- Sakas
Sakas — a collective name for numerous Eastern Iranian peoples of the Pamirs and nomadic tribes of Central Asia. The Greeks classified the Sakas as Scythians and also applied this ethnonym to the Massagetae. Ancient tradition placed the Sakas between the Aral Sea and Tibet, neighboring the Indians, Bactrians, and Sogdians. Some ancient authors believed that these tribes lived east of the Caspian Sea, in the abode of the Massagetae; others believed that the Sakas were located in Armenia, in the region of Sakasena. The Sakas fought in the Persian armies and contributed to the fall of Greek rule in Transoxiana. In the 1st century BC, in connection with the movements of peoples within Asia, they invaded northwestern India.
The first written mention of the Sakas is the Behistun Inscription of Darius I. In 519 BC, Darius undertook a major campaign against the Sakas inhabiting the steppes of Central Asia. It can be assumed that during this campaign, Darius reached the lower interfluve of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, as well as the region inhabited by the Apasiacae tribe. The account placed at the end of the Behistun Inscription in Old Persian apparently refers to this campaign. It is here that the inscription is damaged; only the following can be read: "...I moved against the land of Saka... crossed... killed; another was taken captive and brought to me in chains; I killed him... by name Skunkha, whom I took captive... I appointed another as chief, as was my will. The country became mine." Among the peoples subject to him, Darius mentions in his tomb inscription at Naqsh-e Rustam "Saka Humavarka," and in the Suez hieroglyphic text — "Sakas with pointed caps" and "Sakas of the ends of the earth." But despite these successes, the Persians never managed to fully subjugate the tribes of the Central Asian Sakas.
In Old Persian inscriptions, four groups of Sakas are distinguished: 1) Saka-haomavarga, "haoma-pressing" (the intoxicating drink), inhabiting the Murghab River valley (in Herodotus and ancient authors — Amyurgians); 2) Saka-tigrahauda, "with pointed caps" (in the Behistun Inscription of Darius I), living in the foothills of the Tien Shan (often identified with the Massagetae of ancient authors); 3) Saka-paradaraya, "those across the sea (across the river)"; 4) Saka-parasugudam, "beyond Sogdiana," who lived in the Aral Sea basin in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya.
However, such a division is conditional, since in reality many Central Asian nomads pressed haoma for ritual purposes, and the pointed headdress was a distinctive sign of all nomadic peoples from the Danube to Lake Baikal, and even up to modern times. Thus, the division of the Sakas into "haoma-pressing," "pointed-capped," and "overseas" rather reflects the view of outside observers (in this case, the Persians) than the true self-name of the Saka tribes. Some names of Saka clans have nevertheless been preserved in history: Massagetae, Dai (Dahae, Dacians, Dagi), Apasiacae, Parni, Kanghi, and others. In Old Persian sources, the Sakas were called "mighty men," and in Iranian — "Turanians with swift horses." Due to their similarity to the Scythians, ancient Greek authors called the Sakas "Asian Scythians."
In Saka society, three groups of the population were distinguished: warriors, priests, and commoners. Each estate corresponded to its traditional colors: warriors — red, priests — white, commoners — yellow and blue. Leaders and kings came from the warrior estate.
The Indo-Scythian tribes in India were called "Shaka," as a variant of the Indian name for Saka. The Shakas are mentioned in numerous texts: the Puranas, Manusmriti, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Patanjali's Mahabhashya, Varahamihira's Brihat-Samhita, Kavya-mimamsa, Brihat-Katha-Manjari, Katha-Saritsagara, and other ancient texts. The term "Shaka" is used as a collective name for the warlike tribes of the northwest. Some sources attribute Saka origin to Gautama Buddha; his father belonged to the Kshatriya caste. The title Shakyamuni means "the wisest of the Shakyas." But this may be a misconception. Buddha belonged to an Indo-Aryan tribe called Shakya (not Saka/Shaka).
Among historians of some Turkic-speaking states, the opinion is widespread about the kinship or origin of Turkic peoples from the Sakas. Like the Hephthalites (Iranian-speaking tribes of the Tarim Basin, also called White Huns), some of the Sakas, under pressure from competition in the steppe and the pressure of Turkic peoples, went south, where they mostly settled in Persia and India, while those who remained were assimilated with new tribes that came from the east, becoming the basis of new tribal unions. The Sakas, more precisely their migrating part, gave the name to the gavar of Shakashen (Greek: Sakasena) of the province of Utik in Greater Armenia, and to the province of Sakastan in Persia.
VARIANT NAMES: Latin. Sagae, Saccae, Sacae, Greek. Σακαι, Σακοι, Σακαι, Σακκαι, Συκαι, Russian. Saki, Shaki, Sagi, Sakki, Siki.
Sources:
Ethnogenesis of the Abkhazians. D.A. Arshba, 2015