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The Near and Middle East Corpus Inscriptionum

Iranicarum. Part II: Inscriptions of the Seleucid
and Parthian periods and of Eastern Iran and
Central Asia. Vol. v: Saka documents text vol. III:
The St. Petersburg collections. By Ronald E.
Emmerick and Margarita I. Vorob'ëva-
Desjatovskaja. 256 pp., plates 160–198. London:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London, 1995. £53.

Y. Yoshida

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 60 / Issue 03 / October 1997,
pp 567 - 569
DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X00032808, Published online: 05 February 2009

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Y. Yoshida (1997). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 60, pp
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 REVIEWS 567
atomized and impersonal. An important factor for various reasons, including the ineffectiveness
was the human warmth and acceptance the of current da'wa methods, 'the future of
converts encountered in such groups, enabling conversion to Islam in Britain does not seem
them to achieve a sense of belonging. to be promising' (p. 30).
There are some methodological drawbacks KATE ZEBIRI
to the study, such as the failure to provide
control figures, particularly in ch. ii which
discusses predisposing factors. For example,
one cannot understand the significance of the
fact that less than a third of the sample feel
that they had a good relationship with their
father in childhood (p. 33), or that 24 per cent Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum.
had an unhappy adolescence (p. 49), without Part II: Inscriptions of the Seleucid
knowing how these figures compare with those and Parthian periods and of Eastern
for the British population as a whole. The Iran and Central Asia. Vol. v: Saka
historical profile of Muslims in Britain (ch. i)
draws on numerous secondary sources, and documents text vol. in: The
synthesizing them into a single narrative can St. Petersburg collections. By
be problematic when different definitional cri- Ronald E. Emmerick and Margarita
teria are used, for example as to what consti- I. Vorob'eva-Desjatovskaja. 256 pp.,
tutes a mosque, resulting in a slightly misleading
overall picture (see p. 9). One or two of the plates 160-198. London: School of
sources used are outdated—a 1967 source Oriental and African Studies,
which finds that among Pakistanis 'religious University of London, 1995. £53.
duties are overlooked" is unaccountably cited
along with a much later source as evidence of The book under review is a text volume to
a current decline in religious observance among accompany the facsimile volume of Saka docu-
Muslims (p. 8). ments vn: The St. Petersburg collections
To base a whole monograph on a sample of (London, 1993; revd. by G. Canevascini,
only 70 means that the material is a bit thin at BSOAS, 58/1, 1995, 163-4). Besides translitera-
times; sometimes only two or three examples tions and translations of all the Khotanese
are provided in tentative support of a particular fragments reproduced in the facsimile volume,
theory. Instead of the constant references to additional material not available in time for
previous theories, which can be an encumbrance the previous publication is also edited here and
rather than an aid to understanding, this reproduced as plates 160-98. Among them are
reviewer would have liked to see a greater 19 folios of the so-called Avalokitesvaradharam,
intuitive or even 'common sense' element to of which only the transcription was published
the study; in the absence of previous empirical by H. W. Bailey (cf. Khotanese texts, in,
studies in an Islamic context one might venture Cambridge, 1956, 1-13). Four specialists in
hypotheses with respect to conversion to Islam Khotanese and Chinese, H. Kumamoto, P. O.
in particular. For example, given that conver- Skjasrvo, H. Vetch and Zhang Guangda, are
sion to Islam in the West is usually met with a named as contributors and their contributions
degree of parental opprobrium or negative are individually acknowledged in the text.
social reinforcement, separation from one's However, even after the incorporation of
parents might be a particularly relevant phase several additional items, publication of the
of identity formation; for similar reasons' rebel- Russian collection is not yet complete. Other
lion conversions' might be especially signific- fragments have in the mean time come to light
ant. In fact the author does cite three instances at the St Petersburg branch of the Institute of
of the latter (pp. 55 ff.), which is a relatively Oriental Studies, since what Kumamoto refers
low number in relation to the whole, but a very to as ' unnumbered pieces' are not included in
high proportion of those who converted at an the present volume, cf. Kumamoto, IIJ, 38,
early age. The high theoretical input could 1995, 374-5. Incidentally, while searching for
have been balanced by a more extensive new Sogdian MSS among the collection, I
coverage—and analysis—of the converts' own myself came across a small fragment in
narratives. Khotanese (ax 14109).
The author strikes a balance between paying By making a great volume of both Old and
due attention to predisposing factors on the Late Khotanese fragments available in fac-
one hand, and acknowledging the uniqueness simile, accompanied by handsomely edited
of each individual's experience and their active texts and reliable translations, the authors'
participation in the conversion process on the contribution to both Khotanese philology
other. On the whole one is left with the and Central Asian studies is self-evident and
impression, not that these are particularly they deserve our warmest appreciation.
dysfunctional individuals (the impression con- Furthermore, one must admire the authors'
veyed by some conversion literature), but that speedy preparation of this massive volume,
the society or environment in which they live especially given the fragmentary nature of the
failed to meet certain needs, and that in texts and the diversity of their contents, i.e.
converting to Islam they made a considered Buddhist sutras and secular documents of
choice which, in the short term at least (two of several kinds, including some bilingual texts in
the sample were converted within the fortnight Khotanese and Chinese. (The contents of the
preceding the interview), brought social and material in general and the historical back-
psychological benefits which were perceived as ground of the secular documents are briefly
outweighing any disadvantages. This puts a discussed in the introduction, 11-14.) In the
question mark over the author's finding that preface the authors state that they decided to
568 REVIEWS

publish the first fruits of their study as quickly indicates that SIGNUM-6 belongs to silam,
as possible rather than wait even for the one may be induced to read sT(ldm) instead of
completion of the glossary promised in the si -i in 306 ( = SP I 103.7) where this signum
earlier work, which will now be published in a also appears. It is to be noted that a similar
separate volume. Meanwhile, two independent looking signum is attested in a Chinese docu-
articles on the materials have been published ment (Balawaste 0160) published by H.
by Emmerick, in Au Carrefour des religions: Maspero, Les documents chinois de la
melanges offerts a Philippe Gignoux (Res troisieme expedition de Sir Aurel Stein en
Orientates, vn, 1995, 51-66); and in R. E. Asie Centrale (London, 1953), 186. As in the
Emmerick et al. (ed.), Turfan, Khotan und case of signum •fft found in a Chinese MS
Dunhuang (Berlin, 1996), 51-65. (cf. p. 91), this signum is preceded
The authors have thus generously made these by ffl 56 ffl W- 3£ i t 'M 'governor, dmaca,
texts available to all scholars concerned with WeichV and the document is dated 772 A.D.
Central Asian Buddhism. Indeed, Skjsrvo has pp. 104-5, 145. SI P 94.24 +SI P 93.6: if
in the meantime made considerable progress in vasa'nsagi (with a spelling variant vasdrasamgi)
piecing together larger fragments and in identi- in this document is one and the same person
fying Buddhist texts so that the number of as vasa'rasamgd attested in Hedin 33, etc., as
identified texts (cf. pp. 11 and 251) is much assumed by Vorob'eva-Desjatovskaja (cf.
greater than as listed in the previous volume. St Petersburg Journal of Oriental Studies, 6,
On the basis of their English translation, the 1994, 397), he may also be identified
present author was able to identify no. 395 ( = with #J B $k 3JC Wu ri sang yi *miu3t nziet
SI M 44.1) as part of the Khotanese version of sang ngjie found on a Chinese wooden stick of
the RasmivimalavisuddhaprabhddhdranT. This the Hedin collection reproduced in Nihon
and some other suggestions of mine will be Shodo Kyoiku Kaigi (ed.), Pictures of Chinese
included in the next volume being prepared by documents on papers and wooden tablets disco-
Emmerick. On another possible identification vered by Sven Hedin in Lou-Ian [in Japanese],
see below. (Tokyo, 1988, 128), no. 117. This document is
In what follows I shall draw attention to dated in the third year of 7$c iH, i.e. 767 A.D.
some minor points in the book which seem to and gives a clue to the dating of Hedin 33 and
merit discussion. the other Khotanese documents containing
p. 13, second paragraph: it is misleading to vasa'rasamgd. Incidentally, this Chinese
say that Or 6395.2 is dated to the seventeenth wooden stick attests a title W IB cao tou *dz'du
regnal year of sau-official sacu, because that d'au ' head of lower officials', which may be
was a regnal year of Visa' Vdham, as is the represented by tsauttau encountered in SP
case with SP I 103.49, in which it is clearly I 103.6.
stated that it was the sixteenth year of Visa' p. 119, 195. SI P 99.1: SIGNUM-9 can be
Vdham and sacu was in office. It is to be noted identified with that of tturgdsi found in D v 4,
in passing that flj£ WL (on which see p. 14) also on which see Saka documents, I, pi. XX.
appears in a Chinese monastic account book pp. 134-5, 269. SI P 102: the contents of side
of 721 A.D.(?) discovered in Khotan (M.T. b. a show striking similarities to a passage in the
009); cf. O. Ikeda, Ancient Chinese household Pancavimsatisdhasrikdprajndpdramitdsutra, cf.
registers and related documents [in Japanese], N. Dutt, The Pancavimsatisdhasrikdprajndpdra-
(Tokyo, 1979), 348 r 50. mitd (Calcutta, 1934), 195-6. Of the extant
Worth mentioning are two unpublished Chinese versions that of ~£ 5£ Xuanzang's
Khotanese fragments in the Otani collection (Taisho Tripitaka, vol. 7, 73a-b) is closest to
apparently from the same MS. They seem to the Khotanese text. Side b seems to have
list names of taxpayers resident in a certain nothing to do with the other side.
locality followed by their ages, e.g. sanlrakd 39, p. 146, 295. SI P 103.26: SIGNUM-13 of
buddvamdai 25, etc. For similar documents see vimaladatta is also found in Hedin 33, 60, and
Hardinge 074.4, 5, 7, and 8 published by Bailey 72, cf. Saka documents, i, pis. I and III.
{Khotanese texts, v, Cambridge, 1963, 274-8), p. 152, 310. SI P 103.41: it is now generally
to which Professor Kumamoto draws my assumed that sulya 'merchants' is related to
attention. Sogdian sw/dyk ' Sogdian', cf. R. E. Emmerick
p. 38, 10. SI P 48: reference is also to be and P. O. Skjaerve, Studies in the vocabulary of
made to another fragment of the Khotanese, n (Vienna, 1987), 146-7. Therefore,
Anantamukhanirhdradhdrani published by it is worth inquiring whether sulya in these
Duan Qing, Xiyu yanjiu, 1993, 2: 46-51. This documents still retains its original meaning,
MS, belonging to the former Otani collection, 'Sogdians'.
contains the text just preceding SI P 48; whether The existence of Sogdian merchants in
the two fragments belong to the same MS or Khotan is inferred from a number of Sogdian
not is not known to me. documents discovered there. They are frag-
pp. 98-9, 129. SI P 94.8, suksuha: this same ments 12, 15, 16, 23, 27, 30, and 33 published
word is also preceded by phemdm ' of Phema' by N. Sims-Williams, IU, 18, 1976; possibly
in D v 4, a 1-2, cf. Bailey, Saka documents fragment 36 reproduced by Sims-Williams and
text volume, [i] (London, 1968), 40, 42. The Hamilton, Documents turco-sogdiens du ixe-xe
context makes it almost certain that this form siecle de Touen-houang (London, 1990), pi. 39;
represents Chinese ^f {S shou zhuo (<*sigu one fragment in the Trinkler collection (cf.
tsdk) 'garrison' which was at that time located G. Gropp, Archdologische Funde aus Khotan,
in Phema, i.e. ifc ftj Kancheng. Ssuksdha Chinesisch-Ostturkestan, Bremen, 1975, 364-7
discussed by Bailey {Klwtanese texts, iv, and Sims-Williams, BSOAS, 42/2, 1979, 337,
Cambridge, 1961, 160) is of course a spelling n. 6); one fragment from the Francke collection
variant. (cf. Gropp, in W. Skalmowski and A. van
p. 103, 141. SI P 94.20: since this document Tongerloo (ed.), Middle Iranian studies, Leuven,
 REVIEWS 569
1984, 149); and a seal with Sogdian inscription DAVID MCDOWALL: A modern history of
prn ' fortune' reproduced by A. Stein, Serindia,
vol. 4 (London, 1921), pi. V, Khot. 0090. the Kurds, xvi. 472 pp. London and
One also finds some Sogdian names in New York: I. B. Tauris, 1996.
Chinese documents unearthed from this area, £24.50.
e.g. l i f ^ *pwtyprn (Maspero, op. cit.,
187-8 with an improved reading provided by In relatively new academic fields of study,
Professor O. Ikeda), <£ 33", *pm (T. Yamamoto publications appear occasionally which stand
and O. Ikeda, Tun-huang and Turfan documents, out so far from the other material published in
m, Tokyo, 1987, 77), 5 |j$ -g *twtwx, the area as to constitute an index of progress
f|f J | § | *wnx'n (both attested in Mazar Tagh made in the general development of the field.
092 published by $fr Guo Feng, Sitanyin disanci This is such a publication, and with its
zhongya tanxian suohuo Gansu Xinjiang chutu emergence one can justifiably say that Kurdish
wenshu, Lanzhou, 1993, 51), and Sf ffl *y'n'kk studies have come of age.
(cf. Ikeda, op. cit., 349, line 17). Budavamdai David McDowall is not the first to use
cited above may also be a Sogdian name, i.e. government papers for historical research on
*pwtyfintk. On this point see also s\qnaka the Kurds, nor is he the first to discuss many
appearing in SI P 103.52 with which Emmerick of the questions presented in the book; however,
compares Sogdian (')sw'n'kk or sw'nkk, cf. it is the scope of the work, and its analysis of
Emmerick, art. cit., 55. a comprehensive range of events of Kurdish
On possible Sogdian elements in the modern history, which distinguishes it.
Khotanese iconography see M. Mode,' Sogdian This work was at least four years in the
gods in exile—some iconographic evidence making; besides the primary research under-
from Khotan in the light of recently excavated taken in archives, the author also draws on
material from Sogdiana', Silk Road Art and numerous secondary sources and on interviews
Archaeology, 2, 1991/92, 179-214. with Kurds and others of various political
p. 220, 371. SI M 34 + 30 + 36 verso lines opinions. He limits his work to the Kurds of
6-7: the context rather suggests restoring Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
[arahandojndna ' through the enlightenment [of Kurdish history took very different courses
Arhatship]', cf. Emmerick, The Khotanese in different states, and the structure of the
Surangamasamddhisutra (London, 1970), 28. book reflects this; it is divided into five sections,
p. 251, Signa: as stated in the introduction, preceded by a chapter on Kurdish society,
Chinese characters also serve as signa. Thus, which introduces the concepts of religious and
signatures found in Khotanese documents are social heterogeneity and tribalism which play
of several types: (a) simple geometrical signs an important part in accounting for events
such as signa 2, 3, 4, 13, and 14; (b) Chinese described later in the book. The first major
characters, e.g. fl|, etc.; (c) what look like section describes the Kurds under the Ottoman
Chinese characters, such as signa 1, 5(?), 6, 10, and Persian empires, ending with the First
12; (d) combinations of Brahml aksaras, e.g. World War. The next section deals with the
signa 7 and 11 (possibly a variant of signum 7?), partition of Kurdistan and its aftermath, in
20, and 21; (e) combinations of Tibetan scripts, Iraq under the British Mandate, in Turkey
e.g. signa 18 and 19(?) (cf. also the similar under the Kemalists, and in Iran under Reza
practice encountered in a Tibetan document Shah. The next three describe the development
published by T. Takeuchi, Old Tibetan contracts of ethno-nationalism in Iran, Iraq and Turkey
from Central Asia, Tokyo, 1995, 279-82 with respectively.
pi. 43); (f) others, which may belong to one or The evolution of the Kurdish national con-
the other of the preceding types, e.g. signa 8, sciousness is one of the central areas of debate
9, 15, 16, 17. Perhaps it is not a coincidence in Kurdish historical discourse, and it is
that many of the bearers of signa types (b) and appropriate that it should be a primary focus
(c) are Maw-officials, the highest among those of this book. Each of the powerful Kurdish
attested in the documents. Even those who movements is examined in the context of this
employed signa type (a) seem to have been development, with particularly close attention
better off than ordinary people who could only paid to the part played in Kurdish resistance
use finger seals. by religious and tribal allegiances. Some may
A very similar system of signa is employed find this analysis controversial; for instance,
in Tumshuqese documents, cf. S. Konow, Ein the author discusses the question of how far
neuer Saka-Dialekt (SPAW, Berlin, 1935), Mulla Mustafa Barzani, an icon of Iraqi
773-4, where the remarks on $2 and {£ are to Kurdish resistance, was motivated by Kurdish
be discarded. nationalism and how far he was seeking to
consolidate his own influence as a tribal chief.
Misprints and slips are relatively few; among The short-lived Mahabad Republic (Iran,
the more serious one may mention: p. 102, 139. 1946), a doomed early flowering of nationalism
SI P 94.18, line 1: if the translation 'remained for many, is considered under the title 'Tribe
... Not then to him muras' is correct the text or ethnicity' and it is argued that tribalism
should read dsta na tti-v-i muri; p. 105, 148. SI destroyed it as much as did the Iranian state.
P 95.3 line 5: read 6 for 4; p. 136, 273. SI P For such discussions, the author naturally
103.4 (transl.): read ' three male goats (and) draws on earlier analyses of certain episodes,
950 [muras]' for 'male goats 3950 ...'; p. 139, but the breadth of this work enables the same
278. SI P 103.9 (transl): add 'tomorrow' after analytical standard to be applied consistently.
'Please send it'; p. 160 323: SI P, 136.1 recto, Not all readers will agree with his conclusions
line 2: read dmdcdna 'from the minister' for in every instance, but the discussion is mature
amdcd va 'for the minister'. throughout. The temptation to demonize or
Y. YOSHIDA idolize is resisted. The treatment of certain