Hephthalite Empire

The Hephthalite Empire, whose people are also known as the White Huns or Ye-tai, was a nomadic confederation that dominated Central Asia from roughly the 440s to 560 CE.

Emerging from the Altai region and pushing southward into Bactria, the Hephthalites built their power base in Tokharistan (modern northern Afghanistan and southern Uzbekistan), likely centred near Kunduz, and expanded over Transoxiana, Sogdia, eastern Khorasan, and into the Tarim Basin. They repeatedly humbled Sasanian Persia: emperor Peroz I was captured and ransomed twice before being defeated and killed in the decisive Hephthalite-Sasanian War of 484 near Herat, after which Persia paid heavy tribute and was effectively a Hephthalite client for decades. To the southeast, the closely associated Alchon Huns invaded northern India and contributed to the weakening of the Gupta Empire, making the Hephthalites a destabilising force across two great agrarian civilisations. Their imperial power was broken around 560 by a coordinated assault of the Sasanian king Khosrow I and the Western Turkic khagan Istami, culminating in the Battle of Gol-Zarriun (Bukhara); the empire fragmented into tributary principalities in Tokharistan and Badghis that lingered into the early 8th century.