Search results for ""American Oriental Society""

This present text represents a significant improvement over the two previously published texts of Vrttivarttika. The novelty of the present edition, aside from correcting many errors found in its predecessors, lies in a careful comparison of the two previous editions, and their collation with still another manuscript, from the Houghton Library at Harvard University, Indic no. 1268. This volume includes commentary, transliterated Sanskrit text and notes.

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The present volume contains a collection of articles from an international conference in Zürich that brought together leading voices from North America, Europe, and Israel to evaluate the present state of research on the composition of the Pentateuch. The aim of the conference was to clarify differences in methodology and to identify points of convergence in the present state of pentateuchal research as a basis for further discussion."The essays in this volume provide important insights about the way toward a better understanding of the Pentateuch's literary development."Angela Roskop Erisman in Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.3 (2013), p. 551-553

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The essays in this book place Salisbury in the context of 19th-century Orientalism, with particular attention to the interconnected growth of Assyriology in Northern Europe and the U.S. Hitherto unheralded, Salisbury emerges as a founding figure in the development of ancient Near Eastern, Arabic, and Sanskrit studies, as well as in the rise of the American liberal arts university. Edward Elbridge Salisbury (1814-1901) graduated from Yale University in 1832 and was appointed Professor of Arabic and Sanskrit there in 1841. His remained the only University Chair of Sanskrit in America till 1854, when a separate ‘Professorship of Sanskrit and kindred languages’ was created, also at Yale. Salisbury also served as the President of the American Oriental Society, and was elected as a member of the Asiatic Society of Paris, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding member of the German Oriental Society. This book presents expanded versions of the papers delivered at a symposium held during the 175th anniversary celebration of Yale's 1841 appointment of Edward Elbridge Salisbury as America's first Professor of Arabic and Sanskrit.

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This volume studies three West Iranian language groups that are either undefined or have been scantly analysed. The first chapter, "The Languages of Taleqan and Alamut," studies nineteen kindred language varieties spoken in the Sāhrud basin in central-western Alborz; the second, "Biābānaki Language Group," studies the vernaculars spoken in four villages in the historical district of Biābānak, located on the southern edge of the Great Desert in central Persia; while the third, "The Komisenian Sprachbund," treats seven languages spoken in and around Semnan, located halfway between Tehran and Khorasan. Each chapter addresses phonology, morphosyntax, and lexis, following the areal typological approach developed for West Iranian by Donald Stilo. This approach is complemented for the Biabanaki and Komisenian groups by the longstanding historical-comparative method. Special attention is given to ethnolinguistics and the language contact phenomenon, as well as the historical geography of each region. Published by American Oriental Society in association with Lockwood Press

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Japan: A Short Cultural History was first published in 1931 by the Cresset Press in London and D. Appleton in New York. Writing in the Journal of American Oriental Society in 1959, Edwin O. Reischauer, Harvard professor and leading scholar in Japanese history and culture (and future United States Ambassador to Japan) said this of George Sansom's comprehensive account of Japanese history: "When Sir George Sansom's Japan: A Short Cultural History appeared in 1931, it raised the study of Japanese history in the West to new levels. Its penetrating analysis of institutions, sensitive interpretations of cultural developments, and stylistic charm contrasted with the plodding pedestrian surveys and over-written anecdotal accounts that had hitherto served in the Occident as introductions to Japanese history." The present Stanford edition, the first to appear in paperback in the United States, is a photographic reproduction of the British edition except in two particulars: eight of the original twenty plates have been dropped, and the maps have been redrawn by Margaret Kays. In redrawing the maps it was decided to retain the author's terminology, orthography, and dating even where these have been discarded or suspended by more recent scholarship.

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To date, no comprehensive treatment of Egyptian magic has focused on the practice of the magician. Both general studies and textual publications have emphasized instead the religious elements in the contents of recited spells, while the accompanying instructions, with their vignettes and lists of materials, instruments, and ritual actions, remained uninvestigated. This study represents the first critical examination of such "magical techniques," revealing their widespread appearance and pivotal significance for all Egyptian "religious" practices from the earliest periods through the Coptic era, influencing as well the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri. The author also discusses the "pagan-Egyptian" influence on Old and New Testament practices and in the lives of the Coptic Desert Fathers. The third edition is a reprinting of the second, which included minor corrections from the original edition. This volume is a significant revisionist approach to ancient Egyptian magic. As a result of a methodical analysis of both the textual and archaeological records, Ritner concludes that the boundaries between ancient Egyptian magic, religion, and medicine were not as strictly observed as modern commentators believe. Furthermore, he categorically denies the frequent attempts of moderns to define ancient Egyptian magic as a phenomenon dealing with the supernatural, practiced primarily for nefarious purposes sub rosa by strictly observed as modern commentators believe. Furthermore, he categorically denies the frequent attempts of moderns to define ancient Egyptian magic as a phenomenon dealing with the supernatural, practiced primarily for nefarious purposes sub rosa by individuals outside of the religious mainstream. Ritner's engaging prose style and felicitous exegesis of even the most arcane material make for easy reading. But more important still, the content of the work ensures that it will become a vital reference tool for all engaged in any aspect of ancient Egyptian religion. [From a review by R. S. Bianchi in Journal of the American Oriental Society 114 (1994) 513-14].

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