Search results for ""American Oriental Society""

A wide-ranging exploration of Time as experienced and contemplated. Included are offerings on ancient Mesopotamian archaeology, literature and religion, Biblical texts and archaeology, Chinese literature and philosophy, and Islamic law. In addition, the majority of the papers specifically address issues of differences and similarities between cultures, with or without actual cultural contact. This volume is the publication of a conference designed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Midwest branch of the American Oriental Society, held at St. Mary’s University in Notre Dame, Indiana, in February 2017.

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The Vadaratnavali, Visnudasa’s only extant work, has not previously been translated. In this work, Gerow not only translates the text, but also aims to represent the entire relevant thought of Visnudasa. The result is a Cook’s Tour of medieval Indian intellectuality as well as an accurate representation of Visnudasa’s argument.

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This study reconstructs Mesopotamian geography based primarily on the third-millennium lists of geographical place names found at Abu Salabikh in Mesopotamian and at Ebla in Syria. Frayne has extracted much relevant data from tablets of approximately the same period and later, as well as modern names for sites which help identify the toponyms in the lists. These sources do not help elucidate the geography of Genesis 10, but biblical scholars will find interest in the Mesopotamian lists that were copied in Ebla scribal schools using Sumerian logograms.

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What historical continuity, if any, existed between the practice of crucifixion in the early Islamic polity and crucifixion as practiced by the Byzantines in the Late Roman empire and by the Sasanids in Persia? Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle explores how the first caliphal dynasty of early Islam, the Umayyads, employed crucifixion in its sundry forms to punish brigands and heretics and to humiliate rebels and enemies, and how, while doing so, the Umayyads drew upon a late antique legacy of punitive practices associated with crucifixion in the Late Roman and Sasanid Persian worlds. Like their Roman and Persian predecessors, the Umayyads wielded crucifixion, and thus the symbolism of violence against the body, to attest to their impunity as caliphs and the legitimacy of their rule. Yet, as this study also argues, this is only one side of the story. Dissidents and political rivals mobilized stories of crucified rebels and martyrs, as told and memorialized by Christians and Muslims alike, against the Umayyads in order to contest and subvert the sublimation of crucifixion as an indubitable symbol of the caliphs’ use of legitimate violence, and succeeded in propagating alternative religious and political ideologies of their own.

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In this volume, Kioumars Ghereghlou presents an edition, with preface and indexes, of a previously unpublished sixteenth-century Persian chronicle. Written by Qāsim Beg Ḥayātī, a court scribe to Shah Ṭahmāsp (r. 1524–76), it covers Safavid history beginning with the early part of the fourteenth century and closing with an account of Shah Ismāʿīl’s (r. 1501–24) rise to power and military campaigns in Iran. Dedicated to the Safavid princess Mihīn Begum (d. 1562), whom Ghereghlou credits as Ḥayātī’s coauthor, the chronicle is composed of two parts. Part one deals with the predynastic phase of Safavid history and ends with an account of Shaykh Ṣafī’s life and career. Part two tells the story of the Ṣafaviyya Sufi order, from the ascension of Shaykh Ṣadr al-Dīn Mūsā b. Shaykh Ṣafi (d. 1377) to the early years of Shah Ismāʿīl’s reign. Punctuating this account are two “tailpieces” (tadhʾīl), one on the history of the Safavid shrine in Ardabīl in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the other on the shrine’s superintendents who held this post in the early part of the sixteenth century. This edition makes available for the first time a chronicle that had long been thought lost. Rich in new details about the Ṣafaviyya Sufi order (ṭarīqa) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is an important historical source for scholars interested in this period of Persian history. The text of the chronicle is presented in Persian, transcribed from the original manuscript. The editorial preface and bibliography are in English. The book includes four plates, in colour, showing sample sections of the original manuscript.

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Yang Xiong (53 BC-AD 18), the Han philosophical master remarks at one point in his Exemplary Figures, “Books are as sexy as women.” Modern readers may frown at a comparison they regard as less than apt. Yang was supremely aware, however, of longstanding traditions, ascribed both to the sages and to the Classics, contrasting the unusual strength of the basic drives for food and sex with the general weakness of the acquired inclinations toward moral behaviour. To say that “books are as sexy as women” was to make bold to add to those traditions, adopting the manner of a sage; also to elevate the value of certain texts, at least, to the level morality itself, insofar as they represented acquired tastes leading to the most desirable aspects of civilized life.

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This book discusses the relationship between the idea of Holy War in early Islamic societies and the competition for resources and legitimacy among Muslims who lived on the Arab-Byzantine frontier, providing a fresh perspective on the history of that region during the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods.

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The study of Sanskrit grammar is widely recognized as one of Indias great intellectual traditions. The most famous school of grammar was the one based on Pa?inis A??adhyayi, a work dating from perhaps the fifth or fourth century BC and consisting of approximately four thousand short rules arranged in eight books. Over two millennia scholars produced a huge literature of commentaries to explain how these rules work. Alternative schools were also developed, either to provide easier access to the classical language or to create authoritative texts for groups with distinct religious or social identities. A considerable amount of scholarship was produced by the Pa?inian school between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Two of the most famous scholars from this period were Bhatoji Diksita and Nagesabhatta. The former composed the hugely influential Siddhantakaumudi, a commentary on the A??adhyayi in which Pa?inis rules were radically reordered. Before composing this work, Bhattoji wrote the Sabdakaustubha commentary on the unaltered text of the A??adhyayi. This was a massive work that was perhaps never completed. In his other grammatical works Bhattoji refers readers to the Sabdakaustubha for further details. Nagesabhatta was a pupil of Bhattojis grandson and is often regarded as the last great figure in the tradition of grammatical scholarship. He wrote several authoritative books on grammar, including three celebrated commentaries on Bhattoji's works.

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This monograph examines a number of motifs central to the expression of the ideal of sovereignty as it is articulated in Vedic liturgical poetry. It argues that, because the qualities and privileges of a sovereign leader were coveted even by those for whom there was no possibility of attaining royal station, the language proper to the domain of kingship was gradually generalised and used to express aspirations towards a freedom and self-determination that became progressively more mystical in nature.

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This book is the first historical analysis of those parts of Islamic legal theory that deal with the language of revelation, and a milestone in reconstructing the missing history of legal theory in the ninth and tenth centuries. It offers a fresh interpretation of al-Shafii’s seminal thought, and traces the development of four different responses to his hermeneutic, culminating in the works of Ibn Hazm, Abd al-Jabbar, al-Baqillani, and Abu Yala Ibn al-Farra. It reveals startling connections between rationalism and literalism, and documents how the remarkable diversity that characterized even traditionalist schools of law was eclipsed in the fifth/eleventh century by a pragmatic hermeneutic that gave jurists the interpretive power and flexibility they needed to claim revealed status for their legal doctrines. More than a detailed and richly documented history, this book opens new avenues for the comparative study of legal and hermeneutical theories, and offers new insights into unstated premises that shape and restrict Muslim legal discourse today. The book is of interest to all occupied with classical Islam, the development of Islamic law, and comparative hermeneutical research.

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This monograph seeks to understand the cultural context and function of wordplay as employed by ancient Mesopotamian dream interpreters and other divinatory experts. The author then aims to use this context to explain the presence of punning in Akkadian literary and epistolary accounts of enigmatic dreams. Noegel also examines the later appearance of Egyptian oneirocritic punning and explores the possibility that it represents intellectual exchange between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Building upon these observations, he then argues that Israelite, and possibly Ugaritic, literary reports of enigmatic dreams similarly reflect the punning hermeneutic and therefore also may share a mantic context, as well as possible Mesopotamian influence. Finally, Noegel traces punning oneirocritic strategy into other cultures and later times and texts, including early Greek and Talmudic literature. Noegel’s investigation provides insights into a variety of subjects including the social context of divination and the production of literary texts, the role of writing and script in the divinatory process, the impact of Mesopotamian intellectual thought, the authorship of certain biblical pericopes, the relationship of oneiromancy to prophecy, and the function of ancient Near Eastern literary devices. In so doing, he draws attention to broader theoretical concerns that confront the study of the ancient world.

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The Vasanta Vilasa is a poem of the spring festival in Old Gujarati accompanied by Sanskrit and Prakrit stanzas and illustrated with miniature paintings. Here it is critically edited and translated, with an introduction and a description of the paintings.

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The Sōushén hòujì 搜神後記 (Latter Notes on Collected Spirit Phenomena), attributed to the celebrated poet Táo Qián 陶潛 (365-427), is a compilation of anecdotes and stories known as zhìguài 志怪 ('records of the anomalous') that document strange and unusual phenomena the author observed in his lifetime. Intended to serve as a sequel to Gān Băo's 干寳 (d. 336) Sōushénjì 搜神記 (Collected Spirit Phenomena), the original text was lost but was reconstructed in the late Míng dynasty. This volume presents an annotated translation of the entire Míng version of the Sōushén hòujì as well as of an additional set of surviving stories that were identified and restored to the text by the modern scholar Lĭ Jiànguó 李劍國. The book also includes a history of the Sōushén hòujì text, an examination of its linguistic style and characteristics, a discussion of the historical nature of its contents and how it fits into the zhìguài genre, providing a window onto medieval Chinese society and culture, and a brief overview of recent zhìguài scholarship to guide readers who hope to continue their exploration of the genre.

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" . . . a critical edition based on the three known manuscripts, and translation of a gnomologium entitled Mukhtar min kalam al-hukama' al-arba`a, which contains sayings ascribed to Pythgagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Parallel versions from closely related gnomologia have been collated and noted in the apparatus. In the next section, a commentary on each individual saying and parallel versions in a large number of Arabic texts, both published and manuscript, are noted and discussed. [ . . . ] The Greek originals are, as far as they could be found, quoted and discussed within the tradition of Greek gnomologia." (from a review in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, volume 37, no.2) The book includes the Arabic text of the gnomologium, and an English translation, on facing pages. A paperback reprint of the original 1975 book, with a new Foreword, and with errata and corrections.

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An extract from Abu l-Mahasin Ibn Taghri Birdi’s Chronicle, entitled Hawadith ad-Duhur fi Mada l-Ayyam wash-Shuhur (845-843 A.H.), translated by William Popper.

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Is There Continuity between Persian and Caspian? studies the south-central Alborz as a language transition zone. This mountainous area, also known as Qasran, consists of the upper valleys of the Jajrud and Karaj rivers, separated from both Tehran and Mazandaran by mountain chains, and of Shemiran, within Greater Tehran. There are dozens of villages in the area with vanishing dialects that show various degrees of affinity with the neighbouring languages. The following questions are addressed: Is there a sufficient amount of idiosyncrasy within Qasran to define it as a language group; how do the Qasran dialects relate to neighbouring Caspian, Persian, and Tati; and is there a language continuum or disruption? In addition to linguistic analysis, the study incorporates historical, socioeconomic, and emigrational data. The relationships among the dialects are categorized by making explicit the areal distribution of major linguistic differences in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. An analysis based on 48 isoglosses from 35 localities (amounting to more than 2000 linguistic items) is summarized in five bundle maps. These maps not only show some idiosyncrasy in the middle and southern part of Qasran but also reveal two distinct dialect groups, with thick isoglottic lines separating the dialects in the north and southeast—showing high degrees of affinity with Tabari (Mazandarani)—from the southern dialects, which are akin to Persian. This outcome dictated the coining of two dialect groups: Tabaroid and Perso-Tabaric.

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The discipline of Sinology, as it has been developed in the West, is rooted in philology. Despite the variety of new scholarly fashions and approaches to the study of premodern China that have arisen during the past half-century, the careful examination of texts remains fundamental for all serious Sinological work. In this we are beholden to those European, and latterly, American, scholars who, over several generations, painstakingly established the standards for such work. But no comprehensive history of the field has heretofore been published in a Western language. Now Professor Honey offers just such a history of Sinology, spanning its beginnings in the first efforts of seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries to the growing disciplinary fragmentation of the field in the second half of the twentieth century. Honey gives his most thorough attention to the major figures of French, German, Dutch, British, and American Sinology from approximately 1800 to 1980, with extensive discussion of their most significant works and individual techniques. This is a book of special importance for every student of China who cares about the history of the field.

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