Bactrian, the principal written language of pre-Islamic Afghanistan, was little known until the early 1990s, when more than 150 contracts, economic documents and letters, together with a few Buddhist texts, were acquired by collectors. Most of these were published by Nicholas Sims-Williams between 2001 and 2012 in three volumes entitled Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan. The present article presents two additional documents which have come to light more recently, a receipt for a sum of ten dirhams and a letter from an otherwise unknown ruler of Rōb, modern Rui in the Hindukush mountains. The text and translation of the documents are accompanied by a discussion of their linguistic and historical significance.
This collective volume unites ten papers by international specialists in history, philology, linguistics, palaeography and archaeology, dealing with texts written in Bactrian, Khotanese, Tumshuqese, Tocharian, and Gāndhārī (Niya-Prakrit) from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Northwest China, as well as with classical Chinese Buddhist scriptures and the newly discovered Almosi inscriptions of Tajikistan. With studies of the Kharoṣṭhī, Brāhmī, Graeco-Bactrian scripts and the “unknown Kushan script”, the book presents important advances in longstanding problems of Central Asian philology. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students working on cultural and linguistic interactions in Kushan and post-Kushan times.
Table of Contents
Ching Chao-jung: Bactria and Tukharistan in Chinese Buddhist scriptures: A case study of three Vibhāṣā texts
Alessandro Del Tomba: A comparative study of the Mahāvaidehaghr̥ta in Sanskrit, Khotanese, and Tocharian B
Federico Dragoni: Was the Khotanese Brāhmī subscript hook borrowed from the Kharoṣṭhī anusvāra?
Pavel B. Lurje: The “Unknown script” of Bactria: Unpublished materials and fresh interpretations
Francesca Michetti: On the origin of Bactrian final –ο
Miyamoto Ryoichi: Notes on Wakhsh and Rām-sēt in the Bactrian documents
Ogihara Hirotoshi: A new look at ownership clauses in Tumshukese sale contracts
Michaël Peyrot: On the so-called “Fremdvokal” ä in Tocharian and Khotanese and its origins
Niels Schoubben: Gāndhārī light on Eastern Middle Iranian and vice versa: Three new examples
Nicholas Sims-Williams: The Bactrian inscription of Ayrtam: A minimal reading
Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 2025. Bactrian Documents IV: Documents from South of the Hindukush, I (Part II Inscriptions of the Seleucid and Parthian Periods and of Eastern Iran and Central Asia, Vol. VI Bactrian). London: Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum. With a contribution by Frantz Grenet.
Following on from the three volumes of Bactrian documents from Northern Afghanistan (BD1-3), the present volume primarily contains the edition of a collection of fourth-century letters written on birchbark in a place which cannot be located precisely but which was evidently somewhere to the south of the Hindukush, in what is now Southern Afghanistan or Pakistan. One eighth-century document written on parchment is also included on the grounds that it is also known to come from the south of Afghanistan , almost certainly from a place named Khesh between Bamiyan and Kabul.
From the preface
Readers of this blog will be familiar with Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum (CII) and the many volumes published in the series on inscriptions and documents in Iranian languages. The CII forms part of the academic infrastructure at SOAS, where it has its own page (linked above and here). A list of publications is provided below.
We would like to bring a number of recent publications by Maria Carmela Benvenuto and her collaborators to the attention of our readers. Her publications are listed on her departmental page, but also on her academia account.
Benvenuto, Maria Carmela & Flavia Pompeo. 2022. La lingua degli antichi Persiani (Lingue Antiche del Vicino Oriente e del Mediterraneo). Milano: Editore Ulrico Hoepli.
Booking is required for this talk. To book a place, email info@indiran.org
Bactria is the Greek name for the area around the city of Bactra, modern Balkh in northern Afghanistan. During most of the first millennium CE, the principal language of this region was Bactrian, a language related to modern Persian and Pashto but written in a local adaptation of the Greek alphabet. This language was almost unknown until the discovery over the past 30 years or so of a large body of Bactrian documents written on parchment, together with a few important inscriptions carved on stone. In this talk I will discuss some of the most recent discoveries, concentrating on what they contribute to our understanding of the history of the region. The earliest, an inscription of the Kushan king Vima Taktu discovered in Tajikistan in 2022, dates from the beginning of the 2nd century CE. Although very short, it has made possible the partial decipherment of an accompanying text in a previously undeciphered script and language. The latest, the inscription of Jaghori in southern Afghanistan, is dated in the mid-8th century and records a battle between a local and an Indian prince, possibly a prelude to the replacement of the dynasty of the ‘Turk Shahis’ by that of the ‘Hindu Shahis’. In between these two extremes comes a still unpublished collection of letters written on birchbark, which seems to be the archive of a local ruler who was a vassal of the Sasanian kings of Iran in the late 4th century.
Nicholas Sims-Williams is Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, SOAS University of London, and Chair of the Ancient India & Iran Trust.
This article proposes a new etymology for the Nuristani word family of Katë lod ~ lot, Nuristani Kalasha lād, etc. It is argued that these are best understood as early borrowings from Bactrian λαδο “law”.
This special issue of Slavery & Abolition presents six studies on the history of slavery in the greater Mediterranean basin, the Near East and the Iranian world during the second half of the first millennium CE. The articles cover a large area that stretches from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to Bactria in the east, an area that was at that time largely controlled by East and West Roman emperors, Sasanian shahs and, later, Muslim caliphs. Despite the widely varying nature of the various historical environments brought together in this special issue, they combine to tell a common story.
Volume 31 (2022-23) of the Bulletin of the Asia Institute has been published.
Table of Contents
Harry Falk: “Faxian and Early Successors on Their Route from Dunhuang to Peshawar: In Search of the “Suspended Crossing”
Osmund Bopearachchi and Richard Salomon: “Two Gandharan Seated Buddha Images”
Henri-Paul Francfort: A “Blessing” Hand Gesture in Images of Deities and Kings inthe Arts ofBactria and Gandhara (2nd Century B.C.E.-1st Century C.E.): The Sign of the Horns
Ryoichi Miyamoto: Letters from Kadagstān
Dieter Weber: Studies in Some Documents from the “Pahlavi Archive”
Nicholas Sims-Williams and Frantz Grenet: A New Collection of Bactrian Letters on Birchbark
Zhang Zhan: Two Judaeo-Persian Letters from Eighth-Century Khotan
