bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Before Mahāvīra
Authors: Williams R.
Published: March 2011

In discussing the symbolism of colours and figures Professor Kirfel recalls that Leo Frobenius spricht einmal von dem Sinn der Zahl als symbolischem Ausdruck einer bestimmten Kultur. Nach ihm ist “die Zahl nicht etwas von den Menschen Gefundenes sondern von den Menschen Erreichbares aus der Welt des unsichtbaren Daseins” und insofern “als direkter Beleg” für die Wesensart einer Kultur zu werten … Er betrachtet die Vierzahl “als Ausdruck durch den Horizont begrenzten Raumgefühls aufder Plane”, das das Merkmal der “solaren Kultur” sei, und “Lage, Ruhe” und “bestehende Gestaltung” zum Ausdruck bringe. Fast den gleichen Sinn wie die Vier-hat aber auch die Fünfzahl: zu den vier Kardinalpunkten ist nämlich noch der Zentralpunkt, gewissermaβen der Nullpunkt der Weltkoordinaten, als fünfter hinzugetreten. Without going further into Frobenius' theorizing on a tetradic solar culture, or, in a different direction, into the possible associations of the number 16 with a lunar cult surviving in the pūjā, it is enough to mention the importance which four and its multiples have always enjoyed in India, as until quite recently even the national coinage bore witness.
A Mathurā Inscription on a Varāha Image
Authors: Janert Klaus L.
Published: March 2011

N. P. Joshi, Curator of the Archaeological Museum at Mathurā, kindly supplied the author with a photograph of a partly damaged inscribed stone relief (Mathurā Museum Accession No. 65.15.4), showing in the centre the dominating figure of a powerful four-armed man— clad in a dhotī, the upper part of his body naked (the “Śrīvatsa” symbol on the chest), with two arms akimbo while the other two are lifted up each holding a round object, the legs planted wide apart, the abnormally broad neck decorated with a beautiful necklace. To the right of the head, which unfortunately is lost, a small female is flying in the air. To the proper left side of the man an adorant stands below a tree whereas to the proper right side two more figures are in front of another tree, one person standing in the background and the other, probably, kneeling (his upper body bent backwards), facing the proper right side of the relief (i.e. in the direction of the beginning of the inscription) where the stone is broken off.
Chinese and Indo-Europeans
Authors: Pulleyblank E. G.
Published: March 2011

The question of the origins of Chinese civilization has fascinated scholars for a long time, but, in spite of the great advances that have come from recent archaeological discoveries, we still find extreme divergences of opinion on basic issues. The reasons for this are not far to seek. There are still enormous gaps in the evidence, and to fill in the picture at all one must extrapolate beyond what can be definitely proved. In such circumstances subjective considerations are bound to affect the judgment and what seems no more than an obvious inference to one person will seem wildly speculative to someone else. So it is with the question of indigenous developmentversusoutside influence. To some Chinese scholars brought up within the self-sufficient tradition of their own culture it seems natural to assume that unless there is absolutely overwhelming evidence to the contrary, everything essential in Chinese civilization, including the basic inventions of agriculture, metallurgy, etc., developed from its own creative energies without outside influence. Hypotheses of contacts across Central Asia which cannot yet be documented in the absence of archaeological exploration in the intervening regions are stigmatized as far-fetched, whereas theories, as little based on evidence, about as yet unattested earlier stages of culture within China itself are advanced as matters of logical necessity.
Ātaš-Zōhr and Āb-Zōhr
Authors: Boyce Mary
Published: March 2011

In some verses from the Manichaean Middle Persian hymn-cycle, the Gōwišn īg grīw zīndag, the Light Self, or sum of the light elements in the world, speaks in the character both of the sacred fire of the Zoroastrians, and of the pure water reverenced by them. The editors of these verses pointed out that the use of certain technical terms shows that the Manichaean author had an intimate knowledge of Zoroastrian ritual. The publication since then of further Zoroastrian works has established this fact even more plainly; for it is now apparent that the term zōhr, which occurs twice in the text, is used in fact for two separate Zoroastrian offerings, the offering to fire, the ātaš-zōhr, as well as that to water, the āb-zōhr.
Iranian *Draw-“To Lead Astray”
Authors: Schwartz Martin
Published: March 2011

In a fragment of the Sogdian translation of theAntirrheticusof Evagrius Ponticus, we encounter:

mzprt šm'ry ptryt qy 'rdywt 't zwyrtt m'x dbtyq qw γw'n s'

for which the original Syriac has:

luqbal ḥušbā ṭama'ā damšaddel umapne Ian tūb Iwāṯ ḥṭīṯā

Prof. Hansen translates, “Gegen den unreinen Gedanken, der uns verlockt(?) und uns wiederum zur Sünde lenkt”. In view of the one-to-one correspondence of all the other Sogdian words with the Syriac, there should be no reservation in equating the new word'rdyw-withšaddel“beguile, entice, seduce”, therefore “verlockt” is satisfactory; E. Benveniste affirms the identification and translates “appâter, enjôler, δελεχειν”.
The Place of Tulsī dās in North Indian Devotional Tradition
Authors: Allchin F. R.
Published: March 2011

To the outside observer the history of Hindu sectarianism often appears as a disorganized tangle, lacking clarity and precision. The whole process is made if anything more complex by the ill-defined relationship of sect and non-sect. As Renou remarks: Though no statistics are available, even for the present day, we have grounds for supposing that the most active sects were themselves only isolated groups within the great body of believers. From another point of view, however, the history is more understandable. A considerable part of sectarian activity during the past 1,500 years has been concerned with the spread and regional development of a single great devotional movement. Seen from this position, the uniformity and theological coherence of the sects, whether they be called Vaiṣṇavite, Śaivite, or by some other name, is remarkable and often overrides the no less real disparities of doctrine or detail at another level. Again, in this process regional variations have arisen in no small measure as a result of the popular character of the writings of particular saints. Thus, for example, Basava or Purandara Dāsa hold pride of place in the Karnāṭka, the one Vīra Śaiva, the other Vaiṣṇava; in Mahārāṣṇra devotion has in no small part been moulded by the thought of Jāân Dev or Tukā Rām; in the Pañjāb by Nānak; and in the Hindī region by Kabīr Dās, Tulsī Dās, and Sūr Dās. Throughout north India the influences which lay behind the movement were largely, but by no means exclusively, Vaiṣṇavite; yet other streams contributed, Śaivite, Buddhist, Tāntrika, Yogī, etc.
Two Bengal Inscriptions in the Collection of the British Museum
Authors: Hasan Syed Mahmudul
Published: March 2011

In pursuit of my research on the development of mosque architecture with special reference to pre-Mughal Bengal, I came across a number of elegantly carved inscriptions on black basalt in the British Museum. Some of them are in an excellent state of preservation, others merely fragmentary. On the basis of their calligraphic style and material contents, the undated as well as the dated inscriptions have been assigned to the Sultanate of Bengal (a.d. 1338–1538). In the following pages two of these inscriptions are republished with facsimiles.
The Mustard Upamā
Authors: Emmerick R. E.
Published: March 2011

The Khotanese version of the well-known Buddhist prophecy concerning Maitreya forms chapter 22 in the unnamed Buddhist miscellany in Khotanese verse, of which more than 4,000 complete lines are extant. The chapter concerning Maitreya was edited separately by E. Leumann (Maitreya-samiti, 1919), and later the whole work was edited and translated by the same scholar (E, 1933–6). The Maitreya story contains the verses:

pātcä Ānandi tta hvate ba|lysä ttu scätu Mittrai vīrä

ṣäte Ja⹃butīvä bihīysde | drrai ysārä ggaṃpha kho vaysña 3

ttī dasau ysāre hämäte ggaṃ|pha Jaṃbutïvä hamaṅgä

kho ju hva'ndi rraṣṭä nänārri | hārūṣkä āho jīye 4 (E 22.113–4).
Notes on Aśoka's Fifth Pillar Edict
Authors: Norman K. R.
Published: March 2011

1. In his fifth pillar edict, issued in the 26th year of his reign, Aśoka forbade the killing of certain animals. The relevant portion of the edict, as it appears on the Delhi-Topra pillar, is as follows: imāni jātāni avadhiyāni kaṭāni seyathā suke sālikā alune cakavāke haṃse naṃdīmukhe gelāṭe aṃbākäpīlikä (Allahabad version -kipilikā) daḷī (Allahabad version duḍī; Araraj, Nandangarh, and Rampurva versions duḷi) anaṭhikamache vedaveyake gaṇgāpupuṭake saṃkujamache kaphaṭasayake (Araraj, Nandangarh, Rampurva versions -seyake) paṃnasase simale saṃḍake okapiṃḍe palasate setakapote gâmakapote save catupade ye paṭibhogaṃ no eti na ca khādiyatī.
A Newly Discovered Inscription of Aśoka at Bahapur, Delhi
Authors: Joshi M. C. , Pande B. M.
Published: March 2011

The inscription under notice is engraved on an outcrop of the Aravallis to the south-east of Delhi in a colony now being developed on the south of Srinivasapuri, a government residential colony on the Ring Road (South). The inscription is within the village limits of Bahapur, west of the modern Kalkajee Temple.
The Rise of Standard Hindi and Early Hindi Prose Fiction
Authors: McGregor R. S.
Published: March 2011

Pre-nineteenth-century prose and prose fiction in Hindi dialects. It is well known that the use of Sanskritized prose in Hindi dialects dates from long before the beginning of the 19th century A.D. The pre-19th-century prose texts which have been preserved in Braj Bhāṣā, Khaṛi Bolī, and Rājasthānī dialects have a collective importance for our subject as antecedents of the Sanskritized style of standard Hindi, based on Khaṛī Bolī, which emerged in the 19th century. Their existence demonstrates that before this time there were already recognized traditions of prose-writing in the main western Hindi dialects, and that within these traditions it was customary to use Sanskrit words to supplement the vocabulary of one's dialect, and to work in the Devanāgarī script.
New Sabaean Inscriptions from South Arabia
Authors: Doe D. B. , Jamme A.
Published: March 2011

The 26 inscribed stones which are described here were found during a visit to the north-western part of the territory, close to the border with the Yemen. It was realized that they were important for palaeographic and historical reasons and that they belonged to the later period of Saba'.
The Khilafat Movement in India: The First Phase
Authors: Krishna Gopal
Published: March 2011

When the european war ended in November 1918 the fate of the defeated Turkish Empire was no longer in doubt. The other fallen empire, Austria-Hungary, had been dismembered, and the Ottoman Turks could not hope to escape the consequences of allying themselves with Germany. For Indian Muslims this raised grave issues of the political power of Islam. They had provided a large number of recruits in the war and had contributed materially towards the defeat of Turkey. Their political leaders had regretted Turkey's entry into the war on the side of Britain's enemies; their sympathies, however, were with the Turks, for the Turkish Sultan was looked upon as the Khalifa, the temporal and spiritual leader of the Islamic community, and—still more important for Indian Muslims—the Khalifa stood for the unity of the Islamic people, and the Turkish Empire, by then the only surviving Islamic Empire, was the symbol of Islam's worldly power. Muslims in India fervently believed in the ideal of Islamic brotherhood. This had always been an integral part of the religious outlook of Islam, but Pan-Islamism appealed especially to Muslims in India because of their minority status. Their interest in the Khalifate was largely due to the fact that it was the one centre of authority to which they could look for protection. The spread of nationalism threatened to submerge them and made them anxious to preserve and strengthen the Khalifate as an institution which might provide them with a rallying point and mobilize in their defence the united forces of the Islamic world.
The Tamil Renaissance and the Beginnings of the Tamil Novel
Authors: Asher R. E.
Published: March 2011

Tamil literature, particularly the earliest writing, is notoriously difficult to date. The body of factors influencing a decision in the matter is complex, and the degree of parochialism of the writer is not always the least important. Age is often assumed to be a synonym of quality, and it therefore appears desirable to push the beginnings as far back in time as possible if quality is to be proved. Without such efforts, however, an objective observer can safely say that Tamil contains literary works of a high standard dating from a period much further back in time than any other Indian language apart from Sanskrit. How far back is another question.
Religion, Nationalism, and Social Change in Ceylon, 1865–1885
Authors: Wickremeratne L. A.
Published: March 2011

Nationalism in South and South-East Asian countries has been a response to certain common stimuli. Broadly speaking, Western ideas, education, religious influences, the economic activities of the rulers, and their social policies have been of particular significance.
On Recomposing the Islamic History of North Africa: A Review Article
Authors: Wansbrough John
Published: March 2011

The decolonization of history in the Islamic world has for a number of years proved a fascinating and profitable pursuit. For that portion of North Africa occupied by the French this process has consisted for the most part of two more or less separate activities: studies in depth and detail for the period after 1830, and for the preceding centuries (700-1830) a number of very general and frequently superficial recommendations, reflecting a sincere but not always clearly planned intention to controvert the presuppositions seen to underly colonialist historiography.
Sanskrit Śauṭīra-
Authors: Burrow T.
Published: March 2011

Sanskrit śauṭīra-, given the meaning “haughty, arrogant, proud”, occurs mainly, according to the Petersburg dictionary, in the language of the epic poems. From it is derived a neuter abstract noun śauṭīrya- “manliness, pride” current in the same texts. Beside śauṭīra- there also occurs an alternative form of the word, śauṇḍīra- (whence also śauṇḍīrya- nt.), and the relation between these two forms in the epic poems is that they regularly occur as variant readings in the same passages. Apart from the epic poems, and the Harivaṃśa, which counts as a supplement to the Mahābhārata, the dictionary only cites śauṇḍīrya- (in this form) once from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and three times from the drama Mṛcchakaṭika. In the latter text the form śauṇḍīrya-, as opposed to śauṭīrya-, seems well established, since in only one passage (Ed. Stenzler, 120, 21) is śauṭīrya- quoted as a variant reading.
Mālvan—Further Light on the Southern Extension of the Indus Civilization
Authors: Allchin F. R. , Joshi J. P.
Published: March 2011

In 1947 partition left India without a single site attributable to the Indus civilization. During the past two decades there has been a considerable extension of our knowledge, due mainly to the explorations and excavations of the Archaeological Survey of India. It now appears as though the Harappan culture spread into India in two principal directions: north-eastwards into the eastern Panjāb and across the Indo-Gangetic divide into the plains that lie between the Ganges and Jamunā rivers; and south-eastwards into Kacch and Kāṭhiāwār, and thence perhaps inland towards southern Rājāsthān and into the coastal region of Gujarāt. In the north the principal sites are at Rūpar in the Panjāb, Alamgīrpur in U.P., and Kālibangan in north Rājāsthān. In the south the principal excavated site is at Lothal on the Gulf of Cambay. In particular the extensive excavations at Kālibangan and Lothal have provided a mass of solid data relating to the Harappan settlements and series of well stratified radio-carbon dates. In 1957 S. R. Rao explored southern Gujarāt and in the light of his discoveries at a number of sites there he proposed a sequence of three stages of “Harappan” and “late Harappan” cultures. These he showed might be related to the sequence revealed by his excavations at Lothal and Rangpur in Saurāṣṭra. Rao's exploration suggested a number of interesting questions.
Some Chorasmian and Khotanese Etymologies
Authors: Emmerick R. E.
Published: March 2011

If everyone—so to speak—is now reading and quoting Chorasmian, the credit most fully belongs to J. Benzing. He has with this volume made available in a readily usable form the greater part of the linguistic material known to exist for Chorasmian, a very important but hitherto largely neglected Middle Iranian language.
The sequence of Menander's drachmae
Authors: Bivar A. D. H.
Published: March 2011

For the understanding of the period of history to which the name Indo-Greek (in perhaps more precise terminology Indo-Bactrian) is usually given, the reign of Menander has to be treated as central. For the Indo-Bactrian kingdom, this reign must have constituted the main period of stability and consolidation. Whatever we can hope to detect of Indo-Bactrian organizational structure must have assumed during those years its most coherent form. They had been preceded by several decades of expansion and improvization. The aftermath, as we shall attempt to show, was one of division, perhaps of dissension. At neither extreme could we expect a pattern of administrative continuity to stand out from so fragmentary an historical tradition. Since the evidence of texts and archaeology, despite noble efforts that have been devoted to them, is alike scanty for this episode of Macedonian government southward from the Hindu Kush to the eastern fringe of the Panjāb, it is from the copious coinage that inquiry must still be made. We may fittingly dedicate to Sir Mortimer Wheeler, excavator of Menander's capital at Chārsada, a new attempt to interpret the coinage of Menander. His own authority may be cited for the judgment that previous numismatic studies, notwithstanding great merits, have not yet revealed all that the archaeologist needs to know. In an age of technological progress, it may still be said that an excavator's finds of coins, once fully understood, could continue to provide his most accurate indication of dating. The present analysis derives from an inquiry conducted at Kabul during study leave from the School of Oriental and African Studies in the summer of 1969. The writer is indebted to H.E. Dr. Muhammad Anas, Minister of Culture and Information of the Royal Afghan Government, for permission to examine the copious material of the Mir Zakah hoard; to Dr. A. A. Motamedi, Director-General of the Kabul Museum, both for the initial invitation which made the visit possible, and for his generous allocation of the Museum's facilities while the work was in progress; and to Dr. Paul Bernard for his hospitable welcome at the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan.
An early eighteenth-century Persian blue and white
Authors: Fehérvári Géza
Published: March 2011

It has now generally been accepted that blue and white originated in the Near and Middle East, and that it was these Near Eastern wares that gave the impetus to the development of such wares in porcelain in China. Yet our knowledge of the underglaze-painted blue and white wares of the Near East that may have influenced the Chinese potters is almost non-existent. One could perhaps consider as prototypes the black, blue, and green underglaze-painted vessels of Kāshān and Sulṭānābād of the 13th and 14th centuries, which may have found their way to China after the Mongol invasion of Persia.
Three minarets in the Kirmān region
Authors: Hutt Antony
Published: March 2011

The three minarets in the Kirmān region, those of the Masjid-i Malik in Kirmān, the Masjid-i Jāmi‘ in Zarand, and the Masjid-i Jāmi‘ in Nigār, have already been noted in a number of publications, but have so far not formed the subject of a separate article. Diez, referring to the period of Turkish dominance, says that in Kirmān, Yazd, and Shīrāz there are no lofty round towers, but, despite the lack of dating inscriptions on any of the minarets, it is nevertheless possible to date them to this period, two with reasonable accuracy and the third by association.
The rKong-Po Inscription
Authors: Richardson H. E.
Published: March 2011

The importance of the texts of early Tibetan inscriptions once in the possession of the 18th-century lama, Rig-'dzin Tshe-dbang Nor-bu (RT), has been shown by the recovery from his collection of a lost inscription of Khri Srong-Ide-brtsan (JRAS, 1964) and the substantial restoration, from his material, of that at the tomb of Khri IDe-srong-brtsan (JRAS, 1969). His copy of the rKong-po inscription adds some new matter to the text I have published in JRAS, 1954, and, as it is a valuable social document of the 8th and 9th centuries, there is sufficient reason to attempt a new edition. That leaves for future examination RT's texts of the Lhasa Treaty Inscriptions of 822 and the “sKar-cung” inscription. In the first, his copy gives some help towards establishing a final text; but the inscriptions are long and the necessary critical apparatus is daunting. As for the second, RG has little to add to the text edited by myself in JRASB, 1949, and by Professor Tucci in The tombs of the Tibetan kings, Rome, 1950 (TTK). All that is necessary is to correct a few small errors which crept into the printing, and to comment on a few readings.
Sasanian Numbers and Silver Weights
Authors: Frye Richard N.
Published: March 2011

Over a number of years inscriptions on Sasanian silver plates have been published by various scholars, but in spite of progress several problems have remained, especially one connected with the weight system of pre-Islamic Iran. The interpretation of one series of signs had baffled me, as it had other investigators in the field, and I had proposed at first tentatively to read the signs as MP salāk “ingot”, but with a technical meaning of a weight equal to about 215 grams.
Jayavarman II's Military Power: The Territorial Foundation of the Angkor Empire
Authors: Wolters O. W.
Published: March 2011

Jayavarman II is the famous Khmer ruler who, in the first half of the 9th century and after a hundred years when Khmer overlordship had been in abeyance, was consecrated on Mount Mahendra “to ensure that the country of the Kambujas would no longer be dependent on Java and that there would be no more than one sovereign who was cakravartin”. His inscriptions have never been recovered, but Khmers in later times remembered his reign as the time when their ancestors, his supporters, were rewarded with estates. Historians are today tending to regard the reign as a somewhat less significant period in Khmer history than earlier generations of historians had supposed. Its conventionally accepted length (802–850) is no longer taken for granted. The king's cult, inaugurated on Mount Mahendra, may not have been as innovative as was originally believed. Even the extent of the king's temporal power has been revised. In 1952 Dupont, clarifying the king's chronology, came to the conclusion that his territorial authority had been exaggerated and that his bid for overlordship had failed.
Lord North and the Kandyan Kingdom, 1798–1805
Authors: Wickremeratne U. C.
Published: March 2011

In this article I intend to show that the overriding aim of Frederic North, Governor of the Maritime Provinces of Ceylon from 1798 to 1805, was to contract a subsidiary alliance with the independent Kingdom of Kandy modelled on those being established at the same time in India by the Governor-General, the Marquess of Wellesley. The role of the latter in this episode will also be assessed. Moreover I attempt to furnish evidence challenging the prevailing view that Pilima Talavuva, adigar of the Kingdom of Kandy, or for that matter any other of its officials, committed treachery against the King of Kandy.
Mādhavêndra Purī: A Link between Bengal Vaiṣṇavism and South Indian Bhakti
Authors: Hardy Friedhelm
Published: March 2011

A. K. Majumdar says: “It is not possible to establish on historical evidence any link between the Āḻvārs and Caitanya. … It is, however, quite possible that his parama-guru (preceptor's preceptor) Mādhavêndra Purī was influenced by the Āḻvārs.” Other authors have put forward similar suggestions, but are equally unable to substantiate their assumptions. A. Gail states categorically: “Bhakti in the form of emotional-suggestively created identification with figures from the Kṛṣṇa legend was systematically developed in the rasa theory of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism, after preparation by the Āḻvārs.” But he has to concede that no proof for this statement is available: “Nothing seems to be known of any connexion between Bengal Vaiṣṇavas and Āḻvārs.” S. Das Gupta had earlier drawn certain parallels between Caitanya's school and the Āḻvārs.
The Legend of Purūravas and Urvaśī: an Interpretation
Authors: Gaur R. C.
Published: March 2011

The Ṛg-Vedic hymn X. 95, describing the story of Purūravas and Urvaśī is of considerable interest and obscurity. It has attracted the attention of priests and scholars alike from the days of the Brāhmaṇas, with the result that different versions of the story have come down to us with unrestricted freedom. Geldner has recorded eight sources of the story: (i) the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa; (ii) the Kaṭhakam; (iii) Ṣaḍguru-śiṣya's commentary on the Sarvānukramaṇī; (iv) the Harivaṃśa Purāṇa; (v) the Viṣṇu Purāṇa; (vi) the Bṛhaddevatā; (vii) the Kathāsaritsāgara; and (viii) the Mahābhārata. To the above a few more works, such as the Vāyu Purāṇa, the Mātsya Purāṇa, and the Rāmāyaṇa may be added to make the list more comprehensive. However, Kālidāsa made the story more popular through one of his finest plays, Vikramorvaśīyaṃ.
A Note on Persian Blue and White Wares with Armenian Monograms in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Authors: Kurdian H.
Published: March 2011

The great and important Armenian colony of New Julfa in Iṣfahān, Iran, was in existence from the very beginning of the seventeenth century, when Shāh ‘Abbās I deported large groups of Armenians from their homeland to the districts of Chahār Maḥāl and Iṣfahān, the capital, and to Perria (Aleppo). In a very short time, expatriate Armenians made New Julfa a great suburb of the city, gaining universal recognition as an important eastern centre of trade and commerce and glowingly described by all European travellers who visited Iṣfahān in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Introduction to the Problems of “Minoan Linear A”
Authors: Chadwick John
Published: March 2011

Crete is a large off-shore island, and whether it belongs primarily to Europe or to Asia is a moot point—it is equidistant from the European and Asiatic mainlands of the Aegean. Inevitably it has served as an intermediate link in the transmission of influences in either direction. Hence I am pleased to see its indigenous script accorded a place in this Symposium, alongside many other famous problems.
The Indus Script: some Observations based on Archaeology
Authors: Lal B. B.
Published: March 2011

As late as 1920 it was believed that civilization on the Indian subcontinent dated back only to the time of Alexander's invasion in the 4th century b.c. and that everything before that was “dark”. This assumption was made in spite of the fact that literary evidence pointed to the contrary. However, in 1921 the “belief” received its first blow when Daya Ram Sahni discovered the site of Harappa; the second one came just a year later when R. D. Banerji discovered Mohenjo-daro. Subsequent excavations at these two sites and at another site called Chanhu-daro, respectively by M. S. Vats, John Marshall, and E. J. H. Mackay, brought to light fuller details of the civilization which encompassed the Indus valley in the 3rd millennium b.c. The more recent work at Amri, Damb Sadaat, Gumla, Jalilpur, Kalibangan, Kot Diji, Lothal, Sarai Khola, and Surkotda has added new dimensions to our knowledge of this civilization.
The Drachms of the Parthian “Dark Age”
Authors: Sellwood David
Published: March 2011

When set against our knowledge of contemporary Greece and Rome, the whole of Parthian history may be termed a “Dark Age”. Even so, within the four centuries of Arsacid domination, the accidents of discovery and the efforts of scholarship have illuminated some periods more than others. Of the latter, one, running between the death of Mithradates II in about 88 B.C. and the accession of Orodes II some thirty years later, has proved peculiarly impenetrable.
Religious Attitudes in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa
Authors: Brockington J. L.
Published: March 2011

In examining the religious attitudes visible in Vālmīki'sRāmāyaṇa, perhaps the first thing to recognize is that such an examination in itself tends to distort the picture by focusing attention on an aspect which is, by Indian standards, of comparatively slight significance. For Vālmīki's work is far from being a Vaiṣṇava epic, even a religious epic at all. This point needs to be emphasized, for the epic is still sometimes regarded as a Vaiṣṇava work, but it is far from new, for Hermann Jacobi in particular made it 80 years ago in words which are quite explicit and still worth quoting: “Die Vergöttlichung Râma's, seine Identificirung mit Vishṇu, ist im ersten und dem letzten Buche eine Thatsache, die dem Dichter immer vor Augen steht. In den fünf echten Büchern aber ist diese Idee, von wenigen eingeschobenen Stellen abgesehen, noch nicht nachweisbar; im Gegenteil ist Râma dort immer durchaus Mensch. Es bedurfte gewiss einer längeren Zeit, ehe sich die Umwandlung des Charakters Rama's, wie sie in den beiden zugefügten Büchern zutage tritt, vollzogen hatte.” However, the existence now of the nearly-completeCritical editionof theRāmāyaṇa, permitting a closer approach to the original state of the work, warrants a fresh look at the evidence.
The inscription of Sālār Khalīl in Afghanistan
Authors: Bivar A. D. H.
Published: March 2011

A small mausoleum of the earlier Islamic period, situated about 60 km. west of Mazār-i Sharīf in Afghanistan — by the edge of the former Andkhoy road, in the district of Imām Ṣāḥib, near the village of Taroqī — has recently been the subject of two different articles. It was first discussed by Dr. Melikian-Chirwani, who reproduced two photographs taken by Josephine Powell. One of these (Plate I) illustrates the general aspect of the doorway, and clearly shows the commencement of the bordered Kufic dedicatory inscription by which it is surrounded. This first account was followed by the more detailed and fully-documented report of J. Sourdel-Thomine, which makes use of substantial material supplied by Dr. Paul Bernard, Director of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan, who had occasion to visit the spot. On this second occasion it proved possible to clear away accumulated deposits of dust from the left-hand side of the main inscription, so that this part also (while admittedly difficult) was also rendered clear enough for decipherment (Plate II). The photographs published by the two authors are in fact largely complementary, and when studied together, do much to resolve the residual problems of the inscription.
An inscription of Jayapāla Śāhī
Authors: Rehman Abdur
Published: March 2011

In 1970, while I was in search of coins and other archaeological material relating to the Śahī dynasty, I visited the town of Hund (also called Und or Ohind), the ancient Udabhāṇḍapura, the capital of the Hindu Śāhī kings. Here I made contact with Mullah Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān, a local collector of and dealer in antiquities, and from him I obtained the photograph and rubbing of a remarkable inscription of the Śāhī period. Unfortunately I was unable to see the inscription itself, since, according to the Mullah, the slab had been sent to Quetta, where it was in the hands of a private collector. Its exact provenance was uncertain, but apparently it had been discovered in the locality of Hund by workers collecting stones for building purposes.
Śilpaśāstra works in Sri Lanka
Authors: Mudiyanse Nandasena
Published: March 2011

A field of study which has hitherto been neglected in Sri Lanka is that connected with the technical aspects of arts and crafts. There is a large volume of information, mainly confined to ola manuscripts, having as their subject matter architecture, sculpture, painting, and other minor arts and crafts. In the Indian sub-continent such works dealing with the techniques of art and architecture have been studied exhaustively wherever possible and the results published in printed form. Unfortunately for us, scholars in Sri Lanka have rarely been inclined to pursue studies connected with this aspect, with the result that all relevant data have remained confined within the circles of artisans and craftsmen practising their traditional systems.
The Saljūq sign-manual represented on a sgraffiato potsherd
Authors: Bivar A. D. H.
Published: March 2011

Among the examples of sgraffiato pottery from the excavations at Takht-i Sulaymān in Iran shown by Dr. Rudolf Schnyder during the oral presentation of his paper “Medieval incised and carved wares from North West Iran”—read to the Percival David Foundation's Fourth Colloquy on Art and Archaeology in Asia, but not included amongst the published illustrations—was a specimen bearing a short Arabic inscription. I am grateful to Dr. Schnyder for allowing me to publish here, in developed form, my contribution to the subsequent discussion, and to him and the Musée National Suisse for providing the photograph reproduced in Plate I.
The Calendrical System in Tamilnadu (South India)
Authors: Fuller C. J.
Published: March 2011

The ancient lunisolar calendar of the Hindus is still widely used in India, especially for ritual purposes. In most of India, months are lunar and the discrepancy between lunar and solar years (12 lunar months equal approximately 354 days) is resolved by the periodic addition of an intercalary month into the year. However, in Tamilnadu, Kerala and eastern India (Bengal, Orissa and Assam), months are solar, but because the lunar calendar is also used, complications arise which are absent in areas employing only the lunar calendar. The aim of this paper is to describe the calendrical system currently in use in Tamilnadu and to explain the basic principles of the Tamil almanacs.
The blind man of Taxila: a folktale of Tirh
Authors: Bowen John Charles Edward
Published: March 2011

Early in 1944, while I was holding charge of the Mansehra Subdivision of Hazara District in the North-West Frontier Province (then part of India), the following tale was told to me briefly by my friend Muḥammad Ẓarf Khn, a member of the leading family of Kuki Khel Afridis of Tirh, who was at that time serving as Political Tahsildar at Oghi. Tirh is, of course, the celebrated tribal tract lying west of Peshawar in present-day Pakistan. I wrote the tale down exactly as Muhammad Zanf told it to me. To enable the story to be more easily understood, I have slightly expanded the narrative, but I have not added any element which was not in the original version. I see no reason to doubt that the story is, as its narrator claimed, one of the traditional tales which are told round the hearth in the hill-country of Tirah to which he belongs.
On the transmission of the Shen Tzu and of the Yang-sheng yao-chi
Authors: Barrett T. H.
Published: March 2011

Western sinologists dealing with texts of any antiquity are usually as aware as their East Asian colleagues of the importance of textual scholarship as the foundation of their studies. Yet despite the considerable sophistication of the techniques developed in the West for editing the texts of our own classical heritage we have until now largely left the collation of Chinese texts to East Asian scholars working on the basis of their indigenous academic traditions, and have generally been content to accept their results even in cases where these are clearly somewhat unsatisfactory. Paul Thompson's magnificent study shows that there is no need to let this situation continue. Taking an ancient work which has been the subject of conspicuous foul play on the part of pre- modern Chinese scholarship, he has produced a book which is in every sense of the word an exemplary demonstration of how the most rigorous techniques of textual and bibliographic analysis should now be applied to problems which have been ignored for too long.
Islam and Malay kingship
Authors: Milner A. C.
Published: March 2011

Islam is often seen as playing only a minor role in pre-colonial Malay political life. J. M. Gullick, for instance, in his seminal workIndigenous political systems of Western Malayaconcludes that Islam “was not to any significant extent a ‘state religion’”. The “chaplains of the more devout Sultans and chiefs”, he explains, “never attained any collective importance in the political system owing to the lack of organization”; there were “noKathis(Muslim judges and registrars) until the era of British protection”; and no evidence exists that “Islamic legal doctrine” was “effective law”?
The traditonal Oğlak Tartiş among the Kirghiz of the Pamirs
Authors: Paksoy H. B.
Published: March 2011

In the course of research into one of the earliest known versions of the Central Asian dastan or ornate oral history, Alpamysh, this writer paid a visit in July 1984 to the Kirghiz of the Pamirs. This group, now settled in the eastern part of Asia Minor under the auspices of the Turkish government, fled from their home before the Soviet occupying forces in 1979. Since then, a number of papers on the Kirghiz have appeared, most of which have expressed concern over whether the members of this particular tribe would be able to retain their customs, traditions and ceremonies. Although the primary purpose of the trip was to compile a glossary of Kirghiz terms not found in any available dictionary, it became clear that it would also provide an unusual opportunity to observe other aspects of Kirghiz culture.
Studies on the Tihāmah
Authors: Smith G. Rex
Published: March 2011

During the early winter months of 1982, the members of the Tihāmah Expedition, under the leadership of Anderson Bakewell, carried out research in a number of disciplines in the Red Sea coastal plain area of the Yemen Arab Republic. The team included a musicologist, an artist, an ornithologist and wildlife artist, an architect, an architectural artist, an archaeologist and an ethnographer. To augment their own research papers, the members of the expedition invited other contributors to join them in helping to produce the book under review. These contributors included an historian, the directorgeneral of the Tihāmah Development Authority, an agronomist, a zoologist, two lepidopterists, an Arabist and a botanist. The book has been edited by Francine Stone, who was expedition administrative officer, as well as ethnographer.
A study of some verses of the Mandasor Stone inscription dated Malava Year 529
Authors: Agrawal Jagannath
Published: March 2011

This inscription of great historical importance was discovered by the copyists of J. F. Fleet in 1884 and was first published by him in the Indian Antiquary, XV, in 1886. He subsequently included it in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. III, which he edited and which was published in 1888. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar published some corrections to the text and translation in JBBRAS, XVII (1887–89). F. Kielhorn published the correction of a reading in verse 31 which much improved the sense. The late A. L. Basham presented a fresh study of this epigraph, in his paper read at the symposium on the Gupta Period of Indian history at Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota, in 1977. The papers presented at this symposium have now been printed under the title Essays on Gupta culture
Brief prolegomena to early Tamil literary history: Iṟaiyaṉār, Tarumi, Nakkīrar
Authors: Zvelebil Kamil V.
Published: March 2011

The following pages were inspired by reading a slender book by one of my esteemed Tamil teachers, Mahavidvan M. V. Venugopala Pillai, Tamiḻ anrum inrum (“Tamil Then and Now”), Madras, 1967. Venugopala Pillai, born on 8 August 1896, died on 2 February 1985.
Factions in medieval Egypt
Authors: Irwin Robert
Published: March 2011

“If all you have to tell us is that one barbarian succeeded another barbarian on the banks of the Oxus or Jaxartes, what benefit have you conferred on the public?” Voltaire's question is an awkward one for anyone investigating the transmission and distribution of power in the XVth century Circassian Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. Even so the question of factionalism and its role in succession crises and other crises in the history of the Islamic lands has to be tackled, for surely the prevalence of factions in the Near East and our lack of understanding of them does add a certain patina of dullness to much of Islamic history. Faction succeeds to faction as “Amurath to Amurath”, and though Macaulay could find the history of England and its latter part, the struggle of Whig and Tory, to be “emphatically the history of progress”, few people have felt similarly confident about the struggle of Ẓāhirī and Manṣūrī factions in medieval Egypt. It is hard to understand past events without imposing a pattern, and at the political level the gyrations of Egyptian factions do not lend themselves easily to the imposition of pattern.
The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem: History and Future
Authors: Freeman-Grenville G. S. P.
Published: March 2011

In 1972 Fr Charles Coüasnon, O.P., gave the Schweich Lectures to the British Academy on this subject. As consultant architect to the restoration work he seemed well qualified to do so. But work continued until 1980, and it was not until 1982 that Fr Virgilio Corbo, O.F.M., published a definitive account of the work, Il Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme, in three handsome volumes. I did not succeed in obtaining a copy until 1984. Thus it was not surprising that Canon Ronald Brownrigg's Come, See the Place: the ideal companion for all travellers to the Holy Land, 1985, still treats Fr Couasnon as having had the last word, and prints plans some of which are erroneous. Only since then has an article in Le Monde de la Bible, Mars-Avril, Paris, 1984, no.33, in a number devoted entirely to the Holy Sepulchre, by Fr Florentino Dfez Fernandez, O.S.A.,3 reached me, describing in a summary form his excavations for the Greek Orthodox Community on the site of Golgotha, and for the Armenian Community behind the Crusader Chapel of St Helena. A definitive account of his work is eagerly awaited, for his work adds to our knowledge and corrects some previous misconceptions of the chronology of the site.
A document of cultural symbiosis: Arabic MS. 1623 of Escorial Library
Authors: Abu-Haidar Jareer
Published: March 2011

Hartwig Derenbourg in his Notes critiques sur les manuscrits arabes de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Madrid, (1904), described MS. no. DXCIII of the catalogue of these manuscripts compiled by F. Guillén Robles in the following terms:

Le seul ouvrage Chrétien en pur arabe (DXCIII), est un unicum de première importance, les Canons de l'Eglise chrétienne hispanique à la fin du VIIe siècle de notre ère, dans un exemplaire du milieu du XIe.
The myth of English as a ‘colonialist’ imposition upon India: a reappraisal with special reference to South India
Authors: Frykenberg Robert E.
Published: March 2011

Every schoolboy and schoolgirl in India, figuratively speaking, is taught the Myth of Macaulay's Minute. According to this myth, attitudes of lofty condescension towards India's peoples and their inferior cultures, combined with practical needs for a cheap labour force to supply the manpower requirements of an enormous bureaucratic machine, prompted alien rulers to impose an English language educational system upon the subcontinent and, thereby, to neglect and stifle the natural growth of indigenous educational institutions. Moreover, in its more extreme forms, this myth assumes that these rulers were also either racially arrogant or wilfully ignorant, or both. Finally, this myth assumes that the disastrous consequences of this “colonialist” fiat were a major factor inhibiting the progress and well-being of a large proportion of India's peoples.
Article IV.—A short Account of the Sherley Family
Authors: Briggs
Published: March 2011

By the kindness of the Right Honourable Lord Western, an ancient painting is exhibited to the Society, which merits attention, if it were merely as a curious specimen of antiquity; but it will interest the Meeting more 1 especialy from the nature of its subject and the circumstances connected with its being brought into Europe at all, and with its appearance here this day.
Art. VII.—On the White-haired Angora Goat, and on another species of Goat found in the same province, resembling the Thibet Shawl Goat
Authors: Conolly Arthur
Published: March 2011

On a recent-excursion through part of Asia Minor, being accompanied by a friend who spoke Turkish and Armenian perfectly, I noted some information that he collected, first regarding the long famed silvery white-hair goat of Angora, and next about a goat resembling the shawl goat of Thibet, that exists throughout the country to which the first beautiful animal is peculiar. I was about to forward the said notes from Constantinople, with a box of specimens for the Society, when learning that the second species of goat alluded to abounded in other parts of Turkey, through or near which I should shortly travel, I put my memorandums aside in the hope of being able to extend them. I now beg to offer the result of the whole inquiry thus far, having for the convenience of illustration separated the details concerning each race of the animal under remark.
Art. VII.—Summary of the Geology of Southern India
Authors: Captain Newbold
Published: March 2011

The area, the geological features of which it is purposed to attempt a description of, so far as known, comprises peninsular India from Bombay on the west, and Ganjam on the east coast, to Cape Comorin, lying between the 8th and 20th degrees of north latitude. Its northern limit is skirted by the Sub-Vindhyan ranges, and the plains of Central India; while the remaining sides are washed by the ocean, and lie within the 72nd and 86th degrees of east longitude.
Art. IX.—Report on some of the Rights, Privileges, and Usages of the Hill Population in Meywar
Authors: Hunter W.
Published: March 2011

This question appears to have been first seriously agitated in 1826, in consequence of a reference from the Acting Political Agent in Meywar, Capt. Sutherland, to Sir C. Metcalfe, regarding certain Grasya chiefs of the Hill principalities, nominally independent, but from whom allegiance was claimed by the Oodeypore Government.