Old Uyghur Sitātapatrā Dhāraṇī Fragments Preserved in the State Hermitage Museum

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-117
Author(s):  
Ayşe Kiliç Cengiz ◽  
Anna Turanskaya

Due to the publication of Nikolai Pchelin and Simone-Christiane Raschmann Turfan manuscripts in the State Hermitage a rediscovery published in 2016, it became obvious that some manuscript and blockprint fragments in different languages used in Central Asia, that had been discovered in the course of four German Turfan expeditions (19021914) and later housed in the Museum fr Vlkerkunde (Berlin) for exhibition reasons, nowadays are preserved in the depot of the State Hermitage Museum. The present article deals with two Old Uyghur fragments of Sitātapatrā dhāraṇī blockprinted during the Yuan era. This paper presents codicological description of the fragments, and transcription, transliteration, translation and facsimiles of the preserved parts of the text.

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma van Santen

Purpose This paper aims to examine the shift away from the traditional distinction between organised crime and terrorist groups towards their conceptual convergence under the crime-terror nexus narrative in the context of international security and development policy in post-Soviet Central Asia. It assesses the empirical basis for the crime-terror and state-crime nexus in three Central Asian countries – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – and argues that the exclusion of the state from the analytical framework undermines the relevance of the crime-terror paradigm for policy-making. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on a literature review of academic research, recent case studies highlighting new empirical evidence in Central Asia and international policy publications. Findings There is a weak empirical connection between organised crime and Islamic extremists, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizbut Tahrir, in Central Asia. The state-crime paradigm, including concepts of criminal capture, criminal sovereignty and criminal penetration, hold more explanatory power for international policy in Central Asia. The crime-terror paradigm has resulted in a narrow and ineffective security-oriented law enforcement approach to counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism but does not address the underlying weak state governance structures and political grievances that motivate organised crime and terrorist groups respectively. Originality/value International policy and scholarship is currently focussed on the areas of convergence between organised crime and terrorist groups. This paper highlights the continued relevance of the traditional conceptual separation of terrorist and organised crime groups based on their different motives, methods and relationship with the state, for security and democratic governance initiatives in the under-researched Central Asian region.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aalok Ranjan Chaurasia

The present article uses data available through the 2011 population census to analyze the state of development in the villages of India on the basis of a village development index that has been constructed for the purpose following the capabilities expansion as development approach. The analysis reveals that the state of development in the villages of the country varies widely and there is only a small proportion of the villages where the state of development can be termed as satisfactory. The analysis also reveals that the state of development in the village is influenced by its selected defining characteristics. The article calls for a village-based planning and programming approach for meeting the development and welfare needs of the village people.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (8) ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
Marina Žukova

Knowledge of English professional terminology is one of the predominant factors for border guards’ successful professional performance during both border and immigration control carried out at their national state border and inside the country and also joint operations organised and implemented by the European Border and Coast Guard at the EU external borders.  The present article suggests an overview of the results of the measures taken by the State Border Guard of Latvia in 2017-2020 to facilitate the improvement of Latvian border guards’ competence in English professional terminology. Based on the results of the survey the author puts forward suggestions for possible improvements in English language training and testing for border guards.


Author(s):  
Yu.N. Tsyryapkina

In this article the author examines state-church relations in Central Asia in the 1940s - mid 1960s illustrated by the example of the Tashkent Deanery during the period of the development of the Russian Orthodox Church under the patronage of the institute of state commissioners for the Russian Orthodox Church. On the basis of an analysis of unpublished archival sources, the author describes the process of reconstruction of parishes on the territory of the Tashkent and Central Asian dioceses, analyzes the economic and property relations between the state and the church, and the financial activities of the Orthodox parishes of the Tashkent deanery. The author focuses on issues related to the staff of Orthodox priests assigned to parishes, their level of education. The author briefly touches on the problem of Catholics and representatives of the Armenian Gregorian Church, who were not allowed to establish houses of prayer. The article provides statistics of the rituals requested in Tashkent in the context of the Assumption Cathedral and the Alexander Nevsky Church. The author comes to the conclusion that the demand for Orthodox rituals in the churches of Tashkent was associated with the high proportion of the Russian population living in the capital.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (I) ◽  
pp. 1-13

Pakistan has frequently been viewed as a stronghold of Islamic radicals, often overlooking the fact that various trends of both dormant and obvious conflicts exist between the politics of religion and region. Whereas the former is mainly controlled by the state, the latter is generally influenced by language and ethnicity. The state’s monolithic notion of national identity, from the country’s birth in 1947 to the present, has overshadowed the regional identities mainly the Pashtuns, Baluchis, and Sindhis, and disregarded the minority credos such as Shias, Parsis, Ahmadis, Hindus, and Christians. The present article aims to explore how contemporary Pakistani fiction in English spotlights images of a fragmented national self, underlining plights of the aforementioned marginal groups and exhibiting strong resistance to hidebound national identity. Reviewing contemporary Pakistani fiction in English with a particular focus on the fiction of Bapsi Sidhwa, Sara Suleri, Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam, Bina Shah, and Jamil Ahmad, this paper aims to bring critical attention of the scholars to the socio-cultural and political valuation of the regional identities.


Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Torben Andersen

AbstractDinka, a Nilo-Saharan language, is largely monosyllabic, nevertheless it has a fairly rich morphology. Thus, most of its morphology is expressed by alternations in phonological material of the root. The inflectional categories of nouns manifested in this way include state and case in addition to number. The state category consists of an “absolute” state and two “construct” states. The case category includes a nominative, a genitive, an allative, and an essive/ablative. The present article shows how case inflection is manifested in complex noun phrases consisting of a noun in a construct state and a following modifier. It is demonstrated that the case inflection of such noun phrases is manifested almost exclusively by tonal overlays on the nominative (lexical) tones, and that such overlays may occur either in the head or in the modifier or in both the head and the modifier. In this way, a head noun may simultaneously carry state information and case information. Thus, the case inflection of construct-state constructions in Dinka adds yet another layer of nonlinear morphology to nouns in this language.


Infolib ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-45
Author(s):  
Nurila Davletyarova ◽  

This article examines the state and prospects of library personnel training in Central Asia. The article focuses on the creation of a new, alternative approach to training librarians, taking into account modern requirements, which ensures the maximum approximation of the traditional system of training specialists to international educational standards. At the same time, special attention is paid to the process of internationalization of library and information education in the Central Asian region.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
James Pickett

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the Islamic scholars of Bukhara during the long nineteenth century. Islamic scholars were among the most influential individuals in their society, and that power rested on their mastery of diverse forms of knowledge rather than birthright. Instead of imagining those varied competencies and practices as embodied by separate professions, this book conceptualizes them as distinct practices and disciplines mastered by a single milieu. Instead of imagining stratified castes of “ulama” as against “sufis” as against “poets,” there is a unified social group of multitalented polymaths selectively performing sharia, asceticism, and poetry as circumstances dictated. These polymaths of Islam were the custodians of the only form of institutionalized high culture on offer in Central Asia. Their authoritative command over many different forms of knowledge — from medicine to law to epistolography and beyond — allowed them to accumulate substantial power and to establish enduring family dynasties. The Turkic military elite relied on these scholars to administer the state, but the ulama possessed an independent source of authority rooted in learning, which created tension between these two elite groups with profound ramifications for the region's history.


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