Arash Zeini

ANCIENT INDIA & IRAN TRUST

Friday Lectures, Michaelmas Term 2008
(5pm, 23 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge)

3 October Mr Shyam Chainani (Bombay Environmental Action Group)

‘Defending Heritage: An Indian Experience’

31 October Mr Mohammed Tahir Zeb (Hazara University; AIIT Pakistan Visiting Fellow)

‘Early Islamic Monuments from DI Khan to Multan’

21 November Dr Iain Gardner (University of Sydney)

‘The Apostle Mani at the Court of King Shapur I: Towards an edition of the Coptic ‘Kephalaia’ Codex Housed in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin’

Saturday One-Day Seminar: New Research in the field of Indian Art

29 November (Chair: Richard Blurton, British Museum)

Due to space restrictions, admission is strictly by ticket only. Please apply to the Administrator using the contact details above.

5 December Bailey Memorial LectureProfessor Robert Hillenbrand (University of Edinburgh

‘Why write on pots? Reflections on Medieval Persian Ceramics’

Special Event for AIIT Friends Only

24 October        Dr Vrej Nersessian (British Library)

‘Armenian manuscripts at the Ancient India and Iran Trust’

The Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics 2008 will be held from 28 July - 08 August 2008 at the Faculty of Arts. This year’s Summer School consists of the following six programmes: the Indo-European Programme, the Iranian Programme, the Indological Programme, the Semitic Programme, the Russian Programme and the Dutch Programme.

The courses in Iranian languages are taught by Dr. Durkin-Meisterernst, Dr. de Vaan and Prof. Dr. Lubotsky.

For more information visit the School’s website.

Bruce Lincoln’s book has been reviewed by Tytus Mikolajczak:

Bruce Lincoln, Religion, empire, and torture. The case of Achaemenian Persia, with a postscript on Abu Ghraib. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. 192. ISBN 978-0-226-48196-8

Read it at Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

Washingtonpost.com has a multimedia-like feature on Zoroastrians in Iran. A quick scan of the first page does not reveal any date for the feature, but I think it could be from the year 2000 or so. It is available in an HTML and a flash version. I did not have the time to go through it myself but decided to post the link here. Enjoy it:

Among the Zoroastrians - Washingtonpost.com

Following the invasion of Iraq statements like this have appeared all over the Internet:

As a minority in Muslim societies, the Kurds often tell their children that Islam was forced on them by Arab conquerors. In recent years, many have returned to the original religion of Zoroastrianism, a condition that suggests a greater ethnic rather than religious identification. [1]

I wonder what the background to this is? Since Zoroastrianism is a non-proselytising religion and conversion numbers as one of the most heated debates within the Zoroastrian community, it is unlikely that official conversions take place among the Kurds. The recent and ongoing conflicts between the Yazidis and Muslims demonstrate that the current sectarian climate in Iraq is near boiling point, and that conversion carries grave repercussions and is thus virtually unthinkable. As the title of this particular post suggests, all these statements seem to be politically motivated. Now, I do not understand politics, nor do I desire to understand or analyse politics. I only wonder, if it is true that conversions take place, who is the religious authority that converts these “many” Kurds who “have returned to the original religion of Zoroastrianism”? In which part of Kurdistan do the conversions take place? What are the numbers of people converted? Does anyone know? Strange news, isn’t it?

[1]: London: An American alliance with the Kurds?

The Indologica website offers a comprehensive list of downloadable books. It is a very useful resource if you need older books on indological subjects. While you are there, have a look at these pages too:

Digitale Bücher

Indologica blog

Note: the lecture Programme has been revised

ANCIENT INDIA & IRAN TRUST

Friday Lectures, Easter Term 2008
(5pm, 23 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge)

25 April: Dr Kate Crosby (SOAS)

Pali as a Sacred Language

9 May: Ursula Sims-Williams (British Library)

Reconstructing Provenance, with reference to Central Asian Manuscript Collections

23 May: Film screening, introduced by Rastin Mehri (SOAS)

Zoroastrians in British Columbia: Performance and Identity (45 mins)

13 June: Professor Prods Oktor Skjærvø (Harvard University)

Unveiling the Past: How the Old Iranian Scripts were Deciphered

After having spent some time on Professor Skjærvø’s article on orality in the study of Old Iranian literature, I look forward to his lecture.

Wendy Doniger has reviewed West’s Indo-European Poetry and Myth in the London Review of Books. Admittedly, I am not too familiar with her work, but I have the impression that she is a gifted writer besides being an incredible scholar of religions. This review is no exception and is a wonderful piece of writing on a very useful book. Be sure not to miss the section on Concepts of poetry in the first chapter of West’s book.
Doniger sums up her review with these words:

In the light of this insight, anything that occurs throughout the Indo-European world is Indo-European, whether or not the Indo-European speakers borrowed it from or lent it to some other cultures. All that is unique is the linguistic structure. And that world of words and stories is beautifully laid out for us in this important book.

Bibliographical data:

West, M. (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. , 480. Oxford University Press.
Link to review:

LRB · Wendy Doniger: The Land East of the Asterisk

I found an interesting article on the Transoxiana website. Considering literary sources as well as archaeological evidence it discusses Buddhist activity in pre-Islamic Iran. The article concludes that caves dating to the Ilkhanid era remain the only certain traces of Buddhist activity in Iran.

Read the article here.

Date: 28.11.2007, 09:00 - 19:00 Uhr
Location: Einsteinsaal der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jägerstr. 22/23, 10117 Berlin

Vortragsreihe zur Sogdiana, veranstaltet von der Turfanforschung (BBAW)
Der Workshop am 28. November 2007 widmet sich dem Austausch zwischen Archäologen und Philologen zur Sogdiana im ersten Jahrtausend u.Z. Die Vorträge von auswärtigen und in Berlin ansässigen Archäologen und Philologen sind in englischer Sprache. Kleine Veränderungen im Programm können sich noch ergeben.

Read more…