Oxus

The Oxus runs out of the Pamirs across Central Asia. For the history of the Göktürks it is less a river than a line. After Istemi and Khosrow I had destroyed the Hephthalite realm between them, the lands were divided along the river. The country north of it went to the Göktürks, the country south of it to Persia.^[1]

The line held badly. The war of 588 was fought across it, and the Göktürks crossed it without difficulty. The boundary was never a wall.^[1] The small states on its banks paid the khan and traded through Sogdiana. The Iron Gate south of Samarkand marks the furthest point the inscriptions claim on the far side.^[2]

Names of the river

Amu DaryaEnglish
ὮξοςGreek
JayḥūnArabic
VehrotArmenianSebeos 10
烏滸ChineseSui Shu 83

The Sasanian Persians called the river Weh-rōd, “the good river”. The surviving parts of the Avesta do not know this name.^[3] Sebeos has Bahram Chobin cross “the great river which is called Vehrot” and reach a place named Kazbion. The translators take the Vehrot for the Oxus.^[4]^[3] The Chinese histories name a river Wuhu, south of which the Sui Shu and the Wei Shu place the Hephthalite capital. The river is identified as the Oxus.^[5]^[6]^[7] An older reading of the Wei Shu had Ma-hu, the Murghab of Merv, and put the capital in Badghis on that ground. The reading Wuhu has replaced it.^[7] The article on the Hephthalites sets out where the capital lay.

References

^ a b Yavuz 2025
^ Tonyukuk inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 289
^ a b Markwart 1938, p. 34
^ Sebeos, ch. 10; Howard-Johnston 1999, p. 15
^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 83; Wei Shu, juan 102
^ Markwart 1938, p. 47–48
^ a b Herrmann 1925, p. 573

Sources

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)
Aydogdy Kurbanov, The Hephthalites: Archaeological and Historical Analysis (2010)
Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (1968)
Josef Markwart, Wehrot und Arang. Untersuchungen zur mythischen und geschichtlichen Landeskunde von Ostiran (1938)
Albert Herrmann, Die Hephthaliten und ihre Beziehungen zu China (1925)
R. W. Thomson (trans.), James Howard-Johnston (commentary), The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos (1999)