scholarly journals A Critical Appraisal of Al-Masudi’s Perception of Northern India: A Special Study on Multan

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Yousef Bennaji
Keyword(s):  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Special Study ◽  
Personal Observation ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Northern India

Arab writers contributed significantly in the development of Indian historiography during the early medieval period. Among these Arab historiographers were historians, travellers, visitors, administrators, businessmen and warriors who came to India between 9th and 12th centuries. These individuals provided important information about the socio-political and religious life of Indians. This record has paramount importance for understanding India, especially from Arab perspectives. Al-Masudi (d. 345/956) is a central Arab historiographer of India who personally visited India. His historiography is based on his personal observation and first-hand reports of his visit to Multan and all that he witnessed. This paper aims to provide a critical appraisal of al-Masudi’s perception of Northern India. A careful study of Muruj al-Dhahab has been conducted to determine al-Masudi’s understanding of Northern India, with particular reference to Multan.

‘Conversion of the Barbarians’ [Huahu ] Discourse as Proto Han Nationalism

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil Raz
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Major Aspect ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Secondary Teaching ◽  
The Buddha

In the early medieval period, many Chinese viewed the growing popularity of Buddhism, and the rapid integration of Buddhism into Chinese religious life, as a challenge to their own civilisation. A major aspect of the resistance to the growing dominance of Buddhism was a discourse known as the ‘conversion of the barbarians’. This basic narrative of this discourse claimed that Laozi had journeyed west to India where he either became the Buddha or taught the Buddha. This discourse, which was elaborated in several Daoist texts into complex cosmological and mytho-historical narratives thus asserted the primacy of Daoism and relegated Buddhism to a secondary teaching, inferior to Daoism, suitable for ‘barbarians’ but not for Chinese. This article discusses the development of this discourse, focusing on texts written by Daoists during the fifth century when this discourse was particularly vehement. In this article I will show that this discourse was not merely resistant to Buddhism, but was also critical of various Daoist groups that had accepted Buddhist ideas and practices. Significantly, this discourse associated Daoism with the essence of Chinese civilisation, rather than as a distinct teaching.

Public Powers, Private Powers, and the Exploitation of Metals for Coinage

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Bianchi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Italian Journal ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship

In 1994, an article appeared in the Italian journal Archeologia Medievale, written by Chris Wickham and Riccardo Francovich, entitled ‘Uno scavo archeologico ed il problema dello sviluppo della signoria territoriale: Rocca San Silvestro e i rapporti di produzione minerari’. It marked a breakthrough in the study of the exploitation of mineral resources (especially silver) in relation to forms of power, and the associated economic structure, and control of production between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On the basis of the data available to archeological research at the time, the article ended with a series of open questions, especially relating to the early medieval period. The new campaign of field research, focused on the mining landscape of the Colline Metallifere in southern Tuscany, has made it possible to gather more information. While the data that has now been gathered are not yet sufficient to give definite and complete answers to those questions, they nevertheless allow us to now formulate some hypotheses which may serve as the foundations for broader considerations as regards the relationship between the exploitation of a fundamental resource for the economy of the time, and the main players and agents in that system of exploitation, within a landscape that was undergoing transformation in the period between the early medieval period and the middle centuries of the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals The development of international law through the lens of the Italian doctrine

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-187
Author(s):  
Massimo Iovane
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Medieval Period

Abstract This review essay analyses a very interesting collection of essays providing a fresh examination of international law schools operating in Italy from the early medieval period to current times. The Essay will show that the book adopts a completely new presentation of this subject, offering thus an unbiased assessment of the doctrinal debate developed in between the two World Wars.

Text and Commentary in the Medieval Period

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-yu Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Literary Texts ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Classical Chinese

In classical Chinese tradition, writing a commentary is a basic way of interpreting texts and teaching classics. A commentator not only speculates on an author’s intent but also cites from various oral or written accounts to annotate a text. Commentary thus becomes a core text for converging knowledge and conserving culture, and sometimes it is many times longer than the original text. This chapter focuses on a series of commentaries on literary texts in the early medieval period and shows that, instead of being secondary to the original text, a commentary constitutes a new text on a par with the urtext in many ways.

Pre-Tang Anthologies and Anthologization

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Knechtges
Keyword(s):  
Literary Culture ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Literary Education ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Belles Lettres

In China from ancient times the anthology has occupied an important place in literary culture. During the early medieval period the purely literary anthology comes into its own. The emergence of a large number of anthologies in this period is related to changing conceptions of writing as well as attempts to define genres and to establish an independent category for belles lettres. Only a few of the anthologies from this period have survived, the most famous being the Wen xuan, compiled around 526. Another extant single-genre anthology is the Yutai xinyong. The Wen xuan eventually became the Chinese anthology par excellence, and for several centuries was the primary source from which scholars and writers obtained their literary education; it was also important in Japan and Korea.

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