Turan (Sasanian province)
Turgistan was a province of the Sasanian Empire located in present-day Pakistan. The province was mainly populated by Indians, and bordered Paradan in the west, Hind in the east, Sakastan in the north, and Makuran in the south. The main city and bastion of the province was Bauterna. The province was originally a kingdom, before submitting to the first Sasanian monarch Ardashir I. It was governed by the Sakanshah, the first notable one being Ardashir I's grandson, Narseh. The province is mentioned in Shapur I's inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht.
The 19th-century historian Wilhelm Tomaschek suggested that the name of Turan possibly derived from the Iranian word tura, meaning "hostile, non-Iranian land". The name was also used in the Iranian national epic Shahnameh to denote the lands above Khorasan and the Oxus River, later viewed as the land of the Turks and other non-Iranians.
