The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644–656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least maintained that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up until c. 700 ce. This two-part article proposes to undertake a systematic assessment of this hypothesis. The first instalment assesses the evidence adduced in favour of a late seventh-century closure of the Quranic text, including the interest which ʿAbd al-Malik's governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf reportedly took in the text. It is argued that neither the epigraphic nor the literary evidence examined is incompatible with the conventional dating of the Quranic text.

This paper attempts both to transliterate and translate a newly published Sanskrit fragment of the Hastikakṣyasūtra and compare it to its corresponding Chinese and Tibetan translations. This fragment is part of the Hoernle Collection housed in the British Library. Through a comparison of all extant titles of this text found in both the Chinese and Tibetan versions and their reconstruction in Sanskrit, this work further deciphers why some titles use the metaphor of the effort or power of an elephant. In analysing the Chinese and Tibetan versions, this paper suggests that the content and structure of this text shed some light on the early development of Mahāyāna sūtras.

This article examines the local character of early modern (1600–1868) Japanese Buddhism using a case study of the Narita Fudō cult of Shinshōji Temple, with particular attention to the temple's most sacred treasure, the legendary Sword of Amakuni. Drawing on local sources produced within and beyond clerical circles, it examines how the sword and its popular narratives became central to the public identity of the cult and the temple's proselytization efforts. This article illuminates the evolving, fluid nature of deity cults as highly mobile properties working across sectarian boundaries, and how these properties gained importance beyond the walls of Buddhist institutions among the artistic and theatrical landscapes of the country's capital.

In order to introduce Mozi's thought, almost every contemporary textbook on Chinese philosophy refers to his ten novel theses or dogmas, which have been preserved as the titles of the Core chapters (8–37): to elevate the worthy, to conform upward, to care for all, to condemn military aggression, to moderate expenses as well as burials, to acknowledge the will of Heaven and the percipient ghosts, and to condemn music as well as fatalism. Through a close reading of the Mozi and other early sources written by or attributed to masters, this paper argues, first, that these ten core ideas may not have been promoted by the earliest spokesmen of Mohism but gradually emerged while various layers of the book Mozi were written, and, second, that these ten ideas were not consistently attributed to early Mohism by Zhou and Han masters: their association of Mo with these specific mottos is limited and inconsistent. A focus on the most well-known motto – “care for all” – shows that there was no awareness of its belonging exclusively to one thinker or school. The difference between the earliest and the contemporary characterizations of Mozi sheds new light not only on early Mohism, but also on our preconceptions when reading early sources.