The Naga Serpent in Malay Divination

The naga is a deified serpent that is a major part of the belief system of many South and Southeast Asian cultures. It is a chthonic creature, and is very strongly associated with rain and water. In Southeast Asia it plays an important role in divinatory practices for activities such as house-building, travelling and marriage. This seminar will explore the variety of texts and images relating to the naga as found in Malay divination manuscripts from the late 18th - early 20th century.

Office and Anarchy

his lecture introduces the importance of political office in the grammar of Greek constitutional thought, by exploring historical moments suggesting that the Athenians at least had an implicitly normative conception of political office. The most important of these episodes is in the aftermath of the rule of the Thirty in 404/03, when some texts record the archon under the Thirty whose name would normally be used to date the festival year as Pythodorus, but others record this as a year of anarchia, in which no (valid) archon had served.
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