Description

Journal No.64 – 2001

 This issue of the K R Cama Oriental Institute Journal contains seven studied papers on diverse subjects.

 The first article by Dr N Benjamin, Associate Professor at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, is on “Esplanade House,” which was the residence of Jamshetji N Tata and his son, Dorab.

 The second and third articles are by Dr Parivash Jamzadeh who was awarded a PhD in Near Eastern Studies by the University of California, Berkeley. She has several publications to her credit. Her paper on “Royal Rhetoric and Minstrel Poetry: Transmission of Formulae from Achaemenid Courts to Medieval  European Courts”narrates how Daraius’ tomb inscriptions on the Naqsh-i-Rustam later finds a resonance in the speech of the legendary King Arthur.

 Her second article titled “Echoes from Medieval Iran in an Arthurian Romance” she goes on to narrate the story of the first Arthurian romance Erec and Enide.

 Prof Richard N Frye is an American scholar of Iranic and Central Asian Studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University. His professional areas of interest are Iranian philology, and the history of Iran and Central Asia before 1000 CE. He has contributed a concise article to this Journal, titled “Legacies of the Achaemenids and Kushans in India” which is an introduction to the following paper.

 Mr Burzine Waghmar of the School of Oriental Studies, London, is the author of the next article titled “Bactrian History and Language: An Overview.” Prof Frye states that not having had the required details to work on Bactrian sources, Dr Waghmar was requested to give an account of his new findings which, with further study, will discover more of the Acheamenian heritage through the Kushans and to the traces of both in India.

 Prof  Shahab Setudeh-Nejad is a member of the Siam Society and is the author of several important articles which have been published in prestigious academic journals. His paper “An Iranian Perspective on Jaqpanese History: A Tentative Study of Cultural and Kinship Aspects of Occidental-based West Asia in Relation to Sinitic-based East Asia” is based on seven years of field research in Japan and the probable contact points between Japan and Persia.

 The final article, “The Genealogy of Philosophical Zoroastrianism” is authored by Mr Takeshi Aoki who has studied Islamic Mysticism at Tokyo University.

 This book is priced at US$18.00, inclusive of packing handling and air-mail postage.