrew Mahmud

Khan

of the Karakhan

dynasty (940-

1125). Yeh-lu Ta-shih (b. 1086; r. 1125-36), the head of the

Karakytai dynasty, took the title Gur Khan, “Universal Lord”.
The Karakytai settled in the Tarim region from Turpan to
Kashgar in 1127. They subordinated the Uygur ruler of
Turpan around 1130. They dominated even Samarkand and
Bukhara up to 1211, when Allaheddin Muhammad,
Khwarizm (pronounced: Khorezm) Shah killed Osman,

the
the

vassal of the Karakytai Gurkhan, and overlorded it. The
'The Manchu script is the modified form of the Mongol script.
*Kashgari had escaped the intra-dynasty fighting in which his father
Husayn had been killed.
*Tungus: Hsi Liao; Karakhitai of the Persian sources. Emperor U-tu-bu

of the Ch’in dynasty (1125-45) of North China had overthrown the Liao
dynasty (907/916-1125).

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Karakytais were first tributary to Sultan Sanjar (r. 1092-1157)
of the Seljuk Turk dynasty (1038-1157) of Khurasan and Iran,
but defeated him in 1141. They had not yet adopted Islam.
The armies of Temujin, Chingiz/Chhinggis Qan' (b. 1167;
r. 1206-27)—Supreme Khan—poured into China’ and Persia,
invaded Russia, Poland and Moravia and reached Hungary

and Austria. The Mongols under General Jebe took the
Tarim region in 1218. Guchuk, the son of Taiyang Khan of
the Naiman Turk tribe, who had fled to Gurkhan Jilugu (r.
1199-1211) in 1208 after the break-up of the Naiman power
by Chingiz Khan in 1204, was then at Kashgar. Jilugu had
given him (Guchuk) his daughter in marriage. Guchuk had
adopted even the Karakytai dress and customs, and Buddhism.

After becoming powerful, he had overthrown Gur Khan
Jilugu in 1211. General Jebe pursued Guchuk Khan and
killed him.
The Uygurs of East Central Asia submitted to the Mongols
on their own accord in 1209, without resistance. Later, they

taught them (Mongols) not only the Mongol script but also
offered them their services. They came to have a stronghold
on the Mongol chancellery/secretariat.
MOGOLISTAN

Chingiz Khan allotted his vast realm, stretching from the
Pacific Ocean in the east to Central Europe in the west and
from Siberia in the north to Burma (Myanmar now) in the
south, to his sons about 1224. He gave the Middle Mongol
Empire of the Tarim-Mawa’ra an-nahr region—the Mongol
Khanate of Turkistan—to Chagatai (Jagatai), his second son,
as his appanage with Almalik in the Tianshan range as his
headquarters.

Within

a century

of Chagatai’s

death,

the

'The Mongol title Chinggisa Qian is of Turkic origin.
“In the thriteenth century, China or rather North China became known
in Europe as Cathay or Calai, a name derived from the ethnic term Kitan.
It still survives as the general name for China in most Slavonic languages,
e.g., Kilai in Russian. The Kitans conquered China in 907 and held it up
to 1124. The Juchen (Jurchen) overthrew them in 1129.

XINJIANG

5¥

Mongol Khanate of Turkistan, like those of Dasht-i Kipchak
and Persia, broke up into eastern and western parts among
the Turko-Mongol feudal lords. Togon Timur (b. 1335; r.
1347-68) ascended the throne of the eastern part. Like them,
he converted himself to Islam with the name of Tugluk
Timur. He named it (Mongol Khanate of Turkistan) Mogolis-

tan. He tried to resist the Turko-Mongol feudal lords of the
western part. He appointed Timur, the prince of Kish (modern
Shahr-i-Sebz), who had rallied to his cause.

The policy of the Mings of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644),
who had ousted the Mongols from China, was not assertive
in the Tarim region. Khizr Khoja (r. 1389-99), the Sultan of
Mogolistan, and Kamareddin

Duglat', the Emir of Kashgar,

got involved with Emir Timur of Samarkand during his
campaign in Farghana.
Sultan Say’id Khan (d. 1457) brought peace to Mogolistan.
Of his two sons Saniz and Haydar, Saniz (r. 1457-64) made

Yarkand his capital and assigned Kashgar to Haydar. He died
of a fall from his horse. When Abu Bakr Duglat became Emir
of Kashgar, he tried to extend his sovereignty over all Mogolistan. He annexed Osh and invaded even Andijan. Sultan
Ahmad Khan (r. 1499-1503) sat out against Abu Bakr, and
took Kashgar. History knows him by his alias Alasha, the
Slayer, because he rid Mogolistan of internecine strife. He
died at Aksu. His seventeen sons quarrelled over the sovereignty of Mogolistan. Except Abu Say’id Khan, Mansur Khan
(r. 1502-12) subdued them. He and Abu Say’id agreed to
share the sovereignty of Mogolistan on the condition that
the khutba in the Juma namaz, Friday prayer, be delivered and
sikka (coin) be struck in the name of Mansur Khan.
Sultan Say’id Khan (r. 1512-33) aimed to seek Abu Bakr.
He was with Zahiruddin Babur (1483-1530) at Kabul in 1504.
And he returned to Kunduz with him (Babur).

Sultan Say’id deputed his son Abdur Rashid (born at
Andijan in 1506) and Muhammad Haydar (born at Tashkent
'The Duglat family had been the hereditary Emir/governor of Kashgar
under the Mongol khans.

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HISTORY

in 1499/1500) to conduct jihad' against Tibet in 1531.
Muhammad Haydar had joined Sultan Abu Say’id in Fargana
in 1512. Sultan Say’id undertook this jzhad against Tibet
under the advice of Khwaja Knawand Mahbub Shilab al-Din
or Hazrat

Makhdum-i

Nura, a descendant

of Khoja Ubay-

dullah Ahrar (1404-90)?, who had spread the Nakshbandiyya
Sufi order outward from Samarkand. Abdur Rashid returned
to Yarkand in 1527.
Muhammad Haydar reached the Nubra Valley, north-west
of Leh, Ladakh, in 1532. Gyalpo Tashigon (d. 1532) ruled
Ladakh then. Sultan Say’id, who also reached Nubra, then
ordered Haydar to invade Kashmir. Sultan* Ibrahim Shah (r.
1516-37) of the Chak dynasty of Kashmir agreed to be a
feudatory of Sultan Say’id. He also agreed to mention the
name of Sultan Say’id in the khutba in the Friday namaz and
strike szkka in his name. A rift between Muhammad Haydar
and Daim Ali compelled Haydar to return to Baltistan.
Sultan Say’id, who was ill, confided to Haydar his illness:
he suffered from breathlessness. He himself hastened towards
Yarkand, dying near the Karakoram Pass in 1533. The Karakoram camping ground, the place of his death, came to be
known after his title Davlat Be/Lord of State.
Abdur Rashid (r. 1533-65/6) took Kashgar by killing his
uncle Muhammad and the family and expelling Haydar from
the country and ordering the Mogol soldiers under him to
return home. Before Haydar deputed his emissaries to Sultan
Abdur Rashid to change his decision, most of his soldiers
deserted him. After many wanderings, Haydar found shelter
with Mirza/Prince Kamran, the second son of Zahiruddin
Babar and half-brother of Nasiruddin Humayun, at Lahore.

After defeating Sultan Ibrahim Lodi (r. 1517-26) in the
battle of Panipat on 20 April 1526, Babar had founded

the

Mughul (Mogol) dynasty, and empire in India. Nasiruddin
Muhammed Humayun (r. 1531-40, 1555-56) had appointed
'Religious war of Muslims against unbelievers in Islam.
“Of Village Bagistan, Vilayet of Tashkent.
"The Sultanate period of Kashmir, 1320-1586.

XINJIANG

59

Mirza Kamran as the governor of Panjab. Kamran, who had
sent an expedition against Kashmir in 1531, deputed Haydar
to annex it. Haydar, who already had the experience of an
expedition against Kashmir, entered Kashmir without any
resistance. After consolidating his position, he deposed Sultan
Ibrahim Shah, replacing him by Nazuk Shah (r. 1529-30).
Haydar (d. 1551) recounted in his Tarikhi Rashidi the history
of Central Asia during 1347-1541. Although a Turk of the
Dugla’t clan of Kashgar, he wrote his chronicle in Persian in
Tappa, Srinagar, in 1546.
Sultan Abdur Rashid had two sons: Abul Karim (r. 1566-93)

and Muhammad Khan. The Khanate of Mogolistan eventually
disappeared as a result of the internecine quarrels in the
Chagatai royal family.
KHOojJA ADVENT

A Khoja (Khwaja)! family from Mawarannahar had risen in
Mogolistan during the reign of Sultan Abdur Rashid. A Sufi
saint, Khoja Ahmad Kasani (1461-1543), known as Makhtum2 A’zam/Great Teacher of the Emirate of Bukhara and a son
of Kaza (Khoja) Ubaydullah Ahrar (1404-90), had come to

Kashgar, reputedly on the invitation of Sultan Abdur Rashid.
He had claimed descent from Prophet Muhammad. He died
in Kashgar. Among his sons, who enjoyed respect by virtue of
their descent, Muhammad Amin, known as Jmam-i-Kalan, the
Great Imam, established himself at Aktag, north of Kashgar

in the Tianshan range, and styled himself as Aktaglk/White
Mountaineer. Ishak, the younger brother of Muhammad
Amin, established himself as Karataglhk/Black Mountaineer.

Not content with religious authority, both clans aspired for
political power in the Kashgar region. By the end of the
seventeenth century, they displaced the descendants of
Chagatai Khan as rulers. They based their power on theocratic
foundation.
Hidayatullah alias Hazrat Apak (Afak)’, the head of the
'The title of the pioneers of the Nakshbandiyya Sufi order.
*Apak (Aptak) is Turki for intensely “white”, that is holy.

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Aktaglik clan, sought the support of Galdan Khan (r. 1664

97)' of the Oyrat Mongol khanate?® of the valley of the Ili
River. Galdan Khan, taking advantage of the situation, captured Khan Isma’il, the Chagatai Khan of Kashgar, and his
family and exiled them to Kulja, his capital on the ."' River,
in 1678. He appointed Hazrat Apak ruler of the Kashgar
region. He also occupied Hami in 1679. This abolished the
Chagatai khanate.
Although Hazrat Apak eliminated the Karatagliks with the
help of Galdan Khan, his partisans did not feel satisfied with
this arrangement. Instead of becoming independent, Kashgar had become subordinate to another country. So Apak
thought of another stratagem in order to free himself of the
stigma of betrayal. He invited Muhammad Amin, the brother
of Khan Isma’il of Uch Turpan to deliver the country from
the Oyrat Mongol yoke. This act of Apak’s caused misfortunes
greater than his betrayal. Kashgar became the arena of
struggle between the Aktaglik and Karataglik factions. Apak
died

in mysterious

circumstances

in 1693/4.

People

still

revere his name. His mausoleum—the Mosque of Hazrat
Apak—and the grave site of the family—Khoja Apak—at
Kashgar became a source of wealth to the Aktaglik family
from pilgrim offerings.
The rivalry between the Khoja factions? continued even
after the death of Apak. Hazrat Apak’s wife, Khanum Padshah,
slew, with the help of his disciples, Apak’s eldest son, who had
to become the head of the Aktagliks. She had wanted her
own son Mahdi to become the head of the Aktagliks. In the
struggle, she herself became the victim of a follower. The
Karatagliks pressed the claim of Daniyal, the head of their
clan. They arrested Ahmad, the head of the Aktagliks, and
'Bushetu Khan in the hagiography, Tazkira-+ Hidayat or Hidayat-nama, of
Apak Khoja. Bushetu Khan was the title, not the name of Galdan Khan.
*The federation of the four tribes of the Western Oyirat Mongols.
“Differences between the Khoja factions split the Naqshbandiyya order,
spread to Mogolistan (later Kashgaria) in the fourteenth century, into
khujrya (secret) and zahira (open) groups.

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61

his family. After the death of Daniyal, Galdan Khan divided

the Kashgar region among the sons of Daniyal. Yusuf Khoja
wanted to secure independence for Kashgar. He sent
emissaries to Kokand and Bukhara to seek help to oust the
infidel Oyrat Mongols from the Kashgar region in the name
of Islam.
Due to the struggle for the position of Khan of the Oyrat
Khanate,

Amursana (1717/18-1757; Ch: A-mu-l-sa-na) , a distant

relative of the Oyrat royal family, connived with the rulers of
Manchu China to secure the position for himself. A Manchu
expeditionary force from Bars Kul, commanded by General
Bandi and under the guidance of Amursana, marched into the
[li Valley in 1755. Amursana also devised a scheme for the

conquest of Kashgar. Taking advantage of the conflict between the Black and White Khojas, he instigated the sons of
Apak to regain their position. The Black and White Khojas
proposed to unite in the name of Islam, and instead of fighting
each other invade Kulja in the Ili Valley. By way of inducement
the Karatagliks offered Kashgar, Aksu and Turpan to
Burhaneddin, the son of Apak. Instead of agreeing to this
proposal, Burhaneddin negotiated with Amursana and attacked
the Karataglik forces.
MANCHU

PRIMACY

The perfidy of Burhaneddin was opportune for the Manchus
to advance into the Tarim region. A large force of the Manchus
and Oyrat Mongols and the followers of Burhaneddin under
the Manchu Generals Chao-hiu and Fu-te marched to Kashgar
in June 1759. Yusuf Khoja organized a force to oppose it.
Generals Chao-hiu and Fu-te took Kashgar. When they
took Yarkand inJuly 1759, the Khoja Khan and other Aktaglik
Khoja (Ch: Ho-cho) leaders fled to Badakhshan. But the Khan

of Badakhshan executed them and sent their heads to General
Fu-te. The Manchus granted favours to the Muslim nobles
loyal to them. They assigned Aksu to Sayfuti Beg, Kucha to
Islam

Beg, Kashgar

to Gati Beg, Yangi Hissar to Ak Beg,

Yarkand to Huti Beg and Khotan to Niyaz Beg. They also

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pledged no interference in their religious matters such as
marriage, property.
Amursana, who had formerly been the Manchu
amban
(governor) for Kobdo, Uliasutai and Urianghai', rebelled

against the Manchus. The Manchus forced Amursana to flee

to Russian Siberia towards the end of April 1757. He died of
smallpox in the environs of Tobol’sk, then the capital of
Siberia on the Tobol River, on 21 September 1757.
The Manchu army wiped out most of the Oyrat Mongols.
Thus the fate of Amursana fundamentally changed the situation in East Asia. It completed the process of Manchu conquest of the Mongols except the Buriyat Mongols of Siberia.
Amursana’s followers returned to their homeland in the
fli Valley along with the Torgut Mongols returning from the

Ural-Volga region in 1771-72, led by their Khan Ubasha
(Ubashi, r. 1761-71; d. 1774), a great grandson of Ayuka
(Ayuki) Khan, the first khan of the Torguts, during the reign
of Catherine the Great (r. 1762-96). They had started their
long trek from the Volga region to the Ili Valley on 1 January

1771. The Torguts had wandered from the Ili Valley to the
Lower Volga region in 1617, 1675 and 1703. Tsar Peter the

Great (r. 1682-1725) had allowed them to settle in the steppes
between the Emba and Volga rivers. Emperor Qian Long (r.
1736-96; d. 1799) of China rehabilitated them in the valley of
the Kash River, the major right affluent of the Ili River. The
Torguts, who remained in the Ural-Volga region, came to be

known as the Kalmaks.
FORMATION OF XINJIANG

The Manchu court absorbed all the lands from the Gobi Desert in the east to the Pamir Plateau in the west and from the
Altai range in the north to the K’unlun range in the south
and named them Xinjang (Sinkiang) , “New Territory”, north
and south of the Tianshan range. The Tarim region, the
southern half of Xinjiang, was bigger than the Ili region, its
'The westward extension of Manchu Mongolia, later Tannu Tuva in the

Russian Altay mountains.

XINJIANG

63

northern half. Strategically, the northern region was more
important than the southern region. The Manchu court
placed Xinjiang under the Li Fan Yuan, the Bureau of Tibet
and Mongolia, in 1761. Abahai (1582-1643), the cighth son
of Nurhachi (1559-1626), subdued the Chahar Mongols in
1631, defeating their chieftain Ligdan Khan (r. 1604-34) and
the last khan of the Chahar, Eastern Mongols. Then he
assumed the dignity of emperor at Mukden and changed the
dynastic title Hou Chin to Qing (Ching) on 14 May 1636. He
had given the title Hou Chin to his dynasty in 1616. The
Manchu court set up a board to superintend Korean and
Mongol affairs in 1637. This bureau then became Li Fan
Yuan,—the Court of Colonial Affairs of the Western literature

on Manchu China. It dealt with everything relating to the
dependencies of the Manchu Empire and its relations with
Russia.
For the administration of Xinjiang, the Manchu court
established the office of Chiang-chin, “Military Governor”, at

Kulja in the Ili Valley in 1762. The Tu-tung “Command generals/ Military lieutenant governors” at Urumtsi' and Yarkand

assisted the Chiang-chin. The office of Chiang-chin was also
the military district for the western frontier of the Manchu
empire. The Manchu court also moved Manchu

(Shibo and

Solon) and Mongol troops together with their families from
China and Mongolia to garrison Kulja and man the northwest
frontier of the empire. They arrived as military settlers in the
Ili Valley in 1764.

After the absorption of the Tarim and Ili regions in the
Manchu empire, a mass of the Dungan Muslims (Chinese in
dress, language and manners) and Tranchi (Uygurs from the
Ili country) people fled to Jetisu, the region of Seven Rivers’.
The emigration continued until the 1880s when the Uygurs
fled Kulja after the Russian withdrawal from the Ili country.
Those Uygurs had sided with the Russians during their

occupation of the Ili country in 1871-79.
‘Situated on a northern spur of the Eastern Tianshan; pinyin romanization: Urumqi.
*Russian: Semirechye.

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CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

When the Manchus suppressed the Khojas in 1759, Sarimsak, ason of Burhaneddin, escaped to Kokand, West Turkistan.

His followers and emigrants from Kashgar joined him. He
exhorted them to deiiver their homeland from the yoke of
the infidel Manchus. As the descendant of Hazrat Apak, he

issued a fatwa for jihad against the Manchus. Jahangir (17891828), the second son of Sarimsak and grandson of Burhaneddin, attempted to restore the Khoja position in Kashgar
in July 1826. He assumed the role of zmam to deliver it from
the Manchu yoke. Ch’ing Hsiang, the Mongol deputy governor of Kashgar, sent a force against him. The force of Jahangir
overwhelmed it. The people hailed the victory of Jahangir as
the victory of Islam. Jahangir established himself in the palace
of the khans of Kashgar. He adopted the title Sayyzd, the
descendant of Prophet Muhammad.
The Mongol General Ch’ang Ling (1758-1838), the military
governor at Kulja since March 1826, sent reinforcements to
Aksu and Uch Turpan. When the Manchu force entered
Kashgar in March 1827, Jahangir fled Kashgar. His friend
Muhammad, perhaps out of fear of the Manchu attack,
handed him over to General Yang Feng, assistant commander
of Kashgar, on 14 February 1828. They sent him to Beijing
(Peking) in an iron cage like a beast—the usual form of pun-

ishment in China for centuries. General Ch’ang Ling made
an agreement with the khan of Kokand

in 1831, resuming

trade in return for promise of keeping the Khojas in check.

The Khoja revolt against the Manchus had originated in
the khanate of Kokand. The Manchus had imposed a trade
blockade against the khanate of Kokand for giving protection
to the other members of Jahangir’s family. This enraged
Khan Muhammad Emin of Kokand. He invited Muhammad
Yusut, the elder brother of Jahangir, to retake the throne of
Kashgar. Muhammad Yusuf seized Kashgar in 1830, and also
attacked Yarkand. At this juncture, complications with Emir
Nasrullah Khan (r. 1826-60) of the Emirate of Bukhara com-

pelled Khan Muhammad Emin to withdraw his support to
Muhammad Yusuf and send an envoy, Alam Khan, to Beijing

XINJIANG

65

to assure the Manchu court that he would restrain the Khojas.
The Khojas again revolted against the Manchus/in 1846,
Khoja Khan of Yarkand, a younger brother of Burhaneddin,
and the leader of the revolt, styled himself katta tura, the
great lord. Kichik Khan, Vali Khan, Tavakkul Khan, Sabir
Khan, Aktegin Khan and Isa Khan added tura to their names.

Khoja Khan and his force first killed the Chinese merchants
of Kashgar and then resorted to loot, and debauchery. Thus
they instilled no respect among the people. When a Manchu
force marched towards Kashgar, Khoja Khan fled to Kokand.
The adventure of the Khojas resulted in a human tragedy.
The people of Yarkand, Kashgar and Aksu fearing Manchu
reprisal for the acts of the Khojas, fled to Osh in the khanate
of Kokand.

Those, who hastened to cross the Terek Pass of

the Alai range at night, perished in the snow-drifts.
Vali Khan Tura invaded Kashgar several times from Kokand
in 1855-57. He set out from Kokand with a force in 1857, and

massacred the Manchu posts at Okkalar and Kizil. When he
reached Kashgar, Nur Muhammad, the Aksakal of the Khanate
of Kokand,

opened

the gate of the city to him. Vali Khan

Tura killed the Manchu officers and gave their women to his
partisans. He enforced

the

shari‘a' strictly, ordering males

from six years upward to wear turbans and offer namaz in the
mosques five times a day. Any breach of this order entailed
the punishment of death. He ordered women to wear hialy.
Its breach by any woman led to the cutting of her hair. When
a large force of Manchu, Badakshi, Balti and others reached

the outskirts of Kashgarh, Vali Khan Tura fled to Kokand.
The revolt of the Dungans of Gansu and Shaanxi (Shenshi)
in 1855 spread to Xinjiang. Most of the Manchu garrisons in
Xinjiang had Dungan soldiers. When they heard of the revolt
of their brethren, and their killings, they at once avenged
themselves on the Hans, whether soldiers or merchants.
_ 'The teaching of the
Muhammad

(c. 572-632),

Quran and the traditional sayings of Prophet
which

sharia.
"Hijab is Arabic for “veil”.

are

called

hadis, both

constitute

the

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CENTRAL ASIA:

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HISTORY

China and Russia had no contact with each other in Central
Asia before the Russian annexation of the territories of the
Kazak, then called Kyrgyz, tribes in the reign of Empress
Elizabeth (r. 1742-62). The proximity of Manchu and Russian
possessions in Central Asia necessitated the settlement of a
number of questions. The treaty negotiated by I-shan and Pu
Yen-t’ai, military governor and deputy military governor of
Kulja, and

Kovalevsky

at Chuguchak

(Chin:

T’a-ch’eng),

opposite the Russian border town of Bakhta on the Ili River,
on 25 July 1851 legalized the Russian trade at Kulja in the Ili
Valley and Chuguchak in the Emil River Valley.
China and Russia signed a treaty at Beijing on 14 November
1860 to demarcate their border up to the Uch Bel Pass,
assigning the basin of the Naryn River, the upper reaches of
the Syr Darya in the Tianshan range, to Russia. The boundary
divided the people—the Kazaks and the Kyrgyzes. The
protocol to the treaty of 1860, signed at Chuguchak on 25
September 1864, assigned the entire region between the
Lake Balkhash and the Tianshan range to Russia. It also
provided the opening of Russian consular and trade centres
at Chuguchak and Kashgar. The treaty of Kulja of 1851 and

the protocol of Chuguchak of 1864 also allowed Russian
merchants access to other frontier towns in Xinjiang.
The Russian delegation also desired to take the Sarykkul
(Sarikol on the maps) region, which gave access to the passes
that lead from the Pamir knot to the upper Indus River, and
Kashmir. The alignment of the western end of the ChineseRussian border from the Uch Bel Pass to the Pamir knot was
the consequence of an Anglo-Russian agreement relating to

the Anglo-Russian spheres in the Pamir region and signed in
London on 18 September 1895.
The government of Tsar Aleksandr IT (b. 1818; r. 1855-81),
which signed the protocol of 1864 in the context of Siberia,
also had in mind its interest in Central Asia, where it was
penetrating then. The Russian capture of the forts of Tokmak
and Pishkek (Bishkek now) in the north of the Kyrgyz region
had brought Russia close to the frontier of Xinjiang, China.

XINJIANG

67

TARIM REGION OF YAKUB BEG

Yakub Beg, born about 1820 in Pishkent near Tashkent in
the khanate

of Kokand,

attained high ranks from a_ bacha,

“dance boy”, in Tashkent to Emirin Kashgar. Khudayar Khan
(r. 1862-63), after becoming the khan of the khanate of
Kokand, appointed him kilaochi, “fort commander”. When

fighting between the Khoja factions in Kashgar intensified in
1864, Sadik, a Kyrgyz chieftain, with the intention to reconcile

the factions Khoja thought of using another Khoja. He
requested Khan Khudayar to send a Khoja. Khan Khudayar
sent Buzruk (Buzurg) Khoja, the surviving son of Sayyid
Jahangir. Along with him, he sent Yakub Beg as commander.
As the Khan of Kashgar, Buzruk Khoja appointed Yakub Beg
Batvirbashi, “Commander-in-Chief”,

of his army.

Jamaleddin Khoja of Aksu did not acknowledge Buzruk
Khoja as the Khan of the Tarim region. The armies of Aksu
and Kashgar met at Tuzgun in 1867. Yakub Beg proved his
skill as a military strategist. To conceal the strength of his
army, he divided it between Buzruk Khan and himself.
Although wounded, he won the battle. The people acclaimed
him with the title Bedevlat, “Fortunate One”. He himself
assumed the title Atalik Ghazi, “Guardian Warrior”, and the

name of Muhammad Yakub.
Muhammad Yakub sent Yakub Khan Tura to Maharaja
Ranbir Singh (r. 1857-85) of Jammu and Kashmir in 1871,
with the request to persuade the British government in India
to enter into a political alliance with him. Maharaja Ranbir
Singh supported his request. From Srinagar, Yakub Khan
went to Constantinople (Istanbul since 1922). There he
agreed to the recitation of the khutba in the name of Sultan
Abduleziz

(Abduleziz Oglu Mehmet

in full, r. 1861-76) of

Turkey in the mosques of Kashgar, i.e. Sultan Abduleziz as
the Khalifa of Kashgar. Sultan Abduleziz gave Muhammad
Yakub the title of Emir am-muminin, “Commander of the
Faithful”, i.e. Muslims.
Lord Thomas George Baring Northbrook, the Viceroy
and Governor-General of India (Calcutta) from 1872 to 1876,

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CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

appointed Thomas Douglas Forsyth to conduct a mission to
Yarkand, Kashgaria. The staff of native assistance of the
Forsyth mission included Nain Singh and Kishan Singh—the
survey “pandits” of the Survey of India. Yakub

Khan

Tura,

who was on his way back from Constantinople, accompanied
the Forsyth mission. British India and Kashgaria concluded
their treaty of commerce at Kashgar on 2 February 1874.
Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901) sent a small steam boat to
Maharaja Ranbir Singh for his services to the Forsyth mission.
Captain Valikhanoy, the adjutant to the Governor-General
of Siberia and one of the first Russian agents to visit Kashgar
in 1858, went to Kashgar in the guise of a merchant. Emir

Muhammad Yakub’s experience of the Russians in his
homeland of Kokand had left him deeply suspicious of the
Russian motives. Before coming to Kashgar, he had fought

Russian troops at Ak Mesjet in 1853 and at Tashkent in 1864
and had escaped capture with difficulty. He feared that his
own as yet unconsolidated position might tempt them to
continue their advance into his Kashgaria. Initially, he forbade
direct trade with them. When he became confident of his
position, he sent his nephew (sister’s son) Shadi Beg to
negotiate with them (Russians) in 1869. General K.P. von
Kaufman,

the Governor-General

of Russian Turkestan, was

then away in St. Petersburg. So Shadi Beg delivered Emir
Muhammad Yakub’s letter to General Koplakovsky in Verny
(Almaty now). Kolpakovsky was not able to negotiate with
Shadi Beg. General

Kaufman,

still in St. Petersburg,

asked

him to come there.
General Kaufman tried to persuade Khan Khudayar of
Kokand to intervene between him and Emir Muhammad
Yakub. Khan Khudayar agreed only to act as a mediator.
Kaufman

then sent a mission headed by Baron Kaulbars, in-

cluding an engineer and a topographer, to Kashgar. At the
same time he stationed troops along the route to Fort Naryn
on the Naryn River and Tokmak on the left bank of the upper Chu River and constructed a road in the border mountains to facilitate military action against Emir Muhammad

XINJIANG

69

Yakub if necessary. Emir Muhammad Yakub refused to
negotiate with Baron Kaulbars until the Russians halted their
military activities on his border. When the Russians did so,
the two sides made an agreement entitled “Conditions of
Free Trade” proposed by K.P. von Kaufman to Yakub Beg in
April-June 1872. However, difficulties between the two sides
developed soon.
Russian troops moved into the Ili Valley, east of Lake Bal-

khash, Xinjiang, on 4 July 1871 on the understanding that
the Russian government would restore it to the Manchu
government when it would ensure peace from the insurgency
of Emir Muhammad Yakub. The Manchu government
appointed (Han) General Tso Tsug-t’ang (1812-85), the Gover-

nor of Gansu and Shaanxi, to recover Xinjiang in 1876.
General Tso’s expeditionary force first took Urumqi (Urumch’1) and Manas in North Xinjiang. As the Manchu force
crossed the Tianshan range from the north to the south in
mid-July 1877, Emir Muhammad Yakub died suddenly, and
perhaps unnaturally. General Liu Ching-t’ang, the second in
command of the Manchu expeditionary force, recovered
entire Xinjiang by early 1878. The Manchu government organized the entire region from Hami to Kashgar and from
the Irti’sh River to the Pamir Mountains with Urumqi as its
capital. It pledged non-interference in the religious customs
of the Muslims, agreeing to the sanctity of the shar‘a in matters of property and inheritance.
Emir Muhammad Yakub had two sons: Kuki Beg and Hak
Kuki Beg. He had wished to make Hak Kuki Beg, his successor.
On

the day of his death in Kurla, Hak Kuki

Beg reached

there. From Kurla, he set out for Kashgar, carrying the body
of his father. Memet Zia Pansat, whom Kuki Beg had deputed

to receive Hak Kuki Beg, treacherously slew him. Three persons—Kuki Beg of Kashgar, Hakim Khan Tura of Uch Turpan
and Niyaz Beg of Khotan—claimed the rule of Kashgaria.
Kuki Beg advanced against Hakim Khan, who suffered defeat
and fled away. He also defeated Niyaz Beg. He himself escaped
to Andijan, Russian Turkestan.

His son Mustapa Khan, an

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CENTRAL ASIA:

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HISTORY

employee of the Russian government in Tashkent, visited
Kashgar in 1890 on the plea of claiming money from the
heirs of Yashur Hakim Beg, the treasurer of his grandfather,
Emir Muhammad Yakub.
China sent Ch’ung Hou to Russia as envoy plenipotentiary
in late 1878 to negotiate the return of the Ili country. Russia
and China signed a treaty at Livadia in the Krimiya (Crimea)
on 2 October 1879 to restore the Ili country to China on
payment of an indemnity of five million roubles to Russia.
The Russian government retained the Tekes River Valley west
of the Khorgos River in order to keep control over the passes
through the Tianshan range into South Xinjiang. China also
granted other privileges to Russia. When Ch’ung Hou
returned to China, there was widespread opposition to the
terms of the treaty signed by him. The Manchu government
renounced it on 19 February 1880, deposed him and
sentenced him to decapitation on 3 March 1880.
After the renegotiation of the treaty by Tseng Chi-tse, the
Minister of China to Russia since 12 February 1880, the
Manchu government reprieved Ch’ung Hou. By the treaty
signed by Russia and China in St. Petersburg (Ch: San-p’i-t’l-

li-p’u-er) on 24 February 1881, Russia returned to China
most of the Ili country, including the Tekes Valley. Beijing
agreed to pay St. Petersburg an increased indemnity of nine
million metallic roubles. The Manchu government also
agreed, in 1882, to Russian consulates at Urumqi, Guchen,

Kara Kocho near Turpan, Hami, and Kashgar in addition to
those at Chuguchak and Kulja. The first Russian consul to
Kashgar appeared at Kashgar in November 1882 itself.
The Manchu government formed Xinjiang as a province
on 1] November 1884, naming its capital Ti-hua and General
Liu Ching-t’ang the pacificator its first governor. It ennobled
the Uygur leaders of Hami and Turpan, who had helped in
the establishment of Xinjiang, granting them the hereditary
title Beg/Prince.

It established Hami

at the eastern end of

Xinjiang as a khanate under its suzerainty, levying on it a
nominal annual tribute of fresh melons. Hami has been

XINJIANG

71

famous for its melons since ancient times. The Kuomintang
(KMT) government annexed a part of easternmost Xinjiang
to the province of Qinghai (Ch’inghai) on its formation in
the latter 1930s. The Manchu government had rewarded
Imin of Turpan for unifying the region by making him Khan.
Sulayman

Khan,

Imin’s

Sugong/Minaret,

son

and

successor,

built the Imin

near the Turpan town, in the memory

of

his father, in 1778.
WARLORD XINJLANG

The revolution in China on 10 October 1911 spread from
Hami to Kashgar on 24 December, and Xinjiang came under
the government of the Republic of China, which Sun Yat-sen
(1867-1925) had founded on | January 1912. Subsequently,
it Came under successive warlords. Yuen Wung-fu, the Taotai

(Commissioner) of Kashgar and the Governor-designate of
Xinjiang, and his wife became victims of the revolutionaries
on 7 May 1912. Yang Tseng-hsin of the civil service, the Chief
Justice of Xinjiang, became the Governor of the province in
May 1913.
The revolution in Russia in 1917 posed problems of all
sorts to Governor Yang Tseng-hsin. The Turks from West
Central Asia and the White Russians sought asylum in Xinjiang
(and in Manchuria). The Turk refugees did not pose much
problem: they rehabilitated themselves with their kindred
tribes. The Kyrgyzes nomadized in the pastures on the China
side of the Pamir mountains. The rehabilitation of the White
Russian Raskol’niki (Old Believers) and Jews posed much
problem to Governor Yang. So did General Boris Vladimirovich Annenkov and Ataman Aleksandr Olych Dutov of the
Orenburg Cossacks and their men. A Soviet agent shot
General Dutov in Kulja in 1921. The Yang administration
manoeuvred to apprehend General Annenkov in Ti-hua in
1922, eventually passing him on to the Soviet authorities.
The Soviets executed him.
After the Sino-Soviet agreement signed in Beijing on 31
May 1924, Governor Yang placed the Russian

refugees in

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CENTRAL ASIA:

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military, education, agriculture and other services. They moved even to Inner China, Hong Kong, India and elsewhere.

The Russians even played important roles, crucial at times, in
the politics of Xinjiang. During the rule of Governor Yang,
Ti-hua witnessed two gruesome banquet scenes. To the first
held on 16 February 1916, he invited all whom he suspected
of plotting his overthrow. When his guests were drunk and
while the band played outside, he had them shot one by one.
To the second held on 7July 1928, it was his turn, along with
his officials, to be killed in a burst of bullets by one of his
officials—Fan Yao-nan just as a toast was being drunk to the
Soviet consul-general, who escaped, along with his wife, to a

lavatory. Chin Shu-jen, the head of the Political Department
of the province, arrested and executed Fan and supporters.
Chin Shu-jen, declared himself governor of the province.
To begin with, he pursued Yang’s policy. He even erected a
statue of Yang. Then he deviated from it. For instance, he
confined Maksud Shah, the khan of Hami at Ti-hua. Khan
Maksud died there in November 1930, and so on. The reforms

of Governor Chin led to the Hui rebellion in Hami overthrowing him on 12 April 1934. He escaped to East China via
Siberia. Khoja Niyaz of Kamul-Turpan and Sabit Damulla! of
Kashgar and Memet Emin Bugra (1901-65) and his brothers
Abdullah and Nur Ahmetjan of Khotan founded the Republic
of East Turkistan

(RET)

at Kashgar on

1 November

1933,

consequent to the intervention of the Huis from Gansu.
The collapse of Chin, and his fall, signalled the transfor-

mation of Xinjiang into an exclusively Soviet sphere of interest. The Dungan and Hui rebels gave Genera! Sheng Shi-tsai
the opportunity to seize power. With Soviet help and naturalized White Russian troops, he defeated them. The Soviets
helped him to crush the Republic of East Turkistan. The
Soviet government discouraged the governments of Afghanistan and ‘Turkey from taking an active interest in the
Republic of East Turkistan. The RET leaders escaped to
Afghanistan and India. Memet Emin Bugra wrote a history of
'Turki for Maulavi.

XINJIANG

73

East Turkistan in the Uygur language in Kabul, Afghanistan,
and published it in Srinagar, Kashmir. He went to Chongjing
(Chungking), the war-time capital of China, in 1945. Khoja
Niyaz, as President of the Republic of East Turkistan, had

proclaimed it as an Islamic republic.
The Soviet government provided financial assistance to
Governor Sheng to enable him to stabilize his position. A
Soviet mechanized infantry force, stationed in Hami/Kamul
since January 1938, ensured Sheng’s control over that troubled
oasis. The Soviet government stationed another military unit
in Ti-hua for the security of its aircraft factory there in 1940.
This resulted in much amiability between Moscow and Governor Sheng. With Soviet help, Sheng even set up a refinery,
to exploit the potential of the Karamai oilfield near Ti-hua.
Sheng Shi-tsai gave the people of Xinjiang an opportunity

to express themselves for the first time in the history of the
region. The name Uygur for the majority Turki population of

the Province began to be used for the first time. Until the
time of Sheng, the population of Xinjiang had just been
known as Turki. Sheng followed the Soviet example to use
the name Uygur for its majority population. He made a secret
trip to Moscow in August 1938, especially to discuss Xinjiang
with Joseph Stalin (1859-1957) personally and his own position.
He joined the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union).
He even sought membership of the Communist Party of
China (CPC). He established Xinjiang relationships between
Moscow, Chongjing (Chungking) and Yen’an. He assigned
positions to the CPC cadres under terms of cooperation
between himself and Yen’an. He was a pragmatist. He went
to Xinjiang in 1930 as a minor military staff officer and rose
to become its governor in 1933. He wrote his memoirs in
Chinese in Taipeh, Taiwan.
Sheng Shi-tsai broke away from Moscow in the spring of
1944. President Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), who needed
to improve relations with Moscow then, persuaded him to
move from Xinjiang to Chongjing on 11 September 1944.
He appointed Sheng minister of agriculture and forests.

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CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

Thereby he also recovered Xinjiang, ousting the USSR from
there. General Wu Chung-hsin, Chairman of the Commission
of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs of the Government of
China, succeeded Sheng in Xinjiang. General Chang Chechung replaced General Wu Chung-hsin as Chairman of the
Xinjiang provincial government. He was close to Chiang Kaishek.
President Chiang Kai-shek appointed Masut Sabri as
Chairman of the Xinjiang provincial government in May
1947, but removed him in December

1948. Masut Sabri was

the first native governor of Xinjiang. Chiang appointed
Burhan Shehidi, also a native of Tatar origin as Chairman of
the Xinjiang provincial government. Shehidi had been a civil
officer in Governor Yang’s administration and Vice-Chairman
in Governor Chang Che-chung’s administration. Chairman
Shehidi and most of the leaders of the Republic of East
Turkistan (RET) enabled the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

of China to move into Xinjiang in September 1949. The
government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) retained
Shehidi as the Governor of Xinjiang. It moved him to Beijing
in 1952. There he became Chairman of the Islamic Association
of China, and so on.

After the departure of Sheng from Xinjiang the Kazaks,
Uygurs and others (even the White Russians) of the Ili region
had revolted against the administration of Xinjiang and had
proclaimed the Republic of East Turkistan (RET) at Kulja on
12 November 1944. The Uygur Ahmet Jan Ali Han Tura had
led the revolt, locally known as the “Three Districts Revolution”. The revolt of 1944 was anti-Han and anti-Kuomintang.
A peace agr: cement on 6 June 1946 had led to the formation
of a coaliuon government of the republics of China and East
Turkistan. The coalition had collapsed within a year.
The RET government had continued to govern the three
districts of fli, Chuguchak and Altai (called Ch’eng-hua by
the Chinese and Sharasume by the Kazaks) without reference
to the Chinese government in Ti-hua. It ceased to exist when
units of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the People’s

XINJIANG

75

Republic of China (PRC) founded by Mao Zedong and
associates in Beijing on 1 October 1949 entered Xinjiang to
“liberate”

it from

the KMT

rule. Memet

Emin

Bugra,

the

minister of reconstruction of the coalition government, and

others sought asylum in India. They moved to Turkey:in
1954, Emin Bugra dying in Istanbul in 1965. Except Sepittineziz, the Minister of Education of the RET government, all its

leaders died in a plane crash from Alma Ata to Chongjing on
22 August 1949.
Border differences between China and the Mongolian
People’s Republic

(MPR)

in the vicinity of the mountains

Baitik Bogda (Ch: Beita Shan), an outlying spur of the Altai
range, north-east of Urumai, led to clashes between them on

6 June 1949. According to the MPR government, the government of the Republic of China provoked the incident in
order to slander it to the United Nations, thereby preventing
it, the MPR, from acceptance as-a member.

The British government of India could not afford to ignore
the spread of Soviet influence in Xinjiang. During 1939-40
the administration of Governor Sheng constructed posts,
and held them in strength, on the Jammu and Kashmir

border facing the approaches to India. All trade between
India and Xinjiang ceased. Thousands of Indians, who had
been living in Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan for generations,
had to throw away their British Indian passports because the
Sheng administration frowned on those holding them. But
Sheng’s break with Moscow and Soviet withdrawal from
Xinjiang proved favourable to the British government. The
KMT government relaxed restrictions on the Hunza border.
It even allowed the opening of a postal service between Gilgit
and Kashgar via Tashkurgan and a British consultate at Tihua, the capital of Xinjiang. The British government already
had a consulate at Kashgar.
The Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
first set about to consolidate the frontier defences of Xinjiang.
It eliminated India and the Soviet Union which had been
involved there. Soviet advisers and technicians in Xinjiang

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CENTRAL

ASIA: A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

continued up to 1960 when they withdraw from China. Later
(in 1969 and 1974), there were clashes between China and

the Soviet Union on the Xinjiang, Kadzakstan border. The
1974 clash became known as the ‘helicopter’ incident because
a Soviet helicopter had landed at Altai in Xinjiang and the
Chinese had seized it.
The PRC Government liquidated or reduced the landlords and rich peasants to peasant status and abolished the
existing methods of landownership and irrigation water in
the XUAR in 1952-53. It built schools and colleges, universities
and academies, hospitals, highways, railways and airlines in
the XUAR. The language authorities of the People’s Republic
cyrillized the Arabic-Persian script of the languages of the
Uygur, Kazak and other Turks, perhaps to placate the Soviet
government, in August, 1950, but romanized it in June 1958,
when it felt that cyrillization created a bond between them
and their fellow Turks in the Soviet Union. The peoples of
XUAR resisted the language policy of the PRC Government.
Mahmud al-Kashgari had written his Diwan-i Lugat at-Turk
not only in the Arabic script but also in the Arabic language.
This was quite in accord with the spirit of the time, the time
of the Arab Khilafat. The Uygur dialect was the first Turkic
dialect to be reduced to alphabet writing, its script developing
from the Sogdi script. The PRC Government reinstated the
Arabic-Persian script in July 1980.
Tsarist or Soviet influence in Xinjiang was paramount
until 1949. The Tsarist/Soviet government,

however,

never

denied China’s position there. But it continued to pressure
it for concessions in that Province right up to its takeover by
the Government of the People’s Republic of China. Why
Xinjiang did not separate from China is interesting. Perhaps
the fact that it had been a province and an integral part of
China since 1884 constrained the Tsarist/Soviet government
from altering its status. Of course, Tsarist/Soviet Russia did

not want a strong China to control Xinjiang. Its policy was to
exploit China’s Far West economically and keep it weak
politically.

CHAPTER 4

Amu-Syr Doab
M: oF West Central Asia was a part of the Persian Empire founded by Dara (Darius 521-485) of the Hakhaman/Achaemen dynasty. The Persian Empire then extended
from the Jaxtartes River to the Mediterranean and the Black
Seas and from the Indus River to the Euphrates River. The
rest was terra incognito. Alexander the Great of Macedon (b.
356 Bc; r. 336-323 Bc), who had defeated Emperor Darius III
(r. 336-332 Bc), took Maracanda/Samarkand', the capital of

the Kingdom of Sughd? in the Zarafshan River Valley, in 328
Bc. He founded Alexandria Eschate (Alexandria the Farthest;

modern Khojent) besides the Jaxtartes (modern Syr Darya).
This was the limit of his advance in Central Asia: he did not
go north or east beyond it. He married Roksane

(Roxana),

the daughter of the Persian King Oxyartes of Bakhtar (Greek:
Bactria; Chinese: Ta Hsia) in 331 Bc. She survived him, bore

him a heir. Alexander’s son did not ascend the throne of his
(Alexander’s) vast empire, which broke up among his generals. Roksane and her son Alexander IV were killed a dozen
years later. Initially Alexander had intended to march up to
the Indus, the limit of the Persian Empire in the east.

After the advent of Islam in Khurasan (Khorasan), Qutayba

ibn Muslim (705-15), the viceroy of the Khalifa’, the Deputy
of God, of the Ummayad Khilafat (ap 657-749) in Damishq
(Damascus!) and commander of the Arab army, chose Marw,
'Afrasiab, the legendary hero of Turan, had founded Samarkand 2500

years ago.
*K’ang of Chinese annals and Sogod of the Arab geographers.
*The head of Islam.
‘Moawiyya fixed Damishq as the capital of the Ummayad Khilafat.

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the capital of Khurasan, as his headquarters around AD 660s.
The Arabs conquered Persia and killed Yezdigird II (1. 63242), the last emperor of the Sasan dynasty (226-642). With
the Arab conquest of Persia, the latter became the vital
centre of Islam.
Qutayba marched against Khwarizm and Sogd, taking
Bukhara in 709 and Samarkand

in 712-13. In Bukhara,

his

forces met stiff resistance. Eventually, the Regent, Queen
Mother Qabaj, sued for peace. In Samarkand, Qutayba made
a treaty with King Khurak. He set up a mosque by converting
one of the places of Zoroastrian worship, and stripped the
but (idols) of the temples of their ornaments. He kept Khurak
as vassal, but garrisoned Samarkand. Allegedly, he also took
Kashgar in 714-15 and vowed to take al-Khata, that is, China.

A little earth of China upon which he (Qutayba) might tread
to keep his oath and four royal youths (on whom he imprinted
his seal) released him from his oath—interesting diplomacy
adopted by Emperor Hsuan-tsung (r. 712-56) of the T’ang
dynasty (618-907) of China. Conversion of the population en
masse to Islam in West Central Asia took place only when the
Karluk Turks of East Central Asia adopted it during the reign
of Satok Bugra Khan of the Karakhan dynasty (c. 940-1145).
The conquests of the Arabs, based in Iran, in Central Asia

and India were simultaneous. The young Muhammad Kasim
commanded the expedition to Sindh and Multan via Makran,

ing

2.

Chach/Chaj/Shash' (medieval and modern Tashkent) and
other places came under the amirs/governors of Nishapur in

Khurasan of the Abbasid Khilafat (Caliphate) ap 751-1258.
The amirs never lived in those places. The Khalifa appointed
them and removed them at his pleasure. The Abbasids, who
succeeded the Ummayads in 750, continued the policy of the
latter. Al-Mansur (754-75) moved the capital of the Khilafat
from Damishk in al-Sham/Syria ton.Baghgad on the Tigris
River in 762.
'Chach in Sughdi, Chaj in Persian and Shash in Arabic.

AMU-SYR DOAB

79

PERSIAN DOMAIN

Bukhara emerged as the main centre of power in West Central
Asia under Isma’il Sama’n (b. Ap 849; r. 874-907) of Village
Sama’n in Termez (Tirmiz) on the north bank of the Sayhun
Nahr/River (modern Amu Darya). Isma’il Sama’n claimed

descent from Bahram Chubin, the general of King Oharmaz
IV (r. 579-90) of the Sasan dynasty. Nasr, his elder brother,
was amir of Samarkand then. Ahmad ibn Isma’il, the father
of Isma’il Sama’n, had been converted to Islam in ap 819

from the Zoroastrian faith by Asad b. Abdullah al-Qushayri
of the Abad Persian tribe.
Isma’il Sama’n took Bukhara and made it his capital in
874. He consolidated the lands of West Central Asia. He built

beautiful villas on the plane near Juyi Muliyan. After him, all
the amirs of the Sama’n dynasty (874-999), altogether nine,
held court at Bukhara. Samarkand, Balkh, Marw, and Nisha-

pur were the other great cities of the Saman domain.
Bilge Kul Kadir Khan, the khan of the left, north side of

the Karakhan dynasty (940-1125), intervened in Bukhara in
the early 990s. He attacked Bukhara of amir Ab’ul Kasim
Nuh II (r. 976-97), the seventh amir of the house of Saman,
in 992.

The period of the Sama’n dynasty was the golden epoch of
Bukhara,

the blossoming of Persian

(Dari) culture of West

Central Asia, even though Arabic continued as the language
of the theological seminaries in Bukhara as elsewhere. Under
them, the Iranian renaissance asserted itself. Recent converts
to Islam, they remembered the amnesia when they had been

Zoroastrian Mazdeans: while remaining true to their new
faith Islam, they desired to restore their connection with
their country’s great past. They reacted against the primacy
of the Arabic language.
Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi (c. 870-950), born in Village

Vasidi on the left bank of the middle Jayhun Nahar/River
(later Syr Darya), the district of Farab on both sides of the
river, the poet Abul

Hasan

Rudaki

(884-954),

born

near

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Panjikand', the physician Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna from
the Spanish form of his name, 980-1036), born in Bukhara,
and Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973-1048/50), born near Khwa-

rezm

(pronounced: Khorezm).

Rudaki, the first great poet of Persian and the greatest
poet of the Saman dynasty, was also a singer and harper. He
is famous for his simple but moving Juyi Muliyan song, which
he composed and sang in the presence of his patron Amir
Nasr II (r. 914-43). The Juyi Muliyan song so affected the
Amir that he descended from his throne in Herat, bestrode

the horse of his sentry and rode off to Bukhara, without
stopping en route.

Ibn Sina, the greatest of Arab philosophers, completed his
studies at the court of Amir Mansur b. Nuh II (r. 971-96)

before going to live at the court of the Shii Buyid Persian
dynasty (935-1055), Isfahan, West-Persia.
Daqiqi (d. 952), a native of Tus, near Nishapur, Khurasan,

wrote an epic poem for Amir Nuh II, on the reign of the
mythical King Gushtasp and the preaching of Zoroaster.
Afterwards, Ferdausi (932-1021), also a native of Tus, inserted

Daqiqi’s poem in his Shahnameh. Ferdausi also had begun his
career during the Saman dynasty.
Abu Ali al-Bal’ami, the minister of Amir Mansur b. Nuh,

translated for him

the history of Abu Ja‘far Muhammad

Tabari (839-923) from Arabic into New Persian in an abridged

form in 963. Abu Mansur b. Muvaffaq b. Ali al-Harawi wrote
his pharmacologiae for the Sama’ni amir in the New Persian.
Bukhara was completely Persian then.
The decline of Bukhara of the Sama’n dynasty greatly
affected the Sufi Saint Ahmad

(d. 1166) of the town ofYasi,

later Hazret-i Turkistan named in his honour. Saint Yasevi
wrote on morals in the Turki language. His treatises, especially
his Divan Hikmet, circulated widely.
The Ghaznavis and
Karakhanis prevailed in the Samani domain. The Karakhanis
even shifted their residence to Samarkand in the autumn of
"The town of Panjikand burnt and abandoned during the Arab conquest
of West Central Asia.

AMU-SYR DOAB

81

996. Khan Arslan Ilik (Ilek) Nasr, the brother of Gurkhan
Abu

Nasr Ali Ahmad,

who

succeeded

Sutok

Bugra Khan,

conquered Bukhara in October 999 during the reign of the
Sama’ni Abd al-Malik II.
The Seljuk tribesmen, who arose from Dokak (Dukak)
Timur Yalig of the Oguz tribe of the Western Turks, migrated
from Kashgar to the lower Syr Darya and Bukhara towards
the end of the tenth century and converted to Sunni Islam.
Togrul (r. 1038-63), a son of Seljuk, took Marv (modern
Mary) on the Lower Murgab River in Khurasan, North-East
Iran, now in Scuth Turkmenistan, in 1040, driving out the
Turk Ghaznavis from there, and took the title sultan. He

ousted the Shii Buyids (r. 932-1055) from North-West Persia,
defeating Amirel-Omara Khusrau Firuz ar-Rahman (r. 104855) and restoring the authority of the Khilafat in 1055. The
Buyids had taken Baghdad and established themselves side
by side with Khalifa al-Qa’yum in 945. Khalifa al-Qa’yum
recognized Sultan Togrul as his temporal vicar with the title
sultan in 1058. The Seljuk conquest of Persia marked the
triumph of the Sunni over the Shii, but without any decline
in Persian culture. The Seljuks eventually became Persianized
and adapted themselves to the Arabic-Persian civilization.
Togrul had no offspring. When he died, Alp Arslan (b.1030;
r. 1063-72), the son of his brother Chagri Beg, succeeded
him. Alp Arslan fought the ruler of the Fatimid Khilafat of
Egypt (909-1171) in Damishq (Damascus),

Syria. He extended

his domain in the territories of Byzantine (Eastern Roman)
Empire!’ in the north and west. The battle of Malazgird
(Manzikert in present-day Turkey), north-west of Lake Van,
between Alp Arslan and Emperor Diogenes Romanus IV (r.
1067-92) of the Byzantine Empire, considered to be the
crucial battle in the history of Islam, took place on 19 August
1071. Alp Arslan also took Jerusalem in 1071. Before his
'Byzantium, capital of the Byzantine Roman Empire on the Bosporus
Sea, straddled

eponym

Asia and Europe. The name, in theory, derived from
Byzas, who first planned it. Emperor Constantine (r. 306-37)

refounded it as Constantinople, the “Imperial City”, in ap 324. Kemal Ata
Turk of the Republic of Turkey renamed it Istanbul.

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murder in 1072, he had brought Syria, Mesopotamia and
Armenia under his sway and thrown open Asia Minor. He
had thus put the Seljuk Empire on firm foundations.
Abu’l Malikshah (b. 1055; r. 1072-92), the elder son of
Sultan Alp Arslan, succeeded him. He took Bukhara and

Samarkand from the Karakhanis in 1089. He ran the affairs
of his empire with the help of Abu Ali Muhammad b. Ishak,
who had been the Nizam al-Mulk, the vazir/minister of his
father. The Nizam al-Mulk wrote the handbook Szyasatnama/
Siyar al-muluk', “Treatise on statecraft”, in simple Persian

prose. He recommended consultations with the wise and the
aged in accordance with the shan‘a.
The Nizam

ai-Mulk built madrasas,

called Nizamiya, and

observatories in the Seljuk domain. Omar Khayyam (10221123) of Nishapur worked in one of those observatories.
Omar

Khayyam,

the Tent-Maker,

for that is what his name

Khayyam means, was aware that the earth rotated on its axis
and revolved around the son.
Barkiyaruk (r. 1093-1104), the eldest son of Sultan Abu’l
Malikshah, succeeded him. He faced the rebellion of his

kinsmen.
which

He spent his time in battles with his brothers,

divided

the Seljuk house.

Muhammad

(r. 1105-18),

the younger brother of Sultan Barkiyaruk, succeeded him.
Prince Sanjar (b. 1092; r. 1118-57), the youngest son of Sultan

Abu’!

Malikshah

and the successor

of Sultan

Muhammad,

had governed Nishapur since 1096, with Marv as his residence.
The Karakhitais (1125-1218) of Balasagun defeated Sultan
Sanjar at Samarkand in 1141. Sultan Sanjar fought against
the Muslim Oguz tribesmen in 1153. The Oguz tribesmen
captured him, but they were lenient to him. When

his wife

died in 1156, he escaped when on a hunting expedition,
dying in Marv in 1157. With his death began the fall of the
Great Seljuk dynasty and empire, which extended from the
Amu Darya in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
The Seljuk Empire was a feudal state. On its fall, several of
"Hubert Darke, The Book of Government or Rules of Kings, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960, second edn., 1978.

AMU-SYR DOAB

83

its Atabegs such as the Atabegs of Aleppo (Syria) and Mosul
(ancient

Mausil

in Mesopotamia)

declared

themselves

independent rulers. The Atabegs of Aleppo lasted upto 1003.
The house of Hamadanis set up two Atabegs in Mesopotamia
and Syria. Sayfal-Dawla, the Atabeg of Aleppo from 944 to
967, was the most illustrious ruler of this dynasty. His court
became the abode of the eminent scholars of the time such
as the philosopher al-Farabi, who died in Damishq. Al-Farabi

founded the Arab Platonian-Aristotelian school of philosophy.
The internecine strife among the Seljuks had given rise to
the Turks in Khorezm, south of the Aral Sea. Anush Tegin (d.
1097) of Khorezm served in the court of Sultan Abu’] Malik-

shah first as cupbearer and then as governor of Khorezm at
Gurgenj-Urgench' on the lower Amu Darya. Kutbeddin

Muhammad Aybek (r. 1097-1127), the son of Anush Tegin
and the vassal of the Seljuks, assumed the title Khwarizm Shah.

Atsiz (r. 1127-56), the son of Aybek, tried to rid himself of the

Seljuk yoke. The fight between Atsiz and Sanjar ended in
Atsiz’s flight in 1138. Sultan Sanjar, however, forgave him
(Atsiz). Atsiz again raised the flag of revolt in 1141. The

battle between Atsiz and Sanjar again ended in his, Atsiz’s
defeat. After Sanjar’s return to Marv, Atsiz again captured

Urgench in 1147.
Arslan (r. 1156-72), the son of Atsiz, succeeded him. His.
successor Takash (7. 1172-1200) undertook the conquest of

the Amu-Syr region. He overthrew Sultan Togrul III (r. 11751194) and killed him in 1194, thereby enlarging his domain.
Khurasan and Sistan thus formed part of the Khorezm
domain. Allah ad-Din Muhammad (r. 1200-1220), the son of
Takash, defeated the Karakhitais in the battle near Taras, and

took the western part of their domain in 1210. He was
powerful. Herat and Balkh were within his frontiers. His end
came through Chingiz Khan (Chhinggis Qan, r. 1205-27),
who invaded Khwarezm on the plea that several Mongol
envoys and hundreds of Muslim merchants, who were with
'Capital of Khwarezm, one of the most important cities of Central Asia
for centuries; Urgenj in Persian.

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them, had been captured and killed by Gayrkhan Inaljuk,
the governor of Utrar, on the charge of spying. Matters
became worse when Allah ad-Din Muhammad killed the
messengers sent by Chingiz Khan to ask him to hand over the
Governor of Utrar. This led Chingiz Khan to sweepover in
1219, and destroy Urgench. Chingiz Khan himself led the
vast host of his horsemen to Khwarezm from the north-east.
Muhammad was not in Urgench then.
Allah ad-Din Muhammad had ignored the counsel of his
eldest son Jalaleddin Mankabirni' to meet the Mongols at the
frontier. He had believed the Mongols would not cross the
Amu Darya. He escaped from the troops of Chingiz Khan,
who chased him until he died as a fugitive. Jalaleddin escaped
the Mongols, the destroyers of Khwarezm, in the battle on
the Indus River in India in 1221. From India he moved to
Khurasan. He died as a fugitive along the coast of the Caspian
Sea in 1231. His bravery had astonished even Chingiz Khan.
Of course, his courage could not save him from defeat and

death.
The Khwarezm domain, like the other contemporary Muslim domains, suffered from family quarrels for power between
the Queen Mother Terken Khatun and her son Allah ad-Din
Muhammad or between the father and his son.
REALM OF TIMUR

Timur (1339-1405), commonly known as Timur Lang, Timur
the Lame of the Barlas clan of the Mongol-Turk tribe, born

in Village Khoja Ilgar near Kish (modern Shahr-i-Sebz) on
the Kashka Darya on 19 April 1335, subdued the congeries
of the Mongol-Turk feudal lords in West Central Asia in 1363.
After this, he possessed the throne of Mawarannahar? in
Samarkand in the valley of the middle Zarafshan Darya in
1369. He received the title Sahzb Kira’n, the “Lord of Auspicious
Constellation”. He built the ark, castle/fortress, of Samarkand
"Muhammad al-Nasawi, Sirah Jalal al-Din Mankabirti.
“Arabic for that which lies beyond the river, that is the Sayhun/Amu

Darya.

AMU-SYR DOAB

85

in 1371-72. His palace, Kok Saray (Heavenly Palace), was
within it. He rebuilt the city wall of Samarkand. He constructed
other magnificent buildings, drafting masons and craftsmen
from Persia and India, and khankahs and laid out beautiful

villas there. He especially laid out Bag-i Dilkosha for his
youngest wife. During his reign Samarkand was the pride of
cities, the “face of the earth”. Timur also repaired the mausoleum of Hazret Ahmat Yasevi, the Sultan of the Saints of
Central Asia, in Hazret-i Turkistan.

The realm of Emir Timur extended from Moscow in the
north to Delhi in the south and from China in the east to
Anatolia (modern Anadolu) in the west. He took Khorizm
(modern Khiva), Herat and Sistan in 1379-83, that is almost

the entire Mongol Il Khanate of Persia. He reached the
Volga River to crush the khan of the Mongol khanate of
Dasht-i Kipchak', who

held entire South

Russia under

his

sway, and so on. There was no power then to oppose him.

Timur campaigned in Farghana in 1376. His soldiers captured the wife and daughter of Kamareddin of the Duglat
clan, the khan of Kashgar. He took Dilshad Aga, Kamareddin’s

daughter, as his wife in 1379. She died in 1383. He also
married Tukel Khanum, a daughter of Sultan Khizr/Hizr
Khan

(r. 1389-99)

of Mogolistan.

He invaded Persia three

times, first in 1380, when he subdued Khurasan, Sistan and

Mazandaran. He appeared in India in 1398. He took Baghdad
in 1401. Then he took Aleppo and Damishq in Syria. He
defeated Sultan Bayazet (r. 1339-1403) of the Ottoman Turks
in 1402. He also had relations with France. He died in Utrar
on the right bank of the Syr Darya on 18 February 1405
crossing the frozen Syr Darya near the mouth of the Aris
River, its eastern affluent. He was then on his way to conquer

China of Emperor Yung Lo (r. 1403-25).
Emir Timur ruled his vast realm from horseback but according to the Yasak of Chingiz Khan. He was the most heroic
Central Asia ever produced. Mighty monarchs “crouched”,
in the words of Christopher Marlowe (the poet dramatist of
'Steppe with grass and vegetation.

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Timburlaine the Great, 1587), “unto his sword”. Samuel Taylor

Coleridge! equated the power of courage of Napoleon with
that of Timur.
The remarks

of ibn Khaldun

(Mugaddimah),

who came

into contact with Timur on the surrender of Damishg, Syria,

by the Sultan of Egypt at the end of 1400, are quite interesting.
While Sharaf al-Din Yazdi (Zafar Namah), who wrote for the

pleasure of Emir Timur, eulogized his patron, Ahmad ibn
Arabshah (Adjayb al-Maqdur) scornfully scathe Emir Timur.
Emir Timur had brought ibn Arabshah and his mother from
Damishq to Samarkand,

and educated him. While Ali Yazdi

described only the life and campaigns of Emir Timur, not the
socio-economic conditions of his time, ibn Arabshah described
the perversions, warts and all, of Emir Timur.
After the death of Emir Timur, his vast empire collapsed

due to internecine strife among his descendants—one part

passed to his youngest, fourth son Shah Rukh (b. 1377; r.
1405-47), the other to Shah Rukh’s first son, Ulug Beg (13941449). He had bestowed the kingdom of Khurasan, Sistan
and Eastern

Mazandaran

on Shah Rukh, with Herat as his

headquarters, in May 1397. Eventually, after Shah Rukh swayed
over Khalil Sultan (13841411), Sulayman Shah and Say’id
Khwaja, both emir al-umara /“chief emir” of the Timuri regime,

rebelled against Emir Shah Rukh in July 1505 and May 1506.
Say’id Khwaja fled to East Mazandaran, Fars and Yezd. Shah
Rukh entrusted the governance of Mawarannahar to Ulug
Beg in 1409.
Ulug Beg, who succeeded his father, had been governor of

Mawarannahar during his father’s lifetime. He concerned
himself with activities such as the establishment of institutions.
He was an outstanding astronomer. He constructed his
observatory at Samarkand in 1420/21. From this observatory
he plotted the coordinates of 1,000 stars on his astronomical
tables known as the Zij-i Ulug Beg or Zij-i Jadid-i Sultani
(Royal Almanac) and measured the length of the year. He
produced the first map of the heavens. Unfortunately, his
'Penguin Books, Harmondsworth,

1957, p. 286.

AMU-SYR DOAB

87

end on 27 October 1449 was tragic: his son Abdul Latif—the
tool of religious fanaticism—instigated his death. Abdul Latif,
in turn, died at the hands of a certain Baba Husayn in 1450.

With his death the house of Emir Timur came to an end in
Turkistan.
The Timuris had great interest in poetry and painting and
the building of madrasas and observatories. Gavhar Shad',
the wife of Sultan Shah Rukh, patronized the founding of the
great musalla in Herat and the magnificent mosque in the
sacred city of Mashhad (Meshed of maps). The British artillery
in the context of the Panjdeh incident in Sarakhs, destroyed
it in July-August 1885. The Timuris of India and Khurasan up
to the time of Sultan Husayn Baykara (r. 1468-1506) continued
the tradition. The period of Emir Timur and his descendants
thus was a great epoch in the history of West Central Asia.
UzsBrek KHANATES

On the disintegration of the domain of Khan Ab’ul Khayr (r.
1438-68),? a descendant of Shiban,’ the Kazaks, Uzbeks and

others established their own domains. The Uzbeks* under
Khan Abu’! Khayr appeared on the north-west frontiers of
the Timuri realm in the early years of Ulug Beg’s reign.
During 1500-1507, they spread from the north Caspian steppes
to the Amu-Syr region under Muhammad Shibani Khan (b.
1449; r. 1499-1510), the son of Ab’ul Khayr. Muhammad
Shibani made himself master of Samarkand in the first decade
of the sixteenth century. The Turki-speaking Uzbeks lorded

over the Persian-speaking Tajiks. Later, Muhammad Shibani
drove the Timuris even out of Khurasan. The khanate of
Samarkand became: the Emirate of Bukhara in 1557.
The khanate of Khwarezm formed at Urgench (now in

Turkmenistan) in 1512. Khiva replaced Urgench as the capital
'The execution of Gavhar Shad, incited by Khwaja Ahrar for her
antitheistic views.
*Masu’d b. Othman Kuhestanu, Varikh-e Abul Khayr Khani.
'Shiban was the fifth son of Jochi (c. 1176-1227), the first son of Chingiz

Khan.
‘Ozbeks of the Russian chronicles.

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of the khanate of Khwarezm

HISTORY

in 1593. Fargana separated

from the Emirate of Bukhara and formed itself as the khanate

of Kokand in 1710. Historically, Andijan had always been the
seat of political power in Fargana. Even Zahiruddin Babur
(1482-1530), the founder of the Mughul (Moghul, Mogol)
dynasty and empire in India, succeeded his father Sultan
Umayd Shaykh, on his death, in Andijan at the age of 12
years in June 1494.
The

Uzbeks

advanced

into Khurasan

in 1505-06.

Khan

Muhammad Shibani (Persian: Shibek), the grandson of Abu’]
Khayr, came into conflict with Isma’il Shah (r. 1502-23/24),

the founder of the Safavi dynasty (1502-1722) of Persia, over
Kirman near Marv. The Persians defeated and killed Khan
Muhammad

Shibani in battle in Tahirabad on 1/2 December

1510. The war between the Persians and the Uzbeks continued
during the time of Khan Ubaydullah (r. 1510-39740), the son
and successor of Khan Muhammad Shibani. The Uzbeks
defeated the combined forces of Sultan Zahiruddin Babur of

Kabul and Isma’il Shah of Persia in the battle of Gajdavan,
north of Bukhara, on 26 November

1512. The Uzbek incur-

sions into Khurasan during the time of Tahmasp Shah (r.
1524-76), the eldest son of Isma’il Shah, and Isma’il Shah II

(r. 1576-78), the fourth son of Tahmasp Shah, were not so
severe.
Abdullah Khan II (r. 1551-98) took Bukhara and made it
his capital in 1577. He assumed the title ‘khan’ in 1583. He

exchanged embassies with Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar the
Great (r. 1556-1605) to secure his border with Mughul India
in 1572, 1577 and 1586. He sacked Mashhad in 1590. Khan
Abdul Mu’min (1588-99), the only son of Khan Abdullah II,
was a weak successor. After his death, his nobles deposed his
son Sikandar, the last khan of the Shibani dynasty and offered

the throne of Bukhara to Jani Khan, the husband of one of
his daughters. ‘The father of Jani Khan had come to Bukhara
Sherif from Astrakhan after its conquest by Tsar Ivan IV (r.
1533-84) of Russia in the 1550s. Jani Khan did not accept
the offer of the throne

of Bukhara.

But his relative, Baki

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89

Muhammad (r. 1599-1600), accepted it. Khan Imam Kuli (r.
1611-43) of the Astrakhan dynasty of Bukhara (1599-1785)

strengthened the government of the khanate of Bukhara.
There was fraternal strife in the time of Khan Abduleziz Kuli
(r. 1645-80), who had succeeded Khan Imam Kuli. Abu’l
Ghazi (r. 1644-63), the khan of the khanate of Khiva, cam-

paigned against the khanate of Bukhara. Khan Abduleziz
Kuli abdicated in favour of his brother Khan Subhan Kuli.
The nobles of Khan Ubaydullah Kuli (r. 1702-11) deposed
him.
Khan Abu’! Fayz (r. 1711-41) sent an envoy to Tsar Peter

the Great (r. 1682-1725) of Russia in 1716. Tsar Peter reciprocated by dispatching an embassy in 1717. Abu’l Fayz lost
the Uzbek domains north of the Hindukush range to Nadir
Shah! (r. 1736-47), the Afsar Turk of the Kajar dynasty (17961925) of Persia. Abu’l Fayz and Nadir Shah made a treaty
establishing the Amu Darya as the border between Bukhara
and Persia. A double marriage strengthened the treaty. Nadir
Shah himself espoused a sister and his nephew a daughter of
Khan Abu’l Fayz. Nadir Shah went to Khiva from there in
1740, put Khan I[bars, the Khan of Khiva, to death. Khan
Abu’l Khayr (r. 1716-48) of the Kishshi Zhuz of the western
Kazaks, who dominated Khiva then, fled Khiva, and assassi-

nated in 1748. The Dastur-ul-Muluk of Khoja Samandar reflects
the time and life of the khanate of Bukhara then.

Mir Ma’sum, the son of Daniyal Khan of the Mangit Uzbek
clan and the Atalik of Abu’l Ghazi (r. 1758-85) of the Astra-

khan dynasty of Bukhara, fought as the deputy of Abu’l
Ghazi the rebellious Beg of Shahr-i Sebz. He captured Marv
and killed Bahram Ali, the chief of its Kajar Turk tribe. He
brought utter ruin on the Marv Oasis by destroying the
ancient Sultan Bent dam across the Murgab River south of
the city. Even the Mongols of Chingiz Khan, who razed this
historical city to the ground, had not done that. He transferred
the inhabitants of Marv to Bukhara Sherif, Bukhara the
Noble, where they continued the silk culture, one of their
‘Formerly Khan Nadir Kuli.

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occupations. He usurped the throne of Bukhara. He even
married a princess of the Astrakhan dynasty. He assumed the
name

Shah Mura’d, and the title Emzr.

Emir Shah Mura’d invaded Balkh. Taimur Shah (r. 177393), the second son and successor of Ahmad Shah Durrani
(c. 1727-73) who had founded the Kingdom of Afghanistan

in 1747, marched from Kabul against Shah Mura’d. The two
sides negotiated peace. Timur Shah and Shah Mura’d never
met.
The Uzbek vilayets (provinces) of Kunduz, Andkoi, Maymena and Akcha, north of the Hindukush range, had fallen
to Ahmad Shah Durrani without his having to campaign
there. Balkh had been Mughul India’s border with Central
Asia. On learning of the death of Sultan Ulug Beg of the
Sultanat/Kingdom of Kabul, in 1501, Zahiruddin Babur had

taken it in 1505. It was from Kabul that he had marched on
Samarkand and seized it at the end of 1512. But he had lost
it in 1513 for the third and last time. The campaign of Prince
Aurangzeb (1628-1707), the third son of Emperor Shah
Jehan (r. 1628-56), in 1646 was the last Mughul attempt to

regain Central Asia.
Iltzar Khan (r. 1800-1804), the khan of the khanate of
Khiva, invaded the Emirate of Bukhara in the neighbourhood

of Charjui on the Amu Darya in the time of Emir Mir Haydar
(r. 1800-1825).

Muhammad

Rahim

son of Iltzar Khan, also marched
Bukhara, and took Marv in 1822.

Mir Husayn

Khan

(r. 1804-25), the

against the Emirate

of

(r. 1825), the first son of Emir Mir Haydar,

succeeded him. He was Emir for three months only. Nasrullah
(r. 1826-60), the second son of Emir Haydar, encountered

many a difficulty in taking the throne at Bukhara Sherif. He
was then the Beg (Governor) of the remote Vilayet of Karshi,
the cradle of the reigning Mangit dynasty, and took time to
gain central support. Umar Khan, the paternal uncle of
Nasrullah, had taken hold of the Emirate in the meantime.
Even Ayaz Khan, Nasrullah’s father-in-law and the Topchibashi
(War Minister and Commander-in-Chief)

of the Emirate,

AMU-SYR DOAB

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along with its Kushbegi (Chief Minister), was in league with
Umar Khan. Muhammad

Emin

(r. 1822-42), the twelve-year

old son and successor of Umar

Khan

of the khanate

of

Kokand, was friendly to him(Umar Khan of Bukhara). Umar
Khan also formed an alliance with Khan Allah Kuli (r. 182641), the khan of the khanate of Khiva.

Emir Nasrullah’s reign marked Bukhara’s domination of
the khanate of Khiva and triumph over the khanate of Kokand.

Khan

Allah Kuli, the khan

of Khiva, attacked

Marv,

then part of the Emirate of Bukhara. But his successor Rahim
Kuli (r. 1841-43) made peace with Emir Nasrullah.

On the eve of the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1838,
Amir Dost Muhammad

(r. 1834-63) fled to Balkh and Bukhara

(the British government of the East India Company dethroned
him on 1 October 1838), along with his second son Khan
Muhammad Akbar. He left his family at Balkh with his first
son Khan Muhammad Afzal, then governor of Afghan Turkistan. Amir Dost Muhammad had formed the province of
Afghan Turkistan comprising Kunduz. Andkoi, Maymena
and Akcha, known

as

char villayet (Turki: four provinces),

with Balkh as its capital. He returned from Bukhara to
Afghanistan after the entry of Khan Muhammad Akbar in
Kabul in the night of 1 November 1841.
The troops of Khan Muhammad Emin (r. 1822-42) of the
khanate of Kokand threatened Jizak on the Bukhara-Kokand

border—the key to Samarkand from the north. The troops
of Emir Nasrullah advanced against them, and besieged
Oratepe, the border fortress of Kokand, in 1841. The inha-

bitants of Oratepe massacred the garrison of Bukhara. No
sooner

did Emir

Nasrullah

learn of this development,

he

again sent his troops to Oratepe. Khan Muhammad Emin
again retreated. This time the Bukhara troops chased him up
to Kokand,

the capital of his khanate. The peace, made at

Kohna Badam, bound Khan Muhammad Emin to cede
Khojent and other frontier towns to Bukhara. Emir Nasrullah
made Khan Sultan Mahmud, the brother and rival of Khan
Muhammad

Emin,

who

had

fled to Bukhara,

the Beg of

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Oratepe. However, the two brothers, Muhammad Emin and
Sultan Mahmud, reconciled. A force of Bukhara captured

Khan Muhammad Emin near Margelan and executed him,
along with his brother Khan Sultan Mahmud and two of his
sons and relatives, in his own capital in the winter of 841-42.
Emir Nasrullah also ordered the poetess wife Nadira ot Khan
Muhammad Emin to be hanged. She had composed poems
on the hard lot of the women of Central Asia.
Musliman Kul, the chieftain of the Kipchaks of Namangan,
seized the capital Kokand, captured the Bukhara garrison
and set Shir Ali (r. 1842-45) on the throne of the khanate. A

force of Bukhara under Khudayar Khan, a grandson of Khan
Muhammad Emin and a pretender to the throne of the

khanate of Kokand appeared before the capital Kokand.
Khudayar Khan, however, reconciled with Musliman Kul and

turned against Emir Nasrullah. A Bukhara

force under

Shahrukh Khan, the Topchibashi of Bukhara, marched against

the khanate in 1858. Shahrukh Khan had not advanced
beyond Oratepe, when Emir Nasrullah fell ill at Samarkand
and died in Bukhara Sherif in 1860.
Emir Nasrullah created the sarbaz (infantry), the first
regular army of the Emirate of Bukhara. He used it against
Shahri Sebz and Kokand in the early 1840s. He constructed
Zindan, the state prison in the ark, the citadel, in the middle

of Bukhara Sherif. He confined Lieutenant-Colonel Charles
Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly of the Indian Army in
it before their public execution on 24 June 1842. John
MacNeill, the British minister at the Persian court, had sent

them to Bukhara Sherif as spies in 1838 and 1841 respectively,
Col. Stoddart on the retirement of the Persian army from
Herat. Emir Nasrullah also dismissed the embassy of Col.
Butanevy, when he learnt of the revolt against the British force
at Kabul in 1841.
Muzaffereddin

(b. 1823; r. 1860-85),

the eldest son and

katta tura' of Emir Nasrullah, succeeded him. He had been
the Beg of the vilayet of Karshi for one year and of Kermineh
'The term kalla tura is Turki for “heir-apparent”, crown prince.

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93

for eighteen years. Jirabek, the nephew (sister’s son) of Muzaffereddin and Beg of Shahri Sebz had contested the
succession.
Emir Muzaffereddin resumed his father’s campaign against
Shahri Sebz, and Kokand in 1863. The affairs of the khanate

of Kokand had taken a new turn. While Khan Khudayar (r.
1863, 1871-75) was campaigning against the Russians, his
elder half-brother Malla Khan had overthrown him. The Beg
of Oratepe, a native of Shahri

Sebz, had allied with Malla

Khan. Khudayar Khan, had fled to Bukhara Sherif. The
Kipchaks had assassinated Malla and had proclaimed Shah
Murad, the son of Khudayar’s elder brother Sarimsak as the
khan of the khanate. Khan Shah Murad ruled only until the
return of Khudayar from Bukhara Sherif in 1863. Slighted as
the protector and son-in-law of Khudayar Khan, Emir Muzaffer

attacked Kokand in April 1863. The peace settlement between
Bukhara and Kokand divided the khanate of Kokand into
two parts: the capital Kokand to Shah Murad and Khojent to
Khudayar.
Abdur Rahman Khan, the son of Afzal Khan and a grandson
of Amir Dost Muhammad of Afghanistan, fled to Bukhara,
when Sher Ali Khan, the heir-designate of Amir Dost Muhammad, succeeded his father. He returned to Kabul on 1 March

1866, expelled Amir Sher Ali from power and transferred it
to his father, Afzal Khan, who died next year. Amir Sher Ali
had imprisoned Afzal Khan and Azam Khan, his half-brothers,

who had ruled Afghanistan north of the Hindu Kush and
had revolted against him. In mid-1869, Abdur Rahman Khan

again sought refuge in Samarkand, which had by then become part of Russian Turkestan. General K.P. von Kaufman,
Governor-General of Russian Turkestan from 1868 to 1882,

had taken it from Bukhara on 14 May 1868. General Kaufman
gave Abdur Rahman Khan a stipend but did not encourage
him to disturb the Afghanistan-Bukhara border. Abdur
Rahman Khan returned to Afghanistan in 1880 to become
Amir of Afghanistan with British support.
The war between Bukhara and Russia had broken out over

94

the khanate

CENTRAL ASIA:

of Kokand,

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

the vassal of Bukhara. Jizak, the

frontier outpost of the Emirate of Bukhara on the left bank
of the Syr Darya, first turned back the Russian advance in the
Hungry Steppe in the region of Samarkand in May 1866.
Bukhara suffered its first defeat at Irjai on the left bank of the
Syr Darya between Jizak and Khojent on 20 May 1866. General
Kaufman captured Samarkand on | May 1868. Emir Muzaffer
eventually accepted the terms of General Kaufman. He had
unavailingly sought to forge alliance with his neighbours—
Afghanistan and Khiva—against Russia. When even Britain
declined his appeal for help (—this was the time of the policy
of “masterly inactivity” of Lord John Lawrence, Viceroy and
Governor-General

of India from 1864 to 1869), he had no

option but to make peace with General Kaufman. Alone, and
by himself,

he

could

not

resist

the

advance

of General

Kaufman.
The peace terms ceded Samarkand and the adjacent territories of Bukhara to Russia, and allowed the government of
Tsar Aleksandr II (r. 1855-81) of Russia to establish canton-

ments at Kermineh, Karshi and Charjui. The terms also
provided for mutual free trade. Emir Muzaffer allowed the
Russians even to maintain trade agents in Bukhara Sherif
and the other towns of his Emirate. Bukhara and Russia
delimited their common border in the following year. By
another treaty between Russia and Bukhara concluded on 28
September 1873, the Russian government transferred to
Bukhara all the territories of the khanate of Khiva on the east
bank of the Amu Darya. After Bukhara accepted the suzerainty
of Russia, its borders with Afghanistan and Persia remained
constant, and stable.
The nineteen-year old Katta Tura Abdul

Malek, and his

supporters Jirabek and Bababek of Shehr-Sebz, did not like
the settlement with General Kaufman. He raised the standard
of revolt. Emir Muzaffer sought Russian help against his
son’s revolt. Russian troops under General Abramov defeated

Beg Abdul Malek and captured Karshi on 21-23 October
1868. Jirabek and Bababek

escaped

to Kokand.

Khan

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95

Khudayar Khan betrayed them to General Kaufman.

The Bukhara-Russia treaty of 1868 preserved Bukhara
juridically sovereign with its own political and economic systems, though with diminished territories. The Emir continued
to rule the country autocratically. The Bukhara-Russia treaty
of 1873 bound Emir Muzaffer to deal with the GovernorGeneral of Russian Turkestan and not directly with the Tsar.
Whatsoever, even the establishment of the Russian political
agency in Kagan, Bukhara Sherif, on 12 November 1885 with
Colonel Nikolai Charikov as the first Russian resident agent,
left the Emir as ever. Charikov was then diplomatic attache at
Tashkent. The establishment of the Russian political agency
and the appointment of the Russian political agent completed
the process of the Russian protectorate over the Emirate of
Bukhara,

and

transformed

the relations

between

Bukhara

and Russia.
The khanate of Khiva, which had fended off more than
one Russian invasion, met the same fate of the Emirate of

Bukhara on 2 June 1873.
During the time of Emir Abdul Ahad

(b. 1859; r. 1885-

1910), the fifth and youngest son of Emir Muzaffer, there was
a revolutionary movement in Bukhara Sherif under the glow
of the first revolution in Russia in 1905' and through the
stimulus of the Persian and Turkish revolutions of 1906 and
1908 respectively. The revolutionaries of Bukhara Sherif
sought to oust the Mangit dynasty,
and modernize the country.
This first revolutionary movement in Bukhara however failed
to take root. Mir Say’id Alim (r. 1910-1920; d. 1944), the son
and heir-apparent of Emir Abdul Ahad, steered a middle
course between the gadimi, conservatives and the jadidi, pro-

gressives in the first years of his reign.
The Jadidism in Bukhara developed from a movement
advocating reform of the systems of administration and
education to a movement advocating reform of the feudal
medieval political system of the Emirate. The Jadidis of
Bukhara Sherif had also demanded the establishment of a
'The revolutionary movement in Russia had started in 1901.

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CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

proper economic system. They had also dreamt of a constitution similar to that of Turkey. The cultural activity of the
Jadidis of Bukhara Sherif had met with the resistance of even
the masses who were under the sway of the mullahs. On 18
July 1914, Emir Mir Say’id Alim closed all “new schools.” The
rallying point for anything forward-looking in Bukhara, the
“new schools”, which had managed to survive, had played a

significant role in forging the leadership of the impending
revolution in the Emirate.
The overthrow of Tsar Nikolai II (r. 1893-1917)

and the

establishment of the provisional government of Duma (Parliament) in Petrograd! on 11 March 1917 brought the Jadidis
of Bukhara Sherif into the open. In response to a congratulatory telegram from theJadidis, the provisional government
sent a dispatch to A-Y. Miller, the representative of the erstwhile
government of Russia in Bukhara, and to Emir Mir Say’id
urging reform. The provisional government too busy with its
own problems of continuing the imperialist war and countering the second wave of revolutionary activity, paid no
further heed to Bukhara. So preoccupied was it with the task
of stopping the advance of Bolshevism that, except for renaming the designation from political agent to resident, it
did not appoint its own representative at Bukhara Sherif. It
retained in that post Miller, the erstwhile agent. The clamour
for reform was so great that Miller had no alternative but
persuade the Emir to issue a manifesto of reforms on 7 April
dpe 7
The Manifesto, pledging fiscal, judicial and educational
reforms and representative government for the capital city of
the Emirate, satisfied none. The Emir repealed the reforms

and arrested the Jadidi revolutionary leaders. The Russian
workers in Novaya Bukhara, New Bukhara, the railway station
near Bukhara Sherif, protested. Frightened by the alliance
between the revolutionaries of the Emirate and the Russian
workers, the Emir released the revolutionaries. He broke off
"The name of the Russian capital had been changed to Petrograd in the
first year of the World War (1914-18).

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relations with Petrograd, negotiated with the Russian Whites,
the British intelligence agents in Kashgar, Xinjiang, and
Mashhad,

Persia, and Amir Amanullah

(b. 1892, d. 1960, r.

1919-29) of Afghanistan and took measures to eliminate the
revolutionary sentiment in his Emirate.
The Young Bukharan Party! of the Young Bukhara movement was too weak to overthrow Emir Mir Say’id by itself. It
sought help from the government of the Tashkent Soviet,
later the Autonomous Soviet Republic of Turkestan, which
the Russian Bolshevik and railway workers had formed on 12
September 1917. F. Kolesov, the Chairman of the Council of

People’s Commissars of the Tashkent Soviet, promised to
help the Young Bukharan Party. But owing to unforeseen
development, he was unable to provide the promised help.
Just when the Young Bukharan Party was to start its armed
struggle in the Emirate with Kolesov’s help, two events, besides
other hurdles, happened: the loss of connection with the
central authority in Petrograd via Orenburg and proclamation
of a provisional government of an independent Turkistan in
Kokand on 22 December 1917. Mustapa Chokaiev (Mustapa

Chokai Oglu, 1890-1938) of the provisional government of
independent Turkistan sought help from Ataman Aleksandr
Dutov, who ordered his Cossack detachments in Orenburg to
help the counter-revolution in Kokand.
Kolesov’s Red Guards smashed the army of independent
Turkistan on 18 February 1918-(—Mustapa Chokaiev escaped). Kolesov then turned his attention to Bukhara, which

with the influx of the Whites from Kokand and elsewhere
into Bukhara Sherif, was turning it into a spot of anti-Soviet
activity. Kolesov and Faizullah Khoja (Faizulla Khojaev, 18961938),? the son of a wealthy merchant of Bukhara Sherif and
Chairman of the Young Bukharan Party, demanded forthwith
'The radical Bukharans, a part of the Jadidists, had separated from
them in 1916.
*Faizullah Khoja had entered politics as a Jadidi intellectual on the
outbreak of the World War, when he, along with Fitrat, made Tashkent the

ground for political struggle against the Emir.

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HISTORY

reforms to be put into effect by a body elected from the
Young Bukharan Party and headed by the Emir himself. The
Emir hedged for time. Kolesov, who refused to wait, ordered
his troops, accompanied by the Young Bukharans, to advance
on the city on 1 March 1918. The Emir issued another manifesto, more liberal than the first, conceding the demands of

the revolutionaries.
Kolesov and the Young Bukharans also demanded the
disarming of the Emir’s forces. The Emir demurred, saying
that while he personally would be happy to fulfil this demand,
his soldiers (and the mullas) were so aroused that it would be

difficult to persuade them to lay down their arms. He asked
for three days in which to disarm. Kolesov reduced it to
twenty-four hours. While Kolesov and the Young Bukharans
waited in Kagan /New Bukhara for news from Bukhara Sherif,
the Emir reorganized his forces. He declared jehad and
surrounded the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries had the
advantage of artillery, cannon and machine-guns. But this
seemed to work against them. Ammunition being almost
exhausted, Kolesov retreated through dreadful conditions,
barely escaping with his life and a part of his force.
Emir Mir Say’id Alim, although bereft of confidence; resolved to repress disaffection in Bukhara. He financed the
counter-revolutionary

Basmach

(Basmak)

rebellion, which

had begun in Fergana in 1918, and struck up an alliance with
Amir Amanullah

of Afghanistan, who presented

him, Emir

Say’id, several cannon.
A conference of the Young Bukharan Party, held in Charjui
on

18 August

1920, decided

on an armed

uprising in the

Emirate, supported by Russian railway workers of Charjui
(Charju now). It addressed an appeal to the government, the
proletariat and the Red Army of Soviet Russia, wherein,
speaking in the name of the people of Bukhara, it requested
for help in its struggle against the Emir. On 28 August 1920,
General Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze,.Commander of the Red

Army on the Turkestan front, ordered his troops to help
“with all their armed might” the Young Bukharan Party and

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99

take Bukhara city. On 31 August, excepting the heir and two
other sons, Emir Mir Say’id along with his entourage escaped
to Dushanbe in Upper Bukhara and Afghanistan and, eventually, to Europe. He continued to encourage resistance in
Bukhara from Afghanistan through the Basmach counterrevolutionaries. He (d. 1944) wrote his memoirs La voix de la

Bukhane opprimes (Paris, 1929) in French.
The presence of Say’id Alim in Afghanistan made Amir
Amanullah apprehensive of the danger of the Soviet advance
towards his borders. While helping Alim Say’id materially, he
was Cautious in his policy. He took care not to antagonize the
Soviets. He cultivated relations with the Soviet government:
he was among the first to recognize Soviet Russia.
The Young Bukharan Party organized the revolutionary
committee and the Soviet of People’s Commissars in Bukhara
Sherif. The first Kurilatay' of the people held in Bukhara
Sherif on 14 September 1920 deposed Emir Mir Say’id Alim

and proclaimed the Bukhara Khalka Shorlar Jumhuriyeti
(Bukhara People’s Soviet Republic). The Soviet government

recognized it on 6 November 1920 and abrogated all treaties
and agreements concluded by Tsarist Russia with the Emirate
of Bukhara. It also proclaimed the transfer of all the territory
of Bukhara which had been seized by the government of
Tsarist Russia in 1868 and later. Thus disappeared the Emirate
of Bukhara from the map of West Central Asia.
KHANATE OF KHIVA

Ilbars Khan (r. 1512-25), a scion of the Shaybani house, came

to power in Khwarezm, hence-forward called by the name of
its capital Khiva. Abu’l Ghazi Bahadur Khan (r. 1642-63) of
the khanate of Khiva campaigned against the khanate of

Bukhara. He wrote Shejarat at-Turk in Chagtai Turki. Anusha
Khan (r. 1663-87), the son and successor of Abu’] Ghazi, was

also powerful. Khan Shah Niyaz sought Tsar Peter’s help
against Bukhara in 1700. The son and successor of Khan
‘Assembly, conference. In modern Uzebk usage, it means a “Congress”.

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Shah Niyaz crushed the Russian expedition of Prince Bekovich
Cherkasky,

the former

Khoja Nefes, in 1717. Khan

Ab’ul

Khayr (r. 1716-48) of the Kishshi Zhuz, who dominated the
khanate of Khiva then, fled on the advance of Nadir Shah of
Persia to the khanate in 1740. Rasi Khan fought against the
Sultans, the sons of Kazak khans and governors of Kazak
clans, and the Russian government of Orenburg.
Muhammad Emin Inak, The Kongrat Uzbek family established the Kongrat dynasty of the khanate of Khiva and
assumed the title ‘khan’ in 1770. Khan Allah Kuli (r.182542) of the khanate signed a treaty with Russia in 1841.
Provoked by the imposition of levies, Turkmen tribes of
Khiva revolted against Khan Say’id Muhammad Rahim II (r.

1865-1910) from 1855 to 1865.
Russia conquered the khanate of Khiva on 2 June 1873.
General K.P. von Kaufman himself led the Russian expedition
to Khiva. The treaty of peace signed by Russia and Khiva at
the capital Khiva of the khanate on 25 August 1873 fixed the
border with Russian Turkestan. It ceded to Russia the terntories of Khiva on the right bank of the Amu Darya, along
with all sedentary and nomadic inhabitants. The terms also
established free mutual trade between Khiva and Russia, and

so on. Khan Muhammad Rahim II retained his sovereignty
but had to renounce direct dealings with his neighbouring
sovereigns and khans. The age-old way of life in the khanate
continued.
Khan Muhammad Rahim II granted the German Mennonite Christians to settle in his khanate in 1882. These
other-world-oriented visionaries adopted Khivan nationality
and took to carpentry. After the Russian government cancelled
their exemption from military service in 1870, they had tried
to settle in Bukhara.

But, after refusal

by Bukhara,

their

leaders had negotiated with Khiva. They had wandered from
Holland to Russia, via Germany, in search of God’s perfect

kingdom. Their creed was Wehrlosig Keit—avoidance of state
oath and military service.

AMU-SYR DOAB

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Khan Isfendiyar (r. 1910-18) proclaimed modernization
and social reforms, including the establishment ofa hospital.
His chief minister, Say’id Islam Khoja (1910-13), was a proponent of modernization. Khan Isfendiyar visited Moscow
and St. Petersburg. There was Turkmen resistance during
1912-15. Junayt Khan (1860-1938), born as Kurban Memet of
the Junayt clan of the Yomut Turkmen tribe, had led the
Turkmens since 1914. He, alongwith certain Uzbek leaders,
raised a revolt against Khan Isfendiyar in 1915. He succeeded
in capturing Khiva. But he met with serious reverses, when
the Uzbeks and the Turkmens revolted against the khan
again in 1916 and fled first to the Karakum Desert and then
to Afghanistan. He returned to Khiva in September 1917,
and acceded to power in 1918.
Establishment of the provisional government of Duma
Parliaments in Petrograd on 11 March 1917 encouraged the
Young

Khivans,

Khivan

modernists,

to seek

political

and

other 1eforms in the khanate. They demanded the setting up
of a majles (assembly). This frightened Khan Isfendiyar, who
agreed to concede reforms on 5 April 1917. But he reneged
and arrested most of the Young Khivan leaders. The others
fled, and established a bureau in Tashkent. They captured
the captial Khiva of the khanate in 1918. Junayt Khan escaped

from the capital when the Young Khivans proclaimed the
Khwarezm People’s Soviet Republic (KPSR) in February 1920,
and Khiva re-established its independence. Khan Say’id Alid
Allah

(r. 1918-20), the last khan, escaped to Afghanistan,

Junayt and his followers escaped to the desert.
City STATE OF TASHKENT

The Khojas built an urban self-government in the city of Tashkent, an important centre of trade between the agricultural
and pastoral areas of West Central Asia since the medieval
time, in 1784.
Yunus Khoja, the ruler of Tashkent since 1784, wanted to
establish close economic relations with Russia. To this end he

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contacted the Sibirskaya/Siberian Administration. The
Governor-General of Siberia responded by sending embassies
to Tashkent. Trade with Russia had developed since the
seventeenth century. Yunus Khoja also requested Russian
help to develop the natural resources of his state. Paul Tsar
sent Pespelov, an engineer, to Tashkent in 1800. All the states
of West Central Asia maintained trade connections with Russia,

but Yunus Khoja of the city state of Tashkent was the first to
seck Russia’s help to develop the economy of his state. Khan
Alam

Khan, the khan of the khanate of Kokand,

took it in

1807.
KHANATE OF KOKAND

Shah Rukh of the Mangit clan of the Uzbeks founded the
khanate of Kokand

in 1798. His son, Alam

Khan

(r. 1799-

1812), annexed the Khoja state of Tashkent in 1807. He built
Kokand city, the capital of the khanate, in 1810. The Kokandis

constructed Ak Mesjet in the Kazak steppes during his reign.
Khan Madali (r. 1832-34) subdued the Pamir region. Khan
Muhammad Emin (r. 1834-42), the son and successor of
Khan Madali, tried to check the advance of Russia into

Central Asia. His troops surprised a detachment

of the

Cossacks of Orenburg, which had gone round the city of
Hazret-i Turkistan from the right bank of the Syr Darya, for
the first time in 1838. He wielded much influence even in the
politics of Kashgar. His end came through his involvement
with Emir Nasrullah of the Emirate of Bukhara.
The khanate of Kokand was important to Russia in the
context of Kashgar and Kashmir. A Russo-Kokandi treaty in
1868 rendered the khanate to vassalage. A Russian expeditionary force under General K.P. von Kaufman, GovernorGeneral of Russian Turkestan, himself took it in 1876. On 20
March 1876 Tsar Aleksandr II sanctioned its absorption into
Russian Turkestan under its ancient name Farghana and
appointed Mikhail Dmitriavich

Skobelev, an ardent soldier

of the Russian campaign of 1876, its first governor.

AMU-SYR DOAB

103

There were several uprisings, motivation

mostly socio-

economic, in the khanate during the eighteenth-nineteenth

centuries such as the revolt in Tashkent in 1847.
The forging of political, military and economic alliance
on 4 March 1921 between the governments of the Bukhara
People’s Soviet Republic (BPSR) and the Russian Soviet
Federative

Socialist

Republic

(RSFSR),

along with

that

between the governments of the Khwarezm People’s Soviet
Republic (KPSR) and the RSFSR, initiated a new era in the

history of West Central Asia.

CHAPTER 5

Tsarist/Soviet Turkestan

HE contacts of the Slavs, the Russians, with the peoples of
Central Asia trace to ancient times. Throughout early
history, the Russians werein contact with peoples whose roots
were wholly or partially in Central Asia. Contacts between
them and Khwarezm, a leading centre of ancient Central
Asia, trace to AD 860, the year of the founding of the Russian
state of Moscovy by Swedish Prince Rurik. The role of the
merchants of Khwarezm in the spread of ideas, besides trade
and material culture, to the region of the Volga River is historical. The acceptance by the Bulgars, later called the Tatars
of the Volga region, was primarily due to them. The name
Busurman for Muslims in the old Russian chronicles was from
the Khwarezm language in the Arabic-Persian script current
until the Mongol conquest of the Volga region, and Russia.
Russia first began to advance towards Asia in the middle of
the sixteenth century. The armies of Tsar Ivan IV' (1530-84),
Grozny/Terrible, of Russia took the Tatar Muslim khanates

(domains of khans) Kazan of Khan Yadiger Muhammad of
the line of the khans of Astrakhan on the bend of the Itil
River, the Middle Volga River, at the confluence of the Kama
River on 2 October 1552 and Astrakhan/Haji Tarkan? of the

Nogai Khan Yagurchai (Yamgurchai, r. 1544-56) on the estuary
of the Volga in 1556. Tsar Ivan IV absorbed Astrakhan in

Russia in 1556-57. The khans of the Nogay clan of the Tatar
"Ivan IV, when he took the crown at Moscow in 1547, took the title Zsar.

Tsar Peter (1672-1725) adopted the title Tsar of All Russias, that is, Emperor,
in 1721.
“An Altaic term; rank of nobility.

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

105

tribe had ruled Astrakhan since 1466. Kazan and Astrakhan,

along with the khanate of the Krimiya (Crimea), had been
the successor states of the Dasht-i Kipchak! of Jochi (c. 11'761227), the eldest son of Chingiz Khan.
The conquest of the town and the khanate of Kazan,
founded by the Mongol Khan Ulu Muhammad in 1437,
opened the way for Russia to expand to the Ural range of
mountains, highest altitude only 550 feet above the sea-level.
The Volga River, the waterway from Central Russia to the
Caspian

Sea, facilitated

Russia’s

advance

southwards,

and

opened the route to the Russian centres such as Nizhni
Novgorod/Nizhegorod.

Traders from Central Asia, Persia

and India, even from East Asia, attended the annual fair of

Novgorod in the summer. Russian traders used Astrakhan as
a base from which to trade with Central Asia.
Tsar Ivan IV granted a concession and mining in the Kama
River valley, the Ural range and all lands east of the Ural
range to the Stroganoy family of Novgorod origin, entrusting

" to it the guarding of the eastern border of his empire. The
Russian Cossacks (Cyrillic: Kossaks) crossed the Urals eastwards into Siberia in the 1550s. According to a saying, Russia’s
slope was to the east. Yermak (d. 1584)? and his band captured

Sibir,’ the capital of the khanate of Sibir on the Irtish River
in 1581, making Khan Yedigar of the khanate a vassal of Tsar
Ivan IV. Later Khan Kuch’um

(c. 1563-98) broke this vassal

relationship with Russia. This led to the abolition of the
khanate of Sibir. The Cossacks ultimately marched across
Siberia, taking territories of the native tribes and building
fortified settlements and reaching the Amu River and the
Pacific Ocean by 1639.
This eventually brought the Russians in close proximity,
and conflict, with the Manchus, who had established them'Dasht-i Kipchak of the Arab authors and Zolotaya Orda, “Golden
Horde”, of the Russian chronicles.

“Yermak was in the employ of the Stroganov family to defend their
holdings and to explore west of the Urals.
‘Russian: Sibir; Sanskrit:

shevir.

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selves in China in 1644, and led them to conclude treaties
such as the treaty signed at Nerchinsk (Chinese: Ni-pu-ch’u)

on the Nercha River on 29 August 1869. The Chinese-Russian
treaty of 1689, the first treaty China ever signed with a
Western country, was favourable to China. It limited Russian
expansion to the Amur River. The Amur River and the Great
Khingan mountain range then formed the boundary between
the Manchu and Russian empires. This treaty between China
and Russia, however, did not relate to Central Asia. Another
treaty, which China and Russia signed at Chuguchak (Ch:

T’a-ch’eng) on 25 July 1851, was also in the context of the
Russian position in Siberia. However,

it laid the first foun-

dation of the penetration of Russia from its part of Central
Asia into Xinjiang (Sinkiang), China.
The government of Empress Anna Ivanovna (b. 1693; r.
1730-42) founded the town of Orenburg, east of the Urals, at

the meeting point of Central Asia and Siberia in 1735. Along
with the fortress of Orsk, Orenburg was the most important
fortress on the eastern frontier of Russia. It became a strong
military and civil centre in course of time. Under I-I Neplyuyevy,
the first governor of Orenburg, Russian forces pushed up the
Syr Darya to the Karatau range. Khan Abu’! Khayr of the
Kazak Kishshi Zhuz' swore an oath of loyalty to Empress Anna
Ivanovna in 1731. Khan Ablay Membet of the Kazak Orta
Zhuz swore his loyalty to her in 1740. Khan Ablay of the Kazak
Ulu Zhuz submitted to Empress Elizabeth Petrovina (r. 174162) in 1742-47. The Orenburg administration abolished the
khanate of the Orta Zhuz in 1822. To deal with Central Asian
affairs, the Russian government established the Asia Department in its Foreign office in 1824.
Russian troops founded along the fringe of the southern
Kazak steppes a line of forts. They founded Fort Vernyi
(Vernoye) on the site of the old Kyrgyz city of Almaty (Alma
Ata since 1929, Almaty since 1992) on the Almaty River
between Lakes Balkhash and Issyk Kul in 1854.
'Kishshi, “young, little”; Jus, “hundred”
2Ulu, “old, great”.

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

The Cossacks, who had built forts on Omsk

107

in 1716 and

Semiplatinsk,' the old capital of the khanate of the Oyrat
Mongols of the Ili Valley, in 1718, and so on, established their

first post on the Syr Darya in 1847. They took Ak Mesjit of the
khanate of Kokand and renamed it Fort Perovsk on 27 July
1853. They took Suzak of the khanate of Kokand, north-east
of the town of Hazret-i Turkistan, in 1854. The administration of General A.P. Bezak, the Governor of Orenburg, set

up civil and military centres up the Syr Darya. It took the
territories between the Aral and Caspian Seas up to 1863. It
captured Hazret-i Turkistan and Aulia Ata on 16 June 1864,
and Chimkent on 2 October 1864. It captured Tashkent on
29 June 1865. Mulla Alamkul, the Kipchak chieftain of
Namangan, died in battle with Colonel M.G. Chernyayev in
the vicinity of Tashkent on 2) May 1865. Russia had occupied
all the plains between the Syr and Amu rivers up to 1869.
The Orenburg administration had also formed the small
Aral

Sea Flotilla of steamers

and

launches

in the

1850s,

disbanded on the formation of the Amu Darya Flotilla on 13

November 1887.
The Uzbek khanates sent embassies to Tsar Ivan IV to ask
for a “free” passage. Commerce was their main aim. Russia
reciprocated even though Russian merchants themselves did
not trade directly with Central Asia then. Indian and Muslim

merchants of Astrakhan on the Volga estuary acted as agents
of the Russian trading houses, via Khiva, in Bukhara. Emir
Abdullah Mu’min (r. 1557-98) of the Emirate of Bukhara
sent an embassy to Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich (r. 1584-98), the
son of Tsar Ivan IV, in 1589. To reciprocate it, Tsar Fyodor
Ivanovich sent Taishev to Bukhara. Consequently, a trade

intercourse developed between

Bukhara and Russia. The

merchants of Bukhara, like the merchants of the other Uzbek
khanates, carried their merchandise to Astrakhan and Kazan

and visited the fairs in Novgorod in Central Russia and
Orenburg, Kiziljar/Petro-pavlosk and Troitsk on the border
'Russian for the seven Buddhist monasteries of the Oyrat Mongols on
the Irtish River.

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of West Siberia. Muslim merchants from the Central Asian
khanates had traded at the Novgorod fair since the fourteenth
century.
Tsar Peter (b. 1672, r. 1682-1725) was the first Tsar of All

Russias to begin the Russian expansion in Central A.

Khan

Shah Niyaz, the khan of Khiva, had sought Tsar Peter’s help

against Bukhara in 1700. Tsar Peter dispatched embassies to
Persia of Sultan Husayn Shah (r. 1694-1722) and to Khiva of

Khan Shah Niyaz in 1708 and 1717 with the aim of opening
a trade route to India by way of the Caspian Sea. He dispatched
an embassy under Prince Tserkaski to Khiva in 1716, killed in
Khiva in 1717. The Russians thus associated their awareness of
the Eastern world to Tsar Peter. Tsar Peter even stimulated
interest in oriental, especially Islamic studies. He set up a
school for the study of Eastern languages in 1702, and arranged
for the first translation of the Qur'an in Russian. The study of
the Eastern world, initiated first by the Russian Ecclesiastical
Mission in Beijing (Peking) in the second decade of the
eighteenth century and then by the Religious Academy in
Kazan

in the middle

of the nineteenth

century, led to the

establishment of the Imperial Oriental Institute in 1900.
Availing himself of the chaos in Persia then, Tsar Peter
captured the Persian provinces such as Gilan, south of the

Caspian Sea. Russia and Persia signed their first ever treaty at
St. Petersburg on 23 September 1723. Tsar Peter agreed to

help Shah Tahmasp II' (r. 1722-32) of Persia against the
Afghans in lieu of the cession by Persia to Russia of the cities
of Baku and Derbent on the Caspian, and Astrabad (modern

Gurgan) on the eastern
Anna Ivanovna returned
The successors of Tsar
The Central Asia policy

corner of the Caspian. Empress
them to Persia in 1735.
Peter the Great had the same aim.
of Empress Catherine the Great

(1762-96) was to establish a frontier from which to conduct

trade with Bukhara and the other khanates of Central Asia.
'Shah Tahmasp

(r. 1525-76) of the Safavi dynasty (1502-1736). Shah

Tahmasp II deposed by his General Nadir Kuli, later Nadir Shah, in 1730
and killed by Riza Kuli, the son of Nadir Shah, in 1739.

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

By an

ukase/decree

of 9 May

1780, she permitted

109

Sunni

Muslim pilgrims from Central Asia to Makka (Mecca) to
cross lands held by Russia. These pilgrims could not travel to
Makka through the most direct route across Shii Persia. By
an ukasein 1788, she created the first Muslim religious department in Russia and the Religious Council of Muslims at Ufa.
She also countenanced the Russian desire to build a madrasa,

a theological school, in Bukhara Sherif.
The Central Asia policy of Russia had not passed unnoticed
in Central Asia. The khans were well aware of the Russian
motives. The merchants, who had resided in Russia, extolled

the spirit of Russian justice and order even though they also
had the same detestation for anything that was not Muslim.
Russian conquest of Georgia (Persian: Gurjistan) in the Caucasus (Russian: Kav Kaz) mountains in 1796 caused great
anxiety to the Persian and Turkish governments.
On the suasion of England and France, Fath Ali Shah!
(Baba Khan, r. 1797-1834) of Persia and Sultan Mahumd II
(r. 1808-39) of Turkey proclaimed war against Russia. England,
which had started to court Persia before France, wanted to

incite Persia against Zaman Shah (r. 1793-1842) of Afghanistan.
who had then threatened England’s possession in India.
Emperor Napoleon (r. 1804-15)* of France promised to help
Persia to recover its lost territory in the Caucasus. He wanted
to use Persia in the defeat of England in the East.
The Persian army fought its first battle with the Russian
army near Yerevan in Armenia’ and suffered defeat. France
again sided with Persia on the termination of the French-

Russian treaty of peace and alliance signed at Tilsit on the
left bank of the Neman River on 7 July 1807 after differences
between Tsar Aleksandr (r. 1801-25) and Emperor Napoleon

in 1812. Napoleon even invaded Russia and captured Moscow
'The founder of the Kajar dynasty of Persia.
*Napoleon had declared himself Emperor in 1804. He had terminated
the Holy Roman Empire of the Franks, which Charlemagne (742-814) had
started in 800.
*Persian: Aramane.

~

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in September 1812. He and his grand army suffered severe
defeat in Paris under the army of Tsar Aleksandr in 1814.
Persia and Russia signed their peace treaty at Gulistan, a
village in Karabagh, on 12 October 1813. It imposed an
indemnity of Tuman 5 (five) millions on Persia. Persia ceded

all its territory between the Caucasus and the Caspian to
Russia and confirmed all the acquisitions of Russia south of
the Caucasus. There was no ratification of the Perso-Russian
treaty until 1816. Even then, certain vague clauses of the
treaty, especially the clause respecting the Perso-Russian
borders, gave rise to diplomatic tussle between them. That
again led to war in August 1826. Initially, the Russian forces
faced reverses. Eventually, they routed the Persian forces and
pursued them into Yerevan and Tabriz.
Persia sued for peace. By the peace treaty, alongwith the
commercial treaty, which Persia and Russia signed at Turk-

manchai', a village south of Tabriz, on 22 February 1828,
Persia further lost territory in Armenia and Azerbayjan. The
Russian border moved south through the Caucasus to the
Aras River. The treaty also imposed on Persia a payment of
20 (twenty million) roubles as indemnity for the expenses of
the campaign. The commercial treaty, separate from the
political treaty but signed simultaneously with it, established
consular jurisdiction and extraterritorial privileges for Russia
in Persia. The political treaty began permanent involvement
of Russia in Persia, and further east. It remained valid up to

the end of the Tsarist period in Russia in 1917. Aleksandr
Sergeyevich Griboyedov (and his entire staff but one), who
negotiated it, while overseeing it as the Russian minister at
Tehran fell on 30 January 1829 to a mob, which burst into
the legation building and destroyed and looted it. Fath Ali
Shah apologized to Tsar Nikolai (r. 1825-55) on 11 February
1829.
By the Persian-Russian treaty of 1828 the sovereignty of
the Caspian Sea passed to Russia: no ships of war, except
"The suffix chay in place-names is Azeri Turki for standard Turki su,
“stream”, “river”, and “water”.

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

111

Russian, on the Caspian Sea. The Russians constructed for-

tresses on the eastern shore of the Caspian in 1838. They also
constructed a naval arsenal on the island Ashoor-ada at the
mouth of the Bay of Astrabad.
The first official exchange of embassies between Bukhara
and Russia took place in 1558 with the arrival of the envoys
of Bukhara in Moscow. The exchanges had become frequent
in the second half of the seventeenth century. They had been
concerned mainly with trade relations.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the nature of
the diplomatic discussions between Russia and Bukhara
changed. The Russian government sent Colonel K.F. Buteney,
along with N.V. Khanykov' and Aleksandr Lehman to Bukhara
and Nikivorov to Khiva in 1841. Colonel Danilevski concluded
a treaty with the Khan of Khiva, Khan Allah Kuli, providing
for the cessation of slave trade and for restraining the Karakalpaks and Turkmens from inroads into Russian territory
and molestation of Russian subjects.
General V.A. Perovsky, Governor

of Orenburg,

had mar-

ched an expeditionary force against Khiva from the Emba
River across the Dasht-i Kipchak and the Ust-Urt deserts between the Aral and Caspian Seas in mid-winter 1839-40. The
Russian government had arrested all the Uzbek merchants
resident at Orenburg and Astrakhan then. The expedition
had failed due to the severity of the season. Before dispatching

another expedition against Khiva, the Russians occupied
Krasnovodsk. They built its port and fortress in 1869. They
established a military post at Chikishlar, near the mouth of
the Atrak River, in 1871.

The expedition against Khiva in the spring of 1873 eventually led the Russians to the Marv Oasis. General Mikhail
Dmitriavich Skobelev,” however, could not subdue the Tekes

tribe, the largest and most powerful of the Turkmen tribes of
the Akhal oasis between the Kopet Dagh range and the
'Baron de Bade translated in English Khanykov’s previous Russian work
on Bukhara (1841) under the title Bukhara: Ils Amir and Ils People, London,

1845.
“General Skobelev campaigned in the Turkmen region from 1877-86.

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Karakum Desert before 1881. His forces first suffered defeat
at the Dengil Tepe (also known as Geok Tepe) fortress on 12
January 1881, but took it on 24 February 1881. They had
taken Ashkabad (now Ashgabad) between ancient Anau and
Nisa on 15 January 1881. The Russian government absorbed
the entire Turkmen territory into its Turkestan. It transferred
its military base for Central Asia from Orenburg to the
eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
The governments of Persia and Russia settled their common
border between Persian Khurasan and Russian Turkmenistan
by signing a convention on 2] December 1881. The subjection
of the Turkmen tribes led to an improvement in the situation on the Khurasan-Turkmenistan border. Nasreddin Shah
(r. 1858-95) of Persia considered the advance of Russia favour-

ably because of the relief it provided to the people of Khurasan
from Turkmen brigandage and terror along the KhurasanTurkmenistan frontier. Mirza Reza shot dead Nasreddin Shah
by pistol on 1 May 1896. Nasreddin Shah had lost interest in
reform in Persia in the mid-1890s, especially the movement

of protest of the nationalists against the tobacco concession
to England.
The relations, which Russia had established with Persia
had brought the interests of Britain (based in India) and

Russia in contact for the first time. The British government
feared the advance of Russia towards Afghanistan and India.
According to it, the Persian-Russian treaty of 1828 transformed
the defence of India from a military to a political issue, from
the fear of the advance of Russia towards India to the fear of
the invasion of Russia on India. From the point of view of defence, Herat had always been important to India from the
time of Emperor Chandragupta (r. 324-298 Bc) of the Maurya
dynasty to the time of the Mughul dynasty, and so on. Initially,
the British Government had welcomed the advance of Russia
in Central Asia.
The British government interpreted Persian-Russian treaty
of 1828 to entitle the Russian government to post a consul at
Herat, the gate to and the outwork, the bulwark of British

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

113

India, in the event of its capture by Persia. It is noteworthy
that, in view of the Anglo-Russian alliance of August 1812 in
the context of the Anglo-French rivalry. British officials had
looked with favour on Russian advance in the Caucasus.
The siege of Herat by Muhammad

Shah (r. 1835-48), who

had succeeded his grandfather Fath Ali Shah, in 1838, alarmed
the British government. The British government suspected
that the Russian government had instigated the Persian siege
of Herat. Over this, Lord George Eden Auckland, GovernorGeneral of British India from 1835 to 1841, went to war with

Afghanistan, the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839-42. It had
first encouraged Fath Ali Shah to send troops to Herat as a
counterpoise to the designs of Zaman Shah of Afghanistan on
India. Later, the British strategy had been to close the invasion
routes into India, and take Kandahar and Herat. Muhammad

Shah raised his siege of Herat on 23 June 1838.
The British government obtained the same rights in Persia,
as the Russian government, dy the Anglo-Persian treaty of
commerce signed at Tehran on 28 October 1841. However,
owing to certain perceptions of the British and Persian policies
in 1840-50, their mutual relations deteriorated. Mirza Soltan

Morad Hosayn os-Sultane’, the uncle of Nasreddin Shah led
the Persian forces to take Herat on 26 October 1856. Britain
went to war with Persia on 4 December 1856. Nasreddin
Shah evacuated Herat vide the terms of the Anglo-Persian
peace treaty, signed in Paris on 4 March

1857, which

con-

cluded the war. The Afghan army captured Herat on 27 May
1863. Amir Dost Muhammad

(r. 1834-63) absorbed it, before

his death in Herat on 9 June 1863, into Afghanistan as the
consequence of the Anglo-Afghan agreement of 27 January
1857 and the Anglo-Afghan treaty of 30 March 1857, both
signed in Peshawar.
Both Britain and Russian had no direct frontier with
Afghanistan before the 1850s. But both advanced towards it,
the British moving north from Panjab and Sindh and the
Russians moving south from the Syr Darya, each feeling
'Mirza Soltan Morad then became the governor of Khurasan in Mashhad.

~

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annoyed at the other getting in its way. Hence the AngloRussian contest, the “great game” of politics in Central Asia.

The work of the English agents such as Alexander Burnes,
Bailie Fraser, William Moorcroft and others at the courts of

Bukhara, Khiva and Kokand and the First Anglo-Afghan War
led to the appearance of the Russian agents in Afghanistan.
The British government believed the aim of Russian advance was to take Afghanistan, which, by virtue of its location,

was vital to any plan for the defence of British India. The
Russian government feared that Afghanistan under British
control and/or influence might become a disturbing factor
in Central Asia. Lord George William Frederick Claredon,
the Secretary of State of Britain, and Prince Mikhail Gorchakov, the Foreign Minister of Russia, discussed the status of
Afghanistan and reached an understanding on 31 January
1873 to recognize the Amu Darya as the border between
Afghanistan and Bukhara. The British and Russian governments singed an agreement in London on 10 September
1885 to demarcate the Afghanistan-Bukhara border from the
Heri Rud! in the west to the Amu Darya in the east.
Thus Afghanistan, which had won freedom from the Mughul and Persian imperialisms in 1747, inadvertently became
involved in the politics of the expanding British and Russian
empires. Internal instability and Anglo-Russian tussle for
primacy in Central Asia forced upon it the status of a protectorate. The Anglo-Afghan peace treaty, concluded at Gandamak, Afghanistan, on 26 May 1879 as the consequence of
the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-79, established British
protectorate over Afghanistan, depriving it the right to conduct its own foreign relations. The Anglo-Afghan treaty of
1879 also ceded to the British government the Khybar Pass
and Kurram,

Pishin and Sibi frontier areas of Baluchistan.

The British government jealously guarded its right to control
Afghanistan against influence from other powers, especially
Russia, thereby imposing a heavy price for its pledge of noninterference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan.
"Rud is Persian for “river”, “flow” of river.

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115

On 29 March 1885, after General Alikhanov, a Tatar Muslim

from the North Caucasus, occupied Panjdeh, the Russian
government claimed the Zulfikar pass between Herat and

Panjdeh as within the sphere which had come under it after
its subjugation of the Turkmen tribes. The British government,

which considered Panjdeh as part of Afghanistan, resented
it. It had pledged, vide the Anglo-Afghan treaty of 1879, to
safeguard the integrity of Afghanistan. There was Russian
war hysteria in England and an Anglo-Russian War seemed
imminent. Amir Abdur Rahman (r. 1881-1901) of Afghanistan
was not sure, in his discussion with Lord Frederick Temple

Hamilton Dufferin, Viceroy and Governor-General of India
from 1884 to 1888, at Rawalpindi on 31 March

1885, if Pan-

jdeh belonged to Afghanistan. The Anglo-Russian boundary
protocol of 1887 assigned Panjdeh to Russia and the Zulfikar
Pass to Afghanistan, thereby ending the crisis.
The Anglo-Russian boundary commission, set up vide the
Anglo-Russian agreement signed in London on 11 March
1895, demarcated the Afghan-Russian border the Pamir
region from Lake Sarikol to Tagdumbash assigning a portion
of Darvaz, where the Ab-i Panj (Panj River) bends to the
north at Ishkashim, to Afghanistan and Ishkashim, Shugnan

and Rushan to Russia. They had tenuously been connected
with the Emirate of Bukhara. The Russian government made
them over to Bukhara. The boundary commission also established the Vakhan Corridor between the British and Russian

empires, thereby separating the British and Russian territories
in the Pamir region. The strategic implications of a Russian
wedge between Afghanistan and China were too obvious to
the British government.

London,

therefore,

proceeded

to

conclude an agreement with St. Petersburg to assign Vakhan
to Afghanistan. The Afghan-Russian military collision at Somatash along the Panj River on 12 July 1892, in which the
Afghans had been wiped out, had strained relations between
Afghanistan and Russia, and Amir Abdur Rahman had been
reluctant to take Vakhan. The British offer of an annual
subsidy of Rs 1,00,000 to Amir Abdur Rhaman was perhaps

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irresistible. Vakhan had been a small hereditary principality
up to 1877 when it had passed under the rule of the Emir of
Bukhara.
The rise of Germany and Japan, especially the defeat of
Russia by Japan in 1904, led the British and Russian governments to agree to settle their spheres of influence especially
in Persia and to sign a convention in St. Petersburg on 31
August 1907 to this effect. The British government undertook
not to annex or occupy Afghanistan and the Russian government renounced direct contact with Afghanistan. Russia also
agreed to regard Tibet as a neutral zone. Thus the negotiations, which the British and Russian governments had begun
with the aim of creating a buffer state of Afghanistan, ended

up by the carving out of their spheres of influence.
The status of West Central Asia after conquest by Russia
had been that of a colony with the administrative structure of
the governorate general. The government of Tsar Aleksandr
II (b. 1818; r. 1855-81) first discussed the administration of its

part of West Central Asia in 1865. The ukase of 23 July 1867
separated Turkestan from the jurisdiction of Orenburg. It
appointed General K.P. von Kaufman its first governor-general
or general governor as styled by the Russians, making him

responsible to the Minister of War. The conquest of the Khanate of Kokand by General Kaufman in 1876 completed the
subjugation of West Central Asia to Russia. The governorate
general comprised the oblasts/ provinces of Syr Darya, Samarkand,' Fargana and Semirech’ye.? The governorate general
of Turkestan included the Oblast of Transcaspia in Russian
Turkestan in 1898. Until then, the Oblast of Transcaspia had

been in the governorate general of the Caucasus formed on
10 May

1874, with

its headquarters

at Krasnovodsk.

administrative structure of Russian Turkestan

The

underwent

'Zerafshan Oblast up to 1886.
“Russian for the Jeli Su, “Seven Rivers”, that is, the region of several
small rivers such as Aksu, Chu, Sokuluk, etc. flowing north-east into Lake

Balkhash. Semirech’ye/Jetisu
empire of China, although
nineteenth centuries.

territory had been a part of the Machu
nominally, in the mid-eighteenth—mid-

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

ry

several changes up to the end of the Tsarist period in 1917.
There had been several attempts to reform it such as the
investigation of Count Konstantinovich Pahlen in 1908-9.
There were several revolts in West Central Asia in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as the revolts of
Batir' Srim of the Kishshi Zhuz against the Tsarist rule in 1787.
Akyn Mahambet (1803/4-1846/47) inspired a peasant
uprising against the Russians helped by Janger Khan (182746) of the Bukey Kazaks. Khan Kenesary Kasimov (r. 183040/1837-47), a grandson of Ablay Khan (1711-81) of the Orta

Zhuz, revolted against the abolition of the Khanate of the
Orta-Zhuz. Kenesary Kasimov asked the northern Kyrgyzes of
the Ala Tau mountains, and the khanate of Kokand to join
him. The Kyrgyz manaps, clan chiefs, who had been under
the influence of the khan of the khanate of Kokand and who
had established relations with the Russian administration,

rejected his suggestion. Instead, they incited their people to
raid the Kazak auls/villages. Kenesary Kasimov held a meeting
of the chiefs of the Ulu Zhuz, who decided to punish the
Kyrgyz manaps. The war against the Kyrgyzes ended in his
defeat. In one of the battles, the Kyrgyzes captured him and
killed him and his brother.
The polozhentya/regulations of 1868, making all Kazak
land the crown land of Russia, led to the revolt of the mullas,
sultans, and clan chiefs of the Kazaks. After the suppression
of the revolt by the Russian army in mid-1869, large numbers

of the Kazaks moved to the Ust-Urt plateau, the Mugojar
mountains and the khanate of Khiva. The leaders of the
revolt even appealed to Khan Muhammad Rahim II (r. 18651910), the khan of the khanate of Khiva, for acceptance as

his subjects. Their appeal was futile. Then there was a peasant
revolt in Fargana in 1898. A decree of 25 June 1916, ordering
conscription of Central Asian men aged nineteen to fortythree, who had been exempt from military service, for duties

behind the war lines precipitated the Kyrgyz revolt of 6
October 1916.
'Literally “hero” from the Persian bahadur, i.e. nobleman, clan chieftain.

~

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There also had been movements for independence from
Russia. Enlightened Kazaks organized the Alash Orda in Orenburg in March 1905 and set up a provisional government.
Like Tsarist Russia, Soviet Russia also did not take West

Central Asia one piece. A congress of the Soviet of Tashkent,
formed in October 1917, held on 1 May 1918 declared
Turkestan the first Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
(ASSR) inclusive of the territory of the Kazak tribes, within
the Russian

Soviet Federative

Socialist Republic

(RSFSR).

The RSFSR accepted it within its framework on 11 April
1921. The Emirate of Bukhara became the Bukhara People’s
Republic on 20 September 1920. The khanate of Khiva,
renamed Khwarezm, its ancient name, became the Khwarezm

People’s Republic on 30 April 1920. They transformed into
Soviet Socialist Republics in 1923. The Soviet government in
Moscow recognized them as sovereign states. On 5 March
1923, in a conference held in Tashkent the Uzbeks of Bukhara

and Khwarezm proclaimed to unite with the Uzbeks of the
ASSR of Turkestan.
During the first years, the Soviet administration suffered
several reverses and setbacks such as the Basmach/Basmak

counter-revolution and restlessness over land collectivization.
Inspired by Turkish nationalists such as Enver Pasha (18811922), the Basmachis incited the people against Soviet Russia.
The foreign interventionists also conducted intrigues there
through Afghanistan, Persia and Turkey. To nip all this,
Vladimir Ilych Lenin (1870-1924) concluded his first treaties
of friendship with Afghanistan, Persia and Turkey respectively
in Moscow on 20 February, 26 February and 16 March 1921.
Later, the Soviet government also concluded with their governments treaties relating to the regulation and use of their
common frontier rivers.
The Soviet government also set up a delimitation commission on 27 October 1924 to reorganize the Turkestan
ASSR.

It reorganized the Turkestan ASSR, inclusive of the

republics of Bukhara and Khwarezm and the territories of
the Kadzaks, into the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and the

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

119

Kadzhak, Kyrghyz, Tadzhik, and Turkmen Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republics. The delimitation commission kept the
southern parts of West Siberia with Kadzakhstan. It also
created autonomous regions for the numerous ethnic groups.
It created in Kadzakhstan the autonomous district of the
Semirech’ye. The Chinese, the Dungans, the Manchus, the
Turks, the Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians), the Germans inhabit

Semirech’ye. It assigned the towns of Chimkent and Osh,
mainly Uzbek, to Kadzakhstan and Kyrghyzstan respectively.
It assigned the Fargana Valley to Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan
and Kyrghyzstan. A part of Khwarezm and the entire territory
of the Turkmen tribes formed Turkmenistan.
The seat of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, which
joined the USSR formed on 27 October 1924, was first at
Samarkand. It moved to Tashkent in 1930. Karakalpakistan,
the “land of the black cap” Nogai Tatar tribe, so-called from
their

headgear,

was

first within

the Autonomous

Soviet

Socialist Republic of Kadzakhstan. It became an autonomous
oblast (region) in 1932, and affiliated to the RSFSR. It became

part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, in 1836. Its administrative

centre

was

at Tortkul/Aleksandrosk

upto

1939,

then at Nukus. Traditionally, the Karakalpaks have been semi
rather than fully nomadic. The seat of Kadzakh Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic

(KASSR),

created

on

26 August

1920, was first at Orenburg in the RSFSR. Then it moved to
Ak Mesjet, renamed Kyzyl Orda. The Turkmen Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic (TASSR), became full SSR on 14

February 1925. The Tadzhik Autonomous
Republic

nomous

constituted,

Oblast

along with

(GBAO)!

Gorno

Soviet Socialist
Badakshan

with its administrative

Auto-

centre at

Khorog, on 2 January 1925, became full SSR and separated
from Uzbekistan on 5 December 1929. Perhaps the Soviet
government so named

Gorno Badakhshan

(Mountainous)

to distinguish it from the Badakhshan of Afghanistan.
The Soviet government formed Turkmenistan from the
Trans-Caspian Oblast of Russian Turkestan, the Charjui (later
Ynitially, the Special Pamir Province.

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Charju) vilayet of the Emirate of Bukhara and a part of the
khanate of Khiva inhabited by the Turkmens on 27 October
1924. Turkmenistan joined the USSR in May 1925. The
Soviet government created the Kadzakh and Kyrghyz autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics within the RSFSR on 26
August 1920. The Soviet government, which had formed
Kadzakhstan as Kyrghystan, and added to it parts of Russian
Turkestan inhabited by a majority of the Kazaks, renamed it
Kadzakhstan in 1925. Both Kadzakhstan and Kyrghystan became full SSRs and joined the USSR on 5 December 1936.
The small town of Pishkak, Frunze since 1926, became

the

capital of Kyrghyzstan.
Certain economic and social reforms such as land collectivization specially those in Tadzhikistan created much tension.

Joseph Stalin considered all this anti-revolutionary activity.
He branded people promoting and/or voicing this resentment as anti-party Muslim nationalists, counter-revolutionaries and deviationists, opposing reforms. He purged them
all in the 1930s, attributing wrong doings to them in the
1920s and 1930s.
The Soviet constitution separated the church and the
state, but provided freedom of religion. The anti-religious
propaganda of the Soviet government tried to eliminate religion from Soviet life. The Soviet government closed religious
places and schools, proscribed religious books such as the
Bible and the Qur’an. It spared no effort, and means to encourage atheism. During the Second World War (1939-45),

however, it pursued a soft policy towards all religions in the
USSR. In 1942, Joseph Stalin made a concordat with the
prominent

Tatar

Mufti

Abdurrahman

Rasuley,

giving the

Soviet Muslims a central religious organization with offices at
Ufa, Mahhak

Kala, Baku and Tashkent. The Soviet Muslims

responded by extending full cooperation in the war effort.
An all Union Congress of the Soviet Muslims held at Ufa, the
capital of the Bashkir ASSR of the RSFSR, in June 1942 called

upon Muslims everywhere to help defeat Nazism.

TSARIST/SOVIET TURKESTAN

121

Towards the end of the 1980s the Soviet government returned to the Spiritual Board for Muslims of Central Asia
and Kadzakhstan (DUMSAK) a number of old mosques such
as the Qur’an Mosque in Bukhara and the Mausoleum and
Mosque of Muhammad Bahaettin (1317/18-1389)', the great
saint of Turkestan, in the suburbs of Samarkand. It also opened the tomb of Abu Muhammad, a native of the town of

Tirmiz and the author of one of the six authentic books on
the hadis, containing traditions from and about Prophet
Muhammad and his companions. The al-Jami al-Sahih of
Muhammad b. Isma’il Abu Abd Allah al-Nufi al-Bukhari
(809/10-870)?,

the corpus of traditions, is one of the most

important sections in the collection of the hadis. The Soviet
Muslims welcomed these concessions even-though they were
quite aware of Moscow’s motivation.
Up to 1924, the Kazaks, Kyrgyzes, and Turkmens

had no

scripts of their own. The literate Kazaks, Kyrgyzes, and Turkmens used the Arabo-Persian script. The works of Abu’l
Hasan Rudaki and Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Abu Ali Ibn Sina—

the great minds of Central Asia—were in this script. The
Soviet government’s language authorities changed the scripts
of the languages of Soviet Central Asia from the AraboPersian script first to the Roman and then to the Cyrillic
script in the 1930s. The Soviet authorities, who introduced

alphabets based on the modified Cyrillic alphabets, said that
the Arabo-Persian script was impracticable in the case of the
phonetic peculiarities of the Kazak, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and
Uzbek and their syntax and grammar. Perhaps correct
cyrillically, this distorted names such as Ashkhabad for
Ashkabad, Mukhamed Bakhouttin for Muhammad Bahaettin,

Mukhamedov for. Muhammad, Tadzhik for Tajik, etc. The
Russian custom of adding “chev”/“cheva”, “ev”

/“eve”, “yev’/

“yeva” to the last names of Muslim men and women
metamorphosed their historical-cultural roots.
'Born in Village Kushk Hindvana Kushk Arifan near Bukhara.
2Born in Bukhara, buried near Samarkand.

also

~

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The Turki linguistics had a long tradition in pre-revolutionary Russia. Many academic savants such as V.V. Radlov
(1837-1918) and V.V. Barthold (1869-1930) had distinguished

themselves as eminent Turkologists in the Tsarist period. But
it was the Soviet authorities which made Russian the lingua
franca in Soviet Central Asia as elsewhere in the non-Slavic
USSR. The policy of linguistic unification
always troubled them (Soviet authorities).

there, however,

CHAPTER 6

Autonomous

Central Asia

ONTEMPORARY CENTRAL ASIA comprises, like historical
Central Asia, two, almost equal, parts: East Central Asia,
that is Tibet and Xinjiang, and West Central Asia, i.e. Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
Politically and economically, the status of the two parts of

Contemporary Central Asia is of varying degrees. While Tibet
and Xinjiang are autonomous regions, Kadzakstan, Kyrgzstan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,

and Turkmenistan

are independent

states. While Tibet and Xinjiang are developing, Kadzakstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are already developed. Socially,
the heritage of both parts is splendid. In short, Contemporary
Central Asia is the Shangrilla of Asia and the world but it is
no longer their “lost horizon”. Contemporary Central Asia is
now on its way of past splendour.
TIBET

The People’s Liberation (PLA) of China marched into Tibet

in 1950. The Government of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) made an agreement with the government of the Dalai
Lama of Tibet in Beijing on 23 May 1951 concerning the
political status of Tibet vis-a-vis China. The agreement placed
the foreign relations, defence and communications of Tibet

under the PRC Government and provided autonomy to Tibet
in its internal affairs. It separated religion and politics in
Tibet, but enjoined the PRC government not to change the

status of the Dalai Lama and other grand lamas of Tibet and
not to interfere in the religious beliefs of the Tibetan people.

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of People’s Republic of China

(PRC)

constituted Tibet as the Zizhiqu/Tibet Autonomous Region
(TAR)

on 30 September

1965 and re-structured its feudal

political institution. Besides the Tibetans, the Qiangs, Mongors, Uygurs, Dungans, Hans, Lhobas, Monpas, a. 1 other

inhabit Tibet. As in the other autonomous regions such as
the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR), the PRC

Government also formed autonomous areas in the Lhoba
and Monpa minority areas bordering Bhutan and India.
The PRC Government constructed the Qinghai-Tibet,
Sichuan-Tibet, Xinjiang-Tibet and Yunnan-Tibet highways
(as well as roads inside Tibet itself) and the Gonggar (Lhasa)

airport to link Tibet by surface and air with the interior of
China. It also built postal and telecommunications to link

Tibet with other parts of China. And it built an oil pipeline
from Golmed to Lhasa for strengthening the defence of the
borders of South-West China.
The PRC Government abolished serfdom and the practices
of the serf system in Tibet, cancelling the debts, which the
serfs owed the serfowners, monastic or secular. Often the
serfs had no houses and lived in low sheds under the eves of
their owner’s house or in his stable. The serfs could not even

marry without the knowledge and permission of their owners.
Children born to a serf family were the property of the
owner. Serfowners could exchange or transfer, mortgage or
present their serfs as gifts. The serfs, who could not stand

their owners’ exploitation, ran away. The PRC Government
also constructed huts for the pastoral herders. It broke up
the great estates and distributed them among the peasants.
In accordance with the law governing regional autonomy
(1984),

the PRC

Government

formed

and

implemented

measures for the socio-economic development of Tibet. It
developed electrical schemes and set up industries. It supplemented agriculture and animal husbandry, historically the
main industries of Tibet, by commerce and industry, built
irrigation canals and hydro, geothermal, solar and wind
energy power stations in Tibet.

AUTONOMOUS

CENTRAL ASIA

125

The Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region introduced compulsory education, established modern schools
and colleges and universities and academies and the Institute
of Buddhism. It established medical and health care organizations and improved public health conditions. It surveyed
Tibetan inscriptions (on stone tables and wooden slips) and

manuscripts and published the classics of the heritage of
Tibet. It tried to repair the damage done during the ultra-left
disruption and cultural revolution by adopting measures to
protect cultural monuments such as the Jokhang Temple
and the leading monasteries. It renovated the Potala Place in
Lhasa, the largest castle complex in the world, during 19841994. Archaeologists of the Administrative Commission on
Cultural Relics of the Tibet Autonomous Region collected,
and published even the prehistory rock paintings on the
Tibetan plateau. It has published most of the great epic
Gesar in 62 volumes.
In short, despite the Western design to separate Tibet
from China, the PRC Government has made its headway
there. Its takeover of Tibet has been, in a way, a blessing in
disguise. The Buddhist culture of Tibet has become known,
in an unprecedented way, throughout the world. Since then,
thousands of Tibetans have left their country. And, sorry to
say this, whatever the politics, they may never return to their
native land.
XINJIANG

The Government of the People’s Republic of China reduced
the landlords to peasant status and abolished the existing
methods of land and irrigation water ownership in Xinjiang
in 1952-53. The language authorities of the People’s Republic
of China cyrillized the Arabo-Persian script of the languages
of the Uygur and other Turk groups in Xinjiang, perhaps to
placate the Soviet government, in August 1955, but romani-

zed it in June 1958, when it felt that cyrillization created
bonds between adjacent them and their fellow tribesman in
the republic groups of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

~

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(USSR). The peoples of Xinjiang, especially the pro-independence groups, resisted the language policy of the PRC Government. Mahmud al-Kashgari had written his encyclopaedic
Diwan-i Lugat at-Turk not only in the Arabic script but also in
the Arabic language. This was in accord with the spirit of the
time, of the Arab Khilafat. The Uygur dialect was the first
Turkic dialect to be reduced to alphabetical writing, its script

developing from the Sugdi script.
The PRC Government constituted Xinjiang as the Xinjiang
Uygur Zizhiqul Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR),
commonly called Xinjiang, on 1 October 1955, Besides the
Uygurs, the Han, Kirgiz, Tajik, Kazak, Hui, Mongol, Uzbek,

Tatar, Slav and other people inhabit Xinjiang, the biggest of
China’s autonomous regions and provinces. As in the
autonomous regions of the country such as the Ningxia Hui
Autonomous

Region

(NHAR),

it also formed

autonomous

counties and special administration areas in the Mongol and
Xibe and the Kazak and Kirgiz and the Tajik minority areas.
The Kazaks and Mongols spread in several parts in North

Xinjiang such as Barkol, Hoboskar. The Ili Kazak Autonomous
County (Kulja/Yining) comprised the three districts of the
former Republic of East Turkistan

(RET). The insertion of

the term Uygurin the nomenclature of Xinjiang was politically
satisfying to the Uygurs who had been striving for it since the

1940s. It was recognition of the reality. The PRC Government
also renamed Dihua, restoring the old name Urumgi (Ch:
Wulumugq’1) as the metropolis of the XUAR. It reinstated the
Arabo-Persian script in the XUAR in July 1980.
Besides,

economic

reforms

and

development,

the PRC

Government built highways, railways and airlines and schools
and colleges, universities and academies,

hospitals, in the

XUAR. Its historians and scholars made extensive surveys of
the documents in Khroshthi

(Sanskrit) and Sugdi scripts of

ancient Xinijang. The discovery of Xinjiang under its sanddunes by Chinese archaeologists may become the wonder of
wonders, more wonderful than the discovery of Aurel Stein

in the first years of the twentieth century. In short, despite

AUTONOMOUS

CENTRAL ASIA

127

odds such as ethnic disturbances and the Western design to
weaken China’s position in Xinjiang, the PRC Government
has made its headway in geostrategic Xinjiang.
Populations in Tibet and Xinjiang have grown since the
PRC Government took them in 1949-50, although the populations there are still sparse, the density being only one to
two people per square kilometre. However, the immense
natural resources of both of them affect this. Tibet has important energy and mineral resources and Xinjiang has
important oil and gas resources. Tibet is the most important
producer of wool and furs. Xinjiang is the most important
producer of cotton and grain. Their government are rapidly
developing these resources.
Theoretically, the Government of the People’s Republic
practices regional autonomy in areas inhabited by compact
communities of national minorities to function as government

for the management of their own affairs. But, practically due
to the location of Tibet and Xinjiang along China’s international

borders, the conduct of their affairs has been the

exclusive concern of Beijing. Else, there is no other difference
between its autonomous regions and provinces.

CHAPTER 7

States of West Central Asia

IKE THE Other republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR) on a supposedly voluntary basis of the
principle of federalism, the republics of Soviet Central Asia
and Kadzakhstan had powers such as the right to secede
from the USSR, the right to enter into diplomatic relations
with other states of the world, and so on. And, except the

ethnical riots and disturbances in West Central Asia from
1986 to 1990 such as the riots in Alma

Ata, the capital of

Kadzakhstan', in December 1986 in protest against the appointment of Gennadii Kolbin as the first secretary of the
Communist Party of Kadzakhstan in place of Dinmukhamed
Kunaev on 17 December

1986, in Ashkhabad,

the capital of

Turkmenistan, in May 1989, in Kokand in Uzbekistan on 9
June, in Dushanbe, the capital of Tadzhikistan, on 11 February

1990, in Osh? in Kyrghyzstan on 16 July 1990, no political
movement in Soviet Central Asia and Kadzakhstan for
independence from the USSR had surfaced. The 1986-90
ethnical riots and disturbances were the consequence of
mainly unsettled socio-economic issues and were autonomist,
not secessionist, in complexion.
The sovereign republics of Soviet Central Asia and Kadzakhstan, created under the Soviet policy of nationalities in
1924 and 1936, declared their separation from the Soviet
Union, like the other republics of the erstwhile USSR, after

the coup détat of 20 August 1991 against President Mikhail
'Moved to Akmola in the north on 11 December 1997. Now it is Astana.
*The Osh event led to the blockade of oil from Azerbayjan and gas from
Turkeministan by Uzbekistan.

STATES OF WEST CENTRAL ASIA

129

Sergeer Gorbachev. Uzbekistan was the first to join the USSR
on 27 October 1927 and the first to leave it on 31 August
1991. Kadzakhstan was the lasi to join it on 5 December 1936
and the last to leave it on 16 December 1991.
On the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Soviet

Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and Belorussia (Belrus

since then) formed the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) in Minsk, the capital of Belorussia, on 8 December

1991. The republics of West Central Asia announced to adhere to the Minsk Declaration

on

13 December

1991 in

Ashkhabad and joined the CIS in Alma Ata on 21 December
1991. Turkmenistan attended the CIS meetings only as an
observer in the beginning. The Alma Ata announcement of
13 December 1991 formally put an end to the Soviet Union,
founded by treaty in Moscow on 30 December 1922. Since
then, the sovereign independent states of West Central Asia
have been member states of the Council of Heads of State,
Council of Heads of Government, etc., set up within the CIS.

They have also signed all the CIS bilateral and multilateral.
The governments of the republics of the status of Central
Asia

restructured

the infrastructures

of their institutions,

reorganised their administrative apparatus and reoriented
their functions, but retained elements of their former Soviet

institutions or indigenized and/or reformed
Karimov,

them. Islam

the President of Uzbekistan said that one should

not demolish one’s own house before building a new one.
The governments changed the names and spellings of their
republics, cities, streets and public places, towns and villages.

Alma Ata became Almaty; Frunze, the capital of Kyrghyzstan,
became

Bishkek; Ashkhabad,

the capital of Turkmenistan,

became Ashgabat. Even the Kazak name Zambul reverted to
its old name Aulia Ata.
The governments removed the statues of Marx and Engels
and Lenin and Stalin from streets and public places. The
Frunze Boulevard in Samarkand became the Timur Boulevard.
The Government of Tajikistan named a street, in Dushanbe,
Isma’il after the founder of the first ever Tajik dynasty. The

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Government of Uzbekistan built a majestic monument to
Timur in the square of his name in Tashkent. It also
constructed the museum of Timur and Timuri dynasty in
Tashkent. Emir Timur heads the list of new names: even
certain villages and farms bear his name now. The Uzbek
Government made a national park in the name of Sultan
Babur in Andijan, his birthplace. There is also a museum of
Babur and Babur dynasty. It recognized Farabi, Ibn Sina,
Bukhari, Tirmizi, Bahaettin Nakshband as the great ancestors
of Uzbekistan. It also decided to rename ali non-native historical,

natural

and

other

local features

and

placenames

conveying anything Russian and Soviet that offended the
Uzbek elites. On 31 July 1966, it dismantled monuments of
14 Bolshevik commissars, who had been executed during the

anti-Soviet rebellion in 1919. Then it destroyed the statue of
Maxim Gorkey. The statue of Yuldash Akhun, the first Uzbek
Soviet leader, has already fallen. Now the Uzbeks look on
Emir Timur as the most heroic of Central Asia. All this has
been a part of the Uzbek attempt to recreate the history and
heritage of Uzbekistan. Changes in the names of villages,
towns, districts and provinces have been maximum in
Kyrgyzstan.

The governments of the republics of the states of West
Central Asia renamed their legislatures (e.g., Kazakstan: Senate
and Mejlis, ‘Tajikistan: Mejlise Oli, Uzbekistan: Oli Mejlis,
Turkmenistan:

Mali Majles) and created their own

consti-

tutions, anthems, flags, and so on. They established diplomatic
missions abroad. They changed from rouble to their own
currencies (e.g., Kazakstan: Tenge, Kyrgystan: Soum, Uzbekistan: Sum, Turkmenistan: Manat), developed their custom
posts, etc.
At the meeting held in Bishkek on 23 April 1992, the
heads of state of Central Asia committed themselves to the
treaties signed by the erstwhile USSR and recognized the
“permanence” of their existing boundaries. At the meeting
in Tashkent on 5 January 1993, they changed the nomenclature of the region from Central Asia and Kadzakstan to

STATES OF WEST CENTRAL ASIA

131

Central Asia. They agreed to have common policies on taxation, pricing, exports, Customs and investment, etc. They also

agreed to retain the rouble currency zone, at the meeting
held in Tashkent on 24 January 1994, they created the intergovernmental Central Asian Council. The presidents of
Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan also discussed the
establishment of a common market, free borders and other
similar measures. The presidents of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan signed an accord of eternal friendship among
their nations in Bishkek on 10 January 1997. They had signed
an alliance in January 1994.
The process of the transformation of the tribes of West
Central Asia into nationalities had progressed sufficiently up
to 1991, when they emerged as nations. Their transformation
to full-fledged nations, however, was not quite complete then.
They had not yet put their tribal past behind them, although
they possessed the traits of modern nations. They had preserved, and do so even now, their tribal and clan stratifica-

tions. The governments of their republics possess all the
basic means such as the propaganda systems, and so on,
necessary to spread the idea of nationhood.
The states of West Central Asia had also been not devoid

of border and territorial disputes between them, and with
their neighbours such as China. There were parts of Siberia
(Russia) in Kazakstan. The Kazaks claimed Orenburg. The
Turkmens voiced ciaim to the Mangishlak peninsula on the
north-east shore of the Caspian Sea. The Uzbeks claimed the
Osh Oblast, the most agricultural part of Kyrgyzstan but
Uzbek ethnically and historically. The Karakalpaks wanted to
separate from Uzbekistan. The governments of the republics
also faced the problems of refugees and migrants, and related
problems. Minorities spread all over, the Armenians, Baluchis

and others living in Turkmenistan, the Jews, Koreans and
others living in Uzbekistan

and the Slavs (Russians, Belo-

russians and Ukrainians) living in all of them. Kazakstan and
Kyrgyzstan are the most multi-ethnic states.
The governments of the republics of the states of Central

132

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

Asia, risen from the process of decolonization, accepted
their colonial borders. Whether these borders were relevant

or not, their redrawing can be dangerously volatile at any
time. The work of the Delimitation Commission of the Soviet
government of 1924, though meant to divide the people, and

break their unity then, has proved to be quite useful in
retrospect.

KAZAKSTAN
Kazakstan, the largest of the countries of West Central Asia
between the Altai and Tianshan ranges of mountains in the
east and the Aral and Caspian Seas in the west, borders
Russia, Mongolia,

China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan

and Turk-

menistan. Janibek and Kire had formed the first Kazak khanate
(state) in 1465.
The

Kazaks

had

fought,

for centuries,

the Bashkirs,

a

Finno Ugrian people inhabiting the region south of the
Urals, and the Tatars. They were the first Central Asians to
come under Russian domination in the 1730s-40s. The
monarchy of Khan Tauke (r. 1680-1718), who compiled the
Kazak laws for the first time, was a limited monarchy.

Tsar

Peter the Great sent F. Skibin as his envoy to him (Khan
Tauke).

The Kazaks are a minority in their own native land now,
the Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians) being its majority. The
Kazak leaders, in order to establish numerical equation with
the Slavs, have called for the return of all Kazaks, who had
fled their vatan, homeland, after the Russian Revolution of

1917. The Kazaks, specially those in Mongolia, have enthusiastically responded to this call. About 4 million Kazaks,
almost half of the Kazak population of Kazakstan, live in
neighbouring and other countries. They had moved from
their homeland in the eighteenth-twentith centuries due to
the Kazak-Oyrat wars in the eighteenth century, the uprisings
against Russian colonization in the eighteenth-nineteenth
centuries and the liberation movement against the Tsarist

STATES OF WEST CENTRAL ASIA

133

regime, the advent of the Soviet rule, land and collectivization

in the first part of the twentith century. The Kazaks in Turkey
are from Xinjiang, China. They moved from there in the
1940s, via India. The Government

of Kazakstan

has immi-

gration law granting refugee status to Kazak immigrants.
Kazakstan was the first country of West Central Asia to sign
an agreement with Russia in Moscow on 26 May 1992, calling
for a single security zone to be defended jointly, and for the
common use of the Baikanor Cosmodrome, etc. In January
1995, Kazakstan and Russia agreed to unite their armed
forces. Geographically, Kazakstan is Russia’s main ally in
West Central Asia, and Asia.

The Government

of Kazakstan

moved

its capital from

Almaty (formerly Alma Ata) in the extreme east, close to the

China
extreme

border,
north,

to Akmola
close

(formerly Tselingorad)

to the Russia

border,

in the

in 1995.

The

authorities of Kazakstan aspire to attain the development
level of the contemporary world by fusing its tradition and
modernity.
UZBEKISTAN

Uzbekistan, the most central of the countries of West Central

Asia, is the land of legend. It had a glorious past. Except for
the Buran Minar in Kyrgyzstan, and the tomb of Sultan
Sanzar in Turkmenistan,

most of the historical monuments

of West Central Asia are in Uzbekistan. Despite this proud
heritage, the Uzbek elites, intellectual and political, were
reluctant, on the eve of independence
from the Soviet Union.

in 1991, to secede

Uzbekistan signed its first treaty of friendship with Russia
at Moscow on 31 May 1992. At the signing ceremony, President
Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan said that Uzbekistan understood
the role of Russia in West Central Asia, and that “...without
mutual cooperation with Russia, neither we nor our neigh-

bours can overcome the present crisis.” Since then, he has
constantly emphasized the desirability of cooperation between
Russia and the countries

of West Central Asia. Kazakstan,

134

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan also have developed, for different
reasons of course, mutual relations with Russia. By the treaty
on collective security signed by Russia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in Tashkent on 15 May 1992, Russian
troops and frontier guards hold the Amu Darya border of
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Government
of Turkmenistan placed its armed forces under joint RussoTurkmen control. Armenia also became signatory to the
treaty on collective security in 1992. Azerbaijan, Belrus and

Georgia also later adhered to it. The Caspian Sea Flotilla is
under the joint control of Russia, Kazakstan and Turmenistan.
The first concern

of the rulers of Uzbekistan,

in the im-

mediate post-independence years, were the strengthening of
national statehood in accordance with its heritage. Since the
mid-1990s, economics and foreign policy have been their
main concern.
The Kazaks and Uzbeks descend from the Mongols and
the Tatars. Their nobilities claim descent from Chingiz Khan.
They were part of the Dasht-i Kipchak ofJochi, the eldest son
of Chingiz Khan. The Kazaks founded their Great, Middle
and Little Zhuzes and converted to Islam in the fifteenth
century. Originally, the names Kazak and Uzbek were political,
not ethnonymous. The Uzbeks derive their name from Uzbek
Khan

(r. 1312-42) of Dasht-i Kipchak.
‘TURKMENISTAN

Turkmenistan is a large. country. Like Uzbekistan, it is an
antique land. The writ of Kurus (Cyrus the Great r. 555529 sc) of Iran and Alexander of Macedonia

(329-327 sc)

ran here. In its subsequent development as the empire of
Parthia, south-east of the Caspian Sea, it included Khwarezm,

Khurasan. Hircania (modern Gurgan) was the capital of the
Parthian Empire (250 sBc-ap 226). Arsaces (c. 247-226 Bc)

even waged war against the Roman Empire to control the
trade with China, India and the Eastern Roman Empire. In

the beginning of the second century ap, Parthia was, along
with China, India and Rome, one of the great powers of the

STATES OF WEST CENTRAL ASIA

135

world. It extended up to the East Mediterranean Sea and
bordered the Roman Empire. The Parthians first built their
capital at Nisa, near present-day Ashgabat. Marv (modern
Mary) was a stage on the ancient Silk Route.
From north to south, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan are the

major countries of West Central Asia. Kazakstan borders
China and Russia and Turkmenistan borders Afghanistan
and Iran. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan being the
smallest country of West Central Asia, also border China.
Hence their strategic importance, Tajikistan is a solitary example unless the happening of the unforeseen. It has been
through a difficult civil war situation, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan are important in the context of China and Iran.
The China-Kazakstan and Iran-Turkmenistan borders are
long.
Historically, Central Asia was of much concern to China
and Iran. Both ancient China and Iran erected barriers and
fortifications—China its Great Wall from the Gansu Province

in the west to the Liaotung peninsula in the east, Iran its
Sadd-i Sikander north of the Kurgan River from the Caspian
Sea in the west to the mountains in the east-—against tribal
depredations from the north. Instead of the former one
Russian/Soviet

border,

China

now

has three borders with

West Central Asia (that is, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan). There is no change in Iran’s border with Turkmenistan. The Iran-Turkmenistan border, which had been
closed after the Iranian Revolution of 1906-11, has been

open since 1991, especially for border trade between them.
Until 1680 there had been constant conflicts between the
Persians and the Turkmens and the Uzbeks. The situation is
different now: the people of West Central Asia, particularly

the Turkmens, look for exit passage, not for plunder, to the
world through Iran. Krasnovodsk on the eastern shore of the
Caspian Sea is Turkemenistan’s only port.
How do China and Iran feel now? Are Kazakstan and
Turkmenistan of the same concern to them? The diplomatic
presences of China and Iran in the states of Central Asia

136

CENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK HISTORY

shows their concern.

As regards its over 3,500-mile long

border with West Central Asia, the Government of the People’s
Republic of China first endorsed the documents, which it

had signed with the government of the former USSR. On 26
April 1996, the presidents of China and Russia, Kazakstan,

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed in Shanghai a treaty relating
to their 4,500-mile long border with China and aiming to
build confidence on their common borders. On 27 December
1996, their governments singed an accord in Beijing on
reducing forces along those borders. On 24 April 1997, the
presidents of China and Russia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan singed a treaty in Moscow to reduce troop levels on
their borders. Iran has built up ties with the states of West
Central Asia. It constructed a joint rail link between Mashhad
and Sarakhs in April-May 1996, providing Turkmenistan access
to Bander Abbas in the Persian Gulf.
As between

China, Iran and West Central Asia, the con-

nection between India and West Central Asia is also historical.
India’s link with Central Asia traces to the very dawn of
civilization. But, except for a short strip of Tajikistan in the
Pamir region, India and the countries of West Central Asia
have no common borders. Yet India is their close neighbour,

particularly ‘Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, for reasons of history
and culture. India has full diplomatic presence in all of the
republics of Central Asia. Its interests and concerns there are
not like the interests and concerns of British or Mughul
India. They are along different lines, i.e. along lines of equality
and cooperation, not competition or confrontation.
Iran and Turkey, historical rivals, exhibited great interest
in the post-1991 republics of West Central Asia. On the
emergence of the republics of erstwhile Soviet Central Asia
as sovereign independent states in December 1991, they
involved themselves for influence in their politics. The leaders
of the Turki-speaking countries of West Central Asia also
considered Turkey as their most fraternal friend and, among
other things, link with the United States of America (USA).

They praised it highly. Even President Rakhmon Nabiev of

STATES OF WEST CENTRAL ASIA

137

the Persian-speaking Tajikistan presented President Suleyman Demirel of Turkey a golden heart.
Iran concentrated on Tajikistan because of common ethnical, linguistic and cultural affinity. It established an airlink
between Mashhad and Dushanbe on 23 January 1992. It
signed an agreement with Tajikistan for economic and technological cooperation and implementation ofjoint projects.
The civil war in Tajikistan, however, prevented its execution.

A conference for the construction of a Near East Railway
Line held in Tehran on | February 1992 emphasized cargo
transportation from West Central Asia via Iran. It concluded
certain important deals with Turkmenistan—railway and road
to North Iran with an outlet to the Persian Gulf, an idea first
announced in the time of Muhammed Reza Shah Pahlavi (r.

1941-79, d. 1980) but not developed for political reasons.
Turkey concentrated on Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan because of ethnical linguistic and religious
roots. Turkey initiated four conferences of Turkic countries
in 1992-94, two at the level of heads of state in Ankara and

Istanbul on 20-21 October 1992 and two at the level of public
in Anadolu

(oid Anatolia)

in March

1994 and in Izmir in

October 1994. President Suleyman Demirel of Turkey suggested the establishment of an alliance of Turkic states.
According to President Demirel, the Turkic nations inhabit

Eurasia from the Great Wall of China to the Adriatic Sea. The
conferences recommended the conversion of the Turkic
script from the Cyrillic to the Roman as used in Turkey, the
production of dictionary of Turkic dialects, etc. The Government of Turkey pledged $ 2 billion to them and established
contact with the governments of the Central Asian republics
in the sphere of education, including military training, and
so on, in 1992-93. President Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakstan

and President Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan paid state visits to
Ankara.
Besides the CIS, the states of West Central Asia are members
not only of the United Nations (UN) and its specialized

agencies, and organizations, but the Organization of Islamic

138

CENTRAL ASIA:

A TEXTBOOK

HISTORY

Conference (OIC), and others. Uzbekistan had first joined
OIC as an observer. The governments of the states of West
Central Asia constantly explore ways and means of economic
development

through

mutual

cooperation

(power, water,

railways, outlets). Except for President Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan (he was then the head of the Academy of Sciences of his
Republic), they were heads of the Communist Parties of their
Republics, and most reluctant to break away from the Soviet

state. They had no experience and/or preparation in selfgovernment and world affairs. They have, however, frustrated
thus far the game of power politics in their region.
The natural resources—gas and oil and minerals and
metal—of the countries of West Central Asia are large. West
Central Asia is one of the richest regions of raw materials in
the world. The proper harnessing of these resources can
enable West Central Asia to take the first rank economic
position in the world. Of course, this will greatly depend on
the continuity and/or

the increase of decrease

or the pre-

1991 development tempo, technological and economic,
especially the water resource management, by the governments of the republics of West Central Asia. It may also be
necessary for them

to establish structures, and institutions,

which they have not know thus far. Certainly the ideals of
democracy are fascinating. But before the introduction of
the institutions of democracy in a society, which had been,
until recently, under the hold of an authoritarian regime,
adequate preparatory work is prerequisite. And so on and so
forth.

Postface

C ENTRAL ASIA: A TEXTBOOK History is a history of the events
and issues of Central Asia, that is Tibet, Xinjiang, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakstan, and Kyrgyzstan,

from the ancient to the present time. It comprehends the
geographical, anthropological, intellectual and other processes in Central Asia. It is not a full description of the time,
life and

cultures

of Central

Asia, its artistic and

scientific

aspects, nor its events and issues.
All Central Asia has seldom been a single political entity of
the continent ofAsia. Except Tibet, the alien Mongols united
it in one, their own, sovereignty, although the Mongol armies
brought the biggest of upheavals there. The Mongols
governed Tibet through the regency of the head of the Sakya
Sect of the Buddhism of Tibet. The Turks tried to unite
Central Asia, but Emir Timur (r. 1369/70-1405) died on the

Syr Darya in the winter of 1405 on his way to conquer China.
The British and the Russians were rivals in the “Great Game”
ofpolitics in Central Asia in the nineteenth and early twentith
centuries. The Chinese and Soviet Communists struggled for
primacy there in the second half of the twentieth century.
Since 1991 the western half of all Central Asia has emerged
as its five national sovereign independent states.
East Central Asia—Tibet and Xinjiang—has witnessed

much history from the ancient time to the present. It has
been the realm of Yoyal nomads, indigenous monarchs and
the Turk, Tungus, Mongol and Manchu imperialisms. It has
also been under the sway of Chinese warlords, Japanese
militarists and Chinese commissars. Japanese expansion on
the mainland traced to Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98). Japan

140

POSTFACE

and Russia concerned themselves with Korea and Mongolia
respectively in the early twentith century.
The history of Tibet developed mostly in isolation, due
partly to its geographical and partly to its social situations.
Ideas from the adjacent countries,

China and India, pene-

trated it only intermittently. The process of unification of the
country began with the kings of the Yarlung valley in the
sixth century. The Tibetans even united East Central Asia in
one sovereignty. The empire, which Songtsen Gampo founded
in the 620s, collapsed in the 840s and, on its collapse, Tibet
again broke up into petty principalities. It remained disintegrated up to the time of the Sakya theocracy which again
tried to unite it with the patronage of the Mongols. Dalai
Lama Losang Gyasto of the theocracy, of the Gelug Sect,
again with the patronage of the Mongols, completed its
reunification. As part of the “Greate Game” of politics in
Central Asia, Britain tried to spirit Tibet away from weak
China. A strong China reasserted itself in Tibet in 1949-51.
Xinjiang as Xi’Yu, oasis kingdoms, Liyul, Karakhanate and
Gurkhanate, Mogolistan, and eventually Xinjiang went

through much unstability. Mogolistan, as the appanage of
Chagatai,

a son

of Chingiz

Khan,

was

rather

stable.

Abu

Say’id, the Sultan of Mogolistan even thought of bringing
East Central Asia under one, his own, sovereignty by taking
Tibet. He reached the Nubra Valley of Ladakh in 1531. But
he died in 1533. Except for the frontier region of Tibet
bordering China proper, the Mings evinced little interest in
East Central Asia. The Manchus sought to take historical
position of China in East Central Asia. But they had intricate

involvement with the Western, Oyrat Mongols up to 1757.
They also had the Westerners knocking at the sea gates of
China in the south and the Russians on its borders in the
north. The Muslims of the Tarim region also gave the Manchus
no end of trouble. China was really weak from 1911-49, but

it is not so now.
Like East Central Asia, West Central Asia—Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakstan and Kyrgyzstan—also has

POSTFACE

141

witnessed much history from the ancient time to the present.
It has been the realm of indigenous monarchs and Greek,
Karakhitai, Mongol and Tsarist/Soviet imperialisms. Its first
history is the history of the Balkh, Sogd and Parthia native
kingdoms. The Turks of Karabalgasun of the Orkhon region,
who first emerged as Uygurs in East Central Asia in 840,
eventually indigenized themselves in all Central Asia. In the
second part of the nineteenth century and through most of
the twentith century, West Central Asia went through the tug
of war of the Anglo-Tsarist/Soviet “great game” of politics
and the Sino-Soviet tussle for primacy. West Central Asia
since 1991 has, up to now, frustrated the new “great game”.
Only time will tell its hereafter.

Bibliography

Adshead, S.A.M.,
Central Asia
Macmillan, 1993.

in World

History,

London:

Bosworth, C.E., The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan
and Eastern Iran, 944-1040,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1963; reprint, New Delhi, 1996.

Douglas-Jackson, W.A., Russo-Chinese Borderlands, Princeton,
1962.
Fieldhouse, D.K.,

The Colonial Empires, London,

1969.

Huntington, Ellsworth, Pulse of Asta, Boston, 1917.
Krader, Lawrence,
Mouton, 1963.

The People of Central Asia, The

Hague:

Lattimore, Owen, and Eleanor, eds., Silks, Spices and Empire,
New York, 1968.

McGovern, William Montgomery, The Early Empires of Central
Asia, Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press, 1939.
Menges, Karl H.(enrich), The Turkic Languages and Peoples,
Vienna,

1968.

Parker, E.H., A Thousand Years of the Tartars, London, 1895.
Sicker, Martin, The Bear and the Lion: Soviet Imperialism and

Tran, New York, 1988.
Tarn, W.W., The Greeks in Bactria and India, Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 1938, second edition, 1952; reprint,
New Delhi, 1980.
UNESCO,

History of Civilizations of Central Asia, 4 vols., Paris,

1992-98.

Wadia, D.N.,

The Post-glacial Desiccation of Central Asia, New

Delhi, 1960

Yule, Henry, Cathay and the Way Thither, 2 vols., London, 1866;
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Professor Ram Rahul, a native of Delhi, is

the first Indian academic of Central Asia and

the doyen of Central Asia. He has travelled

extensively in Central Asia and written quite
a bit on the different aspects of its history.

ISBN 81-215-0888-6
Jacket by Rathin Sengupta

Books of related interest
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and its dependencies in Persia, Tartary and India; comprising

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for Independence 1914-21
Abdul Ali Arghandaun

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Their empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 994-1040
Clifford Edmund Bosworth
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Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi