This article presents findings of the comprehensive study of Chinese mirrors with inscriptions unearthed from the early Iron Age burial complexes of Korea and Japan and the search for their closest analogies. An analysis of the morphological features of these objects and the content of the inscriptions allows us to attribute them to four main types: mirrors with inscriptions containing the characters jia chang fu gui, riguang, zhaoming and qingbai. Similar mirrors were widespread in Han China from the middle of the 2^nd century BC to the end of the 1^st century AD. They also became widespread throughout Eurasia, including the territory from Ukraine in the west to Japan in the east, from Western Siberia in the north to Central Vietnam in the south. The identity of the ornamentation and inscriptions of mirrors from different regions suggests that they all were produced in a limited number of centres located within the borders of Han China and spread across the territory of Eurasia along the routes of the Great Silk Road, which ran mainly along the steppe belt to the west and along sea routes to the east and southeast of the continent and to nearby islands. On the territory of Korea and Japan these mirrors might serve as amulets and markers of high social status, the inscriptions themselves, most likely, were not clear to the majority of the ancient inhabitants of this territory, since hieroglyphic writing became widespread in Korea and Japan only in the 6^th – 7^th centuries.

The article presents the preliminary results of the study of an incredibly important monument – the Tomb of Lou Rui, who was one of the highest officials in the state of Northern Qi. A rich funerary inventory was found there, as well as coloured frescoes with a preserved area of approximately 200 square meters. They include 71 compositions, among which the pictures of the solemn departure from the palace and the return back stand out. The most noticeable part of all images painted on the walls are horses, which number up to 200 heads. Therefore, the horse decoration and harness were specially studied by the authors of this article, and the transitional nature of some important elements (saddle, stirrups) was noted. The clothing of the riders is dominated by «barbaric motifs», which could be seen in the men’s suit from Northern Qi up to the Song Dynasty. The religious and ideological aspects of the burial organization can be determined as syncretic in nature, where traditional ideas about the transition to the «other world» were combined with Confucian and Buddhist motives, possibly with the influence of Zoroastrianism. The placement of multi-figure compositions on the walls of the Tomb’s dromos had a status character. Their creation was led by a palace painter (perhaps, he was the famous Yang Zihua), however a whole team of apprentices helped the master in creating templates, drawing outlines on the wall and filling them with different paints.

The author recollects his first ‘in-person’ acquaintance with petroglyphs of South Siberia under the tutorship of his teacher V. E. Larichev. The main interpretations of figures in long robes (so-called «boots») engraved on planes of Oshkol pisanitsa and other adjacent rock art sites of Northern Khakassia are enumerated. Arguments by S. V. Pankova in favour of their interpretation as Manichean or Buddhist priests and their attribution to Tashtyk culture time are considered. The author tries to present alternative interpretation and dating of figures in long robes. He proposed the 13^th century Chinese painting «Nomads» depicting two women in boqtag – traditional headdress of Mongolian nobles – as the ichnographically closest analogy to Khakas rock art «boots». A brief overview of Russian boqtag studies is given. The author mentions articles by M. V. Gorelik, N. V. Khripunov, E. P. Myskov, Z. V. Dode, A. A. Tishkin, S. A. Pilipenko, L. E. Maklasova and others. He presumes that Chinese Medieval scroll «Nomads» depicted a Mongolian wedding train and rock engravings of figures in long robes in Khakassia reflected matrimonial contacts of Yenisei Kyrgyz leadership with Mongolian nobles.

Today’s Henan Mongol Autonomous County is located in the southeastern part of present-day Qinghai Province, in the northeastern part of the Tibetan plateau. This historical pastoral area South of the Yellow River is a border area where, a milieu was created due to the long-term mutual contacts between Tibetans and Mongols, in which specific local customs, language patterns, and social communities have emerged. The initial turning point in their ethnical and cultural identity was the integration into the modern Chinese State in 1954, followed by ethnic classification. Moreover the local pastoral Mongol and Tietan populations have been transformed into minority nationalities is-á-vis the Han Chinese, and many Tibetans even were classified as Mengguzu (Mongols), however, perceived as Tibet-Mongols (Tib. Bod Sog) by themselves and their neighbours. By looking at the outstanding historical figure of Tashi Tsering, the last Mongol qinwang of the Henan grasslands at the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, this paper examines how the people of the Henan grasslands integrate their memory of the local traditional leader into their identity construction, and how they revive their Mongolness despite their seclusion from other Mongol communities.

Anna Evgenievna Gluskina (1904–1994) is known as an outstanding translator of Japanese poetry, teacher and educator, expert on Japanese culture, author of numerous academic articles and monographs. There are many well-known publications devoted to her life, her research and poetic work. However, her activities as a museum Japanologist, as well as her contribution to the formation and description of the Japanese collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography RAS (MAE), are still little known and underestimated. Meanwhile, Anna Evgenievna's debut as a professional Japanologist is connected with her work at the MAE; she spent almost 9 years of her life in the museum (1925–1933). During her academic trip to Japan in 1928, she acquired over 700 pieces that characterize various aspects of traditional Japanese culture, for the museum: Shinto cult objects, a variety of theatrical accessories including marionette puppets and kageboshi shadow theatre items, numerous traditional agricultural implements and fishing gear, peasants’ costumes and agricultural instruments as well as about 400 photographs and negatives. All these items were organized into 7 material and 6 photographic collections; the descriptions were made by Anna Evgenievna at a very high professional level and are distinguished by great accuracy; each item is provided with a detailed attribution and ethnic designation supplied with its Japanese character writing and indication of the circumstances of their acquisition. By the early 1930s, Anna Evgenievna had fully established herself not only as a professional Japanologist, but ethnographer and museum researcher, too; however, the dramatic circumstances intervening into the life of the MAE in 1933 had interrupted her activities in this field.

The article focuses on the origin of traditional Chinese culture seal-censers (香印 xiangyin, 香篆 xiangzhuan), including an analysis of key functions during their evolutionary course over several centuries. The specificity of early incense seals is revealed through the study of religious, documentary and artistic sources of the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) epochs, Chinese catalogs and reference books dating back to the last years of the Qing dynasty (last quarter of the 19^th century) and 7^th – 8^th centuries Buddhist texts. Key features of the symbolism and functions of aromatic seals in rituals, engineering and scientific fields, as well as in artistic and household fields are also analyzed. Currently, the practice of burning incense seals in China and Taiwan is generally limited to artistic and commercial fields. At the same time, the lengthy religious, artistic and everyday tradition of the East contains great opportunities for using incense seals. Such as, naturally combining them with other types of leisure, including being considered an effective way to maintain physical and mental health.

The article is devoted to the description and analysis of some iconographic elements inherent in Buddhist cult sculpture, which made communication between a person and a deity possible. The set being analyzed in this article, which is distinguished by its diversity, is limited to attributes that the deities hold in their hands, as well as crowns crowning the heads of deities, since they occupy a particularly important place in the structure of Buddhist iconography. The various identification marks endowed with Buddhist deities, in general, remain unchanged. As symbols, since images of deities are perceived by the adherents of the faith, they contribute to the birth of the corresponding associations. Embodied in Buddhist sculpture with their characteristic semantics, the attributes help to understand the essence of Buddha's teaching. Some objects are an information sign exclusively for a certain deity, others may belong to the subject environment of different deities. In the visual arts of Japan, the attributes of Buddhist sculpture have become a conventional image, contributing to the message of the versatility of Buddhist teaching, revealing its spiritual essence. Religious and aesthetic merged into one in the works of outstanding masters, who paid special attention to iconographic details, giving them artistic expressiveness. Buddhist sculpture uses symbols with well-established traditional meanings – religious values that have become common culture. The semantic structure of the symbol appeals to the experience and knowledge of a parishioner in a temple or a visitor in a museum, deepening and expanding his spiritual and mental space. This is facilitated by the canonized system of pictorial language that has developed over the centuries.

An artist, tea master, gardener, calligrapher and poet Kobori Enshu left a great creative legacy. During his life, he had worked on the construction of numerous castles, buildings, gardens. Based on the example of the most representative architectural designs and gardens which reflect the sign of the master’s bright individuality, we can judge the role of art in the creation of the atmosphere of the Zen temple and Zen outlook. Kohoan was the last residence of Kobori Enshu. At the age of 64 he built this garden on the Westside of Daitokuji, where he learned Zen-Buddhism when he was young and spent his last two years here before he passed away in 1647. Throughout his life, Enshu built castles, palaces, tearooms and gardens for the shogun or the Emperor, however Kohoan was at last in a place he created for himself and to his own taste. He must have tried to create what he considered to be the ideal space – spiritualized by beauty, saturated by symbols, deep meaning, with a Zen undertone. Every detail in this space speaks of the master’s artistic taste, the way of thinking of the person who perceives the religious and philosophic ideas without separation from its artistic expression. Behind each garden of Kobori Enshu is a well-developed concept and theme. The true value of his gardens can only be assessed when they are viewed as dramatic spaces that have been skillfully integrated into architectural settings. Although Kobori Enshu is one of the most significant figures in the history of Japanese culture, there is no scientific research devoted to the creative works of this master. This certain fact identifies the urgency and practical value of the article.

Typological status of complex converb constructions in Japanese is not currently well-defined. Japanese language researchers have no common opinion regarding their syntactic and functional unity. In this article we use corpus data to study such constructions with auxiliary verbs yaru, ageru, kureru, kudasaru, morau and itadaku and reveal features of monoclausality and biclausality with them. In the first part of the article, we overview the preexisting research on this topic, and then we apply the tests of morphological and syntactic independency that can be validated using corpus data. To test morphological independency, we check if focus particles such as mo ‘too’ can be placed between the parts of benefactive construction. For syntactic independency we use such tests as replacing a main verb with soo suru ‘to do so’ and checking the implementation of locality condition for shika ‘except’ when the negation marker is added to a main verb or to an auxiliary. According to our data, parts of all the six types of Japanese benefactive constructions demonstrate morphological independency (except for contracted colloquial forms). As for their syntactic properties, benefactives demonstrate both monoclausality and biclausality features. However, the parallel with direct and indirect passive constructions that exists in preceding research does not find endorsement in our data.

This research unveils a morphological entity/unit of modern Japanese with a clear affix nature – morpheme do- – that lacks analysis in the works of Russian and English-speaking scientific audience and that should – according to its morphotactical characteristics (the way it behaves in morphological surroundings) – be assessed as a prefix. The prefix’s etymology, sociolinguistical implications and semantic intricacies are outlined by the author (in particular, the difference between «super-, very» and «too much» use cases) based on the research of Japanese authors. Another important clarification is made in regard to the vernacular, obscenity-related element of the prefix, with a strong accent on the fact that the prefix has been widely used even on national television and is gradually becoming a part of common language with a high non-obscene application range. In terms of functional performance, this emphatic affix fills in the gap that 超 chou- had a hard time filling due to various limitations. Do- is highly compatible with various parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives, adverbs and even – to a lesser extent – verbs. Although there’s some overlap between the two, the relationship is clearly tandemic. A small listing of words (dictionary) compiled out of different sources (including everyday conversations) is provided at the end of the work for future reference. Certain misconceptions of prefix o- are outlined and corrected with presentation of a slightly different perspective. Other prefixes of rare listing are also mentioned briefly and reflected upon in the context of modern language.

The proposed review deals with the problem of the Three Great Reforms in the second half of the Edo period in Japan. All Three Reforms were named after the era, when each began (Kyoho, Kansei, and Tempo). The general slogan of the reforms was «back to the golden age», which meant the time of the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty. The real reason for the reforms was the need to reconcile some bourgeois changes in society with the formal feudal structure of the State organization. The content of each reform, its results, initiators and the socio-political situation are presented here in full, comprehensive form with basic details. The list of references is absent for the reason that the review itself is based on the materials of a doctoral dissertation, written by the author of the article previously, in Russian. The complete list of several hundred publications on the topic can be obtained by referring to the full text of the dissertation (Philippov A. V. «Three Great Reforms» and evolution process of the Japanese society, in the second half of the Edo period. Dissertation of Doctor in History. St. Petersburg, 2003. 503 p. URL: https://www.dissercat.com/content/tri-bolshie-reformy-i-protsessy-evolyutsii-yaponskogo-obshchestva-vtoroi-poloviny-epokhi-edo). The author suggests that the experience of reforms in Tokugawa Japan was very useful for the formation of national character, ethnic stereotypes of behaviour, psychology and way of thinking of the Japanese. The content of all Three Great Re-forms combined has never been presented in English or Japanese before.

Gerhard Oberhammer is a prominent Austrian scholar of Indian philosophy and religions. This paper presents an analysis of Oberhammer’s works on spiritual practices of sāṃkhya and yoga. Based on the works that belong to the traditions of sāṃkhya, Patañjali’s yoga and the Pāśupata’s śaivism, Oberhammer reconstructed the phenomenology of each spiritual path and developed a general typology of yogic practices. Particularly, in the Yoga-sūtras, he identified four distinct practices of different origin, which implies that initially this work was a compilation. Oberhammer revealed an affinity between one of these practices and a later teaching of the theistic Mṛgendratantra. Based on the material of the Yuktidīpikā he described the phenomenology of the spiritual path of sāṃkhya, a tradition that is often believed to be of purely theoretical character. Oberhammer’s works on sāṃkhya and yoga attracted interest of scholars of Indian religions. However, with the course of time they were almost forgotten, not least because of the general positivist bias of modern indology. It seems promising to compare Oberhammer’s typology of yogic practices, as well as his philosophical teaching of transcendental hermeneutics, with the works by Mircea Eliade and Evgeniy Torchinov, which provide broad descriptions of religious practices with a general focus on the phenomenology of spiritual experience.

The article gives a detailed overview of modern trends in the American Manchu studies. Special attention is given to the New Qing History historiographic school, which during the 1980s and 1990s criticized the Sinicization theory on entirely new levels of theorizing during the 1980s and the 1990s. Despite existing differences in views, the experts share common approaches to the Qing studies: importance of the Manchu sources, comparison of the Qing dynasty with the other Early Modern empires of Eurasia, refusal to identify the Manchu regime with China and considering China only as one of the parts of the Empire, close attention to the identities issue in the Qing empire. This article analyzes the ideas of such prominent American experts in Manchu studies as Pamela Kyle Crossley and Mark C. Elliott, as well as some concepts of their teachers and predecessors. The central position of the New Qing History school is a statement of the importance of the Manchu factor in the functioning of the Qing state. The article also gives the critical response of supporters of the Sinicization theory to the theses prevailing among the American scholars. They express doubts about the dichotomy claimed by the New Qing History scholars between Manchu and Chinese identities. In their opinion, the process of sinicization includes not only Chinese but also other minor forms of identities, so the Manchus could preserve their own identity but still think of themselves as part of the Chinese civilization. Such criticism undoubtedly has common points with the modern Chinese political concept of the «Chinese family of the united nations». The author believes both approaches should be taken into consideration when researching Manchu and Chinese sources as part of the Qing studies.