The Bactrian Documents vol I and II

The Bactrian Documents, translated by Nicholas Sims-Williams, are valuable, first hand documents written in the Bactrian language pertaining to everyday life in pre-Islamic Bactria.  The documents can vary from being as important as Buddhist texts or legal/marriage contracts to receipts for goods purchased and received from one person to another.  While the marriage contract is interesting to read, I honestly find the receipts to be very interesting and even slightly amusing to read.  It makes me chuckle to think of reading someone's old grocery shopping receipt from the Kushan era and finding that people back then shopped for things not so different than what we shop for today.  Such as in Document B:

"The year 137, the month Shabat,

There has been received by me, Aspal-bid, from you, Zuwanind, the store-keeper, what is written in the list:forty measures of flour and grain, twelve jars of wine, ten sieves, ten bags of straw, fourteen bundles of lucerne, one chicken.  So this (is) your proof (of receipt). " (1)

The contracts contained herein are also fascinating.  Document A is a marriage contract, wherein a woman named Ralik is married to brothers,  Bab and Piduk.  I'm not sure how common it was for one woman to be married to two men.  The reading here seems to be pretty clear on the matter, though:

"Now:There has been requested by me, Bag-farn, from you, Far-wesh, and from you, Nog-sanind, this woman whose name (is) Ralik (as) a fully privledged daughter-in-law, (as) a wife for these (my) sons, Bab and Piduk..." (2)

The document also goes on to say:

"And a declaration was made (by us), Bab and Piduk.  We have received Ralik - I, Bab, and (I), Piduk - (as) a wife (to be treated) like a wife in every home which we now have and also which we may acquire in the future, (as) a lady possessing authority, as (is) the established custom in the land." 

I immediately drew correlations in this practice here to the practice mentioned in the Bible of how Jewish men would marry the wives of their dead brothers, and any children had in that relationship would belong to the dead brother.  Mongol men would marry their stepmothers if their father died, or marry their brother's wives in order to keep the women in the family and afford them social security and protection.  This appears to be similar to that in some regard, though I wonder if both these men engaged in intercourse with her.  At least they would know someone was fathering the children, though probably not which brother was successfully producing offspring with her.

Other documents included in the volumes include contracts for sales of items and slaves.  Loan contracts were also present, describing their interest rate, penalties, and items and/or amounts of money loaned.  There are also Buddhist texts and private correspondence, as well as a few legal proclamations.  The documents bring to life the workings of an advanced, organized society.  These types of primary sources are my favorite because they demonstrate that people, living in the years approximately from 200-400 A.D, were not so different from us at all, and desired and valued similar things to modern people.  They needed clear legal rulings for property inheritence, grievances, and criminal justice.  They utilized marriage contracts to negotiate rights for newly married women and their roles in their new households.  They shopped in markets for goods to feed their families. They wrote expressive, elegant letters to one another and they wrote beautiful hymns to the Buddha.  The Bactrian Documents are a significant and integral source of information for Bactrian scholarship and crucial to understanding the rich history of this important area.