Nezak Huns

The Nezak Huns (Pahlavi: 𐭭𐭩𐭰𐭪𐭩 nycky), also Nezak Shahs, was a significant principality located south of the Hindu Kush from circa 484 to 665 CE. Despite being traditionally identified as the last of the four Hunnic states in the Indian subcontinent, their ethnicity remains a matter of dispute and is subject to speculation. The primary evidence for the dynasty comes from coins inscribed with a characteristic water-buffalo-head crown and an eponymous legend.

The Nezak Huns rose to power after the Sasanian Empire was defeated by the Hephthalites. Their founder Khingal may have been from a Hunnic group, allied to the Hephthalites, or a local ruler who accepted tributary status. Little is known about the rulers who succeeded him; they received regular diplomatic missions from the Tang dynasty, and some coexisted with the Alchon Huns from about the mid 6th century.

The polity collapsed in the mid 7th century after experiencing increasingly frequent invasions from the Arab frontier; the last ruler was Ghar-ilchi. The vassal Barha Tegin usurped the throne and established the Turk Shahis. Half-a-century later, two rulers in Western Tokharistan, who used the appellation "Nezak Tarkhan", played a significant role in opposing a Governor of the Umayyad Caliphate; their links with the Nezak Huns remain speculative.

In contemporary sources, the word "Nezak" appears either as the Arabic nīzak or the Pahlavi nyčky. The former was used only to describe the Nezak Tarkhans — rulers in Western Tokharistan — while the latter was used in the coinage of the Nezak Huns. The etymology remains disputed; historian-cum-archaeologist Frantz Grenet sees a possible — yet not firmly established — connection with Middle Persian nēzag ("spear") while linguist János Harmatta traces back to the unattested Saka *näjsuka- "fighter, warrior" from *näjs- "to fight".

The Middle Chinese words Nasai (捺塞) and Nishu (泥孰) have also been proposed as probable transcriptions of Nezak, but these have phonetic dissimilarities. Nonetheless, from a review of Chinese chronicles, Minoru Inaba, a historian of medieval Central Asia at Kyoto University, concludes Nishu to have been both a personal name and titular epithet across multiple Turkic tribes.

The Nezak Huns ruled over the State of Jibin, mostly referred to as Kapisi — formerly Cao — by contemporaneous Buddhist pilgrims. Kapisi composed eleven vassal-principalities during Xuanzang's visit in c. 630, including Lampā, Varṇu, Nagarahāra, and Gandhara; Taxila had been only recently lost to Kashmir.

The earliest mention of Kapisi is from Jñānagupta, a Buddhist pilgrim; he stayed there in 554 CE while travelling to Tokharistan. Dharmagupta, a South-Indian Buddhist monk, would visit the polity in the early seventh century, but his biography by Yan Cong is not extant.

Xuanzang, a Chinese Buddhist monk who visited Kapisi in about 630, provides the most detailed description of the Nezaks, even though he never mentions the name of the ruling dynasty. Xuanzang met the king in Udabhandapura and then traveled with him to Ghazni and Kabul. The king is described as a fierce and intelligent warrior, belonging to the shali (刹利) / suli (窣利) race — Kshatriyas (?) — and commanding rude subjects.