BOOK NOTICES Ouya lishi wenhua wenku 欧亚历史文化文库 [Li- Regions]. Tianshan jiayan 天山家宴 [Family Banquet at the brary of Eurasian History and Culture]. Tianshan Mountains] by He Julian 贺菊莲 studies culinary Ed. by Yu Taishan 余太山. Lanzhou: Lanzhou daxue art, domestic labor, horticulture, and viniculture of Xin- chubanshe, 2010 - jiang by examining excavated fi gurines, murals, utensils, and even actual food stuffs such as resins, walnuts, jujubes, cookies and dumplings which are referred to in literary Silk Road studies as an academic subject have fascinated texts. Among the translations is a book by Ahmad Shah, a many readers. Scholars in various disciplines including my- surgeon of British India, who published Four Years in Tibet self have written about it, ranging from narratives of histori- in 1906 about his experience in Lower Tibet (Ladakh and Ali cal development of the trade and cultural exchanges all over regions). It contains vivid descriptions and sketches of all Eurasia to archaeological excavations at specifi c sites on the kinds of people, clothing, and utensils of daily life. The book steppe and in the desert. However, the fi rst-hand reports has been translated by Zhou Xiangyi 辛哈著 and edited by and research on excavated sites and items are mostly writ- Xu Baiyong 周翔翼, into a very readable Chinese version ten in the languages of the countries — China, Russia, and with beautiful original illustrations. the Central Asian states — where the archaeological work has been carried out. Moreover, that publication has been In short, this is a series that merits the attention of stu- spread in journals of different regions over many decades. dents of Central Asia and the Western Regions. Thus it is a daunting task to locate the reports and essays even for those read Chinese, Russian and some of the Cen- — Xinru Liu tral Asian languages. Much research and analysis by the Professor of History scholars who have worked on the archaeological sites is not The College of New Jersey available to English readers. Fortunately for scholars who read Chinese, a series on Eurasian history, one hundred volumes in total, is being Lushun bowuguan guan cang wenwu xuancui. Gu yin du- published by Lanzhou University Press. The editor-in-chief, diao sujuan 旅顺博物馆馆藏文物选粹 • 古印度雕塑卷 Yu Taishan, at the Institute of History, Chinese Academy of [Ancient Indian sculpture: Precious cultural relics col- Social Sciences, is a well known scholar in the fi eld of Eur- lected by the Lushun Museum]. Editor-in-chief Guo asian history. All the volumes, monographs or collections Fuchan 郭富纯; Associate editors Wang Sizhou 王嗣 of articles, are published in Chinese in book format for the 州, Xu Yuanyuan 徐媛媛 and Tao Sha 陶莎. Dalian: fi rst time. Most of the books have been written by Chinese Dalian ligong daxue chubanshe, 2012. [vi] + 114 pp. scholars who excavated the archeological sites or studied ISBN 978-7-5611-7251-3. the documents and art works which have been discovered, but some of them are translations from English, Russian, Ancient Indian sculpture, Volume 7 in the series of Precious Japanese, etc. The topics of the series include archaeologi- cultural relics collected by the Lushun Museum, was published cal, textual, and linguistic studies of the regions ranging by Dalian University of Technology Press in August 2012. It from northeastern Asia all the way to Mongolia, Xinjiang contains a careful selection of 106 sculptures. and the Tibetan Plateau. The signifi cance of the series is that it brings together research done by numerous Chinese The Buddhist statues of Ancient India in the Lushun scholars in various regions and academic centers over the Museum were obtained during Ōtani Kōzui’s fi rst expedi- last four or fi ve decades, and introduces other studies on tion. From November 1902 to January 1903, he visited In- Eurasia written in several different languages. Therefore, dia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan where he acquired the series provides a solid base for young scholars in China many Buddhist sculptures and some other kinds of histori- to begin their study of different regions of Eurasia when still cal relics. Some of the Buddhist statues were sent to Lushun acquiring language skills to read the primary sources for and kept in the Lushun Museum in 1917. Most of them are serious research of their own. For sinologists who are inter- carved from stone, and only a few made of stucco. These ested more than Han Chinese culture, this is also a good col- sculptures can be classifi ed as reliefs and as individual stat- lection for exploring the neighbors of the Chinese cultural ues. With the passing of time these statues may have lost sphere. their original artistic value, but they still have high value for further research. Chen Gaohua 陈高华, one of the outstanding scholars on Mongolian history in China, contributes to the series a This book consists of an introduction and the photos of volume Yuanchao shishi xinzheng 元朝史事新证 [New evi- the sculptures. Based on the lat est research results in China dence of historical events during the Yuan Dynasty]. Wang and abroad, the introduction describes the development of Binghua 王炳华, who carried out archaeological excava- the art of ancient Indian Buddhist sculpture and explains tions in Xinjiang for half a century, also has several impor- the origin and classifi cation of the sculptures collected by tant reports published here in Xiyu kaogu wencun 西域考古 the Lushun Museum. The photographs for the most part 文存 [Collection of archaeological reports on the Western are full-page images, with smaller pictures of details where The Silk Road 11 (2013) 221 Copyright © 2013 by the respective authors Copyright © 2013 The Silkroad Foundation formulaic analysis, which produces very interesting insights Seated Goddess of Har- into the societies and thought world of the individuals who vest. Kushan Period. 19.3 commissioned the reliquaries. Stefan Baums provides a x 11.9 x 4.9 cm. Cat. No. catalog of all the inscriptions with updated readings and 14, p. 16. translations. appropriate. The mate- A number of the reliquaries are well known — for exam- rial sheds light on the ple, the exquisite gold one from the Bimaran stupa 2, which origin, evolution and decorates the title page here and is, granted, exceptional. development of the The most common material from which they are formed is Buddhist art in ancient stone, usually carefully carved and polished. Many these India and Afghanistan. are little known, scattered in collections in Pakistan and ac- The illustrations refl ect cessed there with the generously acknowledged assistance the original features of of Abdul Samad. A large number of the reliquaries are now these statues faithfully. in Japan, and many which are now properly described and Captioning provides published here are in various private collections around the details regarding the world. Over time undoubtedly more will be added to this identifi cation, date and corpus, but now there is a classifi cation scheme into which size. In some cases the they can easily be inserted. To have all the currently known site at which the ob- inscriptions properly published and translated in this one ject was uncovered is volume is also of lasting value. specifi ed. While most of the information is in Chinese, there is brief captioning, a table of contents and an Two reliquaries index in English. The book offers much of value for scholars. from Bimaran stupa — Xu Yuanyuan 徐媛媛 2 in Afghanistan, Museologist, Lushun Museum the inscriptions on Dalian, Liaoning Province the steatite one re- cording the “dona- tion of Sivaraksita, All of the following book notices have been son of Mujavada.” written by Daniel C. Waugh. Collection of the British Museum, 1900.0209.1 and 1880.27, respec- David Jongeward, Elizabeth Errington, Richard tively Nos. 353 and Salomon, and Stefan Baums. Gandharan Buddhist 332 in this tabula- Reliquaries. Gandharan Studies, I. Seattle: Early Bud- tion. Photos © 2009 dhist Manuscript Project; Distributed by University of Daniel C. Waugh Washington Press, 2012. xii + 331 pp. ISBN 978-0-295- 99236-5. This large format volume with its excellent illustrations (most in color) inaugurates a new publication series by the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project at the University of Washington, complementing the now well-known ongoing series of text volumes. The goal here is to broaden the study of the Gandharan material by contextualizing the manu- script fi nds on a broader canvas. David Jongeward of the University of Toronto has written the fi rst three chapters and compiled the tabulation of the reliquaries in the appendix. He explains the signifi cance of the reliquaries (which, as he points out, too often have been relegated to a minor place in exhibitions of Gandharan art), discusses Gandharan sculptural images of the last days of the Buddha relevant to contextualizing them, and surveys the reliquaries, of which more than four hundred examples are represented here. Elizabeth Errington’s contribution is to describe the important collection of them in the British Museum. Richard Salomon analyzes the inscriptions that are on some 10 percent of them. He approach is a systematic 222 The Silk Road 11 (2013) Chinese Silks. Edited by Dieter Kuhn. Chinese edition end up and how was it used once it got there, but provid- edited by Zhao Feng. Foreword by James C. Y. Watt. ed an invaluable reference tool about textile terminology, Contributions by Chen Juanjuan, Huang Nengfu, Di- changing values and different sorts, price equivalents, and eter Kuhn, Li Wenying, Peng Hao, Zhao Feng. Trans- much more. The focus is on the period of the Tang Dynasty (618–906), under which textiles (not just silk) were one of lations by David Andrew Knight, Craig Shaw, Nich- three major currencies (the others being coins and grain), olas Morrow Williams.