Another Visit to Gandhara Were to Spend the Next Four Days
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Back to the Past: Grand Trunk Road, where we Another Visit to Gandhara were to spend the next four days. Peshawar is an infinitely by Professor Richard Salomon fascinating city, with a reputation for cultural richness as well as for cabinets filled with dazzling gold n a previous article in Asia Notes intrigue and even danger. Ever ornaments. Turn—or rather, be I(Vol. 2.1, 1996-7), I described since it become the capital of the swept around—a corner, and you my previous tour through northern great Indo-Central Asian Kushana find yourself in the fish market, Pakistan, in the region known in dynasty under the emperor Kanish- with row upon row of vendors ancient times as Gandhara, which I ka nearly two thousand years ago, it calling out and beckoning to you to took with Jason Neelis, one of the has stood at what is sometimes sample their dozens of species of Department of Asian Languages called the “crossroads of Asia,” river fish from the Indus. In the and Literature’s graduate students. serving as the point of entry and next alley, cooks are stewing pun- In October 2000 I had the opportu- encounter for pilgrims, traders, gent curries in enormous smoke- nity to return to Pakistan with an- immigrants and invaders from blackened bubbling cauldrons. On other graduate student, Andrew Afghanistan, Iran, China, and from and on it goes, through the narrow Glass, to revisit some of the same the western world. Though in re- streets and alleys, fronted by old- places as well as to see some new cent years it has been overwhelmed fashioned houses with ornately ones. Andrew and I arrived in Paki- by huge numbers of refugees from carved wooden facades, now sag- stan early in the morning after a the wars in Afghanistan and ging and crumbling yet still retain- long and rather grueling flight from plagued by drug smuggling, the ing the air of their former glories. Seattle to Islamabad, including a arms trade, and religious extremist But a walk through Peshawar’s old six hour layover at London’s movements, it still retains its old bazaar is something to be experi- Heathrow Airport where I indulged flavor of a bustling and exotic enced rather than described. Every- myself with a shockingly expensive meeting place of the worlds of one should do it at least once in a afternoon nap at the airport hotel, Central Asia and the Indian subcon- lifetime. while Andrew, somewhat more tinent. blessed with youthful energy than I, he charms of the old city spent the time with his parents who ere, in the bazaar of the Tnotwithstanding, most of our had come to meet him at the air- HPeshawar’s old city, you wend time in Peshawar was spent at the port. your way through constant streams Department of Archaeology of of churning crowds, all seeming to Peshawar University. Here we got e spent our first day and move in opposite directions simul- our first, though far from our last Wnight in Islamabad at the taneously, somehow melting taste of the legendary hospitality of home of an old friend of mine, through one another, to the accom- the Pathans, the dominant ethnic Aman Ur-Rahman, who shares with paniment of a dazzling cacophony group in the Northwest Frontier the two of us a passionate enthusi- of car horns, hawkers’ shouts, and Province, of which Peshawar is the asm for the ancient history and blaring loudspeakers. The entrance capital. Housed at the University’s culture of this fascinating part of to the bazaar takes you first through guest house and taken under the the world. The next morning, we a jewelers’ bazaar of endless rows care of Professors M. Farooq Swati took a bus to Peshawar, three hours of tiny stalls, their walls with tiled and M. Nasim Khan the depart- ride to the west along the fabled mirrors that reflect, and seem to multiply, the luxuriant red velvet Continued on page 9. 1 has been changed to protect the tion available to high school stu- reputation of past columnists from dents, Latin is essential. And so we “embarrassment by association.” could go on. But all of this linguis- tic diversity is apparently seen by f more moment, coming at the the upper administrative levels of Ointersection of surprises and the Seattle School System as un- learning experiences, I was sur- welcome, leading apparently to an prised to learn that it is rumored unmanageable “splintering.” that the Seattle School System plans to eliminate the teaching of his view reflects a serious all foreign languages save Spanish Tmisconception of how crucial and Japanese. Superintendent Jo- and how fundamental language seph Olchefske is said to be in the instruction is to education overall. process of implementing a new Linguistic diversity is as critical to William G. Boltz, Chairman policy that will limit the teaching of the well being of the educational foreign languages in the high domain as biodiversity is to the Scriptula ex cathedra schools to just these two. The justi- ecological. (Linguistic diversity is fication, if such there can be, is that in fact a form of biodiversity, f the various improbabilities I foreign language teaching in the though you would never know it Omight have imagined over the schools has become “too splin- from the linguistically impover- years, certainly ending up as chair- tered,” or so at least he is reported ished culture that predominates in man of this Department ranks to have complained to a group of the U.S.) The worst effect of such a among those near the top of the list. concerned parents. policy is not the unavailability of My solace among the surprises of a languages for study (though that is year serving in this post has come oth Spanish and Japanese are bad enough); it is that such a policy from the guidance and good will I Bworthy languages, without fosters an impression that foreign have been the beneficiary of from doubt, and ought to be offered in language study is marginal, dis- the two immediately past chairmen, any high school system with claims missible, expendable, or whatever both now recovering scholars, from on excellence. But every one of us additional synonym we might wish a faculty of splendidly cooperative will immediately think of other to invoke. It is bad policy for the colleagues, and especially from an languages just as worthy and just as Seattle high school students who office staff with a superabundance deserving of being offered. If our will become UW students, and it is of patience, professional expertise aim is to name worthy languages a woefully short-sighted and ill- and good-humored tolerance for my that high school students ought to informed policy for the city’s edu- inexperienced incipience. have a chance to study should they cational system overall. Let us hope be so moved, we could start by that this rumor is just a rumor, and cannot say I have exactly fallen continuing the pairing of a western never becomes a fact. Iin love with the business of European language with an Asian being chairman, but it is a learning language, and suggest French and _____________________________ experience, and learning some- Chinese. Or, thinking eurocentrical- 1 Latinists, pedants, and enthusiasts of the thing, no matter what, is better than ly, we could mention German and history of board games will recognize that learning nothing. Most recently, for Russian; from a somewhat broader this claim is not entirely correct, but we need example, I learned that I was ex- geopolitical perspective, we would not be overly concerned with such a special- pected to write a few notes for this be inclined to lobby for Arabic and ized readership at the moment. For most of Newsletter. This “column” in past Indonesian. As a simple matter of us scriptula will mean ‘jottings,’ or ‘(little) Newsletters has been called some- making a solid humanistic educa- notes’ (of no particular consequence), and thing like “Notes from the Chair,” that is, to be sure, my intended meaning and it still is,1 only the language here. 2 Notes from our Language recognized for his contributions to rofessor Anne Yue-Hashimoto Programs the study of the humanities in this P(elected Vice President of the way, and on behalf of all of us I International Association of Chinese rofessor Richard Salomon extend our sincere congratulations Linguistics for 1998-99, and Presi- P was named to the Byron W. & to Rich on this occasion.” dent of the International Associa- Alice L. Lockwood Professorship tion of Chinese Linguistics for in the Humanities for the period rofessor Heidi Pauwels pre- 1999-2000) spent five months in from 16 December 2000 through 15 P sented a research report at the Hong Kong last year—January June 2003. In a letter to Asian L&L Eighth Conference on Early Litera- through April, 2000—as Visiting faculty dated January 25, 2001, ture in New-Indo Aryan Languages, Professor at the Department of Professor Boltz noted: “The charter held at K. University of Leuven in Chinese Language and Literature of that establishes the Lockwood Louvain, Belgium August 23-26, the Chinese University of Hong Professorship in the Humanities 2000, on the topic “Hagiography by Kong, teaching a graduate seminar emphasizes, among other aspects of and about Hariram Vyas.” Prof. in Cantonese linguistics (with 18 the humanities, that ‘[t]hrough the Pauwels also presented a talk for students—the greatest number, study of languages and literature the panel on Epics organized by Prof. Yue exclaims, she ever had in we learn how people communicate John Brockington at the European one class!) and working on various and express themselves.