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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. After delete vote and nomination statement have been withdrawn or struck, I see a consensus to Keep this article. This closure was complicated by the fact that an editor moved this article during the AFD discussion which messes up an AFD closure so I have moved it back. Please do not do this again. Liz Read! Talk! 04:56, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Second Parthian–Kushan War[edit]

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Second Parthian–Kushan War (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Yet another battle/war article that looks more like an attempt at glorification than anything else. None of the refs have a page cited. One of the cited refs (by Peter Fibiger Bang, page 339), which I just removed for being misused, literally says the following about this so called "second" "war", which was for some reason ignored: "There is also this exaggerated reference to a bloody but otherwise unsubstantiated campaign against the Parthians".

To add to Bangs statement, it goes without saying that "900,000 killed" is an incredibly absurd (WP:REDFLAG) number for a "ten year war" during the Late antiquity. Iranica: "The largest army the Parthians organized was that brought against Mark Antony (50,000: Justin 41.2)." HistoryofIran (talk) 21:24, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Events, History, Military, Central Asia, and Iran. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 21:29, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The refs do actually have pages cited (in the URL, just not in the metadata), but they don't fully support the text. I'm not finding anything for "Second Parthian-Kushan War", either. -- asilvering (talk) 00:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Technically in fact the first Parthian-Kushan War took place when Kujula Kadphises conquered some regions from the Parthian Empire Jonharojjashi (talk) 05:21, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: So Jonharojjashi completely disregarded both my comment here and my edit summary, reverting me and restoring the misused Bang citation, accusing me of removing it to "easily nominate the article for deletion" and referring to me as "an Iranian" twice instead of my username [1] [2]. I think that says it all. --HistoryofIran (talk) 12:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The Oxford source says "there is also this exaggerated to a bloody but otherwise unsubstantiated campaign against the Parthians" So why remove the source when the uncertain claim is unsure whether it is exaggerated or unsubtantiated It is needless to say that does not disapprove the Chinese sources which refers to that conflict Jonharojjashi (talk) 13:04, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...What? "Unsubstantiated" means "not supported or proven by evidence" and "exaggerated" means "excessively or inappropriately heightened, inflated, or overstated". --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:23, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also Zurcher a German historian who translated the inscription about Kanishka's conquests mentions the 900,000 casualties on the Parthian's side Jonharojjashi (talk) 15:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have addressed your both concerns-
1. "None of the refs have a page cited" which asilvering has denied such concern and actually it is cited or redirected to the archive.
2. "900000 killed" yeah I have addressed it too and edited it properly according to your concern. But you should not confuse 900k Parthians with 900k Parthian army, as the sources never stated any 900k Parthian army. That is why I didn't put this number to the strengths of belligerents.
Now consider removing the deletion tag from this article If I had addressed all of your concerns and talk further if it was not. Jonharojjashi (talk) 04:09, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please read Bangs statement, WP:PST and WP:REDFLAG. You have not addressed anything. HistoryofIran (talk) 11:05, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as notable (but re-title). AFD is not cleanup. Nor is it for dealing with problem users. See, e.g., Ghirshman, Iran, p. 262. Or Thorley, "The Roman Empire and the Kushans" JSTOR 642511. These (and there are a few others) are enough for me. The Buddhist source in question is not terribly late, which is presumably why it is treated seriously. Ghirshman thinks an obscure reference (he does not provide a full citation) in a Syrian (Syriac?) source may be corroborative. Srnec (talk) 20:22, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comment, Srnec. Do you have a proposal on what we would rename it to if it ended up getting kept? I looked at the sources you listed, but it seems that this event is incredibly obscure. I agree that AFD is not a place for cleanup nor dealing with problem users, but I made this AFD because I genuinely think (still do) that this event is not notable enough to warrant its own article, let alone under a made up name. It could perhaps be added to Vologases III of Parthia and Kanishka? --HistoryofIran (talk) 22:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Probably "Kushan–Parthian war" (alphabetical order, lower-case for a descriptive title) or, if that is judged ambiguous, "Kanishka's war with Parthia" or perhaps even "Parthian invasion of the Kushan Empire". My reason for preferring a standalone article is precisely that it is not obvious why the information should belong exclusively at, say, Kanishka's article. It would then need to be duplicated at Vologases III and perhaps elsewhere in the absence of an article to link to. (This is a general problem with trying not to treat conflicts as standalone topics—they don't "belong" to one side.) Just put up a short, well-sourced article that can deal independently with the question of dating and the reliability of the source material. In this case, I'm happy to help if the article is kept. Srnec (talk) 01:03, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm renaming the article from Second Parthian-Kushan War to Parthian-Kushan war for better context in order to not confuse readers/viewers, I hope this will fix all of the common concerns, Thanks for your proposal. Also, if you don't mind Please help me improve the article or suggest any new changes, as I'm new here. Jonharojjashi (talk) 06:48, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jonharojjashi Please don't make any hasty decisions on your own. This also requires your collaboration and you reading our guidelines (you're not helping by reverting Srnec either [3]. If this article is to be WP:NPOV, that number will not be treated seriously). HistoryofIran (talk) 11:11, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey everyone. If the discussion is not closed yet then I would like to suggest that we should keep the previous Parthian casualties as the sources have mentioned it boldly and I don't think we should shadow or neglect it, as this Chinese source [4] is well translated by a renounced Sinologist and historian Erik Zürcher. Like even if it's exaggerated or wrongly, partially interpreted, still we should add it by just adding further- 900,000 killed (highly exaggerated) or According to some Chinese sources 900,000 killed. So in short I think we all should stick to the sources. I hope y'all will look to this suggestion. And I'm very much interested in Ancient warfare history so I can give my minuscule contribution to this project/article. Msangharak (talk) 22:41, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting as there is no consensus yet. Please do not move articles that in the middle of an AFD discussion as it complicates the closure procedure. Also, an AFD is not the proper place to debate details about content, this is just a forum to determine whether or not this should be a standalone article and Kept or Merged, Redirected or Deleted. Content changes can be discussed if it is decided to Keep this article.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 00:20, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep; ambivalent about title (the present title or any of Srnec's options seem fine). Meets WP:N; no suitable merge target. I'm not sure an infobox is appropriate for this article, since the date, venue, and forces involved are all between very approximate and wholly unknown.
    Anyone expecting accurate casualty figures from early Chinese sources is not familiar with their universal trope of inflating the enemy's numbers, commonly by an order of magnitude (I OR-suspect this figure is inflated by two orders of magnitude). I'd love to track down the name of the Chinese source this evidently traces back to; it's presented as transliteration only in Zürcher 1960 (which I fixed the citation for) and is apparently some little known Buddhist text from the Southern and Northern dynasties. Brill have yet to publish the ebook of the conference proceedings.
    Might it be entirely fictional? Sure: anything tracing to exactly one old enough document could be, but that's not our determination to make. Benjamin 2020 (another incorrectly attributed cite, probably Citoid's fault, referred to above as "Bang" after |editor1-last=) wouldn't be enough to establish notability, but several different authors have touched on this, whether or not they believe it happened as described (although no one believes the casualty figures; why would anyone?). Anyway a massively inflated casualty figure is not a reason in itself to call this a hoax or a legend, and I don't see another reason to delete. Needs cleanup, but most articles do. Folly Mox (talk) 04:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Guess who didn't read the relisting instructions! Folly Mox (talk) 06:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's Benjamin again a few years earlier:
    Craig Benjamin (2018). Empires of Ancient Eurasia: The First Silk Roads Era, 100 BCE – 250 CE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316335567. ISBN 9781316335567. pp. 191–192: Despite this account, there is no other evidence of any conflict between the Parthians and Kushans, the two great powers of Central Asia, and two of the major beneficiaries of Silk Roads trade, who seem to have maintained genuinely cordial relations with each other for two centuries. Folly Mox (talk) 05:07, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    To update yall, I've done some edits at the article, clarifying that the entire account relies solely on a single source, which survives only in a translation postdating the event by centuries (typical), and is not known to be the work of historians. I've called out the 900,000 figure as obviously exaggerated, and incorporated the Benjamin 2018 source just above, bundled with his other source.
    The sourcing is ok. Mukherjee and Zürcher are probably the most reputable, although Mukherjee in 1988 still subscribed to an earlier Kanishka, and placed this event around 80 CE. Benjamin seems pretty good too. We cite a book published by Pen and Sword (not a peer reviewed source) four times, plus there's the popular general readership book from Simon Schuster, and some kid's Masters thesis. There can't be much more than this given the transmission history of this event, but I don't think Pen and Sword is used for anything specific to this article – more general Kushan history – so it can probably be improved. Pen and Sword and Simon Schuster are digitised at gbooks in the annoying online only pagination which prevents adding a |page= parameter, but the URLs are consequently direct. Also in the Zürcher source, on the page following the one we cite, Kanishka talks to his horse about morality. Glad that conversation got written down. Folly Mox (talk) 06:46, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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