Abstract: Gan Ying's mission to Daqin stands as a landmark event in the history of Sino-foreign exchanges,and the meaning of “Daqin” remains a classic topic in the study of cross-cultural interactions.According to the records in Yu Huan's Weilüe,Yuan Hong's Annals of the Later Han,and Fan Ye's The Book of the Later Han,“Daqin” is the name bestowed by Han Dynasty intellectual elites upon Liqian (or Haixi,referring to the Roman Empire or one of its regions),based on their perception that its people share similar physical features,bloodline ties,and cultural affinity with inhabitants of the Central Plains.This understanding likely originates from a certain historical source of the late Eastern Han period.For over a century,scholars both in China and abroad have debated the interpretation of “Daqin”,proposing four primary theories:the transliteration hypothesis,the Han intellectual elite naming hypothesis,the hybrid naming-transliteration hypothesis,and the foreign naming hypothesis,yet no consensus has been reached.This paper contends that the character “Qin” in “Daqin” derives from a specific Han-era term “Qinren” for Huaxia people acculturated by nomadic peoples (“Hu-Hua”),reflecting the historical perception of Qin people as ethnically Huaxia yet culturally influenced by Hu people's traditions.The prefix “Da” denotes “great” or “powerful”,rendering “Daqin” as “the powerful state founded by Huaxia people transformed by nomadic culture”.Although equating Daqin's people with “Hu-Hua” Huaxia lacked factual basis,this conceptualization perpetuated the Han intellectual elite's tradition of constructing a unified “Tianxia”(all-under-heaven) order through the notion of “shared bloodline” between Huaxia and non-Huaxia peoples.It represents an attempt to expand the “frontiers of Huaxia” through historical narratives of “Huaxia ancestors migrating to the periphery”,embodying a grander vision of Tianxia.

Key words: the Han Dynasty, Roman Empire, Daqin, Qinren, Tianxia