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William Jones, who was the first to find a link between three ancient languages, namely: Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, has been regarded as the father of linguistics. His placing of Sanskrit at the apex of other languages, at first, received wide support from European scholars, soon after his translations of the Sanskrit texts started appearing in Europe. The term Indo-European will eventually be coined and the initial excitement among the Europeans of having come across the beauty and power of Sanskrit will fade. The sociopolitical events of late nineteenth-century Germany and Austria will result in placing of the Europeans in ascendancy, both ethnically and linguistically. As a consequence, Sanskrit will be demoted from its high position and the place of the ‘Indo’ half of the ‘Indo-European’ name marginalised. These forces have continued to gather momentum with some speed in the recent decades. The prevailing Western view, crystallised by Asko Parpola in a recent book and concerted efforts by specialists in a number of fields, including genetics, to reduce India to a peripheral and minor position form the subject for this discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the documents recovered from the Central Asian kingdom of Kroraina (Chinese Shanshan 鄯鄯), from the third to fourth centuries, as rare records of the way Buddhism was adapted outside of India during the Gupta period. In particular, the evidence for the existence of married Buddhist monks (śramana) is examined, and the reasons why this situation might have developed are explored. The introduction examines in brief the evidence for monastic marriage in other Buddhist cultures, concluding that only in Meiji-era Japan was this situation both widespread and supported by the ruling powers. This is followed by an overview of the sources, documents in Gāndhārī from the archaeological site of Niya, which reveal the existence ofśramanawith wives and children, and manuscripts in Sanksrit which show that the normative ideals of Buddhism, including thepratimokṣavows of monks and nuns, were not unknown in this region. Finally, a possible explanation for the state-sanctioned existence of married monks is presented in the context of the Buddhist state rituals described by the pilgrim Faxian in the neighbouring kingdoms of Khotan and Kashgar. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]