The Liang Shu is the dynastic history of the Liang, who held southern China from 502 to 557. Yao Silian presented it to the Tang court in 636, finishing what his father had begun. For the history of the steppe it matters through its chapter 54, on the foreign peoples. This chapter has sections on the Hephthalites and on the Rouran, whom it calls Ruirui.[1]
The entry on the Hua
The Hephthalites stand in chapter 54 under the name Hua, 滑. The chapter calls them a separate branch of the Cheshi, the people of Turfan.[1] Their king, Yandai Yilituo, 厭帶夷栗陁, was the first to send envoys to the Liang court, in the fifteenth year of Tianjian, 516.[1] In 520 the envoys brought a yellow lion skin, a white marten robe and Persian brocade. In 526 the king sent a letter of tribute.[1][2] The chapter gives the people the name Hua and the name Yandai to the king alone. This may be a sign that the Hephthalite name belonged first to the ruling house and was extended to the whole people later.[3][4]
The entry says that while the Wei held their court at Sanggan, the Hua were a small state under the Rouran.[1][5] Later they grew strong and marched against the neighbouring states of Persia, Panpan, Jibin, Yanqi, Kucha, Shule, Gumo, Khotan and Jupan. They gained more than a thousand li of land.[1] The list may name the states that came under Hephthalite rule. The entry itself says only that the Hua marched against them.[6]
The Hua lived in felt tents whose doors opened to the east. Their king sat on a golden couch that turned with the year and received guests with his wife beside him. They had no writing and kept their reckonings on notched wood. Brothers shared one wife. The Hua worshipped the spirits of heaven and of fire and bowed once.[1]
The Hephthalite language
The Liang Shu reports that the language of the Hephthalites could be understood only through interpreters from Henan, the country of the Tuyuhun.[1] The Wei Shu says in its entry on the Hephthalites that their language differed from that of the Rouran, the Gaoche and the other hu.[7]
The two statements agree that the Chinese had no language of their own acquaintance to set beside it. The Liang court found its interpreters among the Tuyuhun of Henan. The Wei court was told that the language was not that of the Rouran, the Gaoche or the hu. Neither says what the language was. Once the Hephthalites had taken Bactria, they used Bactrian, the language of the population and the bureaucracy they had conquered. This says what they ruled and not what they were.
Reliability
A southern dynastic history sits further from the steppe than a northern one. The Liang court in Jiankang dealt with the peoples of the north through intermediaries and through the embassies that reached it. The Wei Shu and the Zhou Shu were written where the frontier was. For the Hua the embassies are recorded. Their envoys came to Jiankang in 516, 520 and 526, and the chapter rests in part on what they told the court.
That does not make the Liang Shu worthless. It makes it a witness to what the southern court learned of a people nobody in China had governed, from their envoys and from the north. That is a different question from what the Hephthalites actually spoke.
The passage
無城郭，氊屋爲居，東向開戶。
其王坐金床，隨太歲轉，與妻並坐接客。
無文字，以木爲契。
與旁國通，則使旁國胡爲胡書，羊皮爲紙。
無職官。
事天神、火神，每日則出戶祀神而後食。
其跪一拜而止。
葬以木爲槨。
父母死，其子截一耳，葬訖卽吉。
其言語待河南人譯然後通。
They had no walled towns. They lived in felt tents, with the door opening to the east.
Their king sat on a golden couch that turned with the Taisui, and received guests seated together with his wife.
They had no writing and used wood for tallies.
When they communicated with neighbouring states, they had the hu of the neighbouring state write in hu script, with sheepskin for paper.
They had no officials.
They served the spirits of heaven and of fire. Every day they went out of the door and sacrificed to the spirits, and only then ate.
In their kneeling they bowed once and stopped.
They buried with an outer coffin of wood.
When a father or mother died, the son cut off one ear, and when the burial was finished the mourning ended at once.
Their language was understood only after men of Henan had translated it.
滑國者，車師之別種也。
漢永建元年，八滑從班勇擊北虜有功，
勇上八滑爲後部親漢侯。
自魏、晉以來，不通中國。
至天監十五年，其王厭帶夷栗陁始遣使獻方物。
普通元年，又遣使獻黃師子、白貂裘、波斯錦等物。
七年，又奉表貢獻。
The state of Hua was a separate branch of the Cheshi.
In the first year of Yongjian of the Han, the Eight Hua followed Ban Yong in attacking the northern foe and did meritorious service,
and Yong petitioned the throne to make the Eight Hua Marquis Qinhan of the Rear Section.
From the Wei and the Jin onward they had no contact with the central states.
In the fifteenth year of Tianjian their king Yandai Yilituo first sent envoys to present local products.
In the first year of Putong he again sent envoys, who presented a yellow lion, a white sable robe, Persian brocade and other things.
In the seventh year he again sent a letter and tribute.
元魏之居桑乾也，
滑猶爲小國，屬芮芮。
後稍強大，征其旁國波斯、盤盤、罽賓、焉耆、龜茲、疏勒、姑墨、于闐、句盤等國，
開地千餘里。
When the Yuan Wei were living at Sanggan,
Hua was still a small state, belonging to the Ruirui.
Later it grew somewhat strong and large and marched against the states next to it: Persia, Panpan, Jibin, Yanqi, Kucha, Shule, Gumo, Khotan, Jupan and others,
and opened up more than a thousand li of land.
宋升明中，遣王洪軌使焉，引之共伐魏。
齊建元元年，洪軌始至其國，
國王率三十萬騎，出燕然山東南三千餘里，
魏人閉關不敢戰。
永明中，爲丁零所破，更爲小國而南移其居。
天監中，始破丁零，復其舊土。
始築城郭，名曰木末城。
十四年，遣使獻烏貂裘。
普通元年，又遣使獻方物。
是後數歲一至焉。
大同七年，又獻馬一匹、金一斤。
In the Shengming era of the Song, Wang Hongfan was sent to them as envoy, to draw them into a joint attack on the Wei.
In the first year of Jianyuan of the Qi, Hongfan first reached their land,
and their king led three hundred thousand horsemen out to the south-east of Mount Yanran for more than three thousand li,
and the Wei closed their passes and did not dare to fight.
In the Yongming era they were broken by the Dingling, became a small state again and moved their dwelling south.
In the Tianjian era they first broke the Dingling and recovered their old land.
Then they first built a walled town and called it Mumo.
In the fourteenth year they sent envoys to present black sable robes.
In the first year of Putong they again sent envoys to present local products.
After this they came once every few years.
In the seventh year of Datong they again presented one horse and one jin of gold.
芮芮國，蓋匈奴別種。
魏、晉世，匈奴分爲數百千部，各有名號，芮芮其一部也。
自元魏南遷，因擅其故地。
無城郭，隨水草畜牧，以穹廬爲居。
其地苦寒，七月流澌亘河。
The state of Ruirui was, it seems, a separate branch of the Xiongnu.
In the age of the Wei and the Jin the Xiongnu were divided into several hundred or thousand tribes, each with its own name, and Ruirui was one of these tribes.
Since the Yuan Wei moved south, they have taken possession of the former land.
They had no walled towns, herded their animals wherever there was water and grass, and lived in domed tents.
Their land was bitterly cold, and in the seventh month drifting ice stretched across the river.
References
Sources
Literature
- Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
- Aydogdy Kurbanov, The Hephthalites: Archaeological and Historical Analysis (2010)
- Albert Herrmann, Die Hephthaliten und ihre Beziehungen zu China (1925)
- Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica. Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran (1919)
- Josef Markwart, Wehrot und Arang. Untersuchungen zur mythischen und geschichtlichen Landeskunde von Ostiran (1938)
Drawn on by
Articles resting on this source 11
Avars · Baidie Cotton · Farming and Taxes in Gaochang · Grape Wine in Central Asia · Hephthalites · History of the Turkic peoples · Jiaohe · Mumocheng · Rouran Khaganate · Tarim Basin · The origin of the Avars
What links here5
- States
- Rouran Khaganate
- Places
- Mumocheng
- Peoples
- Hephthalites
- Sources
- Nan Shi
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “Liang Shu.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/liang-shu/
Last revised: 8 November 2026
