When the Subject is the Object: Islamic Advice Literature Modes and the Treatment of Slavery in The Qābūs Nāmih and The Nasirean Ethics

This paper investigates the difference of perspective which informs The Qābūs Nāmih's and The Nasirean Ethics’ respective treatments of the topic of slavery. While in various parts of their discussions both works show an engagement with each side of the hybrid status of a slave's existence as both subject and object, The Qābūs Nāmih deals with the issue almost entirely in terms of the slave's status as an object, while The Nasirean Ethics engages this issue with clear acknowledgments to his/her status as a subject. It is possible that the divergent approaches of these two works are a reflection of the two distinct modes of the genre of Islamic advice literature in which they were respectively written.     

Literature and society in Medieval France: The mirror and the image, 1100–1500

Society has to be understood as a process of fast changes (revolutions) and slow transformations (reformism). This is what has been happening in Central Europe, where the big changes of 1989–1990 were preceded by several small social, political and ideological transformations. When analysing Central European societies, one should also remember that there is an ‘official’ society and a ‘hidden’ society.     

The Oxus Temple: Localization of the Avestan Vahvi Dāityā

The article describes an attempt to determine the localization of the Avestan river Vahvi Dāityā using archaeological materials from the Oxus Temple (southern Tajikistan). A comparative analysis of archaeological materials and written sources makes it possible to identify the Amu Darya River with the Avestan Vahvi Dāityā.     

Madhavi Bhaskar Kolhatkar,Surā: The Liquor and the Vedic Sacrifice

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

Buddhist Deities and Mantras in the Hindu Tantras: II The Śrīvidyārnavatantra and the Tantrasāra

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

The Lives and Afterlives of Vis and Rāmin

This article is a review of the afterlife, or Nachleben, of the romance Vis and Rāmin, one of the first representatives of its genre in New Persian literature. In addition to providing readers with an extensive bibliography of sources and research concerning the poem, it also analyzes these materials to put forward two basic arguments: one, that moral or religious antipathy to the poem’s contents may not have played as great a role in its fortunes as did aesthetic taste; and two, that V&R proved to be a more widely circulated and durable work than is commonly supposed, but on the level of fragments, not the entire text. In light of these arguments, it is proposed that studies structured around the comparison of fragments—themes, ideas, ethics, and motifs, rather than whole texts—may offer more purchase in constructing models of analysis that situate V&R, and Persian literature more broadly, within a literary oikumene in which it connects and interacts with neighboring traditions.     

The Royal Palace at Tilleda,Kr. Sangerhausen,D.D.R.: Excavations from 1935–1966

THE REMAINS of Caergwrle castle in E. Clwyd stand on a hill dominating the modern village of Caergwrle, which lies immediately to the N. (Fig. 1). The castle is situated about half-way between Mold and Wrexham in NE. Clwyd at SJ.306572 (Fig. 2; Pl. VIIl). The castle is very much a border fortification; it stands at an altitude of 135 m OD just to the E. of Hope Mountain. Any defender on the wail-walk of the castle's E. curtain enjoyed extensive views NE. towards Chester, S. to Wrexham and beyond, and N. to Halkyn Mountain.