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Historic role
The Tocharians, living along the Silk Road, had contacts with the Chinese,
Persians, Indian and Turkic tribes. They might be the same as, or were related
to, the Indo-European Yuezhi who fled from their settlements in eastern Tarim
Basin after attacks by the Xiongnu in the 2nd century BC (Shiji Chinese
historical Chronicles, Chap. 123) and expanded south to Bactria and northern
India to form the Kushan Empire.
The Tocharians who remained in the Tarim Basin adopted Buddhism, which, like
their alphabet, came from northern India in the first century of the 1st
millennium, through the proselytism of Kushan monks. The Kushans and the
Tocharians seem to have played a part in the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism
to China. Many apparently also practised some variant of Manichaeanism.
Protected by the Taklamakan Desert from steppe nomads, the Tocharian culture
survived past the 7th century.
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