Karasahr


Karasahr or Karashar, which was originally known, in the Tocharian languages as Ārśi and Agni or the Chinese derivative Yānqí, 焉耆, is an ancient town on the Silk Road and the capital of Yanqi Hui Autonomous County in the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, in Northwestern China.
it had a population of 29,000, growing to 31,773 persons in 2006; 16,032 persons of which were Han, 7781 people Hui, 7,154 people Uygur, 628 Mongol and 178 other ethnicities and an agricultural population of 1078 people.
The town has a strategic location, being located on the Kaidu River, China National Highway 314 and the Southern Xinjiang Railway and is an important material distribution center and regional business hub. The town administers ten communities. It has a predominately Muslim population and contains many mosques.

Geography

The modern town of Yanqi is situated about west of the shallow Lake Bosten. The lake is about east to west and north to south with a surface area of about, making it one of the largest lakes in Xinjiang. It has been noted since Han times for its abundance of fish. The lake is fed by the Kaidu River and the Konqi River flows out of it past Korla and across the Taklamakan Desert to Lop Nur. There are numerous other small lakes in the region.
The city, referred to in classical Chinese sources as Yanqi, was located on the branch of the Silk Route that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin.

History

The earliest known inhabitants of the area were an Indo-European people who apparently referred to themselves and the city as Ārśi. Their language, since it was rediscovered in the early 20th century, has been known as "Tocharian A". The people and city were also known as Agni, although this may have been a later exonym, derived from the word for "fire" in an Indo-Iranian language such as Sanskrit. The 7th century Buddhist monk Xuanzang transliterated Agni into Chinese as O-ki-ni.
Ārśi was bordered by related Tocharian cultures, many of which also spoke related languages: Kuča, Gumo to the west, Turfan to the east and to the south, Krorän.
In China, Han dynasty sources describe Yanqi as a relatively large and important neighboring kingdom. According to Book of Han, the various states of the "Western Regions", including Yanqi, were controlled by the nomadic Xiongnu, but later came under the influence of the Han dynasty, following a Han show of force against Dayuan in the late 2nd century BC.
From the 1st Century BCE onwards, many populations in the Tarim Basin, including the Ārśi underwent conversion to Buddhism and, consequently, linguistic influence from Indo-Iranian languages, such as Pali, Sanskrit, Bactrian, Gandhari and Khotanese. The city of Ārśi became commonly known as Agni, almost certainly derived from the Sanskrit अग्नि "fire". Names such as Agnideśa and Agni-visaya, both of which are Sanskrit for "city of fire", are also recorded in Buddhist scriptures.
According to the Book of the Later Han, General Ban Chao went on a punitive campaign against Yanqi in 94 AD after they attacked and killed the Protector General Chen Mu and Vice Commandant Guo Xun in 75 AD. The king of Yanqi was decapitated and his head displayed in the capital. Later rebellions were subdued by Ban Chao's son Ban Yong in 127.
Agnideśa became a tributary state of Tang China in 632. In 644, during the Tang expansion into the Tarim Basin, Emperor Taizong of Tang launched a military campaign against Yanqi after the kingdom allied itself with the Turks. The Four Garrisons of Anxi was established with one based at Yanqi.
According to Book of Zhou the kingdom of Yanqi was a small country with poor people and nine walled towns, and described the country and their custom thus:
By the mid-9th century, the area had been conquered by the Uyghur Khaganate and the Tocharian languages were fading from use. Agnideśa became widely known by the Uyghur Turkic name Karasahr, meaning "black city". The influence of Islam grew, while older religions such as Buddhism and Manichaenism declined.
Between the mid-13th Century and the 18th century, Karasahr was part of the Mongol Chagatai Khanate.
Karashahr may have been known to late medieval Europeans as Cialis, Chalis or Chialis, although Korla, Krorän and other cities are instead favored by some scholars.
In the early 17th century, the Portuguese Jesuit Lay Brother Bento de Góis visited the Tarim Basin on his way from India to China. De Góis and his traveling companions spent several months in the "Kingdom of Cialis", while crossing it with a caravan of Kashgarian merchants on their way to Ming China. The travelers stayed in Cialis City for three months in 1605, and then continued, via Turpan and Hami, to the Ming border at Jiayuguan.
The British traveller Francis Younghusband briefly visited Karasahr in 1887 on his overland journey from Beijing to India. He described it as being "like all the towns hereabouts, is surrounded by a mud wall, and the gateways are surmounted by the usual pagoda-like towers. There is a musketry wall round outside the main wall, but it is now almost in ruins. Inside the wall are some yamens, but only a few houses. Outside, to the south, are a few shops and inns."
An early-20th-century traveler described the situation in Karashahr as follows:

Rulers