The texts left behind by the Old Turks, who were ruled by various tribes and dynasties between AD 550 and 840, are found on different objects and spread across a wide area. These Old Turkic texts carry much valuable information about the Old Turks to the present day. Notably, the inscriptions of the khaganate consist of longer texts and serve as historical sources. Additionally, there is a much larger number of inscriptions consisting of shorter texts with various contents. Although it is understood that these texts were created by men, many references to women are encountered. In the inscriptions, the god Tengri is masculinised and associated with the khagan, while Umay, who was likely a goddess, is associated with the khagan’s wife, the khatun. It is observed that both the ruler and the ruler’s wife were chosen by the deity, and the power to rule was granted to them by the deity. Based on this, expressions related to women have been identified in the Turkic inscriptions found across a vast geography, the collected data have been presented, and they have been evaluated collectively. Along with the role of women in society, the reasons why queens were chosen by the deity have been explored.

This article explores the complex professional and personal relationship between Edward Hume, an American missionary physician, and Fu-ch’ing Yen, a Chinese physician trained in the United States, during their work at the Yale University medical mission in Changsha, Hunan, from 1906 to 1926. The partnership between Hume and Yen exemplifies the collaboration and compromise required to sustain and develop a major medical institution in provincial China, highlighting broader tensions in early twentieth-century Sino-American medical education and professional identity. Their differing priorities led to a temporary rift over the purpose of their work at the Yale mission, reflecting deeper debates about professional identity, Sino-foreign cooperation, and the evolving dynamics of Western medicine in China. Drawing on correspondence, institutional records, and contemporary reports, this study situates their partnership within broader trends of professionalisation and the localisation of scientific medicine in Republican China. It argues that the negotiation of professional status was pivotal in shaping the trajectory of their collaboration and offers insights into the local, structural, and personal dimensions of Sino-foreign cooperation in medical work.

This article surveys the life and work of Benjamin Clough (1791–1853), Wesleyan Methodist missionary to Ceylon, focusing on his contributions to the study of Pali and Buddhism. It attempts to show that he inaugurated the Western study of Pali and that he should be recognised as one of the most important early scholars of Buddhism.

In 1770, the Rohilla chief Ḥāfiz̤ Raḥmat Ḵẖān wrote a text called Ḵẖulāṣat ul-Ansāb, focusing on the genealogical and ancestral history of the Rohilla Afghans. This article analyses the text as a glimpse into the emotions he went through—such as anxiety, uncertainty, confidence, determination, and strength—as the ruler of a small principality founded by a new political group in the competitive political milieu of eighteenth-century South Asia. It studies the textual expression of these emotions he experienced during a period that brought both challenges and opportunities for the Rohilla Afghans. It firstly shows how the text served as a means of creating unity among the Rohilla Afghans by elaborating an origin story, adapting them to new circumstances, and legitimising the emerging Rohilla state. Secondly, it discusses how Ḥāfiz̤ Raḥmat aimed to rectify the negative portrayals of the Afghans by Mughal chroniclers and enhance Afghan prestige in northern India by creating a haloed genealogy. Finally, it explains how the text claimed religious legitimacy for the Rohilla Afghans by linking them to the prophets, Muslim invaders of the past, and local religious figures. Overall, this textual analysis contributes to the historiography of eighteenth-century South Asia by studying the political anxieties associated with Rohilla Afghan state formation.

Towards the end of his al-Ghayth al-Musajjam fī Sharḥ Lāmīyat al-ʿAjam, Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī (d. 1363/764) aims a peculiar slight at his sometime teacher Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328/728), likening him to two famous executed heretics, al-Suhrawardī (d. circa 1191/587) and Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 759/142), in their shared ‘lack of reason’. Though often cited as evidence that al-Ṣafadī held his famous contemporary’s intelligence in low regard, the insult is more specifically aimed at his lack of discretion. In this article, I examine how Ibn Taymiyya is portrayed across the Sharḥ and argue that, when paired with insights from the book about al-Ṣafadī’s own language-centred hermeneutics, we gain a number of interesting insights into this prolific historian and adīb. The first is that he was closely familiar with and even mimicked aspects of the culture of ‘esoteric disclosure’, including in his criticism of Ibn Taymiyya and his indiscretion. Al-Ṣafadī also emerges as something of an exemplar of what Thomas Bauer has called Islam’s ‘cultural ambiguity’, whose final criticism of Ibn Taymiyya and of the heretics to whom he is likened is not any specific one of their beliefs, but rather their inability to exercise discretion in expressing them.

The Parsi Sanskrit Yasna, attributed to Nēryōsangh, presupposes a sophisticated philological system that features historical, religious, and cultural elements. This philological system, developed in a multicultural environment, reflects both the Zoroastrian tradition and contemporary Indian society. Centuries later, Eugène Burnouf effectively utilised the same system to make significant advances in comparative Indo-Iranian studies. This article examines Burnouf’s philological approach and his rediscovery and revival of the original philological system of the Sanskrit Yasna, thanks to a multilingual and multicultural scope that allowed him to understand the text and draw important comparative patterns from it. The article emphasises the importance of multidisciplinary studies to fully explore the historical implications of the philological system, urging us to revisit its methodology in light of current knowledge and technology.

This study examines the life and multifaceted legacy of Veled Çelebi İzbudak (1869–1953)—a Mevlevi sheikh, Ottoman bureaucrat, and key figure in Turkish linguistic reform. Positioned at the intersection of tradition and shifting sociopolitical dynamics, İzbudak’s career exemplifies how Sufi intellectuals actively engaged with and negotiated the ideological and administrative transformations from the late Ottoman empire to the early Turkish republic. By situating İzbudak within the broader historical transformations of his era, the article highlights his engagement with significant reforms, such as the closure of Sufi lodges (1925) and the language reform (1928), revealing his dual role as a preserver of religious heritage and a proponent of modern state-building initiatives. Through an analysis of his memoirs, writings, and official correspondence, this research uncovers how İzbudak reconciled his Sufi commitments with the nationalist ideals of the republic, emphasising his advocacy for Turkish linguistic preservation as a bridge between Ottoman Sufi legacies and the emerging cultural identity of modern Turkiye. Challenging the reductive portrayal of Sufi figures as passive in the face of reform, the study argues that İzbudak exemplifies the nuanced agency of Sufi bureaucrats, offering a deeper understanding of their contributions to cultural, linguistic, and political transformations during a pivotal period in Turkish history.

The present article focuses on two main topics. Firstly, it provides a general overview of Edward W. West’s travels in India, based on an investigation of unpublished documents preserved in London archives. It emerges that there may have been at least four such periods of residence, during which West developed his scientific interests. One of the main objectives of this investigation was to identify traces relating to the manuscripts of the Zoroastrian polemical treatise Škand Gumānīg Wizār. Secondly, it sheds light on the broader context of the first critical edition of the aforementioned treatise, co-authored by West and Dastur Hoshangji JamaspAsana, and published in 1887. The second part raises questions about the complete manuscripts of this treatise, which appear to have been lost. Particular attention is given to AK2.

The Song of Songs—a biblical celebration of love and desire—holds a unique place in literary history, revered not only for its religious significance, but also for its poetic beauty. Early Chinese translations of this biblical book struggled to resonate with local audiences until the release of the Delegates’ Version, which is acclaimed as the first Chinese Bible that can truly be regarded as a work of Chinese literature. The Song of Songs in the Delegates’ Version, titled Yage 雅歌 (The Refined Song), undergoes a noticeable acculturation in which its imagery and themes are intricately woven into the fabric of Chinese literary tradition. This article explores how this biblical love song has been recontextualised to resonate with Chinese cultural and literary sensibilities. By examining the portrayal of lovers, the nature of love, and the poetic resonance established through the integration of verses from the Shijing in the Yage, it highlights the intricate interplay between biblical text and Chinese literature. Ultimately, this study reveals that, while the Bible shapes the life of its community, it is also shaped by the cultural and linguistic contexts in which it is translated.

The shuhūr sanah, also called the Shuhur era, was a solar calendar used in Deccan India in the pre-modern and early modern periods. Scholars have long assumed that the calendar was instituted in the early fourteenth century, sometime in 1344–1345 CE, although, to date, no primary evidence from the fourteenth century has been examined to substantiate this inaugural date or explain the circumstances that led to the genesis of the calendar. In the present article, I discuss a 1333–1334 CE Persian epigraph from Daulatabad that uses the phrase shuhūr sanah and argue that the calendar was instituted during a period of economic, administrative, and agricultural uncertainty in the reign of the Delhi Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325–1351). In so doing, I re-date the inauguration of the calendar to a decade prior to what has been assumed thus far and posit a new theory about the calendar’s longevity in the Deccan. More broadly, I examine the historiography and the historical usage of the Shuhur era in the Persianate epigraphic corpus. The survey reveals how the Shuhur era was used to make public-facing pronouncements and also clarifies the limits of the calendar’s usage. The calendar was popular in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; after this period, it was phased out by other calendrical systems preferred by the Mughal (1526–1857) and the Maratha (1674–1818) empires, who came to control the Deccan.

This article examines the earliest known corpus of Chinese poetry written in the Spanish Philippines, preserved in Diego de Rueda y Mendoza’s Relación verdadera de las exequias funerales (1625), composed to commemorate the death of King Philip III. Among the numerous multilingual tributes collected in the manuscript, six poems were authored by members of the Sangley (Chinese) community in Manila—some Christianised, others gentile—marking a significant moment in the history of transcultural mourning, poetic diplomacy, and Chinese literary expression in a colonial Iberian setting. Three of the poems are written in classical Chinese and exhibit sophisticated Buddhist and literary references; the other three, composed in Spanish by Sangley authors, reflect a hybridised voice grounded in baroque rhetorical tradition. Rueda’s accompanying prose ‘translation’ of the Chinese poems reveals both a willingness to engage Chinese expression and a limited understanding of its linguistic and cultural nuances. This study offers a close reading of the Chinese poems, demonstrating how they employ imagery rich in Buddhist meaning, reflecting the Chinese cultural understanding of imperial rulership. It also compares these verses to their Spanish counterparts and Rueda’s summaries, revealing both overlap and erasure. The article argues that these poems, far from being mere colonial curiosities, testify to the complex cultural agency of Manila’s Chinese community and challenge dominant narratives of Hispanisation. Ultimately, the manuscript preserves a unique instance of literary and political negotiation that sheds light on the layered identities of early modern Chinese in the Philippines.

This article examines historical perceptions of the territorial extent of Bod, the Tibetan toponym for ‘Tibet’. In a bid to establish what area second-millennium authors (and audiences) may have pictured when this toponym was invoked, we analyse instructive passages from five historiographical works, mostly dating from between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. The rough-hewn maps of Bod ‘Tibet’ that emerge from this procedure differ quite radically from one work to the next, and at times even between different passages from a single source. While one work may see ‘Tibet’ as the territory directly centered on the Tibetan Plateau’s south-central river valleys, another source may forward an image of a ‘Tibet’ that is thrice as large. Works may also allow for shifts in its borders from one political period to the next, or incorporate multiple incongruous territorial descriptions. This material helps answer what ‘Tibet’ meant in different periods and places, and to different people—questions that have only poorly been studied outside of modern political history. One relevant finding, among others, is that the notion of a ‘Tibet’ that covers a large part of the Tibetan Plateau, incorporating for instance sites in contemporary eastern Qinghai, was not in fact a modern innovation.

Unlike in other contexts and regions in India, servants/slaves in Goan homes (in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) received inordinate attention from European non-Portuguese travellers. They provided disturbing descriptions of Goan households and the violence inflicted on the subalterns. Slave ownership in the Portuguese empire was both an economic imperative and a problem for moral theology in Europe and overseas. Although slavery was not at the centre of the debate, it contributed to the construction of the ‘Black Legend’ of Portuguese colonialism in Asia. It nourished the complaint regarding moral dissoluteness due to the mixing of population and economic corruption of the Portuguese imperial institutions. The argument was that the Portuguese intermarried and consequently started closely resembling gentiles, some of whom they first enslaved. By looking into three types of archival documents, I discuss slavery/servitude in Goan households: 1) in the legal and moral framework for the ‘just’ slave society debated by ecclesiastics, 2) as it was seen and represented by foreign travellers, 3) and in the seventeenth-century history rewriting of elite Goan Christian theologians obsessed with the purity of blood of their ancestors.

In 1804, an elder courtier named Ban’deyri Hasan Manikufaanu (1745–1807) chronicled the sea voyage of the sovereign of the Maldives, Sultan Muhammad Mueenuddeen I (r. 1799–1835). The purpose of the voyage was to visit the islands of Ari Atoll. Manikufaanu crafted 171 verses according to the rules of a Maldivian genre of poetry called raivaru. The work is known as Dhivehi Arumaadhu Raivaru (‘Raivaru that chronicled the journey of the Maldivian royal fleet’). In this article, I demonstrate how the verses provide a lens into early nineteenth-century Maldivian boat construction, court music, navigational routes, regnal travel, royal ensigns, sailing, and seamanship, all of which have not been sufficiently explored in Indian Ocean studies. In contrast to scholarship on travelogues that emphasises Muslim men’s experiences of heterotopia when they travelled across the Indian Ocean on steamships to maritime ports, this article centres on a provincial journey of a royal fleet of sailing ships taken by the sultan of the Maldives and other noblemen to visit Maldivian commonfolk who lived on islands that formed part of an atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The Annan Protectorate was an administrative division established by the Tang Dynasty in northern Vietnam during the era of Northern Domination, spanning from 679 to 907. Prior to 679, as the Tang Dynasty began its rule in Jiaozhou, governance was initially organised as the Jiaozhou General Administration (622–624) and later as the Jiaozhou Area Command (624–679). From the establishment of the Annan Protectorate until 757, it was locally administered as one of the five defence commands within the Lingnan Circuit. After 757, Annan came under the authority of the military commissioner (jiedushi) of Lingnan until 862, when the Lingnan Circuit was divided into East and West Circuits, placing Annan under the Lingnan West Circuit. In 866, the Jinghai Military Command was established in Annan, marking its role as a frontier defence command (fangzhen). In terms of bureaucracy, from 679 to 866, the Annan Protectorate was led by a protector general, with a frontier commissioner appointed during times of rebellion or unrest. From 866 to 907, the head official held the title of jiedushi, while also retaining the role of protector general.