Dahan (people)

Dahae Daae
People
Location	present-day Turkmenistan
Branches	Parni, Xanthii and Pissuri

The Dahae, also known as the Daae, Dahas or Dahaeans (Latin: Dahae; Ancient Greek: Δάοι, Δάαι, Δαι, Δάσαι Dáoi, Dáai, Dai, Dasai; Sanskrit: Dasa; Chinese Dayi 大益) were a people of ancient Central Asia. A confederation of three tribes – the Parni, Xanthii and Pissuri – the Dahae lived in an area now comprising much of modern Turkmenistan. The area has consequently been known as Dahestan, Dahistan and Dihistan.

Relatively little is known about their way of life. For example, according to the Iranologist A. D. H. Bivar, the capital of "the ancient Dahae (if indeed they possessed one) is quite unknown."

The Dahae dissolved, apparently, some time before the beginning of the 1st millennium. One of the three tribes of the Dahae confederation, the Parni, emigrated to Parthia (present-day north-eastern Iran), where they founded the Arsacid dynasty.

The Dahae may be connected to the Dasas (Sanskrit दास Dāsa), mentioned in ancient Hindu texts such as the Rigveda as enemies of the Ārya. The proper noun Dasa appears to share the same root as the Sanskrit dasyu, meaning "hostile people" or "demons" (as well as the Avestan dax́iiu and Old Persian dahyu or dahạyu, meaning "province" or "mass of people"). Because of these pejorative implications, a tribe called the Dāhī – mentioned in Avestan sources (Yašt 13.144) as adhering to Zoroastrianism – is not generally identified with the Dahae. Conversely the Khotanese word daha- meaning "man" or "male" was linked to the Dahae by the Indologist Sten Konow (1912). This appears to be cognate with nouns in other Eastern Iranian languages, such as a Persian word for "servant", dāh and the Sogdian dʾyh or dʾy, meaning "slave woman".

...
Wikipedia