大宛文化（图）

---

导读：大宛（Ta-Yuan)，位于今塔吉克斯坦共和国费尔干纳一带，张骞出使西域到达的一个国家。其地以出产良马汗血马著称，农业兴盛，产稻、葡萄、苜蓿等。有大小属邑70余个，人口几十万。在东西交通和贸易上占有重要地位。

---

　　The Ta-Yuan (大宛, pinyin: dàwǎn, Dayuan or Dawan, lit. “Great Yuan”) were a people of Ferghana in Central Asia, described in the Chinese Chronicles (Shiji) and in the Chinese Former Han History (Han Shu), following the travels of Zhang Qian in 130 BC/BCE, and the numerous embassies that followed him into Central Asia thereafter.

　　These Chinese accounts describe the Ta-Yuan as urbanized dwellers with Indo-European features, living in walled cities and having customs identical to those of the Greco-Bactrians, a Hellenistic kingdom that was ruling Bactria at that time in today‘s northern Afghanistan. The Ta-Yuan are also described as manufacturers and great lovers of wine.

Zhang Qian leaving emperor Han Wudi, for his expedition to Central Asia from 138 to 126 BC/BCE, Mogao Caves mural, 618-712 AD/CE.

　　The Ta-Yuan were probably the descendants of the Greek colonies that were established by Alexander the Great in Ferghana in 329 BC/BCE, and prospered within the Hellenistic realm of the Seleucids and Greco-Bactrians, until they were isolated by the migrations of the Yueh-Chih around 160 BCE. It has also been suggested that the name “Yuan” was simply a transliteration of the words “Yona”, or “Yavana”, used throughout antiquity in Asia to designate Greeks (“Ionians”), so that Ta-Yuan (lit. “Great Yuan”) would mean Great Ionians.

　　 The interaction between the Ta-Yuan and the Chinese is historically crucial, since it represents the first major contact between an urbanized Indo-European culture and the Chinese civilization, opening the way to the formation of the Silk Road that was to link the East and the West in material and cultural exchange from the 1st century BCE to the 15th century.