Vol 21, No 1 (2024)

The publication contains an annotated translation of the ninth chapter of the classic Confucian treatise Decency and Ritual (儀禮 Yi li) which describes in detail one of the ancient Chinese feasts on the occasion of receiving guests — “The ritual of shi feast, [conducted] by gong [to receive an ambassador in the rank of xia]dafu” (公食大夫禮 Gong shi dafu li).

Somānanda, a famous Kashmiri philosopher of the 10th century CE and the founder of the Pratyabhijñā tradition, criticized Bhartṛhari’s view that the paśyantī speech was identical to Brahman. Later Pratyabhijñā philosophers adopted Bhartṛhari’s doctrine of the three levels of speech and added a fourth level — the Supreme Speech (parā vāc). Modern scholars of Pratyabhijñā usually believe that Bhartṛhari was aware of the fourth level of speech and that Somānanda criticized him because he did not know his works properly. The article describes the doctrine of speech levels in Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadīya and in the commentaries, as well as the evolution of this doctrine in the works of Kashmiri philosophers. No traces of the fourth level of speech can be found in Bhartṛhari’s work. It can be suggested that Somānanda in his critique highlighted the ambiguous ontological status of speech in Bhartṛhari’s linguistic philosophy.

The article analyzes an unpublished, and therefore hardly familiar to researchers, trading project of the European merchant F.V. Nippolo, which was proposed by him in 1828 to the government of Nicholas I (1825–1855). The purpose of this project was the use of Russian territory and its transport routes for the trade of European countries with Persia and India. According to the sources from the Russian State Historical Archives, the proposed project was rejected by the Russian authorities. However, some of F.V. Nippolo’s proposals explicitly illustrate the steps taken by the bureaucrats of Nicholas I’s era in subsequent years.

The article presents a codicological analysis of the medieval Judeo-Persian dictionary Sefer ha-Melitsa. Two items in the NLR collection, Evr. I 75 (a volume) and 76 (separate fragments), can be divided into two separate manuscripts: the first manuscript is a codex dated back to 1340 and the latter seems to be a later manuscript, which was used as a restoration of the first one’s losses, at first glance. However, a detailed analysis of the text structure suggests that the two manuscripts existed independently, since they repeat each other’s texts. Given the codicology of the monuments and the text of the colophon (f. 87a), we can assume that we are dealing with a copy of the original work, but, unfortunately, not with the autograph of the medieval dictionary.

Based on new archival materials, the paper briefly highlights the history of V.V. Bartold’s research visit to Turkey in 1926, particularly, its preparation, reasons, and goals. It is shown that the invitation was made by the Turkish government and supported by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and by the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Bartold mostly spent his time in Turkey preparing a series of lectures on the history of Central Asian peoples at the request of the Turkish side, and studying Oriental manuscripts in Istanbul libraries. Besides, he was busy carrying out the mission entrusted to him by the Academy of Sciences, to establish academic contacts with Turkish researchers. The period of Bartold’s stay in Constantinople (Istanbul) from January 2 to February 17, was reflected in his small diary. In daily entries, the Academician thoroughly recorded events, meetings with Turkish and European researchers, made brief notes about manuscripts and libraries. He also noted his impressions of scientific institutions and changes in the cultural space of the former Ottoman capital. The research visit of the renowned orientalist Academician V.V. Bartold to Turkey was an important contribution to strengthening scholarly contacts between Russian and Turkish researchers. The part of the diary from January 2 to January 14, 1926, in which Bartold describes the first two weeks of his stay in Constantinople, is published as an appendix.

This article is devoted to the correspondence (housed at the Archive of Orientalists) regarding the transfer of old Korean books from the library of Kzyl-Orda, Kazakhstan, to the Institute of Oriental Studies. The Korean Fund of IOM, RAS, began to form back in 1864, and in all subsequent years, the collection of written records was replenished whenever possible. That is why, when in 1939 a letter was received from the library of Kzyl-Orda with a wish to transfer Korean books to the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences, the top management of the Institute began to actively promote this process. The content of this correspondence and the history of the Korean collection of old books in Kzyl-Orda are discussed in the article.