White Huns or Hephthalites, people of obscure origins, possibly of Tibetan or Turkish stock. They were called Ephthalites by the Greeks, and Hunas by the Indians. There is no definite evidence that they are related to the Huns. The White Huns were an agricultural people with a developed set of laws. They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them (A.D. 125) as living in Dzungaria. They displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana and Khorasan before 425. They crossed (425) the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded Persia. Held off at first by Bahram Gur, they later (483-85) succeeded in making Persia tributary. After a series of wars (503-13) they were driven out of Persia, permanently lost the offensive, and were finally (557) defeated by Khosru I. The White Huns also invaded India and succeeded in extending their domain to include the Ganges valley. They temporarily overthrew the Gupta empire but were eventually driven out of India in 528 by a Hindu coalition. Although in Persia they had little effect, in India the White Huns influenced society by altering the caste system and disrupting the hierarchy of the ruling families. Some of the White Huns remained in India as a distinct group.

Huns, nomadic and pastoral people of unknown ethnological affinities who originated in N central Asia, appeared in Europe in the 4th cent. A.D., and built up an empire there. They were organized in a predominantly military manner. Divided into hordes, they undertook extensive independent campaigns, living off the countries they ravaged. The Huns have been described as short and of somewhat Mongolian appearance. Their military superiority was due to their small, rapid horses, on which they practically lived, even eating and negotiating treaties on horseback. Despite the similarity of their tactics and habits with those of the White Huns, the Magyars, the Mongols, and the Turks, their connection with those peoples is either tenuous or—in the case of the Magyars and the Turks—unfounded. The Huns appear in history in the 3d cent. B.C., when part of the Great Wall of China was erected to exclude them from China. Called Hsiung-nu by the Chinese, the Huns occupied N China from the 3d cent. A.D. until 581. Having swept across Asia, they invaded the lower Volga valley c.372 and advanced westward, pushing the Germanic Ostrogoths and Visigoths before them and thus precipitating the great waves of migrations that destroyed the Roman Empire and changed the face of Europe. They crossed the Danube, penetrated deep into the Eastern Empire, and forced (432) Emperor Theodosius to pay them tribute. Attila, their greatest king, had his palace in Hungary. Most of the territories that now constitute European Russia, Poland, and Germany were tributary to him, and he was long in Roman pay as Roman general in chief. When Rome refused (450) further tribute, the Huns invaded Italy and Gaul and were defeated (451) by Aetius, but they ravaged Italy before withdrawing after Attila's death (453). Their later movements are little known; some believe that the White Huns were remnants of the Hunnic people. The word Huns has been used as an epithet, as for German soldiers, connoting destructive militarism.