Tushara
Modern scholars appear to have conflated the Tukhara with the so-called Tocharians – an Indo-European people who lived in the Tarim Basin, in present-day Xinjiang, China, until the 1st millennium.
When the Tocharian languages of the Tarim were rediscovered in the early 20th century, most scholars accepted a hypothesis that they were linked to the Tukhara (who were known to have migrated to Central Asia from China, with the other founding Kushan peoples).
The account in Mahabharata (Mbh) 1:85 depicts the Tusharas as mlechchas ("barbarians") and descendants of Anu, one of the cursed sons of King Yayati.
The Pauravas inherited the Yayati's original empire and stayed in the Gangetic plain who later created the Kuru and Panchala kingdoms.
Various regional terms and proper names may have originated with, or been derived from, the Tusharas including: Takhar Province in Afghanistan; the Pakistani village of Thakra; the surname Thakkar, found across India; the Marathi surname Thakere, sometimes anglicised as Thackeray; the Takhar Jat clan in Rajasthan, and the Thakar tribe of Maharashtra.
The Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata associates the Tusharas with the Yavanas, Kiratas, Chinas, Kambojas, Pahlavas, Kankas, Sabaras, Barbaras, Ramathas etc., and brands them all as barbaric tribes of Uttarapatha, leading lives of Dasyus.
[1] The Tusharas along with numerous other tribes from the north-west, including the Bahlikas, Kiratas, Pahlavas, Paradas, Daradas, Kambojas, Shakas, Kankas, Romakas, Yavanas, Trigartas, Kshudrakas, Malavas, Angas, and Vangas had joined Yudhishtra at his Rajasuya ceremony and brought him numerous gifts such as camels, horses, cows, elephants and gold[2] Later the Tusharas, Sakas and Yavanas had joined the military division of the Kambojas and participated in the Mahabharata war on the side of the Kauravas.
It asks which duties that should be performed by the Yavanas, the Kiratas, the Gandharvas, the Chinas, the Savaras, the Barbaras, the Sakas, the Tusharas, the Kankas, the Pathavas, the Andhras, the Madrakas, the Paundras, the Pulindas, the Ramathas, the Kambojas, and several new castes of Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and the Shudras, that had sprung up in the dominions of the Arya kings.
The Tusharas, the Yavanas, the Khasas, the Darvabhisaras, the Daradas, the Sakas, the Kamathas, the Ramathas, the Tanganas the Andhrakas, the Pulindas, the Kiratas of fierce prowess, the Mlecchas, the Mountaineers, and the races hailing from the sea-side, all endued with great wrath and great might, delighting in battle and armed with maces, these all—united with the Kurus and fought wrathfully for Duryodhana’s sake (8:73).
F. E Pargiter writes that the Tusharas, along with the Yavanas, Shakas, Khasas and Daradas had collectively joined the Kamboja army of Sudakshina Kamboj and had fought in Kurukshetra war under latter's supreme command.
[9] Puranic literature further states that the Tusharas and other tribes like the Gandharas, Shakas, Pahlavas, Kambojas, Paradas, Yavanas, Barbaras, Khasa, and Lampakas, etc., would be invaded and annihilated by Lord Kalki at the end of Kali Yuga.
The Rajatarangini of Kalhana records that king Laliditya Muktapida, the 8th-century ruler of Kashmir had invaded the tribes of the north and after defeating the Kambojas, he immediately faced the Tusharas.
By the 6th century CE, the Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira also locates the Tusharas with Barukachcha (Bhroach) and Barbaricum (on the Indus Delta) near the sea in western India.
However, Ancient Chinese sources use the term Daxia (Tukhara) for a state in Central Asia, two centuries before the Yuezhi entered the area.
In the 7th century CE, the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, by way of the "Iron Pass" entered Tukhara (覩貨羅 Pinyin Duhuoluo; W-G Tu-huo-luo).
Xuanzang stated that it lay south of the Iron Pass, north of the "great snow mountains" (Hindukush), and east of Persia, with the Oxus "flowing westward through the middle of it.
[19][20] The Tukharas (Tho-gar) are mentioned in the Tibetan chronicle Dpag-bsam-ljon-bzah (The Excellent Kalpa-Vrksa), along with people like the Yavanas, Kambojas, Daradas, Hunas, Khasas etc.
Raghuvamsha - a 5th-century Sanskrit play by Kalidasa, attests their presence on river Vamkshu (Oxus) as neighbors to the Hunas (Raghu: 4.68-70).
[36][37][38] The 10th century CE Kavyamimamsa of Rajshekhar lists the Tusharas with several other tribes of the Uttarapatha viz: the Shakas, Kekeyas, Vokkanas, Hunas, Kambojas, Bahlikas, Pahlavas, Limpakas, Kulutas, Tanganas, Turusakas, Barbaras, Ramathas etc.
[52] Kalhana (c. 1148-1149 CE) claims that the three kings he calls Huṣka, Juṣka and Kaniṣka (commonly interpreted to refer to Huvishka, Vāsishka and Kanishka I) were "descended from the Turuṣka race".
[67][68] According to the Nihon Shoki, the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history, in 1654 two men and two women of the Tushara Kingdom, along with one woman from Shravasti, were drive by a storm to take refuge at the former Hyūga Province in southern Kyushu.
