Studies of visual culture in the Persian-speaking world of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries frequently discuss the literary contexts in which painting was often produced, yet scant attention has been paid to understanding how the visual can engage with the verbal beyond representing a sequential narrative. Arguing that paintings and literary texts are autonomous, yet can engage with similar ideas, this article focuses on a painting in the album TSMK H.2153 that is generally perceived to lie outside the frameworks of narrative poetry: ‘The Monastery’ (f.131b). The article investigates how the painting employs techniques of representation similar to those used in lyric and panegyric poetry, to connect individual motifs and thereby explore ideas. An engagement with the continuities between literary and visual cultures reveals a chronogram, giving the year in which ‘The Monastery’ was produced, and allows us to understand how it constructs a vision of unorthodox kingship.

Despite Jebe Noyan's importance to the expansion of Chinggis Khan's empire, the Mongol general remains a shadowy figure. In part this stems from the absence of any biography of Jebe in the Yuan Shi and much uncertainly surrounds when, and in what circumstances, he died. Here the argument is made that the Novgorod First Chronicle provides a description of Jebe's capture and death at the hands of the Kipchaks during the 1223 campaign which culminated with the decisive Battle of the Kalka River. The silence and ambiguity surrounding Jebe's fate in pro-Mongol sources of the thirteenth century can perhaps be explained by a taboo surrounding the disgraceful circumstances of his capture and execution.

The paper explores the implications which this identification holds for how we assess the westward campaign of Jebe and Sübe'etei (1220-1224), often perceived as a reconnaissance mission, and how the Mongol leadership viewed enemies west of the Volga in its aftermath. This, in turn, sheds light on the preparations the Mongols made for their return in force to the region in the 1230s. Finally a theory is offered for why Jebe's identification was not made previously which illustrates the challenges facing researchers of the Mongol Empire.

The interpretation of history is often a complex task. All too often, sources are misinterpreted because of historians’ preconceptions. This article takes issue with one such misinterpretation, the anachronistic view that the Strait of Melaka has been the principal sea route connecting the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea throughout most of recorded history. Beginning at a period when an overland journey across the Malay Peninsula was an essential link in the routes connecting South, Southeast and East Asia, it is suggested that the first entirely maritime itinerary to be used regularly passed through the Sunda Strait. Changes in itineraries affected the fortunes of the states of Southeast Asia, particularly of Funan and Srivijaya.

This note examines a Sanskrit letter from Bengal dating to approximately 1535 ce. The letter was assumed to be lost. Addressed to a scholar in the discipline of nyāyaśāstra, the letter is the only available example of a personal letter between Sanskrit scholars from Bengal in the premodern period. First located in 1907 and then subsequently assumed lost, the letter has never been the subject of sustained analysis. This has resulted in a number of disagreements among modern scholars about the identities of the individuals named in the letter. This note provides a translation of the letter and presents arguments for identifying the individuals named in the letter. It then concludes by briefly reflecting upon the importance of the letter and its use in scholarly communication.

This study looks at the crucial features of Cambodian and Burmese monumental architecture at the peak of the two empires. By necessity, the overwhelming majority of sites are religious, as residential structures of almost any type, with the exception of some monastic buildings, were made of perishable materials and do not survive.

By exploring cases of runaway eunuchs, this paper aims to contribute to understandings of unfree status during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and more broadly to the reconstruction of the social history of eunuchs. The abundance of cases in the historical record of palace eunuchs running away, often repeatedly, reflects poorly on the imperial court's treatment of its eunuchs and effectiveness at times in controlling its eunuch population. Confessions from captured eunuchs reveal that for many life serving as a palace eunuch proved too restrictive and too oppressive to endure. The repeated flight of eunuchs suggests that for some, the possibility of punishment was preferable to continued service and waiting for an authorised exit from the system due to old age or sickness. As the majority of palace eunuchs were illiterate, cases of runaway eunuchs give voice to eunuchs and reveal: (1) the tensions that characterised labour relations between the imperial household and its eunuch workforce and (2) that eunuch status does not fit neatly into the binary of free or unfree status, but rather is something more complicated that lies on the continuum in between.