Monographs by Ingo Strauch
Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, 2022 (2002) (Monographs on Indian Archaeology, Art and Philology, Vol. 16)., 2002
Text, translation and commentary of the Lekhapaddhati-Lekhapañcāśikā, an anonymous text from medi... more Text, translation and commentary of the Lekhapaddhati-Lekhapañcāśikā, an anonymous text from medieval Gujarat written in Jaina or Gujarātī Sanskrit, containing samples of charters and letters.
Papers by Ingo Strauch
It was Julius Jolly, founder of the Würzburg chair of Indology and undoubtedly one of the most pr... more It was Julius Jolly, founder of the Würzburg chair of Indology and undoubtedly one of the most profound scholars in the field of Dharma literature, who remarked in his "Kollektaneen zum Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra": Der Grad der Ausbildung des Urkunden-und Schriftenwesens ist für die relative Chronologie der Smtis sehr wichtig und läßt sich in den jüngeren Smtis, die hier wieder mit dem K.A. parallel gehen, stufenweise verfolgen (Jolly 1914: 355 = 2012: 875).
Haḍḍa is the name of a present-day village in eastern Afghanistan, located twelve kilometers sout... more Haḍḍa is the name of a present-day village in eastern Afghanistan, located twelve kilometers south of the modern city of Jalālābād, which was rebuilt by the Mogul king Jalāl ud-din Akbar in 1560 CE (fig. 1). But in the past, and specifically before the Mogul city, the capital of the region, which was known as Nagarahāra, was located fifteen kilometers northwest of Haḍḍa and more than five kilometers to the west of today's Jalālābād. It was with ancient Nagarahāra that the Buddhist site of Haḍḍa was connected. As for the ancient city of Haḍḍa, it is for the most part buried under constructions of the modern village, with the exception of a long portion of the western fortified wall with a ditch in front of it which was still visible until the beginning of the 1980-s. Indeed, it is on this village that a large monastic ensemble depended; it was made up of some twenty large monasteries scattered almost all around the village, where they found a propitious place on the plateaus and hills to serve as refuge from the seasonal torrents. By looking at the simplified physical map prepared by me (fig. 2), one can see that the village and the Buddhist monasteries surrounding it were all, almost without exception, built on tertiary mounds of conglomerate. Researchers who specialize in the Buddhist world of India and Central Asia, and particularly of northwestern India, know how significant a role
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 2009
A travers divers exemples oubliés de la critique postcoloniale, cet ouvrage explore la notion des... more A travers divers exemples oubliés de la critique postcoloniale, cet ouvrage explore la notion des marges, aussi bien géographiques qu’épistémologiques, dans le contexte de l’orientalisme dénoncé par Edward Saïd. Mettant en parallèle le cas anglo-indien, souvent présenté comme un «orientalisme classique», et le cas russo-soviétique, à la fois objet de l’orientalisme occidental et producteur d’un discours «orientaliste», il s’agit de décentrer le regard des espaces impériaux franco-britanniques vers des comparaisons moins traditionnelles. Dépassant le modèle binaire «colonisateur – colonisé», cette approche analyse le mécanisme de la constitution des savoirs (arts, langues, littératures, religions, etc.) et leurs transferts en situation coloniale, ainsi que les appropriations locales et les (ré)inventions de traditions hybrides. Le jeu des regards croisés permet de traduire toute l’ambiguïté des situations qui se sont succédé pendant et après les périodes de domination impériale dans ...
Mevissen G.J.R., Banerji A. (eds.) Prajñādhara: Essays on Asian Art History, Epigraphy and Culture in Honour of Gouriswar Bhattacharya, Kaveri Books., 2009
Two Stamps with the Bodhigarbhålaºkåralak¹a Dhåra½ï 4 from Afghanistan and Some Further Remarks o... more Two Stamps with the Bodhigarbhålaºkåralak¹a Dhåra½ï 4 from Afghanistan and Some Further Remarks on the Classification of Objects with the ye dharmå Formula INGO STRAUCH PART 1: BUDDHIST STAMP SEALS WITH THE TEXT OF THE BODHIGARBHÅLAšKÅRALAK™A DHÅRAÏ Previous discoveries In 1985 Gregory Schopen published an extensive study on a yet unidentified dhåra½ï text which was found inscribed on objects from Nålandå and Cuttack and published already 1941-42 by A. Ghosh. He recognized this text as a "Sanskrit version of a short and virtually unknown text preserved in the various Kanjurs under the Tibetan title Bya¼ chub kyi sñi¼ po'i rgyan 'bum gyi gzu¼s" translated either as Bodhigarbhålaºkåra-lak¹adhåra½ï or as Bodhima½•asyalak¹ålaºkåranåmadhåra½ï (Schopen 1985: 119-122 <119-120> = 2005: 314-317 <314>). At the same time, but independently, an article by Simon Lawson about "Dhåra½ï Sealings in British Collections" (1985) appeared where he presented eleven sealings with this text, five from ˜råvastï, six of unknown origin. Although Lawson did not succeed in identifying the text called by him "longer dhåra½ï" as that of the Bodhigarbhålaºkåralak¹adhåra½ï (hence abbreviated Bodhi), he realized that it is virtually the same text as that from Cuttack and Nålandå. With regard to the geographical and historical spread of this text among Buddhists in medieval India both authors had to conclude on the basis of the epigraphical evidence available to them, that its use was mainly restricted to or at least concentrated in East India. Already in 1985, however, Schopen was forced to add an addenda to his article communicating a letter from Gérard Fussman. In this letter Fussman described « un cachet servant à imprimer une dhåra½ï sur une bulle de terre. Le cachet aurait été trouvé dans la région de Qunduz, en Bactriane afghane. Il est inscrit en bråhmï des V-VI° siècles » (148). This welcome new find from another region of the Indian subcontinent remained, however, unpublished.
Women in Early Indian Buddhism: Comparative Textual Studies, 2014
Bulletin of the Asia Institute (Festschrift Richard Salomon), 2013
Framke M., Lötzke H., Strauch I. (eds.) Indologie und Südasienforschung in Berlin: Geschichte und Positionsbestimmung, Berlin., 2014
Asiatische Studien = Etudes Asiatiques, 68 (3) pp. 797-830, 2014
The article investigates the modes of use of early Buddhist manuscripts in a monastic environment... more The article investigates the modes of use of early Buddhist manuscripts in a monastic environment. Based mainly on the evidence of archaeological and manuscript data from NorthWest India (Gandhāra) it discusses the circumstances under which manuscripts were produced, used and deposited by early Buddhist communities. In this regard, the article critically evaluates the hypothesis of a "ritual burial" of manuscripts in the stūpas of "Greater Gandhāra". A special paragraph is devoted to the unique birch-bark manuscript of a portion of the Prātimokṣasūtra from the Bajaur Collection of Kharoṣṭhī manuscripts. The two sides of the birch-bark contain two different versions of the initial part of the naiḥsārgika pātayantika chapter of the Prātimokṣasūtra. A comparison with known canonical texts shows that these two versions can be associated with two different Prātimokṣasūtra traditions. They are, however, not identical with any of the known versions which are usually attributed to specific Buddhist schools (nikāyas). It therefore seems justified to characterise them as proto-canonical or/ and local/regional versions of this fundamental text. The analysis of the language and the contents of the two versions allows cautious conclusions about certain aspects of the role of writing and of manuscripts in the emergence of authoritative canonical texts within Buddhist textual traditions.
Haḍḍa is the name of a present-day village in eastern Afghanistan, located twelve kilometers sout... more Haḍḍa is the name of a present-day village in eastern Afghanistan, located twelve kilometers south of the modern city of Jalālābād, which was rebuilt by the Mogul king Jalāl ud-din Akbar in 1560 CE (fig. 1). But in the past, and specifically before the Mogul city, the capital of the region, which was known as Nagarahāra, was located fifteen kilometers northwest of Haḍḍa and more than five kilometers to the west of today's Jalālābād. It was with ancient Nagarahāra that the Buddhist site of Haḍḍa was connected. As for the ancient city of Haḍḍa, it is for the most part buried under constructions of the modern village, with the exception of a long portion of the western fortified wall with a ditch in front of it which was still visible until the beginning of the 1980-s. Indeed, it is on this village that a large monastic ensemble depended; it was made up of some twenty large monasteries scattered almost all around the village, where they found a propitious place on the plateaus and hills to serve as refuge from the seasonal torrents. By looking at the simplified physical map prepared by me (fig. 2), one can see that the village and the Buddhist monasteries surrounding it were all, almost without exception, built on tertiary mounds of conglomerate. Researchers who specialize in the Buddhist world of India and Central Asia, and particularly of northwestern India, know how significant a role
Mukherjee R. (eds.) Beyond National Frames: South Asian Pasts and the World, Primus Books., 2015
Uploads
Monographs by Ingo Strauch
Papers by Ingo Strauch
Abstract: The present article deals with a bilingual Persian-Sanskrit inscription reportedly found at Zalamkot (Lower Swat Valley, north-western Pakistan), which appears to be the oldest known dated monumental inscription in the New Persian language. Based on a new reading and interpretation of the Persian text, it is argued that the inscription belongs to one of the oldest mosques build by the Ghaznavids in the Indian Subcontinent. The inscription dates the completion of the mosque to 401 AH (1011 CE), i.e., ten years after the first Indian campaign of Sulṭan Mahmud of Ghazna. The inscription contains a hitherto unknown Indian toponym, reconstructed as *Jayapālanagara, where the mosque was located, and gives a date in the Sanskrit text using an otherwise unknown era.