When set against our knowledge of contemporary Greece and Rome, the whole of Parthian history may be termed a “Dark Age”. Even so, within the four centuries of Arsacid domination, the accidents of discovery and the efforts of scholarship have illuminated some periods more than others. Of the latter, one, running between the death of Mithradates II in about 88 B.C. and the accession of Orodes II some thirty years later, has proved peculiarly impenetrable.

L'intérêt historique considérable du texte Istanbul 7608 bis, publié avec une photographie par G. Ryckmans en 1946, a été souligné par les nombreux commentateurs qui ont étudié cette inscription, gravée au champlevé comme presque tous les textes monumentaux de l'époque récente. Sur la photographie publiée par G. Ryckmans, l'eclairage vient d'en bas. Dans les textes en relief de ce genre, l'œil ne perçoit correctement la sensation du relief que sous un éclairage venu d'en haut, comme dans la nature, de sorte que l'impression exacte du relief n'est généralement obtenue qu'en retournant le texte tête en bas, ce qui rend la lecture malaisée. Les planches jointes au présent article répondent au besoin impérieux de photographies correctement éclairées.

It is a well-known fact that the discovery of the sea route to India and the ensuing scarcity of spices and other Indian products on the markets of Alexandria and Damascus resulted in their prices rising steeply. Judging from Venetian sources, the change in the condition of the Levantine trade was considered catastrophic. On the other hand, some scholars have already drawn attention to the fact that pepper prices fell considerably on European markets in the period preceding the expedition of Vasco da Gama, and especially in the second quarter of the 15th century. It is probable, a priori, that this was caused by a downward trend of prices in the Near East. But other factors, such as the level of demand in European countries and the conditions of trade (communications with the Near East, direct or indirect trade), could also have influenced the course of spice prices in Europe. In order to explain the tremendous impact of the rise of spice prices at the beginning of the 16th century, I have suggested, in my Histoire des prix et des salaires, the probability of a fall of prices in the Near Eastern emporia in the pre-Vasco period. In a paper published a few years later I tried to substantiate this conjecture by additional materials and, further, by the supposition that it was accompanied by a great increase in the volume of the Levantine trade, and also a general price-decline in the Near East at the end of the Middle Ages.

It is well known that at the advent of Islam there were three Jewish tribes who lived in Yathrib (later Medina), as well as other Jewish settlements further to the north, the most important of which were Khaybar and Fadak. It is also generally accepted that at first the Prophet Muḥammad hoped that the Jews of Yathrib, as followers of a divine religion, would show understanding of the new monotheistic religion, Islam. However, as soon as these tribes realized that Islam was being firmly established and gaining power, they adopted an actively hostile attitude, and the final result of the struggle was the disappearance of these Jewish communities from Arabia proper.

During the 1850's a prolonged encounter took place in the city of Agra between a Muslim ‘ālim, Maulānā Raḥmat Alläh Kairānawī, and a German evangelical missionary, the Reverend K. G. Pfander. The early Mughal emperors had developed Agra as the capital of their expanding empire, and even after the transfer of the court in 1648 to nearby Delhi, the city had retained some importance as a centre of Muslim culture and learning. But the period of the decline of the Mughal fortunes in the 18th century culminated in the capture of Agra in 1803 by the forces of the East India Company, and the next half-century saw the transformation of the city into a key administrative centre in the expansion of British control over north India. In 1836 Agra was made the headquarters of a new unit of administration—the North-Western Provinces. Hence the phase of active religious encounter which began shortly after that date should be examined in terms of the impact which British rule, Western culture, and the Christian religion had effected on the people of the province since its annexation. Indeed in the eyes of missionary as well as ‘ālim, the generating force behind the new confrontation was a fear that the beginning of Christian preaching activity in Agra was a threat to the hold of Islam on the uneducated Muslims of the city and the surrounding region.

In examining the religious attitudes visible in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, perhaps the first thing to recognize is that such an examination in itself tends to distort the picture by focusing attention on an aspect which is, by Indian standards, of comparatively slight significance. For Vālmīki's work is far from being a Vaiṣṇava epic, even a religious epic at all. This point needs to be emphasized, for the epic is still sometimes regarded as a Vaiṣṇava work, but it is far from new, for Hermann Jacobi in particular made it 80 years ago in words which are quite explicit and still worth quoting: “Die Vergöttlichung Râma's, seine Identificirung mit Vishṇu, ist im ersten und dem letzten Buche eine Thatsache, die dem Dichter immer vor Augen steht. In den fünf echten Büchern aber ist diese Idee, von wenigen eingeschobenen Stellen abgesehen, noch nicht nachweisbar; im Gegenteil ist Râma dort immer durchaus Mensch. Es bedurfte gewiss einer längeren Zeit, ehe sich die Umwandlung des Charakters Rama's, wie sie in den beiden zugefügten Büchern zutage tritt, vollzogen hatte.” However, the existence now of the nearly-complete Critical edition of the Rāmāyaṇa, permitting a closer approach to the original state of the work, warrants a fresh look at the evidence.

Thomas R. Trautmann's paper entitled “Licchavi-dauhitra” appears in JRAS, 1972, 2–15. The following are some of our observations on certain points raised in it.

It is a well-known fact that the Purāṇas have traced all the earliest Indo-Aryan dynasties from Manu Vaivasvata. One of the sons of Manu Vaivasvata was Ikṣvāku who is said to have founded a dynasty which ruled at Ayodhyā, while a son of his named Nimi is said to have founded the kingdom of Videha. The location by the Purāṇas of the earliest Aryan dynasties as far east as Kosala and Videha, however, goes totally against the evidence of the Ṛgveda and the later Vedic literature, according to which the Aryans were originally settled in the country called Saptasindhu and only later moved towards the east, the south, and the west. It was this serious conflict between the evidence of the Purāṇas and the Vedic literature which led Rapson to declare that it seems impossible to bring the Purāṇic genealogies into any satisfactory relation with the Vedic literature.

Dynastic changes are not an uncommon feature in history. In the history of Sri Lanka they have been especially common and have sometimes taken place in such a rapid succession that one might form the impression of their being a recurrent feature. One observes the succession of the Moriyas by the Lambakaṇṇas, followed by the Pāṇḍyas and the Kāliṅgas. Usually such changes have been the result of the weakness of the central political authority, internal discord, factional disputes, and other such decisive forces which provided excellent conditions and ideal opportunities for ambitious kings, particularly from the sub-continent, to invade the island. Sometimes they have been caused by less hostile circumstances, at least in their initial stages, such as appeals for intervention by rulers to outside powers. There seem to have been certain special forces and features that marked the changes that occurred in the late medieval period. We shall be concerned here with a discussion of those forces with a view to understanding the special features of the process of change, the manner in which a comparatively insignificant clan of foreign descent acquired power and rose to the highest ranks of the governing élite, and also the forces that brought about its downfall. The question, “Why were the new élite unable to gain sovereign power when it was just within their grasp?” will engage our special attention.

Much has been written and said about determinism in Indian philosophy and religion, but not enough heed seems to have been paid to many statements and theories advanced by the Indian literati in their attempt to offset the enthralment of man by the automaticism involved in such deterministic doctrines as those of karman and the ensuing saṁsāra.