The Dengjue Si 等覺寺 (Dengjue Temple) may be regarded as the most significant Buddhist temple in the Menghua region of Yunnan Province during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The building dates back to the Nanzhao Kingdom (738–902), underwent significant expansion during the Ming Dynasty, and housed the Menghua prefectural Buddhist registry in both the Ming and Qing (1644–1912) periods. The article analyses an important inscription—Chongxiu Dengjue si beiji 重修等覺寺碑記 (Stele of the restoration of the Dengjue Temple)—which meticulously records the historical context of the temple’s construction and restoration, the individuals involved, its architectural layout, and its rise and fall during the early to mid Ming Dynasty. What distinguishes this case is Menghua’s unique status as the reputed birthplace of the Nanzhao royal lineage. The Ming Dynasty conquered Yunnan in 1382, after which it introduced new Confucian ideologies and Buddhist practices, and gradually initiated a programme of social reconstruction. The Zuo family, who claimed descent from the Nanzhao royal family to legitimise and consolidate their authority as native officials (tusi 土司) in Menghua, became the temple’s principal benefactors. Within this context, the restoration of the Dengjue Temple was the result of collaborative efforts among the Ming government, local officials, regional elites, and monastic leaders. By tracing the temple’s history with reference to the roles of these actors, this study presents the Dengjue Temple as a microcosm of Ming frontier governance, religious adaptation, and cultural negotiation.

This article recovers the history of the first systematic British attempts to survey the languages of India. Long before George Abraham Grierson proposed his monumental survey of Indian languages at the end of the nineteenth century, the Scottish judge James Mackintosh suggested a similar undertaking to the Literary Society of Bombay in 1806. This article follows those who pursued the project over the next several years. Their efforts stretched across India, the north-west frontier into Afghanistan, east into Burma, as far north as Nepal, and all the way south into Ceylon. Almost all of those involved in these efforts were Scots who were educated at the University of Edinburgh and so, as well as reconstructing a forgotten chapter in the history of British imperialism, this article supplements our pictures of the histories of imperial knowledge production and Scottish orientalism.

This article traces the figure of the lūṭī in the writings of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 1350) and Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373). These two fourteenth-century scholars adopted a harsh and uncompromising view of the lūṭī as a sexual actor, repeatedly depicting the horrific afterlife punishments awaiting him in Hell. As part of their hyperbolic and extreme depiction of the lūṭī as a damned sexual figure, they imagine him through his communal relationship to his forebears, both among the Qur’anic People of Lūṭ and those like him in his present day. They thereby construct a sexual community of sorts, framing the lūṭī through a parodic repurposing of a strikingly Islamic idiom of belonging and community-building. In doing so, I argue, these texts open up broad possibilities for us to rethink how medieval authors theorised what we might call ‘sexual identity’ and understood sex to construct ways of being in the world around them.

This article analyses the contribution of Mīrzā Āqāsī (1197–1265/1783–1849) to the political theology literature of the Qajar period and, consequently, to the dynamics and tensions between Sufism and power in Iranian Shi‘i society. Āqāsī was the first minister of the Qajar king Muḥammad Shāh (r. 1250–1264/1834–1848) and the author of an important political treatise titled Chahār-i faṣl-i sulṭānī va shīam-i farūkhī (The Four Royal Discourses and the Nobles’ Principles of Conduct). This treatise presents several original features, particularly regarding the classical views on the spiritual and political hierarchy in Islam, as well as within the context of the culture of authority in a Shi‘i setting. These views are expressed by Āqāsī in a partially initiatory mode, which renders their interpretation complex and open.

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.