Volume 79, Issue 4 - Special Issue: Representations of Self and Other in Asia: Ancient and Modern “Mirrors”; Edited by Alessandro Achilli, Giuliano Mion and Tiziana Pontillo

For some years now some eminent Scholars such as Parpola (2015), Amano (2016), Witzel (2020) have been arguing that the officiant-patron distinction and the “orthodox” sacrificial arena might have been brought into being for the first time by the bearers of the Yajurveda culture. At the same time, since 2007 onwards, Bronkhorst has proved in many ways that not all ancient Indian institutions necessarily descended from the “Brahmanical” mainstream. In this paper, we show that even what has always been considered as an original and evergreen institution, i.e. the dakṣiṇā as priestly gift had actually been developed especially by the Yajurvedic texts in line with the Brahmins’ action of “re-inventing themselves”. In Candotti et al. (2020; 2021), we believe we demonstrated that the earliest occurrences of the term testify to a completely different ritual and social context. In the present article we will try to grasp the evolution of the concept in the Yajurveda through the analysis of every detail of the different versions of the same rite or prayer where the term is found, which will allow us to highlight the intriguing progressive editing process of the handed-down texts.

The aim of this article is to analyse a long passage from the Jaiminīya-Brāhmaṇa , i.e., a late Vedic source of the Sāmaveda branch in order to elucidate the embedding strategy the texts adopted after the Śrauta Reform to merge different Indo-Aryan (ritual and speculative) notions in an original manner. Previous research has also shown that the Sāmaveda Brāhmaṇas were especially focused on keeping trace of unorthodox heroically oriented cultures, i.e., of cultures not representative of the Śrauta mainstream, which was instead committed to placing the values of the priestly class at the core and top of social hierarchy. The selected passage (JB 2.53–68) does not marginalise the pattern of the Sattra sacrifice and the doctrine of how to prevent the decay of what is granted by sacrifices ( iṣṭāpūrtasya […] akṣiti ), but rather compares it with the Śrauta sacrificial horizon and ultimately encapsulates it in the latter. The ultimate purpose of this research is to relocate the plurality of a specific Asian history, namely the multifaceted earliest Indo-Aryan matrix, by means of a philological and linguistic method applied to Vedic sources.

This paper aims at analyzing a series of religious expressions typical of Arabic and related to what some scholars recently called Allāh-Lexicon. By assuming that these items constitute a lexical reflection of the self-representation of the speaker’s cultural identity, we can observe that their contextual extension and frequency of use are so high that they end up pervading deeply all varieties of spoken Arabic not only at the lexical level, but also at the pragmatic level. Is it therefore conceivable that precisely the extension of the context and the increase in frequency of use have also triggered processes of grammatical change?

Āyurveda and Yoga are two traditional Indian health practices which have gained worldwide popularity over the last two decades. Their global fame has led to problems at home as the recognition inspired socio-political initiatives to promote a regeneration of the traditional practices. This study seeks to outline the elements that contribute to the polemic for Āyurveda and Yoga as their academic study stands in stark contrast with their practical use. Using the theory of Orientalism interpreted to the Indian context by Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha, this study explores the impact of historicism on traditional interpretations of the practices. It further attempts to make a case for a multi-disciplinary approach to their study focusing on case studies, historical analysis, and philological analysis to promote a grounded understanding of the practices.

It is common knowledge that the discourse on Orientalism developed by Edward Said (1978) does not include the perception of the Asiatic Other in German-speaking countries. As a result, we are left with a series of unanswered questions related to the importance of the construction of Asiatic imagery in this part of Europe. German Orientalism – declined in the plural by Kontje (2004), because of its complexity – has thus been the focus of various investigative attempts and approaches that study its characteristics in light of the peculiarities of the German-speaking universe, characterised by the presence of the German Empire and the Habsburg Empire. In more recent times, several studies have explored the literary representation of the relationships between German-speaking countries and the East, drawing on the concepts of transculturality and cultural hybridity (Welsch 1992; Shen/Rosenstock 2014; Zhang 2017). These studies provide a methodological framework suited to the analysis of literary works that portray the relation between East and West in ways that seek to transcend their traditional dichotomy, interpreting it instead through the lens of complementary elements within a global culture. In this paper, the developmental stages of German Orientalism are briefly reviewed with regard to the image of China and Japan in German-language literature. If at the end of the 19th century German Orientalism was influenced by the concrete or only vague colonial ambitions of the German and Habsburg empires, the 20th century witnessed the process of its deconstruction thanks to the work of authors who made the imaginative projection of the Asian Other an occasion for ironic and irreverent reflection. An analysis of the same historical period in light of the concept of transculturality is also recalled and extended to more recent literature in which the representation of the East is often reinterpreted through a hybrid and hybridising dimension that seeks to move beyond the dichotomous division between West and East in favour of mutual influence. The study concludes with a proposed analysis of the works of Adolf Muschg and Yōko Tawada – two authors who, despite their significant differences, depict a reality characterised by metamorphosis and reciprocal contamination, yet one that remains open to reflections still connected to the notion of colonial and postcolonial power relations.

In this article, I analyze the poetic prose of Šamšad Abdullaev, one of the leading voices of the so-called Fergana School of Poetry. It is my argument that Abdullaev’s work features self-orientalizing images, including the depiction of the Central Asian space and its inhabitants as motionless, that deconstruct orientalist stereotypes. It does so through a difficult writing that questions the usual representation of both the East and the West, positioning itself as world literature. I also reflect on Abdullaev’s distinctive use of the Russian language, which enriches standard Russian with a number of Oriental words that are crucial to describing and representing the Fergana space, thus showing the inability of the former colonizer’s language to speak of Fergana without resorting to the local vocabulary. Drawing on Postcolonial, Decolonial, and World Literature Studies, I propose an interpretation of Abdullaev’s work that foregrounds its emancipatory nature.

This article examines the Self-to-Self and Self-to-Other discursive construction of China’s technological advancement through media coverage of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI start-up that gained international visibility after releasing new models in early 2025. Using this event as a case study, the contribution investigates how the company’s rise is narrated to domestic and international audiences through a contrastive analysis of Renmin Wang, the Chinese online edition of the Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), and its Italian-language counterpart, Quotidiano del Popolo. Drawing on postcolonial theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, the study adopts a qualitative, corpus-assisted approach to examine how DeepSeek is framed as a symbol of national achievement through the political concept of “strong country,” which casts innovation as a national, state-guided effort. While RMW situates the story within a collective discourse that downplays individual agency in favour of Party-led progress, QDP adopts a more assertive tone, portraying China as a “technological powerhouse.” The comparison reveals discursive asymmetries – international-oriented texts place greater emphasis on China’s global competitiveness – and discursive ambiguity – both corpora convey ambivalence, depicting China as a rising power, a cooperative actor of the Global South, and a formerly marginalised nation seeking postcolonial recognition. This fluid positioning reflects China’s attempt to reshape its global image while maintaining solidarity with (and support by) developing countries.