History of the Center for South Asia and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
South Asian studies lost an important scholarly force when Richard Robinson died unexpectedly from an accident in 1968. Despite this terrible loss, the Department of Indian Studies and the South Asian Area Center continued to grow as Steven Beyer, Tibetan Buddhism; Marc Galanter, Indian law; Muhammad Memon, Arabic and Persian language and literature; A.K. Narain, ancient Indian history and numismatics; John Richards, modern Indian history and kinship; and V. Narayana Rao, Telugu language and literature, joined the faculty in the early 1970s. . .Dr. A.K. Narain of the BHU faculty played a major part in establishing the program in Varanasi.
This is the fourth printing of The Indo-Greeks (the first three were published in 1957, 1962 and 1980). This revisit of the original 1957 text is supplemented by later contributions made by the author. It includes a chapter published in The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. VIII and some articles which take into account the archaeological findings at Ai-Khanum and results of interactions between the Greeks and Indians. . .This book deals with the remarkable story of the Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Indian peoples who interacted, and gradually became integrated, with the peoples and cultures of India. Until this book, the advanced study of this remarkable episode in the ancient history of Asia had been confined to European scholars. Narain is the first Asian historian to produce a monograph on the subject. This work, which has been translated into Hindi and Chinese, is based mainly on the coins which are their most important historical records, the classical literary sources in Sanskrit and Pali, Greek, Latin and Chinese, epigraphic documents and material evidence from archaeological excavations. This book gives a detailed and a reasonably accurate account of the vicissitudes of the Indo-Greek kingdoms and clears up many misconceptions. The history of the Indo-Greeks is placed on a firm basis of chronology, and is seen against more than one background—the world of the heirs of Alexander in Western Asia, that of the successors of the Mauryas in India and the local elements in Bactria at the end of the Achaemenids.
The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, edited by Dennis Sinor
This volume introduces the geographical setting of Central Asia and follows its history from the palaeolithic era to the rise of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century. From earliest times Central Asia linked and separated the great sedentary civilisations of Europe and Asia. In the pre-modern period ‘Inner Asia’ was definable more as a cultural than a geographical entity, its frontiers shifting according to the changing balances of power. Written by distinguished international scholars who have pioneered the exploration of Central Asia’s poorly documented past, this volume discusses chronologically the varying historical achievements of the disparate population groups in the region. Contents
Preface; 1. Introduction: the concept of Inner Asia Denis Sinor; 2. The geographical setting Robert N. Taaffe; 3. Inner Asia at the dawn of history A. P. Okladnikov; 4. The Scythians and Sarmatians A. I. Melyukvoa; 5. The Hsiung-nu Ying-Shih Yu; 6. Indo-Europeans in Inner Asia A. K. Narain; 7. The Hun period Denis Sinor; 8. The Avars Samuel Szadeczky-Kardoss; 9. The peoples of the Russian forest belt Peter B. Golden; 10. The peoples of the south Russian steppes Peter B. Golden; 11. The establishment and dissolution of the Turk empire Denis Sinor; 12. The Uighars Colin Mackerras; 13. The Karakhanids and early Islam Peter B. Golden; 14. Early and medieval Tibet Helmut Hoffman; 15. The forest peoples of Manchuria: Kitans and Jurchens Herbert Franke; Bibliographies; Index. Contributors
Denis Sinor, Robert N. Taaffe, A. P. Okladnikov, A. I. Melyukova, Ying-Shih Yu, A. K. Narain, Samuel Szadeczky-Kardoss, Peter B. Golden, Colin Mackerras, Helmut Hoffman, Herbert Franke
A.K. Narain, The Date of the Historical Sakyamuni Buddha
This book The Date of the Historical Sakyamuni Buddha includes fifteen articles on the date of the historical Sakyamuni Buddha, ten of which submitted by Indian scholars to a workshop on the subject held in 1990, three by scholars from outside and two English translations of old French articles of importance. Many of these contributions take into account the papers submitted to a Conference on the subject held at Gottingen in 1988. The consensus of the articles in this book is in favour of confirming 483 (486) B.C. as the date of the Parinirvana of the historical Buddha as against any later date.
Thanks!