Our last post for the year 2017, an article by Jeffrey Kotyk, is appropriately on Iranian elements in Buddhist astrology. We wish all our readers a happy new year:
Kotyk, Jeffrey. 2017. Iranian elements in Late-Tang Buddhist astrology. Asia Major 30(1), 25-58.
Overview of the history of Chinese Buddhist astrology with a special focus on Iranian elements in the Qiyao rangzai jue 七曜攘災決.
Herausgegeben von einem Team „Turfanforschung“. 2017. Zur lichten Heimat. Studien zu Manichäismus, Iranistik und Zentralasienkunde im Gedenken an Werner Sundermann (Iranica 25). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Werner Sundermann’s central research subject was the Middle Iranian fragments from Turfan oasis in East Turkistan, today’s Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China. He always placed his texts in a philological, linguistic, or religious-historical context. The findings of these studies have extended far beyond Iranian studies to include the history of Central Asia, Iranian and Indo-European studies and literary history as well as to Turkology and Buddhist studies.
The memorandum contains more than fifty contributions on Minichaean, Iranian and Central Asian Studies, as well as other neighboring fields. Among others, some new text fragments from the Turfan region, Dunhuang and Iran are for the first time edited and presented. Furthermore new studies on the sources of Central Asian origin and the Greek-Roman and Persian cultural areas are introduced and individual phenomena of languages or religions are analyzed.
Minorities and Majorities in the Middle East and Asia
In Memory of Rudolf Macúch (1919-1993)
The Department of Comparative Religion is honoured to invites to the conference titled “Minorities and Majorities in the Middle East and Asia” which will take place at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava on the days of 14th and 15th of September. The conference is dedicated to the memory of the world-renowned scholar Professor Rudolf Macúch. The talks cover different aspects of the religions and cultures of minorities, especially in today Iran and Iraq, from Mandaeans, Christians, Yezidis, Yārsān (Ahl-e Haq) and Sufīs to Buddhists, ect.
Organizers: Department of Comparative Religion, Comenius University in Bratislava
Slovak Association for the Study of Religions
Venue: Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Arts, 2 Gondova St.
Conference programme (PDF):
Wednesday, 14th September 2016
PANEL 1: The Mandaeans of Iran
Thursday, 15th September 2016
PANEL 2: Diasporas
PANEL 3: Multiplied and fragmented minorities
PANEL 4: Minority policies
PANEL 5: Minorities and Religious Dogmatics
PANEL 7: Religious fractions and groups
PANEL 8: Minorities and majorities in literature & writing
Espagne, Michel, Svetlana Gorshenina, Frantz Grenet, Sahin Mustafayev & Claude Rapin (eds.). 2016. Asie centrale: transferts culturels le long de la route de la soie. Paris: Vendémiaire.This collection of essays is the result of the International Symposium “Cultural Transfers in Central Asia: before, during and after the Silk Road” (Conference Program), held in Samarkand on 12–14 September 2013. Expanding the original Eurocentric orientation in a broad chronological and interdisciplinary perspective and involving new materials, the participants have attempted to test the methodological approach of the “cultural transfers” and the effectiveness of their basic concepts (ways of travel, guides, translators, innovation, assimilation of “new” assignments, semantic shifts, etc.) in the Central Asian context. In these studies Central Asia includes mainly the post-Soviet space and its Central Asian neighbors like Siberia, Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Iran and Azerbaijan. The purpose of the collection is to determine the significance of the theory of the “cultural transfers” and, if possible, the range of its applications.
Falk, Harry (ed.). 2015. Kushan histories. Literary sources and selected papers from a symposium at Berlin, December 5 to 7, 2013 (Monographien zur indischen Archäologie, Kunst und Philologie 23). Bremen: Hempen Verlag.
Harry Falks “Kushan Histories“ discusses new research concerning the Kushan dynasty and is based on a Symposium held from December 5-7th, 2013 in Berlin.
The first part of the book introduces the literary sources. After naming the primary sources and translations a wide range of texts presented chronologically gives an overview of the Kushan history in its totality.
In the second part of “Kushan Histories” five papers deal with different religious, military and cultural aspects of the Kushan dynasty: How were the expansion of Buddhism and the dynasty linked to each other and which role did Zoroastrianism play among the Kushans? How can new geographical perspectives prove the former existence of a military camp of the Kushans north of the Bactra oasis? Which historical data regarding Kanishka’s conquest of India can be drawn from a Bactrian inscription and what did the female deity Nana mean to the Kushans?
Table of Contents
Books as Material and Symbolic Artifacts in Religious Book Cultures
Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr University Bochum: 28 & 29 May 2015
The Käte Hamburger Kolleg Workshop on Books as Material and Symbolic Artifacts in Religious Book Cultures will analyze the connections between books and manuscripts as material artifacts and the formation of religious book cultures before the printing era. It will also explore the ways in which, in religious book production, the medium, in its forms of “human and institutional interactions,” influences the transmission of the religious message, allowing for the material format to receive further alterations from the religious message itself. Finally, this workshop will investigate interactions between modern religious groups and the very academic books which describe them.
Programm of The KHK Workshop on Books as Religious Artifacts (May 28-29, 2015)
Thursday, 28 May 2015
Friday, 29 May 2015