Source: TW
hUNa, Xiongnu, Chionite, Kidarite, Hephtalite, Alkhan, hyona: The Hun-s: Could the root of this steppe power have been Indo-Aryan?
Iranian references
In the yaSht to the goddess druvAspA we have the following incantation wherein kauvi vistAspa, the patron of the promulgator of the Iranian counter- religion zarathustra, invokes her against several daeva-worshiping foes whom he wishes to smite or “bring’’ to the counter-religion (good religion):
ýatha azâni peshana ashta aurvantô
vispa-thaurvô ashtôish puthrô vispa-thaurvô urvi-xaodhô urvi-verethrô stvî-manaothrish
ýenghe hapta sata ushtranam jainyâvarat pasca hvîdhahe ýatha azâni peshana mairyehe x’iiaonahe arejat-aspahe, ýatha azâni peshana darshinikahe daêvayasnahe.that I may put to flight Ashta-aurvant and Vispa-thaurva, the son of Ashta, who is Vispa-thaurva – all afflicting; of the broad helmet, of broad armour, of the thick neck, behind whom seven hundred camels follow, may I drive away that I may put to flight the X’iiaona murderer, Arejat-aspa; that I may put to flight Darshinika, the daeva-worshiper.
Then again we have:
uta azem nijanâni tãthryâvañtem duzhdaênem uta azem nijanâni spinjaurushem daêvayasnem,
uta azem fraourvaêsayeni humaya varedhakanãm ca x’yaonya haca dainghâvô, uta azem nijanâni x’yaonînãm dah’yunãm pañcasakhnâi satakhnâishca satakhnâi hazangrakhnâish ca hazangrakhnâi baêvarekhnâish ca baêvarekhnâi ahãxshtakhnâish ca.Also that I may smite Tathryavant of the evil religion;
Also that I may smite Spinjaurusha, the daeva-worshipper
also that I may bring unto the good religion the Varedhaka and x’iiaona tribes
Also that I may smite of the x’iiaona dasyu-s [peoples?]
their fifties and their hundreds, their hundreds and their thousands,
their thousands and their tens of thousands, their tens of thousands and their myriads of myriads.
Among these are the x’iiaona-s. They are also mentioned as being led by arejat-aspa in the yaSht to the Earth (The Iranic equivalent of the pR^ithivI-sUkta): “and the fiendish wicked arejat-aspa and the other wicked x’iiaonas’'.
The Zoroastrian tradition identified them with the Huns, and this memory was reinforced after the disastrous defeat and death of the Sassanian shahanshah Phiroz at the hands of the shveta-hUNa lord Akhśunwar.
syona
The word x’iiaona is spelt in the Sassanian script of the Avesta with a x’ii – very rare as an initial and originally different from hiiaona. The Iranicists have pointed out that the latter form is what it would have been if it had been inherited from the common Indo-Iranian ancestor from the form attested in Skt at syona. However, it would be likely rendered with this sound unclear to the later Dasturs, if x’iiaona had been laterally acquired from syona from an Indo-Aryan source early in the Iranic tradition but after the Indo-Aryan-Iranian split had occurred. The word syona is a positive word in Skt: sun, ray, pleasant, comfortable. Thus, we posit that the syona as a tribal ethnonym was used in a positive sense & that tribal assemblage was originally a steppe Indo-Aryan as opposed to an Iranian group. Probably they used it in the sense of sun or ray – implying a solar connotation.
Following the Iranicists, we entirely agree that a successor form of the word was the origin of the terms Xiongnu, Hun and Chionite. It was a prestigious clan name that clung even as its old Indo-Aryans were Mongolized in the eastern steppes of the Altai and Mongolia. It probably also underwent a secondary (linguistic) Iranicization to acquire an initial “H” probably via loss of memory of the pronunciation of the old x’iiaona and its simplification as hiiaona. It was that version that reentered the Skt and Pkts as hUNa. That would be consistent with the steppe Indo-Iranian R1a Y-haplogroup in Hunnic-age elite males from Mongolia (see: this). This prior should be kept in mind while interpreting the ritual sword and the associated deity of the Pan-Hunnic tradition (also the likely root of the Hun Khan Khingila).
shanyu title
In 1075 CE the chIna scholar Shen Kuo was sent as an ambassador to the Khitan emperor Chala (temple title: Daozong). It is quite remarkable that he calls him by the same title used more than 1000 years prior to that for the Hun Khaghan: Chanyu. It is also notable that the record of this visit shows that even in 1075CE well after the founding of the Khitan empire by the Khan Abaoji ~907 CE, they were still leading a life close to their ancestral state. The notice of a mobile “ancestral temple” is also intriguing.
Chingiz Khan, in his letter to the Daoist scholar Chuji, mentioned how he saw a continuity of the Mongols with the Hun Khaghanate of the Chanyu.(4) Some had thought it might mean the Khitan empire referred to above as Chanyu by the Song. However, Chingiz is clear in mentioning the “remote times of the Chanyu” – so he was implying a more distant dynastic link. While the Mongols were allies of the para-Mongolic Khitans & tried to salvage their Liao empire when they were being overthrown by the Jurchen, they did not see dynastic continuity with them.
How do you think that the title Shanyu came to be replaced by Khan? A shift takes place around 3-4 centuries, and in my knowledge, this usage is rather rare.
How part of this is (at least for me) a hard question to answer since it goes back to the provenance & phonology of khan and the word behind “chanyu”. Mongolic, para-Mongolic, Yeniseian, Turkic & Iranic etymologies have been proposed – basically all over the place.
The key is the word behind Chanyu. I’d go with the suggestion that it was an old chIna word for the title Tarkhan that continued to be used by para-Mongolic, Turkic & chingizid Mongols. What the “Khan” in Tar-khan related to “Khan” that’s a rather contentious point. If yes then a variant Khan was already used by the first Hun (Xiongnu) empire. Further, another title from this empire recording in old Ch has been interpreted as a rendering of Khan. Hence, Khan could have been used beside Tarkhan & simply superseded it. It seems the supersession was related to what we believe was a confederation under para-Mongolic leadership, the Xianbei where Khan seems to have assumed a senior position to Tarkhan. This probably reflected the Xianbei overtaking the first Hun empire. Thereafter it was retained when the Rouran Hun Khaghate replaced the Xianbei