This study explores the Śrīvaiṣṇavas’ commitment to upholding both the Sanskrit and Tamil scriptures or ubhayavedānta (literally, the dual Vedāntas). In particular, it focuses on how one of the most influential post-Rāmānuja ācāryas in the community, Vedāntadeśika (1269–1369), supported the two-scriptures principle in his Dramiḍopaniṣattātparyaratnāvalī. In this work Vedāntadeśika summarizes and translates the Tamil scripture, the Tiruvāymoḻi of Nammāḻvār, arguably the most authoritative South Indian Vaiṣṇava poet of a group collectively known as the Āḻvārs (ca. sixth to tenth century), into (...) Sanskrit. I argue that Vedāntadeśika’s main goal is to secure the status of Nammāḻvār’s Tiruvāymoḻi as the Tamil Vedānta or Upaniṣad (and as the Tamil Veda in some cases). His attempt to bridge the gap between the Sanskrit and Tamil scriptures can be seen in three different aspects: their scriptural status, theology, and linguistic expression. Vedāntadeśika reinforces the scriptural status of the Tirūvāymoḻi, restructures the text so that it consistently illustrates God’s qualities, similar to the Sanskrit Upaniṣads, and, through the linguistic medium of Sanskrit, deemphasizes the poetic tropes of classical Tamil love poetry. While there were other summaries of the Tiruvāymoḻi before, during, and after his time, Vedāntadeśika’s summary is remarkable for its systematic approach and clear agenda. (shrink)

Strange Tales from Edo: Rewriting Chinese Fiction in Early Modern Japan. By William D. Fleming. Harvard East Asian Monographs, vol. 465. Harvard University Asia Center, 2023. Pp. xii + 295. $49.95.

Commentaries represent the best-known evidence for scholarly activities and the exegetical tradition of Mesopotamia. However, commentaries were not the only textual expressions of exegetical activity and scholarship took many different forms. The aim of this article is to elucidate the ways and purposes of the use of various hermeneutic practices other than the writing of commentaries. By analyzing mostly hemerological compilations and simultaneous bilingual compositions, a particular kind of bilingual text, this article illustrates the multiplicity of forms, functions, and scholarly (...) strategies of exegesis and how they are deployed for different kinds or genres of texts. These alternative strategies will be compared to commentaries and their unique features and limitations will be highlighted through an analytical approach. (shrink)

The Betrayal of the Humanities: The University during the Third Reich. Edited by Bernard M. Levinson and Robert P. Ericksen. Studies in Antisemitism. Indiana University Press, 2022. Pp. xx + 600. $40 (paper).

The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century. By Stephanie Balkwill. University of California Press. Pp. xx + 262. $34.95 (paper); open access.

À la découverte du jaïnisme: Une tradition indienne. By Nalini Balbir. Les Éditions du Cerf, 2024. Pp. 450, color illus. €36.

The Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities: Essays Dedicated to Manfred Krebernik during the Colloquium Held on March 17–18, 2022, at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Edited by Jacob Jan de Ridder and Peter Stein. Texte und Materialien der Hilprecht Collection, vol. 14. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2023. Pp. xii + 247, illus. €98.

Arab Traders in Their Own Words: Merchant Letters from the Eastern Mediterranean around 1800. By Boris LieBrenz. Handbook of Oriental Studies I, vol. 165. Brill, 2022. Pp. ix + 701. $215.

The Collapse of Heaven: The Taiping Civil War and Chinese Literature and Culture, 1850–1880. By Huan Jin. Harvard University Asia Center, 2024. Pp. xiii + 339. $59.95.

Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb (d. 1318) has been called the “first world historian” because of how foreign historical sources are treated in the second volume of his Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh. New manuscript materials have shown, however, that his contemporary courtier and historian, ʿAbd Allāh Qāshānī, is likely the real author of much of the Jāmiʿ. This article advances the discussion about the creation of Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh by describing and analyzing an alternate version of Rashīd al-Dīn’s introduction to the collection. This alternate introduction, (...) preserved in a single manuscript in Munich, suggests that Rashīd al-Dīn initially had a very different purpose in mind for his world history than what has come down to us, envisioning it not as an ecumenical description of the world but as a programmatic argument for his patrons’ sovereign legitimacy. Examining this alternate introduction forces us to rethink Rashīd al-Dīn’s historiographical motive. It also helps answer open questions about the structure of Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, its production, and how Qāshānī’s text came to be included in it. (shrink)

While the extant Tibetan biographies of Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982–1054) are abundant, most of the datable ones were completed three hundred years after Atiśa’s death. However, two Tangut manuscripts offer early biographical accounts of Atiśa as they were written in the Tangut State (1038–1227). Centering around Atiśa’s life at Vikramaśīla and his journey to Tibet, the narratives within the Tangut texts both resonate with and diverge from the more conventional accounts found in sources like the Extensive Biography (Rnam thar rgyas pa) (...) and the Well-Known Biography (Rnam thar yongs grags). As a result, these Tangut sources emerge as invaluable resources for studying the biographical tradition of Atiśa, as well as the dissemination of his life story in the unique context of the Tangut State during the rise of Tibetan Buddhism therein. This article introduces and translates two Tangut biographical accounts along with relevant Tibetan textual materials. Its aim is not only to present these new sources but also to utilize them to examine the development of Atiśa’s biographical tradition. Furthermore, it demonstrates how Tibetan and Tangut studies can be methodologically integrated. (shrink)

History and Memory in the Abbasid Caliphate: Writing the Past in Medieval Arabic Literature. By Letizia Osti. Early and Medieval Islamic World. iIB. Tauris, 2022. Pp. xiii + 183. $115.

Exploring Writing Systems and Practices in the Bronze Age Aegean. By Philippa M. Steele. Contexts of and Relations Between Early Writing Systems, vol. 7. Oxbow Books, 2024. Pp. xxi + 169, illus. $80.

This article is based on the corpus of Aramaic epigraphic cadastral documents published in Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea, vol. 5 (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2023). The lexicon and syntax of these texts present a number of intriguing phenomena, and the examination of these phenomena allows the clarification of the reality behind the words. In particular, this article discusses ellipsis, omissions, and the syntax of captions as part of scribal conventions, as well as some (...) technical terms and groups of lexemes that belong to the vocabulary of the land descriptions. (shrink)

The discovery of the Amarna letters in 1887 and their subsequent translation made it possible for ancient Near Eastern specialists of the time to shed new light on the sociopolitical conditions of Syria-Palestine during the Late Bronze Age. In reviewing the scholarly literature of the period and following decades, we may see that the situations of internal conflict described in the letters allowed researchers to draw a general picture of ancient indigenous political communities that was undoubtedly aligned with the imperial (...) perceptions of non-European peoples current during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article explores the conceptions and descriptions that several scholars expressed about Amarnian Syro-Palestinian or Canaanite societies from the discovery of the letters up to the 1970s. The analysis also seeks to contextualize the covert imperial gaze expressed by these scholars as well as their more overt orientalism within the geopolitical situations in the Middle East at the time. Finally, the article assesses a turning point, instigated by Mario Liverani, in the interpretation of Amarna politics and its relationship with the fading imperialist gaze in the historiography of the region since the 1980s. (shrink)

In the eleventh century Yang Ningshi 楊凝式 (873–954) was simultaneously praised as a supreme master of cursive script and dismissed as utterly incompetent with regular script. This article demonstrates that the Chive Flowers Letter (Jiuhua tie 韭花帖), the only one among Yang’s five surviving works written in regular script, is the key to solving this historical paradox. It argues that the Chive Flowers Letter followed the popular guides to letter writing (shuyi 書儀) in the epistolary culture of the late Tang (...) and Five Dynasties and represents the tamed side of Yang’s calligraphy that was rejected by Huang Tingjian and many Northern Song “classical prose” (guwen 古文) scholar-officials for an ideological rather than aesthetic reason. This study also reveals how the traditional Chinese historiography on calligraphy and beyond might have been manipulated to serve ideological agendas. (shrink)

When considering questions of integration, assimilation, and adjustment in the formative centuries of Islam it is vital to think about the individuals who converted to Islam. The gradual nature of conversion and the enduring ties of Muslim converts to their former coreligionists kept them in a liminal position. My analysis will evolve around three spheres of inquiry: linguistic, social, and practical. Linguistically, I show how ecclesiastical Syriac and rabbinic Hebrew terms that refer to apostates speak of individuals who did not (...) burn all bridges but retained some level of contact with their former coreligionists. With respect to society, I discuss the place of converts to Islam as treated by the law of their former religions, and, finally, I dwell upon the persistence of former religious practices among converts to Islam. By viewing converts as liminal figures and unpacking the concept of liminality in its historical context I hope to contribute to the theoretical discussion regarding the process of conversion to Islam in the early and late formative Islamic periods and to argue against its presentation in linear terms. (shrink)

The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China. By thomas Kelly. Columbia University Press, 2023. Pp. xii + 354. $140 (cloth); $35 (paper); $34.99 (ebook).

The Stage in the Temple: Ritual Opera in Village Shanxi. By David Johnson. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, BerKeLey, 2022. Pp. vi + 190. $25 (paper); $24.95 (ebook).

Manuscripts excavated and looted from tombs in recent decades have greatly enriched our understanding of Western Han verse. Some of these documents have been designated by scholars as poems, and a few have even been assigned to particular poetic genres. In this article, however, I am less concerned with sorting texts into neat formal or generic categories and more interested in exploring the range of texts and contexts in which verse was employed. To that end, I introduce, analyze, and at (...) least partially translate five new or little-known texts retrieved from various Western Han sites that make extensive use of rhyme and metrical rhythm: *Xiangma jing 相馬經 from Mawangdui M3, Tang Le 唐勒 from Yin- queshan M1, Wang Ji 妄稽 and Fan yin 反淫 from the looted Peking University manuscript corpus, and *Daowang fu 悼亡賦 from Haihunhou M1. Some of these documents are very similar to sources in the transmitted literature, while others are quite different from any verse previously known from the period. Taken together, however, they greatly enhance our understanding of the different ways verse functioned in various Western Han cultural contexts. (shrink)

Messianism and Sociopolitical Revolution in Medieval Islam. By Said Amir Arjomand. University of California Press, 2022. Pp. xii + 359. $95, £80 (cloth and ebook).