This article examines contradictory assessments of the activities of Shiite preacher Mir Shams al-Din ʻIraqi (1441–1526) in the religious history of medieval Kashmir. The study analyzes fundamental differences in interpretation of his role between contemporary Iranian historiography, which presents him as an outstanding religious reformer, and 18th c. Kashmiri Sunni sources that critically evaluate his missionary activities. Based on a comparison of the manuscript “Waqiʻat-i Kashmir” by Muhammad Aʻzam Didamari from the IOM RAS collection with works written by contemporary Iranian researchers, this study demonstrates how authors’ confessional affiliation influences the formation of historical memory regarding religious figures of the past.

Some important documents, such as the Tangut legal texts “Revised and Newly Approved Code of the Heavenly Prosperity Reign (1149–1168)” (Tiansheng lüling) and “New Laws of the Pig Year” (Hainian xinfa), are not fully clarified. One reason is that some Tangut words cannot be understood correctly. The main key to finding exact meanings of Tangut words are translations of Chinese classics. In this paper it is shown how using the Tangut translation of a Chinese leishu, “Forest of Categories” (Lei lin), and finding correct interpretations of nine words results in reasonable translations of legal provisions.

Shen-nong (Divine Farmer) is one of the sovereigns who was believed to rule All-Under-Heaven in ancient times. Although from the 1stc. BC onwards his place in the legendary history of China was generally defined, some conflicting accounts still remained. One of these contained in now lost apocryphal text Chunqiu Minglixu, notable for its unique system of ancient history. Although Shen-nong is only twice mentioned in the surviving quotations from this apocrypha, fragments of other lost texts that were influenced by Minglixu testify its special treatment of Shen-nong. They allow to conclude that in this apocrypha’s system of ancient history there were two Shen-nongs: the first one, the August Shen-nong, ruled at the dawn of history and was endowed with cosmogonic activities, while the second one, also called Yan-di from the Da-ting clan, reigned much later and was perceived as a founder of his own dynasty.

Among Syriac manuscripts of the Institute of the Oriental Manuscripts in Saint Petersburg, there is an East Syriac lectionary Sir.26. Being an Evangeliary (Evangelion), it is meant for the Gospel lections of the whole liturgical year. The manuscript contains a number of miniatures that were added to it later, as pointed out by Nina V. Pigulevskaia. The additional folia with the miniatures contain also the date of completion and the name of the person involved. Besides, a part of the representations is marked in his hand as ‘a new image’, while the others are called ‘an old image’. Their iconographic features and the data provided by the notes enable us to see in a new light various tendencies that appeared in the manuscript production of the Chaldean (East Syriac Catholic) Church in the 19th — early 20thcc. Besides, the ‘restorer’ wrote quatrains in the miniatures that used to accompany the latter, hence they became an important element of the manuscript illumination.

The paper presents the results of two field expeditions in 2022–2023 to Southern Dagestan: within the framework of these archaeographic expeditions, the manuscript collection of the Akhty State Museum of Local Lore (village of Akhty, the Akhty district of the Republic of Dagestan), including manuscripts, documents, lithographs and early printed books in Arabic, Turkic and Persian languages, as well as a small private manuscript collection in the village of Khlyut (the Rutul district of the Republic of Dagestan) have been fully described and digitized. Materials of these collections allow us to draw a number of conclusions about the specifics of the transformation of intellectual tradition in Southern Dagestan, its differences and similarities compared with other regions of Dagestan, and the peculiarities of the distribution of manuscripts from the Middle East, Shirvan and the Ural-Volga region in this area.

The paper introduces three fragments of an Oirat manuscript of the Sungdui, or Collected Dharani, preserved at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. The fragments became part of the collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the 18th c., but had not been described until 2022. The manuscript is of special value, as only three other specimens of the Sungdui in Clear Script have been accounted for (these three manuscripts are preserved in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia). The St. Petersburg fragments come from a manuscript that was created between 1748 and 1795, presumably, in the Kalmyk Khanate. The dates were established based on the watermark found on the paper of one of the folios, and an inscription that was left on the same folio by Johannes Jhrig, the first scholar to catalogue the Mongolian and Tibetan collection of the Academy. In this paper, the text of the folios is published along with a commentary on the content and possible origin of the manuscript.

The article is devoted to the Arab medical written monument of the Middle Ages Hundred Books on the Skills of Medicine by the physician and polymath Abu Sahl Isa b. Yahya al-Masihi (approx. 9701010). Of special interest is the first chapter titled The Book of Introduction to the Art of Healing. In this book, al-Masihi aims to add and correct already known theoretical medical knowledge, and points out the need for a shorter and simpler presentation of the practical part. The article provides historiographic information to show that al-Masihis work was the program and the model for The Canon of Medicine, the fundamental and basic work of the great Arab-Islamic physician and polymath Abu Ali Ibn Sina. Having compared the structure and content of these two medical encyclopedic works and considering the historical fact that al-Masihi was a teacher of Avicenna in the art of healing, the author of the article arrives at the conclusion that the treatise Hundred Books on the Skills of Medicine could become a forerunner of Ibn Sinas Canon of Medicine. It could be the basis on which the great scientist relied in compiling his fundamental work.

The paper is focused on the study of Document Дх-18993 Agreement on a Bakery Lease to Li Chungou and others, drawn as a result of a contest of tenders conducted in the 1st month of the 12th year of the Guangding reign era kept in the Institute of Oriental manuscripts of the RAS. The writer of the paper proves that the document originates from Khara-Khoto and gives the comments on its content.

Edition of an Old Uighur poem preserved on the verso side of SI 4959 (Kr I 18) of the Serindia Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. The fragment contains twelve stanzas four lines. The contents is difficult to define, It is assumed that stanzas I to VI refer to an unnamed young boy who may be a Buddhist novice, while stanzas VII to XII emphasize the importance of doing punya, good deeds. The layman İndu is presented as a model. In stanza IX he vows to encounter with Maitreya expressed in an indirect way. Similar verses are known from Maitreya poems. The paper presents a full edition of this fragment with some notes on problematic words and phrases.