Regno indo-parto
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 Territori dell'Impero Indo Parlo nella sua massima estensione. |
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| Lingue | Aramaico Greco (alfabeto greco) Pali (alfabeto Kharoshthi) Sanscrito, Prakrit (alfabeto Brahmi) |
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| Religioni | Zoroastrianismo Buddismo Induismo Religione greca |
| Capitale | Taxila |
| Area | subcontinente indiano nordoccidentale |
| Periodo | 20 - 80 d.C. |
Il Regno Indo-Parto venne fondato nel 1° secolo da Gondofare, e al suo apogeo si estendeva sugli odierni territori dell' Afghanistan, Pakistan e India Settentrionale.
Per gran parte della sua storia, la capitale del regno fu Taxila (nell'odierno Pakistan), ma negli ultimi anni della sua esistenza la capitale fu Kabul (nell'odierno Afghanistan).
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[modifica] Secessione dalla Partia
Intorno al 20, Gondofare, vassallo dei Parti, dichiarò la sua indipendenza dall'Impero parto e fondò l'Impero Indo-Parto nei territori conquistati.
Il regno durò solo un secolo. Iniziò a frammentarsi sotto il regno del successore di Gondofare, Abdagase. Dopo che la parte settentrionale dell'India venne riconquistata dai Kushiti nel 75 circa il regno comprendeva solo l'Afghanistan. L'ultimo re Pacore (100 - 135) governò solo i territori di Sakastan e Turan.
[modifica] Territori
I Parti finirono col controllare territori molto estesi nell'India Settentrionale, dopo aver combattuto molti re locali come il re dell'Impero kushita Kujula Kadphises, nella regione di Gandhara. Durante il regno di Gondofare il regno indoparto comprendeva le regioni di Arachosia, Seistan, Sindh, Gandhara, e la valle di Kabul, but it does not seem he held territory east beyond the Punjab.[2]
Si pensa che la città di Taxila fosse la capitale degli Indo-Parti. Large strata were excavated by Sir John Marshall with a quantity of Parthian-style artifacts. The nearby Hellenistic temple of Jandial is usually interpreted as a Zoroastrian fire temple from the period of the Indo-Parthians.
Some ancient writing describe the presence of the Parthians in the area, such as the story of Saint Thomas the Apostle, who was recruited as a carpenter to serve at the court of king "Gudnaphar" (thought to be Gondophares) in India. The Acts of Thomas describes in chapter 17 Thomas' visit to king Gondophares in northern India; chapters 2 and 3 depict him as embarking on a sea voyage to India, thus connecting Thomas to the west coast of India.
Filostrato afferma nel suo Vita di Apollonio di Tiana che il filosofo greco Apollonio di Tiana visitò l'India, e più precisamente la città di Taxila intorno all'anno 46. Descrive costruzioni di tipo greco, [3] probabilmente riferendosi a Sirkap, e afferma che il re Indo-Parto di Taxila, Fraote, ricevette un educazione ellenistica alla corte del padre e parlava il greco fluentemente:
- "Tell me, O King, how you acquired such a command of the Greek tongue, and whence you derived all your philosophical attainments in this place?"[4]
- [...]-"My father, after a Greek education, brought me to the sages at an age somewhat too early perhaps, for I was only twelve at the time, but they brought me up like their own son; for any that they admit knowing the Greek tongue they are especially fond of, because they consider that in virtue of the similarity of his disposition he already belongs to themselves."[5]
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is a surviving 1st century guide to the routes commonly being used for navigating the Arabian Sea. It describes the presence of Parthian kings fighting with each other in the area of Sindh, a region traditionally known at that time as "Scythia" due to the previous rule of the Indo-Scythians there:
- "This river (Indus) has seven mouths, very shallow and marshy, so that they are not navigable, except the one in the middle; at which by the shore, is the market-town, Barbaricum. Before it there lies a small island, and inland behind it is the metropolis of Scythia, Minnagara; it is subject to Parthian princes who are constantly driving each other out." Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Chap 38[6]
An inscription from Takht-i-Bahi near Hada bears two dates, one in the regnal year 26 of the Maharaja Guduvhara (again thought to be Gondophares), and the year 103 of an unknown era.[7]
[modifica] Gli Indo-Parti in Gandhara
The Indo-Parthians seemingly occupied the area of Gandhara between around 20 CE, when Gondophares took over from the Indo-Scythians, to around 60 CE, when Kujula Kadphises established Kushan rule there.
[modifica] Gli Indo-Parti e le religioni Indiane
To the contrary of the Indo-Greeks or Indo-Scythians, there are no explicit records of Indo-Parthian rulers supporting Buddhism or Hinduism, such as religious dedications, inscriptions, or even legendary accounts. Also, although Indo-Parthian coins generally closely follow Greek numismatics, they never display the Buddhist triratna symbol (apart from the later Sases), nor do they ever use depictions of the elephant or the bull, possible religious symbols which were profusely used by their predecessors.
[modifica] Representation of Indo-Parthian devotees
On their coins and in the art of Gandhara, Indo-Parthians are depicted with short crossover jackets and large baggy trousers, possibly supplemented by chap-like over-trousers.[8] Their jackets are adorned with rows of decorative rings or medals. Their hair is usually bushy and contained with a headband, a practise largely adopted by the Parthians from the 1st century CE.[9]
Individual Indo-Parthians are sometimes shown as actors in Buddhist devotional scenes. It is usually considered that most of the excavations that were done at Sirkap near Taxila by John Marshall relate to Indo-Parthian layers, although more recent scholarship sometimes relates them to the Indo-Greeks instead.[10] These archaeological researches provided a quantity of Hellenistic artifacts combined with elements of Buddhist worship (stupas). Some other temples, such as nearby Jandial may have been used as a Zoroastrian fire temple.
[modifica] Buddhist sculptures
The statues found at Sirkap in the late Scythian to Parthian level (level 2, 1-60 CE) suggest an already developed state of Gandharan art at the time or even before Parthian rule. A multiplicity of statues, ranging from Hellenistic gods, to various Gandharan lay devotees, are combined with what are thought as some of the early representations of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. Today, it is still unclear when the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara exactly emerged, but the findings in Sirkap do indicate that this art was already highly developed before the advent of the Kushans.
[modifica] Stone palettes
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Per approfondire, vedi la voce Stone palette. |
Numerous stone palettes found in Gandhara are considered as good representatives of Indo-Parthian art. These palettes combine Greek and Persian influences, together with a frontality in representations which is considered as characteristic of Parthian art. Such palettes have only been found in archaeological layers corresponding to Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian rule, and are essentially unknown the preceding Mauryan layers or the succeeding Kushan layers.[11]
Very often these palettes represent people in Greek dress in mythological scenes, but a few of them represent people in Parthian dress (head-bands over bushy hair, crossed-over jacket on a bare chest, jewelry, belt, baggy trousers). A palette from the Naprstek Museum in Prague shows an Indo-Parthian king seated crossed-legged on a large sofa, surrounded by two attendants also in Parthian dress. They are shown drinking and serving wine.
 Indo-Parthian man hunting. |
 Indo-Parthian revelers. |
 Indo-Parthian couple. |
 Devotees at a fire altar, possibly Zoroastrian. |
[modifica] Silk Road transmission of Buddhism
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Per approfondire, vedi la voce Silk Road transmission of Buddhism. |
Some pocket of Parthian rule remained in the East, even after the takeover by the Sassanids in 226. From the 2nd century several Central-Asian Buddhist missionaries became in the Chinese capital cities of Loyang and sometimes Nanjing, where they particularly distinguished themselves by their translation work. The first known translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese are actually Parthian missionaries, distinguished in Chinese by their Parthian surname "An", for "Anshi", "country of the Arsacids".
- An Shih Kao, was a Parthian prince, who made the first known translations of Hinayana Buddhist texts into Chinese (148-170).
- An Hsuan, was a Parthian merchant who became a monk in China 181
- Tan-ti (c.254), a Parthian monk.
- An Fachiin (281-306), a monk of Parthian origins.
[modifica] South Indian legacy?
There are some claims based on historical, anthropological, and linguistic evidence indicating that the Southern Indian kingdom of the Pallavas was originally founded by the Parthians, either from Iran or from the territories of the Indo-Parthians in north-werstern India, also called Pahlavas in Indian litterature.[12] These Pahlavas of Indo-Iranian descent would have migrated Southward and first settled in Krishna river valley of present day coastal Andhra Pradesh. This region is called Palnadu or Pallavanadu even today. Pallavas later extended their sway up to Northern Tamil region and established a flourishing empire.
[modifica] Re principali
- Gondofare I (c. 20-50) Coin
- Abdagases I (c. 50-65) Coin
- Satavastres (c. 60) Coin
- Sarpedone (c.70) Coin
- Orthagnes (c. 70) Coin
- Ubouzanes (c. 77) Coin
- Sases or Gondophares II, (c. 85) Coin
- Abdagases II (c. 90) Coin
- Pacores (c. 100) Coin
[modifica] Fonti
- "Les Palettes du Gandhara", Henri-Paul Francfort, Diffusion de Boccard, Paris, 1979.
- "Reports on the campaigns 1956-1958 in Swat (Pakistan)", Domenico Faccenna
- "Sculptures from the sacred site of Butkara I", Domenico Faccena
[modifica] Note
- ^ Photographic reference: "The dynastic art of the Kushans", Rosenfield, figures 278-279
- ^ Rosenfield, p129
- ^ Description of the Hellenistic urbanism of Taxila:
- "Taxila, they tell us, is about as big as Nineveh, and was fortified fairly well after the manner of Greek cities" (Life of Apollonius Tyana, II 20)
- "I have already described the way in which the city is walled, but they say that it was divided up into narrow streets in the same irregular manner as in Athens, and that the houses were built in such a way that if you look at them from outside they had only one story, while if you went into one of them, you at once found subterranean chambers extending as far below the level of the earth as did the chambers above." (Life of Apollonius Tyana, II 23)
- ^ (Life of Apollonius Tyana, II 29)
- ^ (Life of Apollonius Tyana, II 31)
- ^ Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Chap 38
- ^ Rosenfield, p130.
- ^ Described in "Rome's enemies, Parthians and Sassanid Persians", ISBN 0-85045-688-6
- ^ "Parthians, from about the 1st century AD, seem to have preferred to show off their carefully tonsured hair, usually only wearing a fillet of thick ribbon; before then, the Scythian cap or bashlyk was worn more frequently". In "Parthians and Sassanid Parthians" Peter Willcox ISBN 0850456886, p12
- ^ Pierfrancesco Gallieri, in "Crossroads of Asia": "The parallels are so striking that it is not excluded that the objects discovered in Taxila and dated to between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE were in reality produced earlier, maybe by artisans who had followed the Greeks kings during ther retreat from Bactria to India" p211 (in French in the original)
- ^ "Let us remind that in Sirkap, stone palettes were found at all excavated levels. On the contrary, neither Bhir-Mound, the Maurya city preceding Sirkap on the Taxila site, nor Sirsukh, the Kushan city succeeding her, did deliver any stone palettes during their excavations", in "Les palettes du Gandhara", p89. "The terminal point after which such palettes are not manufactured anymore is probably located during the Kushan period. In effect, neither Mathura nor Taxila (although the Sirsukh had only been little excavated), nor Begram, nor Surkh Kotal, neither the great Kushan archaeological sites of Soviet Central Asia or Afghanistan have yielded such objects. Only four palettes have been found in Kushan-period archaeological sites. They come from secondary sites, such as Garav Kala and Ajvadz in Soviet Tajikistan and Jhukar, in the Indus Valley, and Dalverzin Tepe. They are rather roughly made." In "Les Palettes du Gandhara", Henri-Paul Francfort, p91. (in French in the original)
- ^ "India: the ancient past", Burjor Avari, p.186
[modifica] Voci correlate
- Indo-Greek Kingdom
- Indo-Sassanian
- Indo-Scythians
- Kushan Empire
- Yuezhi
- Pahlavas
- Kambojas
