A Gāthic Rite? A Critique of the Cosmological Interpretation of the Gāthās I

In the last few decades ritual interpretation of the Gāthās has replaced the biblical one as the dominant paradigm. The emphasis on the central role of ritual in the Avesta is well justified. This realization has given rise to the question of the role and meaning of ritual in the Gāthās. Marijan Molé had tried to argue that the Gāthās in fact describe and accompany a rite whose purpose was the preservation/renovation of the cosmic order. Students of the Gāthās working within the new paradigm have taken up Molé’s general frame. They have tried to show that the Gāthās, collectively or individually, is the text of a particular rite that served, among others, to preserve the cosmic order, especially the daily rise of the sun. The article questions the validity of this thesis. Its focus is on the version of the thesis we find in a number of recent publications by Jean Kellens. He tries to show that the first Gāthā (Ahunauuaitī) describes a unitary pre-dawn ritual that comprised a haoma rite and an animal sacrifice, and had cosmological and eschatological pretensions. His textual analyses and arguments are examined in some detail. The article concludes that Kellens's attempt must be deemed unsuccessful.     

Why the Śailendras were not a Javanese dynasty

Archaeologists and art historians generally agree that most of the 8th- to 9th-century Buddhist temples in central Java were constructed by the rulers who claimed to belong to the ?ailendra dynasty. But the unsolved question preying on the minds of scholars for many decades now is the origins of this dynasty. Drawing on a variety of arguments this study contends that the present popularity of the ?ailendra dynasty's Javanese origin is ill-founded, and urges a resumption of research into its foreign origins, whether in India, Sri Lanka or mainland Southeast Asia.     

Avestan xratu-

The specific sense that the word xratu- possesses in the Gāthās has not received the attention it deserves. As this article will show, this specific sense points to the eschatological foundation of Zoroastrianism. Eschatological concerns did not first develop in the frame of an established “monotheistic” religion; rather, Zoroastrianism arose from those concerns. The xratu- has a strictly eschatological function in the Gāthās. The noun retains this semantic capacity not only in the Young Avestan but also in the Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts. Iranian languages share the noun with Vedic and (archaic) Greek, where it has the basic meaning of the mental capacity to achieve proposed goals, hence practical intelligence, resourcefulness, or efficacy. If this is in fact the general sense that xratu- has in Iranian, as will be briefly pointed out, the specifically eschatological meaning that it acquires in the Gāthās must indicate the type of religious discourse to which these compositions belong. The noun may, further, have developed its eschatological meaning before the time of the Gāthās and already become a technical term. In this case, it would be legitimate to ask whether there are traces in the Gāthās that point to the institutional background of the term. There do indeed seem to be such traces. The term seems to have been used in the technical sense of the mental power to attain the divine sphere in the daēva cult.     

Mangkunegoro VII and Rabindranath Tagore: A brief meeting of like minds

From youth Mangkunegoro VII (1885–1944) fought to preserve the Javanese language and its literature. Later in life, and particularly after he became ruler, he strove to give a prominent place to Javanese art and culture. Through education and politics he sought to prevent the Javanese language from becoming second to Malay. Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) played a similar role for the Bengali culture and language. In both cases the requisite for playing a role on the world stage was the actors' awareness of their respective cultures.     

The deposit of KHB-1, Ra’s al Khabbah (Ja’lān region,Sultanate of Oman): Stratigraphy,features and structures

The excavation of KHB-1 archaeological site was part of the Joint Hadd Project [Joint Hadd Project is a project operating in the Ja’lān region since 1985, born under the collaboration between ISIAO (Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, Rome), CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris) and the University of Bologna] carried out in the Ja’lān region, along the coast of the Sultanate of Oman. Different phases of occupation with significant structural evidences were identified within the deposit: an early short-term occupation in the 7th millennium, followed by a longer, extended period of occupation during the 4th millennium by a community of hunter-gatherers, with some evidence of animal husbandry. The material culture recovered from KHB-1, which includes architectural remains, provides new insights on the cultures of this region, highlighting a need for further excavations and analysis. This paper will illustrate the stratigraphic sequence and the main features recovered at KHB-1, followed by a discussion on the two main periods of occupation which will help shed a light on the site function and more broadly provide key insights on mobility, economy, and material culture of Ja’lān in the beginning of 7th and along the 4th millennium B.C.     

Preliminary Report on the Excavation of the 17th-Century Anglo-Dutch East-Indiaman Avondster in Bay of Galle, Sri Lanka

The Avondster was a 17th century British ship captured by the Dutch and used by the United Dutch East India Company (VOC) trading with Asia until it was wrecked in Galle Harbour, Sri Lanka in 1659. The shipwreck was found in 1997 to be in very good condition but under threat from development in the harbour. From 2001–2004 an archaeological project was implemented by the Dutch/Sri Lankan Mutual Heritage Centre. The aims were to record and recover important cultural material as well as to build up the capacity of a Sri Lankan Maritime Archaeology Unit for implementing future work.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Preliminary report on fish remains from the 18th- and 19th-century pearl fishing and trading settlement of Al Zubārah,Qatar

This paper presents initial results of continuing work on the fish remains from excavations at Al Zubārah in northwest Qatar. Al Zubārah flourished as a political, cultural and economic hub during the 18th and 19th centuries following the establishment of a settlement by the ?Utūb tribe from Kuwait. Comparison is made between faunal material from contexts dating to the initial settlement of the site in the mid 18th century and occupation deposits from houses inhabited once the town was at the height of its importance as a trading centre. This allows comparison of fishing strategies employed as the town expanded, cultural changes in the preference of fish and the effects on the marine environment as the town's population grew. Analysis also examines evidence for the preparation of fish within the houses and cooking practices.     

Y 19 manas.paoiriia- and aṣ̌a.paoiriia-

Yasna 19 contains an Avestan exegesis of the Gāthic stanza Ahuna Vairiia, the most revered text in Zoroastrianism. The stanza is traditionally understood to be the essential statement of the religion of Mazdā. Thus, in Y 19 we have a unique opportunity to ask about the significance that the Gāthās of Zarathu?tra held for the later Avestan tradition. In what intellectual horizon did Zoroastrian priests place their founding text? Although Y 19 exegesis of the Ahuna Vairiia contains semantic obscurities, it is possible to establish the meaning of the commentary through syntactic and conceptual analysis of two key terms and the phrases where they occur. The article critically examines the earlier interpretations of the text. Having found these inadequate, it proposes a new reading and understanding of the Avestan exegesis. In particular, the article argues that the Avestan exegete understood the Gāthic stanza within an eschatological horizon.     

The Waikato River: Changing Properties of a Living Māori Ancestor

In Māori cosmology, rivers and other waterways are conceptualised as living ancestors, who have their own life force and spiritual strength. The special status of rivers in Māori society also explains why they are sometimes separated from other Māori claims to natural resources of which they were dispossessed in the 19th century. Until recently, Māori were often eager to contend that ownership of rivers is not their prime interest, but instead, they argued that they feel obliged and responsible to keep rivers fresh, clean, and flowing. This perspective, however, changed under the impact of a new government policy of selling shares in energy corporations that use freshwater and geothermal resources for energy production. In this paper, I provide an ethnohistorical account of the Waikato River and show how conceptions of this ‘ancestral river’ changed in the course of colonial and postcolonial history, more specifically in response to a recent shift in government policy. In 2008, a joint management agreement was signed between the government and Waikato Māori for a ‘clean and healthy river’, leaving the issue of ‘ownership’ undecided. Only two years later, however, Māori felt forced to claim ownership when the government moved to sell shares of power‐generating energy companies located along the river, which effectively transformed their ‘ancestor’ into a property object.     

The Twins Stanza,Y 30.3

The Gāthic stanza Y 30.3 has always been at the center of various interpretations and controversies in Western scholarship on Zoroastrianism. Those who believe they have discovered in the Gāthās a monotheistic religion armored with an ethical dualism have made this stanza one of the pillars of their thesis. The so-called Twins stanza shows, according to this view, that the good and evil primordial spirits exist as a result of their choice between Good and Evil, which preserves not only the absolute goodness of the supreme god but also his uniqueness. More recently Kellens and others following him have given a completely different reading of the stanza. According to their account, this stanza is a speculation on the hidden processes of ritual. What the poet expresses in Y 30.3 is not a dualism, ethical or otherwise, but a psychology of the process by which man makes his choice of ritual conduct. Aside from the question of coherence, one must ask whether these accounts are borne out by the text they claim as their basis. This article addresses these two questions.     

Jaka Tarub,a Javanese culture hero?

The origin of the Jaka Tarub story in oral tradition shows how Javanese culture deals with encounters and fissues in its civilisation. Drawing on a north Javanese kentrungan performance recorded in the 1980s the article shows how these Islamic storytellers have skilfully blended ancient myths and folktales with local history and non-Javanese Islamic legends. As a rich source of information on local language, manners and customs, these oral tales may also help to answer questions on the relationship between Javanese and other cultures. Investigation of this genre is urgent since the art of storytelling is rapidly fading under the pressure of modernisation.     

Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra in Translation: A Century of Interpretation of a Sanskrit Mahāyāna Text

Many translations of ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra, a Sanskrit Mahāyāna Buddhist text of seventh/eighth‐century India, have been published since 1892. ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra is one of the few Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist texts available in Sanskrit and it was influential in Tibetan Buddhist schools. This article explores how translation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra is no longer the preserve of scholars but has moved to being carried out by Buddhist practitioners influenced by Tibetan schools of Buddhism. It shows how translators’ motives for translating the text have reflected changing attitudes to Buddhism and its texts. ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra has been translated as a source of information, a literary work, an inspirational work and, with the rise of Western interest in Tibetan Buddhism in the late twentieth century, as a vehicle for the transmission of Buddhist teachings. Nevertheless, further scholarly investigation of the Sanskrit text of the Bodhicaryāvatāra remains to be done.     

Planting Islands: Marshall Islanders Shaping Land,Power, and History

This paper reframes encounters between ri-aelōñ-kein (Marshall Islanders) and ri-pālle (outsiders) between the 16th and 19th centuries through a ri-aelōñ-kein cultural lens. It applies a deep ethnographic approach and frameworks of cross-cultural exchange and mutual possession to re-present ri-aelōñ-kein engagements across the beach as purposeful attempts to ‘plant’ ri-pālle on land and within genealogies. It argues that, in addition to violence, ri-aelōñ-kein used ‘gifts’ of land and other exchanges to ‘plant’ ri-pālle within their realms and, in turn, augment their social status. While deployed most often by irooj (chiefs), kajoor (commoner) men and women used similar tactics with some success. Throughout, ri-aelōñ-kein made history by deploying aspects of culture to advance local ambitions through engagements with ri-pālle.     

A Land Overflowing with Milk And Honey: Sastradarma's Description of Batavia, 1867–1869

Travelogues appeared during the beginning of modern Javanese literature i.e. from mid-19th century, concentrating on noteworthy facts from the visible world as in Candranegara's Lampah-lampahipun Raden Mas Arya Purwalelana (1865). Examined in chronological order these travelogues present a gradually widening circle of interest, from Java via the outer islands to the world outside. One of the intermediate circles, that of Batavia, is described by Sastradarma, a Solonese, in his book, Cariyos nagari Betawi (1867).     

Intimate Relations: Kinship and the Economics of Shore Whaling in Southern New Zealand, 1820–1860

Recent scholarship has situated shore whaling as a key industry connecting southern New Zealand to the global economy and the imperial world during the mid-19th century. An economically-driven view of this period, however, tends to obscure the enduring importance of Māori forms of kinship in the establishment and success of this resource-based industry. In this article, we argue for the significance of Māori concepts such as whanaungatanga (connectedness) and whakapapa (genealogy) to understanding shore whaling in southern New Zealand. Kinship connections formed through marriage tied newcomer whalers to the region, as well as bringing Ngāi Tahu into the emerging coastal economy. The depth of these relationships went beyond the economic, creating enduring social bonds and mixed communities across generations.     

Pākehā Women and Māori Protocol: The Politics of Criticising Other Cultures

Feminists have fiercely debated whether it is wrong for outsiders to criticise gendered customs and practices identified with cultural minorities. This article explores the ethics of criticising other cultures by analysing the reaction to public criticism of Māori ceremonial protocol by two Pākehā women. It argues that the response to outsiders' criticism does not depend in a simple and direct way on whether insiders have resisted the criticised practice. There is a history of Māori women formulating critiques of the gender roles in Māori ceremonies, but the public response from Māori women to the Pākehā women's criticism was overwhelmingly negative. The outsiders' criticism was understood as an attack on the incorporation of Māori cultural expression into the public sector, rather than as a gesture of support or solidarity.     

The Influence of Ibn Sīnā on al‐Ghazzālī in Qur'anic Hermeneutics

Al‐Ghazzālī criticized Muslim philosophers in general and Ibn Sīnā in particular in a number of matters notwithstanding, he was deeply influenced by philosophy and Ibn Sīnā's views as to some issues. Of the contexts in which al‐Ghazzālī is under the clear influence of Ibn Sīnā are the interpretations of some Qur'ānīc chapters and verses which are related to the demonstration of the existence of God and the explanation of some divine attributes and names. In many of his works, al‐Ghazzālī reproduces Ibn Sīnā's interpretation of the verses in harmony with the ontological proof. One can observe Ibn Sīnā's influence on al‐Ghazzālī in relation with the hierarchy of beings, too. However, the context in which Ibn Sīnā's influence is most obvious is the interpretation of the 35^th verse of the Sūrah Nūr. Ibn Sīnā's interpretation of the terms occurring in this verse as symbols of the human faculties exercised a profound impact on the thought of al‐Ghazzālī, which manifests itself in his interpretation of the verse in Mishkāt al‐Anwār. Another of such contexts is the topic of human psychology and the interpretations of the verses related wherewith. Immensely influenced by the psychological views of Ibn Sīnā, al‐Ghazzālī adopted Ibn Sīnā's notion of the simultaneous creation of soul and body, interpreting some Qur'ānic verses in harmony with this notion. This article is intended to illustrate that al‐Ghazzālī, who is opposed to the blind imitation of any school of thought, did not make a wholesale denouncement of the views of philosophers; on the contrary, he made an extensive use of Ibn Sīnā's ideas in conformity with his general attitude of benefiting from all schools of thought.