The migrations of the Yueh-Chih.

Yuezhi (Chinese 月氏; Wade-Giles: Yüeh-Chih) is the Chinese name for an ancient Central Asian people. They are believed to have been the same as or closely related to the Tocharians, who spoke an Indo-European language called Tocharian. They were settled in the Tarim Basin area, in what is today Gansu and Xinjiang, in China.

The Yuezhi exodus

Following a defeat in 162 BCE by the Xiongnu (Huns), the Yuezhi fled from the Tarim Basin towards the west, crossed the neighbouring urban civilization of the Ta-Yuan in Ferghana, and settled north of the Oxus in modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. They displaced the Saka Scythians who lived there previously, before being driven out by the Wusun in 132 BCE.

The Yuezhi then fled to the region of Bactria in modern-day Afghanistan, which had been conquered first by the Greeks under Alexander the Great in 330 BCE, and had then been settled by the Greek dynasties of the Seleucids and the Greco-Bactrians for the two centuries ever since. The last Greco-Bactrian king Heliocles I retreated and moved his capital to the Kabul valley. The eastern part of Bactria was occupied by Pashtun people.

As they settled in Bactria from around 125 BCE, the Yuezhi became Hellenized to some degree, as suggested by their adoption of the Greek alphabet and by some remaining coins, minted in the style of the Greco-Bactrian kings, with the text in Greek.

Founders of Kushan empire

Coin of Sapadbizes:
Obv: Bust of Sapadbizes (c 20 BCE). Greek legend CAΠAΛBIZHC "Sapadlizes".
Rev: Lion with Greek legend NANAIA repeated left and right (name of a goddess). Tamgha of hill & crescent. Qunduz mint, in Afghanistan.

By the end of the 1st century BCE, on of the five tribes of the Yuezhi, the Kui-Shan (origin of name Kushan), managed to take control of the Yuezhi confederation. From that point, the Yuezhi extended their control over the northwestern area of the Indian subcontinent, founding the Kushan Empire, which was to rule the region for several centuries.

They integrated Buddhism into a pantheon of many deities, and their interactions with Greek civilization helped the Gandharan culture and Greco-Buddhism flourish.

In the early 1st millennium CE, Central Asian peoples including the Yuezhi/ Kushans were among the first to translate Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Major Yuezhi translators included Lokaksema and Dharmaraksa.

Yuezhi monarchs

• Sapalbizes (c. 20 BCE)
• Agesiles (c. 20 BCE)

References

• Overview of Xiongnu history (http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/mongolia/mongolia14.html) and their wars with the Yuezhi
• Craig Benjamin (http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/Eran/Articles/benjamin.html) on Yuezhi migrations
• Kasim Abdullaev (http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/programmes/2004/abstracts/asia-abdullaev.html) on Yuezhi migrations in Central Asia
• Notes to The Western Regions according to the Hou Han Shu (http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/hhshu/notes13.html) from the University of Washington
• Lokesh Chandra (http://ignca.nic.in/ks_41023.htm) on Yuezhi translators
• Yuezhi Sapadbizes coins (http://home.comcast.net/~pankajtandon/home.html)
• Yuezhi Agesiles coins (http://home.comcast.net/~pankajtandon/home.html)

bg:Юечжи de:Yüe-tschi