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• 4,000-year-old white mummies of China, bringers of Buddhism 

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The 4,000-year-old white mummies of China, the

bringers of Buddhism to Asia?
by James Mayfield (Chairman, European Heritage Library)

Print this Article    •    About the Author    •    Bibliography/Sources

This article is about the mysterious ancient Tocharians, the possibly white European settlers of western China and Central Asia who may have been responsible for bringing Buddhism to China. Please note that because so little is known for certain about them, there is no universally-accepted history or interpretation. Therefore, this article will present many different possibilities about their history and origins. If you would like another perspective added, or if a flagrant error has been made, please notify us. As this topic is very complicated, it is suggested that you read the introductory paragraphs carefully. Important key terms have been placed in bold.

During the past few decades, scholars have been astonished by the discovery of several nearly 4,000-year-old ancient mummies in western China – genetically and culturally European mummies dressed in Nordic-style clothing that were mummified by the dry Turkestan deserts. These discoveries have completely redetermined the way historians understand the history of China, Central Asia, the extent of European influence on early history, and by extension the religious and political legacy of the Silk Road peoples.

Brief ethnography and historical background of the Silk Road, the Tocharians, and Afghanistan:

The Silk Road, a modern term that designates the imaginary trade network stretching from Ukraine to China and from northwest Mongolia to Afghanistan, has a complicated demographic and religious history. Originally occupied predominately by ethnically Iranian peoples like the Sogdians, Scythians, and Sarmatians, Turkic peoples from the northeast gradually replaced the Iranian populations from the 3rd century AD onward. Mongoloid peoples settled the region following the expansion of Chinggis Khan after the 13th century, and most of Central Asia remains genetically Mongol today. China's westward expansion during the Ming and Qing dynasties (15th-20th centuries) saw the inheritance of what is today called Uyghurstan or East Turkestan. A huge swath of western China is ethnically Mongol and Turkic (not Han Chinese), and embraces the Islamic faith. The Tarim Basin of the Taklamakan Desert in this area is where these so-called Tocharian mummies were discovered. Genetic testing, studies of their clothing and possible religious ritual, and analysis of Chinese and Buddhist frescoes has revealed that these mummies are white Europeans from the northwest who settled here as early as 2000BCE. This has made the history of this crucial yet popularly-ignored region far more complicated. The last mummy died in the 4th century BCE, around the same time that the very non-Chinese “Yuezhi” tribe was being expelled southward (towards Afghanistan) from the Tarim area. This implies the possibility that these Tocharian European whites continued their culture and history in Afghanistan.

A rough map of the Tarim Basin area in comparison with Afghanistan (Kushan state). (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

To the south, in the ethnic Iranian lands of modern Afghanistan, a Buddhist state called the Kushans emerged in the 2nd century AD from the ashes of Alexander's shambled empire (in the province of Bactria). This wealthy Buddhist state that enjoyed the trade routes of Asia laid the foundations of much of early Buddhism, Buddhist imagery, and Buddhist architecture. Here, they also developed the Tocharian language and script (as seen in their Sanskrit-inspired writing style). The massive Buddhas of Bamiyan cave that were destroyed the Taliban were the legacy of early Buddhism, the Kushan state, and possibly the white Tocharians themselves. This Buddhist state is responsible for the transmission of Buddhism to Central Asia and China. If these Tocharians were white European, then the globally-dominant ethos of Buddhism may have Europeans to thank. Or, it is possible that Europeans had nothing to do with any of this. Because Chinese artwork depicted Buddhist monks with red hair and white features coming from the region where the ancient white mummies may have lived, it is possible that these early Buddhists of Afghanistan were the white Europeans of the Tarim Basin. This state was ultimately destroyed by the Huns in the 5th century AD, and later absorbed into the Iranian Zoroastrian state, before being abolished altogether as blasphemous by the new Islamic faith that has dominated Afghanistan ever since. The populations of the Tarim area, whether white European or otherwise, became slaughtered or assimilated into Turkic states until their conquest by the Mongols centuries thereafter.

The Buddhas of Bamiyan cave were developed by Tocharian or Kushan Buddhists in Afghanistan, and were destroyed by Mujahidin of the Taliban for the sin of shirk (associating Allah or divinity with men, in this case Siddhartha Gautama Buddha)

Who were the Tocharians, where did they live, what were their ethnic/racial roots?:

Who were these people, and were they “white” at all? Information is so obscure that historians and anthropologists have often lumped all the white peoples of Central Asia into the same cultural orbit as the Tocharians. It is possible that the mummies of the Tarim Basin have absolutely nothing to do with the subsequent history with which they are accredited more than 2,000 years later, such as the propagation of Buddhism or the possible creation of a Buddhist state in Afghanistan (Kushans). Terms similar to “Tocharian” have been used in ancient Greek texts from Plato to Strabo, referring to an ethnically Iranian Scythian origin, but this may have nothing to do with the white mummies of the Tarim Basin or the whites of Buddhist Afghanistan. So too, the modern term “Tocharian” may only refer to the Tarim whites, or to the Kushan area white Buddhists, or both.

Evidence of the Tocharians is scant, consisting mainly of bizarrely-unique Tocharian language tablets, the mummies themselves and their dress, and Chinese artwork and descriptions of strange people on their western borders who are illustrated with red hair and blue eyes. Chinese sources may not even refer to the Tocharians of Afghanistan or the Tarim Basin community at all, making evidence or proof even more problematic.

The Tocharians had two dialects of a highly unique language: “Tocharian A” and “Tocharian B.” This language has been classified loosely under the Indo-European linguistic family, making it loosely related to all languages of Europe (except Maltese), Iran (except Turkmen & Azeri), Afghanistan, and North India. The language has been shown to have much in common with Sanskrit, as opposed to Proto-Slavic or Germanic or other typically dominant European languages. This further makes it difficult to link these people with Europe. The script used for writing Tocharian clearly derives from Brahmi or its related Indian scripts due to their adoption of Indian Buddhism in Afghanistan in the early centuries AD. The spread of Buddhism facilitated the transmission of Indian scripts (as seen in Khmer, Thai, Burmese, etc.), but this does not imply that the Tocharians were ethnically Iranian or North Indian. The Tocharian language also looks similar to Uyghur-style scripts that were originally derived from the Iranian Sogdians centuries prior. The fact that inscriptions in Tocharian have been found not in Tocharian-populated Kushan/Bactria (Buddhist Afghanistan), but far to the north in the Tarim Basin does not necessarily imply that the whites of Afghanistan were related to the whites of the Tarim Basin. The trade routes that straddled Asia from Balkh (Bactria) to the north passed through the Tarim region, and thus Kushan/Afghani inscriptions were left behind. Chinese frescoes depicting these red-headed whites were found in the same Tarim Basin of the mummies (and not in Afghanistan), but the artwork may refer not to the white mummies' community, but to passing white Buddhist pilgrims from Afghanistan thousands of years later.

The Tocharian alphabet is loosely based upon the Brahmi script, the early "Aryan"/Iranian basis of most of the subcontinent's languages. Thanks to omniglot.com.

The Tocharian language has affinities with both the Indic-style languages that associated their embracing Buddhism, as well as the Sodgian-Uyghur script that was prevalent near the Tarim region

Dating comparison may dictate that the original whites of the Tarim may have been totally extinct before the formation of the Tocharian Buddhist culture that we know today. It is difficult to link the white mummies' culture, found after 2000BCE, to the white Buddhists of Afghanistan with their highly developed language and culture, from 200-500AD. The last mummy grave of the Tarim Basin was roughly 400BCE. The clothing and genetics of the Tarim mummies clearly show that they are white Europoid. The skull structure, genetic evidence, and red-skirt clothing of the Tarim mummies all point to a European ethnic origin. The buried mummies, notably tall (considered a European feature) were found with both blond and red hair, with male and female buried equally elaborately. They wore red and blue felt hats, long skirts, and typically Scandinavian/Germanic pointed witch-style hats on many of the women. Before the expansion of the Slavic peoples and the Celts, Germans reigned from Germany to the Baltic and even to the Black Sea. Because the Slavic peoples of the Ural Mountains were much closer to China, the Tarim mummies may have been Uralic or proto-Slavic peoples who were partly influenced by the culture of conquering Germanic peoples. The long, slender skulls and high cheekbone skull structure point to a European ethnic origin. The burial objects with which inhumation occurred are unusual: blue stones over their eyes and bags of incense around their necks were tokens to a good afterlife. The physical appearance of the mummies and their culture dictate that the Tarim mummies were white European. But this may not apply to the other whites of Kushan Buddhist Afghanistan (and their Tocharian language) to the south.

An artistic depiction of the mummies of Tarim

The "Cherchen Man." From uyghuramerican.org.

The other major physical evidence we have is Chinese frescoes and literature depicting their strange western neighbors. The Yuezhi were a semi-nomadic tribe around East Turkestan (the Tarim Basin) that frequently traded jade and other valuables with Chinese empires. As they occupied the Tarim region around the same time as the mummies, the Yuezhi, who were treated by Chinese sources as quite foreign in their dress and appearance, may have been related to the Tocharian white mummies. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, the Yuezhi tribes were obliterated and expelled by Chinese and Turkic hordes to the south. Assuming that this semi-nomadic people migrated gradually, it is probable that they reached the trade-wealthy region of Bactria (Afghanistan) in the first centuries AD. This is precisely the time that the Buddhist Kushan empire with white missionaries was formed. Here, they adopted this Buddhist faith, possibly even forged the empire itself (not likely), and returned later along the migratory trade routes through the Tarim Basin into China, where they brought Buddhism to the East Asians for the first time. It is important to note that the Kushan Buddhist state of Afghanistan was not a state of the white Tocharian majority; it was a native (thus ethnic Iranian majority) Buddhist state with a unique culture with Indic, Persian, Turkic, and Greek influences left over from Alexander's conquest. Chinese frescoes, seen below, depict pale-skinned, red-headed, blue-eyed monks with beards obviously from a race and culture very different from the Chinese. Sporting partially-shaved heads, dangling earlobes, and the lotus-shaped hand posture, these white Europoids are obviously Buddhist monks bringing the new faith to the Chinese. The problem with artwork is obvious: the artist can depict any image he chooses. Just as the well-trusted Herodotus depicted Iranians of Central Asia with hooves, and Europeans depicted Jews as blood-drinking warlocks, Chinese art may have depicted these foreign Tocharians in the way Chinese viewed their rivals. The distinct race of these people may have been exaggerated by the Chinese artists. Perhaps such a blatantly European feature as red hair was only a recessive trait that the Chinese saw only in a few Tocharians, and thus this incredible distinction from the Chinese race percolated into their symbolic imagery. Just as Greeks exaggerated their corporal beauty, Chinese may have exaggerated the whiteness of the bringers of their new syncretic Buddhist faith.

Clearly, the race of the people shown on these Chinese artworks is not Chinese, but white. What "white" exactly means is in question.

There is a problem in making racial and ethnic classification of these people based upon their features. “White” is not the same as “European:” there are many non-Europeans of completely different races and ethnic groups who have “white” color features in their eyes, hair, and skin. Whilst it is clear that the Tarim Basin mummies were white Europeans because of their European clothing and skull structure, we lack such evidence for the white Buddhists to the south in the Kushan region. Since the Tarim whites may have been extinct by the time of the development of the white Buddhist Tocharian culture, and since the southward Yuezhi migrants may not have even been white, we cannot determine the ethnic origin of the white Tocharians of Afghanistan. Light hair, skin, and eyes are common among Iranians and Turks in comparison with the rest of Asia. Both of these groups are today considered white, although of course not ethnically or racially European. To learn more about the whites of Central Asia, read our article Alexander's Descendents in Pakistan?. The formation of the white Tocharians of Buddhist Afghanistan, with their developed Tocharian language, corresponds directly with the settlement of Asia by the Huns and Turks in the 2nd-5th centuries AD. The Huns are typically considered Turkic because after their conquests Turks began to replace the Iranians in Central Asia. Although it was the Huns who eventually conquered the Buddhist Kushan state, Turks had settled in Asia before the global domination of Attila the Hun, and Turks played a role in the obliteration of the Yuezhi tribes. Ethnically-Turkic migrants frequently ascended the ranks of local native empires and cultures to dominate their highest offices, as seen in a great deal of Muslim history and, in this case, possibly Buddhist history as well. The white Tocharians who formalized the Tocharian language and exerted notable influence in the Buddhist Kushan state may have been Turkic, and not European at all. It is also possible that there was not a single white in Kushan Afghanistan at all. Instead, the whites shown on Chinese frescoes may have depicted the whites in the Tarim Basin (not Afghanistan) who became absorbed by non-white Kushan Buddhist conquest northward.

We must also inquire that the whites of Kushan Afghanistan may have been Greeks left over from the collapsed Greek administration brought by Alexander. Although Greeks are of course white Europeans, this is difficult because of the very low frequency of light eyes, hair, and skin among Greeks in comparison with other Europeans like the Germans and Slavs, as well as the Turks and Iranians. Indeed, Greek settlers in Bactria did embrace Buddhism, and thus acted as missionaries to China, but this would not explain the blue eyes and light hair that is very rare among the dark-featured Greeks.

It may seem natural for some to claim that it was white Europeans who brought Buddhism, Indic influences, officialized religiosity, and even Kung Fu from India (through Kushan Afghanistan) to China and thus all of Asia. But because of sparse evidence, it is not only difficult to determine the ethnic roots of these Tocharians, but to even agree whether “Tocharian” refers to the certainly-European Tarim mummies only, the Kushan white Buddhists only, or both. It is certain that the Europeans have had a far greater influence on ancient history outside of Europe than previously comprehended, but the truth behind this lost history may be buried in the sands along with the mysterious mummies of the Tarim Basin.

________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Mayfield is the owner and Chairman of the European Heritage Library. I am working for a doctorate in history, with a specific emphasis on Islamic and European histories. I am well versed in all world cultures, ethnicities, religions, languages, politics, and historical evolution in relation to and against each other.

BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES USED:

-Omniglot for information and the alphabet chart