title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: Considering that the enemy moves its infantry from the first to the second and third lines of trenches in the morning, I used a nightly artillery barrage with a high density of fire for 30 minutes, with the use of searchlights to blind the enemy and light up the terrain ahead of the advancing troops... According to the interrogated prisoners, artillery fire was so sudden and overwhelming that the enemy did not have time to move from the first trench line; the second and third lines were at all times under heavy fire from our artillery. As a result of this, the enemy units in the first line of defence suffered heavy casualties.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: The swampy ground proved to be a great hindrance, and a German counter-barrage caused heavy Soviet casualties. Frustrated by the slow advance, Zhukov threw in his reserves, which according to his earlier plan were to be held back until the expected breakthrough. By early evening, an advance of had been achieved (the 7th Rifle Corps from the 3rd Shock Army had advanced ), but the second German defensive line remained intact. Zhukov was forced to report that his battle was not going as planned. However, in the south the attack by Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front was going according to plan. To spur Zhukov on, Stalin told him that he had let Konev direct his tank armies north towards Berlin.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: On the second day, the 1st Belorussian Front's troops continued to advance in accordance with the initial plan. By nightfall on 17 April, the German second defensive line ("Stein Stellung") was broken by the 5th Shock Army and 2nd Guards Tank Army. The right flank of the 4th Guards Rifle Corps of the 8th Guards Army, together with the 11th Guards Tank Corps of the 1st Guards Tank Army, had taken advantage of the success of their comrades and also advanced. The 47th and the 3rd shock armies progressed another .


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: To the south however, the 1st Ukrainian Front was pushing back the 4th Panzer Army; the left flank of Army Group Centre under Ferdinand Schörner was beginning to crumble. Schörner kept his two reserve panzer divisions in the south covering his centre, instead of using them to shore up the 4th Panzer Army. This was the turning point in the Berlin Offensive because the positions of both Army Group Vistula and the centre and right sectors of Army Group Centre were becoming untenable. Unless they fell back in line with the 4th Panzer Army, they faced envelopment. In effect, Konev's successful attack on Schörner's relatively poor defences to the south of Seelow Heights was unhinging Heinrici's defence.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: On 18 April, both Soviet fronts advanced with heavy losses. The Seelow Heights was bypassed from the north, during which Soviet troops met counterattacks by German reserves: 11th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Nordland", 23rd SS Panzergrenadier Division "Nederland" and SS-Panzer Abteilung 103 (503rd). By nightfall, an advance of on the right flank and in the centre had been achieved, and the 1st Belorussian Front had reached the third and final German line of defence.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: On 19 April, the 1st Belorussian Front eventually broke through the final defensive line of the Seelow Heights and now nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The remnants of the 9th Army and the 4th Panzer Army were enveloped by the 1st Belorussian Front and by elements of the 1st Ukrainian Front which had broken through and turned north. Other armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front raced west towards the Americans. By the close of 19 April, the German eastern frontline had effectively ceased to exist. All that remained were pockets of resistance.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: The defensive line on the Seelow Heights was the last major defensive line outside Berlin. From 19 April, the road to Berlin— to the west—lay open. By 23 April, Berlin was fully encircled and the Battle in Berlin commenced. Within two weeks, Adolf Hitler was dead and the war in Europe was effectively over.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: As result of the 1st Belorussian Front's success at the Seelow Heights and the Oder Front in general, most of the forces of the German 9th Army were encircled before they could retreat to Berlin. The city was then defended by broken formations, the "Volkssturm", police, and air defence units, which resulted in the Red Army taking it in 10 days.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: After the war, Zhukov's critics asserted that he should have stopped the 1st Belorussian Front's attack via the direct line to Berlin along the "Autobahn" and instead made use of the 1st Ukrainian Front's breakthrough over the Neisse or concentrate its armies on surrounding Berlin from the north. This would have bypassed the strong German defences at Seelow Heights, and avoided many casualties and the delay in the Berlin advance.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: Zhukov supposedly took the shortest path, the critics contend, so that his troops would be the first ones to enter the city. However, Zhukov chose the main thrust to be through the Seelow Heights not because he thought that was the quickest way to get to Berlin, but because that was the quickest way to link up with Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front and cut off the German 9th Army from the city.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: Also, bypassing the Seelow Heights and attacking Berlin from the north would have exposed the northern flank of the 1st Belorussian Front to a potential attack from German forces to the north, which could have pinned Zhukov's forces against the Seelow Heights. Furthermore, in actuality only two of the five armies of the 1st Belorussian Front attacked the Seelow Heights themselves and the heights were eventually bypassed from the north as soon as there was a narrow breakthrough.


title: Battle of the Seelow Heights

text: Estimates of Soviet casualties during the assault on the Seelow Heights vary from under 10,000 to over 30,000 killed.


title: Subjectivity

text: Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse. However, it is related to ideas of consciousness, agency, personhood, philosophy of mind, reality, and truth. Three common definitions include that subjectivity is the quality or condition of:


title: Subjectivity

text: The varying definitions of subjectivity are often used together and interchangeably. The term is most commonly used as an explanation for that which influences, informs, and biases people's judgments about truth or reality; it is the collection of the perceptions, experiences, expectations, and personal or cultural understanding of, and beliefs about, an external phenomenon, that are specific to a subject.


title: Subjectivity

text: Subjectivity is contrasted to the philosophy of objectivity, which is described as a view of truth or reality that is free of any individual's biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings. Subjectivity and objectivity are usually seen as two directly opposing views; therefore, an understanding of one usually influences that of the other.


title: Subjectivity

text: In Western philosophy, the idea of subjectivity is thought to have its roots in the works of Descartes and Kant though it could also come from Aristotle's work relating to the soul. The idea of subjectivity is often seen as a peripheral to other philosophical concepts, namely skepticism, individuals and individuality, and existentialism. The questions surrounding subjectivity have to do with whether or not people can escape the subjectivity of their own human existence and whether or not there is an obligation to try to do so. Important thinkers who focused on this area of study include Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Foucault, Derrida, Nagel, and Sartre.


title: Subjectivity

text: Subjectivity was rejected by Foucault and Derrida in favor of constructionism, but Sartre embraced and continued Descartes' work in the subject by emphasizing subjectivity in phenomenology. Sartre believed that, even within the material force of human society, the ego was an essentially transcendent being—posited, for instance, in his opus "Being and Nothingness" through his arguments about the 'being-for-others' and the 'for-itself' (i.e., an objective and subjective human being).


title: Subjectivity

text: The innermost core of "subjectivity" resides in a unique act of what Fichte called “self-positing”, where each subject is a point of absolute autonomy, which means that it cannot be reduced to a moment in the network of causes and effects.


title: Subjectivity

text: One way that subjectivity has been conceptualized by philosophers such as Kierkegaard is in the context of religion. Religious beliefs can vary quite extremely from person to person, but people often think that whatever they believe is the truth. Subjectivity as seen by Descartes and Sartre was a matter of what was dependent on consciousness, so, because religious beliefs require the presence of a consciousness that can believe, they must be subjective. This is in contrast to what has been proven by science, which does not depend on the perception of people, and is therefore considered objective. Subjectivity is what relies on personal perception regardless of what is proven or objective.


title: Subjectivity

text: Many philosophical arguments within this area of study have to do with moving from subjective thoughts to objective thoughts with many different methods employed to get from one to the other along with a variety of conclusions reached. This is exemplified by Descartes deductions that move from reliance on subjectivity to somewhat of a reliance on God for objectivity. Foucault and Derrida denied the idea of subjectivity in favor of their ideas of constructs in order to account for differences in human thought. Instead of focusing on the idea of consciousness and self-consciousness shaping the way humans perceive the world, these thinkers would argue that it is instead the world that shapes humans, so they would see religion less as a belief and more as a cultural construction.


title: Subjectivity

text: Others like Husserl and Sartre followed the phenomenological approach. This approach focused on the distinct separation of the human mind and the physical world, where the mind is subjective because it can take liberties like imagination and self-awareness where religion might be examined regardless of any kind of subjectivity. The philosophical conversation around subjectivity remains one that struggles with the epistemological question of what is real, what is made up, and what it would mean to be separated completely from subjectivity.


title: Subjectivity

text: Subjectivity is an inherently social mode that comes about through innumerable interactions within society. As much as subjectivity is a process of individuation, it is equally a process of socialization, the individual never being isolated in a self-contained environment, but endlessly engaging in interaction with the surrounding world.


title: Subjectivity

text: Culture is a living totality of the subjectivity of any given society constantly undergoing transformation. Subjectivity is both shaped by it and shapes it in turn, but also by other things like the economy, political institutions, communities, as well as the natural world.


title: Subjectivity

text: Though the boundaries of societies and their cultures are indefinable and arbitrary, the subjectivity inherent in each one is palatable and can be recognized as distinct from others. Subjectivity is in part a particular experience or organization of reality, which includes how one views and interacts with humanity, objects, consciousness, and nature, so the difference between different cultures brings about an alternate experience of existence that forms life in a different manner. A common effect on an individual of this disjunction between subjectivities is culture shock, where the subjectivity of the other culture is considered alien and possibly incomprehensible or even hostile.


title: Subjectivity

text: Political subjectivity is an emerging concept in social sciences and humanities. Political subjectivity is a reference to the deep embeddedness of subjectivity in the socially intertwined systems of power and meaning. "Politicality," writes Sadeq Rahimi in "Meaning, Madness and Political Subjectivity", "is not an added aspect of the subject, but indeed the mode of being of the subject, that is, precisely what the subject "is"."


title: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

text: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam () is an upcoming Indian Malayalam-language film directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery and written by S. Hareesh from a story by Pellissery. It was jointly produced by Mammootty and Pellissery. The film stars Mammootty, Ramya Pandian and Ashokan. Principal photography began on 7 November 2021 in Palani, Tamil Nadu.


title: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

text: The movie premiered at 27th International Film Festival of Kerala(IIFK) on 12 December 2022.The movie received Positive responses and huge demand in World premiere. Audience praised both Mammootty and Lijo Jose Pellissery.


title: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

text: On 7 November 2021, Lijo Jose Pellissery officially announced the film by sharing the title through social media.


title: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

text: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is the first-time collaboration between Mammootty and Lijo Jose Pellissery. The film is being produced by Mammootty himself under the newly launched production house, Mammootty Kampany.


title: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

text: On 7 November 2021, principal photography took place in Palani, Tamil Nadu. Filming was completed on 7 December 2021.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: 200 Pounds Beauty (; "Beauty is painful") is a 2006 South Korean musical romantic comedy film written and directed by Kim Yong-hwa. It is based on the Japanese manga by Yumiko Suzuki about an overweight ghost singer who undergoes intensive plastic surgery to become a pop sensation.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: The film was a critical and commercial success. It was the third best-selling domestic film of 2006 with 6,619,498 admissions nationwide, grossing . "200 Pounds Beauty" also received several awards and nominations, including Best Actress for Kim Ah-joong at the 2007 Grand Bell Awards.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: Hanna Kang is an overweight phone sex part-timer and a ghost singer for Ammy, a famous pop singer who actually lip syncs her songs instead of singing live. Hanna has a crush on Sang-jun, a director whose arrogant father owns the record company Ammy is signed to. One day, Hanna receives an outfit from Sang-jun with a note to wear it to his birthday party. However, it actually came from Ammy, who wears the same outfit just to humiliate Hanna. While crying in the restroom, Hanna overhears Sang-jun telling Ammy that even though they are just using Hanna for her voice, they must be kind to her so she will not abandon them. Heartbroken, Hanna attempts suicide but is interrupted by a phone call from one of her phone sex regulars, a top plastic surgeon, and persuades him to perform extensive plastic surgery on her.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: After a year of seclusion while recovering from the surgery and weight loss, Hanna is so incredibly beautiful and slender that even her best friend Jung-min cannot recognize her at first. With Jung-min's help, Hanna creates a new identity for herself as a Korean-American from California named Jenny. After re-auditioning to be Ammy's secret vocalist, she earns her own recording contract instead. Meanwhile, Ammy fears her own secret in being unable to sing will be exposed if the release of her second album is delayed. She desperately tries to find Hanna by spending time with Hanna's father who is in hospital due to Alzheimer's, but Sang-jun orders her to give up her search, threatening to terminate her contract if she does not stop. After many encounters with Jenny, they both realize that Jenny is actually Hanna.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: Jenny's debut single "Maria" becomes a hit and at the release party, Ammy brings Hanna's father in an attempt to blow her cover. Desperate to keep her true identity a secret, Hanna ignores her father, infuriating Jung-min with her indifference. After the party, Sang-jun tells Hanna he knows her true identity. He cannot forgive her for lying to him but says he will conduct her concert scheduled the next day. Hanna confesses her love for him and reveals she got plastic surgery in order to make him love her back. After realizing how worthless she was to him even as Jenny, Hanna tearfully refuses to have anything to do with him.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: Before the concert, Ammy threatens to reveal Hanna's deception unless Sang-jun cancels the concert. Though his father agrees, Sang-jun stands up to them and refuses, and encourages a distraught Hanna to do this concert, not for her fans or the record company but for herself. Before performing, Hanna apologizes to Jung-min for her earlier behavior. She coldly rejects her apology, rebuking Hanna for the way she treated her own father. At the concert, Hanna tearfully confesses to the large crowd her story of being a ghost singer to an ungrateful Ammy while she was overweight, going into a year of seclusion to heal from the changes from the surgery and abandoning everything that is dear to her, including her best friend and father, for her career. Sang-jun plays a tape of the old, obese Hanna, singing. Hanna remarks that the person on the video is the real her. The crowd are moved by her sincere confession and praise her for showing her true identity. Hanna reconciles with her father and Jung-min. She drops the stage-name Jenny and re-releases a CD with her own name, Hanna, and becomes a highly successful music artist. Sang-jun realizes the very thing about her that had always drawn him to her was Hanna's innocence, and continues to promote her in hopes of pursuing a relationship with her.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: The title track is a cover of the Blondie song "Maria," sung in Korean by the film's star, Kim Ah-joong.


title: 200 Pounds Beauty

text: Director Kim Yong-hwa has been friends with music director Lee Jae-hak since their college days. Lee is a member of the modern rock band Loveholic, which is also featured in the soundtrack.


title: Robert Sarver

text: Robert Gary Sarver (born October 31, 1961) is an American businessman, co-founder of Southwest Value Partners, a real estate development company, and the owner of the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury, and RCD Mallorca.


title: Robert Sarver

text: Sarver was born in Tucson to Irene and Jack Sarver. Sarver is Jewish. His father was a prominent Tucson businessman, banker, and hotel developer (the elder Sarver built the Aztec Inn, the Plaza International Hotel (now an Aloft Hotel) at Speedway and Campbell in Tucson in the early 1970s, built and operated the Tucson area Howard Johnson's locations, and headed American Savings & Loan Ass'n. as its CEO.


title: Robert Sarver

text: Jack Sarver died of a heart attack in 1979; Robert Sarver would eventually donate funds to his alma mater, the University of Arizona's heart research center, which in 1998 was renamed the Sarver Heart Center in honor of his father. At age 16, he went to work for his father's company, American Savings and Loan. Sarver is a 1979 graduate of Sabino High School in Tucson, and a 1982 graduate of University of Arizona with a bachelor's degree in business administration. In 1983, Sarver became a certified public accountant.


title: Robert Sarver

text: In 1984, Sarver founded the National Bank of Tucson (which he expanded statewide and changed the name to the National Bank of Arizona). In 1994, he sold the National Bank of Arizona, then the largest independent bank in the state, to Zions Bancorporation. In 1995, he acquired Grossmont Bank, one of San Diego's largest community banks. Grossmont was also sold to Zions Bancorporation in 1997. In 1998, Sarver led Zions Bancorporation's acquisition of Sumitomo Bank of California. In 2003, he became chairman of Western Alliance Bancorporation based in Phoenix.


title: Robert Sarver

text: In 1990, Sarver co-founded the real estate company Southwest Value Partners with Millard Seldin. In 1995, Southwest Value Partners purchased the Emerald Plaza in San Diego. In 2004, his jointly owned real estate firm, Southwest Value Partners, sold the Emerald Plaza and two other San Diego office buildings to Santa Ana real estate firm, Triple Net Properties, for $274.5 million.


title: Robert Sarver

text: A lifelong sports fan, Sarver's quest to purchase an NBA team began with a conversation with University of Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson. Olson referred Sarver to Steve Kerr, a former player at Arizona and a 15-year NBA veteran, to assist him in buying an NBA franchise. In 2004, he purchased the Phoenix Suns for a then-record $401 million.


title: Robert Sarver

text: In 2020, Sarver and the Suns collaborated with Verizon on a state of the art, 53,000-square foot practice arena called the Verizon 5G Performance Center. The $45 million facility uses 5G technology to merge computer-aided motion analysis, player and ball tracking, and shot tracking to provide precise information to players and coaches. In 2021, Sarver and the Suns oversaw a $230 million renovation and expansion of Footprint Center, formerly known as Talking Stick Arena. The renovations include ultra-modern amenities, premium seating options, themed bars, new suites, and additional social spaces. On top of the physical changes to the arena, there has been an overhaul to the game presentation including enhancements to sound, lighting and video systems. The modernization also included significant improvements to the arena's infrastructure.


title: Robert Sarver

text: In 2021, the Suns reached the NBA Finals for the first time since 1993. Despite strong play from their young core, the Suns eventually lost to the Bucks 4–2. Though overlooked as potential championship contenders at the start of the season, the Suns, built by Sarver, general manager James Jones, and coach Monty Williams, have quickly developed into one of the strongest organizations in the NBA.


title: Robert Sarver

text: Founded in 1997 by former Suns owner Jerry Colangelo, Sarver purchased the WNBA team alongside the Phoenix Suns in 2004.  One of the original eight franchises created at the founding of the WNBA for the inaugural 1997 season, the Phoenix Mercury are one of only three remaining in the current 12-team league to this day (along with the New York Liberty and Los Angeles Sparks). Of the twelve current WNBA teams, only five share the same majority owner as their NBA counterpart (Indiana Fever, Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury, and Washington Mystics). Under Sarver's ownership, the Mercury have won three WNBA championships (2007, 2009, 2014) and won conference titles four times, including during the 2021 season (2007, 2009, 2014, 2021).


title: Robert Sarver

text: In January 2016, Sarver bought football team RCD Mallorca, at the time in the Spanish second division, for €20 million.


title: Robert Sarver

text: Sarver has been criticized by current and former employees, agents, and rival executives "of being of an interventionist owner with more authority than expertise, a front office marred by instability, an understaffed scouting department, and a dated facility that isolates the decision-makers from the players and coaches".


title: Robert Sarver

text: On November 4, 2021, Sarver and the Suns were the subject of a report written by Baxter Holmes on ESPN, which accused Sarver and members of the front office of racist and misogynistic behavior, including allegedly requiring a coach to fire a minority agent and allegedly announce his preference for extra-large condoms at a staff meeting. The report was based on interviews with more than 70 former and current employees of the Suns. Sarver and his legal team denied the vast majority of accusations, citing that there are only a handful of sources on the record and, while the reporter may have reached out to 70 employees, the article provided no evidence that all of them spoke negatively of the organization. Sarver and the Suns welcomed an NBA inquiry to clear up the allegations.


title: Robert Sarver

text: On September 13, 2022, the NBA fined Sarver the maximum $10 million and suspended him for one year in both the NBA and the WNBA after an independent investigation determined that he said ""nigger"" at least five times in public – four of those being told by subordinates afterward that he should not use the word – as well as conduct that included "unequal treatment of female employees; sex-related statements and conduct; and harsh treatment of employees that on occasion constituted bullying." During the 2022–23 season, any actions requiring Sarver normally were replaced by Suns vice chairman and minority owner Sam Garvin instead. Both current and former NBA players, including LeBron James, Suns player Chris Paul, and Draymond Green, said that the punishment was too lenient. PayPal threatened to not renew its partnership with the Suns if Sarver remained as owner. Green asked for a league vote to terminate Sarver as a league owner. On September 21, Sarver announced he would begin the process of selling both the Suns and the Mercury.


title: Robert Sarver

text: In response to a 2010 Arizona Senate bill called the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act", colloquially known as SB-1070, which would make it a state misdemeanor crime for an undocumented person to be in Arizona and obligate police to make an attempt when practicable during a stop, detention or arrest to determine a person's immigration status, the Phoenix Suns adopted special "Los Suns" jerseys on Cinco De Mayo. Sarver also released a scathing rebuke of the law:


title: Robert Sarver

text: ... [T]he result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona's already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them... I looked around our plane and looked at our players and the diversity in our organization. I thought we need to go on record that we honor our diversity in our team, in the NBA and we need to show support for that. As for the political part of that, that's my statement. There are times you need to stand up and be heard. I respect people's views on the other side but I just felt it was appropriate for me to stand up and make a statement.


title: Robert Sarver

text: In 1996, Sarver married Penny Sanders, a Kansas City, Missouri native; they live in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and have three sons.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Sino-Roman relations comprised the (mostly indirect) contacts and flows of trade goods, of information, and of occasional travellers between the Roman Empire and the Han Empire of China, as well as between the later Eastern Roman Empire and various Chinese dynasties. These empires inched progressively closer to each other in the course of the Roman expansion into the ancient Near East and of the simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions into Central Asia. Mutual awareness remained low, and firm knowledge about each other was limited. Surviving records document only a few attempts at direct contact. Intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans, seeking to maintain control over the lucrative silk trade, inhibited direct contact between these two Eurasian powers. In 97 AD the Chinese general Ban Chao tried to send his envoy Gan Ying to Rome, but Parthians dissuaded Gan from venturing beyond the Persian Gulf. Ancient Chinese historians recorded several alleged Roman emissaries to China. The first one on record, supposedly either from the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius or from his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, arrived in 166 AD. Others are recorded as arriving in 226 and 284 AD, followed by a long hiatus until the first recorded Byzantine embassy in 643 AD.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The indirect exchange of goods on land along the Silk Road and sea routes involved (for example) Chinese silk, Roman glassware and high-quality cloth. Roman coins minted from the 1st century AD onwards have been found in China, as well as a coin of Maximian (Roman emperor from 286 to 305 AD) and medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius () and Marcus Aurelius () in Jiaozhi (in present-day Vietnam), the same region at which Chinese sources claim the Romans first landed. Roman glassware and silverware have been discovered at Chinese archaeological sites dated to the Han period (202 BC to 220 AD). Roman coins and glass beads have also been found in Japan.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: In classical sources, the problem of identifying references to ancient China is exacerbated by the interpretation of the Latin term "Seres", whose meaning fluctuated and could refer to several Asian peoples in a wide arc from India over Central Asia to China. In Chinese records, the Roman Empire came to be known as "Daqin" or Great Qin. Chinese sources directly associated "Daqin" with the later "Fulin" (), which scholars such as Friedrich Hirth have identified as the Byzantine Empire. Chinese sources describe several embassies of Fulin arriving in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) and also mention the siege of Constantinople by the forces of Muawiyah I in 674–678 AD.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Geographers in the Roman Empire, such as Ptolemy in the second century AD, provided a rough sketch of the eastern Indian Ocean, including the Malay Peninsula and beyond this the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. Ptolemy's "Cattigara" was most likely Óc Eo, Vietnam, where Antonine-era Roman items have been found. Ancient Chinese geographers demonstrated a general knowledge of West Asia and of Rome's eastern provinces. The 7th-century AD Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta wrote of China's reunification under the contemporary Sui dynasty (581 to 618 AD), noting that the northern and southern halves were separate nations recently at war. This mirrors both the conquest of Chen by Emperor Wen of Sui () as well as the names "Cathay" and "Mangi" used by later medieval Europeans in China during the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and the Han-Chinese Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279).


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Beginning in the 1st century BC with Virgil, Horace, and Strabo, Roman historians offer only vague accounts of China and the silk-producing Seres people of the Far East, who were perhaps the ancient Chinese. The 1st-century AD geographer Pomponius Mela asserted that the lands of the Seres formed the centre of the coast of an eastern ocean, flanked to the south by India and to the north by the Scythians of the Eurasian Steppe. The 2nd-century AD Roman historian Florus seems to have confused the Seres with peoples of India, or at least noted that their skin complexions proved that they both lived "beneath another sky" than the Romans. Roman authors generally seem to have been confused about where the Seres were located, in either Central Asia or East Asia. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330 – c. 400 AD) wrote that the land of the Seres was enclosed by "lofty walls" around a river called Bautis, possibly a description of the Yellow River.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The existence of China was known to Roman cartographers, but their understanding of it was less certain. Ptolemy's 2nd-century AD "Geography" separates the Land of Silk ("Serica") at the end of the overland Silk Road from the land of the Qin ("Sinae") reached by sea. The Sinae are placed on the northern shore of the Great Gulf ("Magnus Sinus") east of the Golden Peninsula ("Aurea Chersonesus", Malay Peninsula). Their chief port, Cattigara, seems to have been in the lower Mekong Delta. The Great Gulf served as a combined Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea, as Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy's belief that the Indian Ocean was an inland sea caused them to bend the Cambodian coast south beyond the equator before turning west to join southern Libya (Africa). Much of this is given as unknown lands, but the north-eastern area is placed under the Sinae.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Classical geographers such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder were slow to incorporate new information into their works and, from their positions as esteemed scholars, were seemingly prejudiced against lowly merchants and their topographical accounts. Ptolemy's work represents a break from this, since he demonstrated an openness to their accounts and would not have been able to chart the Bay of Bengal so accurately without the input of traders. In the 1st-century AD "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", its anonymous Greek-speaking author, a merchant of Roman Egypt, provides such vivid accounts of eastern trade cities that it is clear he visited many of them. These include sites in Arabia, Pakistan, and India, including travel times from rivers and towns, where to drop anchor, the locations of royal courts, lifestyles of the locals and goods found in their markets, and favourable times of year to sail from Egypt to these places to catch the monsoon winds. The "Periplus" also mentions a great inland city, "Thinae" (or "Sinae"), in a country called "This" that perhaps stretched as far as the Caspian. The text notes that silk produced there travelled to neighbouring India via the Ganges and to Bactria by a land route. Marinus and Ptolemy had relied on the testimony of a Greek sailor named Alexander, probably a merchant, for how to reach Cattigara (most likely Óc Eo, Vietnam). Alexander (Greek: Alexandros) mentions that the main terminus for Roman traders was a Burmese city called Tamala on the north-west Malay Peninsula, where Indian merchants travelled overland across the Kra Isthmus to reach the Perimulic Gulf (the Gulf of Thailand). Alexandros claimed that it took twenty days to sail from Thailand to a port called "Zabia" (or "Zaba") in southern Vietnam. According to him, one could continue along the coast (of southern Vietnam) from Zabia until reaching the trade port of Cattigara after an unspecified number of days (with "some" being interpreted as "many" by Marinus). More generally, modern historical scholars assert that merchants from the Eastern part of the Roman Empire were in contact with the peoples of China, Sri Lanka, India and the Kushana Empire.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Cosmas Indicopleustes, a 6th-century AD Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Greek monk from Alexandria and former merchant with experience in the Indian Ocean trade, was the first Roman to write clearly about China in his "Christian Topography" (c. 550 AD). He called it the country of "Tzinista" (comparable to Sanskrit "Chinasthana" and Syriac "Sinistan" from the 781 AD Nestorian Stele of Xi'an, China), located in easternmost Asia. He explained the maritime route towards it (first sailing east and then north up the southern coast of the Asian continent) and the fact that cloves came that way to Sri Lanka for sale. By the time of the Eastern Roman ruler Justinian I (r. 527–565 AD), the Byzantines purchased Chinese silk from Sogdian intermediaries. They also smuggled silkworms out of China with the help of Nestorian monks, who claimed that the land of Serindia was located north of India and produced the finest silk. By smuggling silkworms and producing silk of their own, the Byzantines could bypass the Chinese silk trade dominated by their chief rivals, the Sasanian Empire.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: From Turkic peoples of Central Asia during the Northern Wei (386–535 AD) period the Eastern Romans acquired yet another name for China: "Taugast" (Old Turkic: "Tabghach"). Theophylact Simocatta, a historian during the reign of Heraclius (r. 610–641 AD), wrote that Taugast (or Taugas) was a great eastern empire colonised by Turkic people, with a capital city northeast of India that he called "Khubdan" (from the Turkic word "Khumdan" used for the Sui and Tang capital Chang'an), where idolatry was practised but the people were wise and lived by just laws. He depicted the Chinese empire as being divided by a great river (the Yangzi) that served as the boundary between two rival nations at war; during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Maurice (582–602 AD) the northerners wearing "black coats" conquered the "red coats" of the south (black being a distinctive colour worn by the people of Shaanxi, location of the Sui capital Sui Chang'an, according to the 16th-century Persian traveller Hajji Mahomed, or Chaggi Memet). This account may correspond to the conquest of the Chen dynasty and reunification of China by Emperor Wen of Sui (r. 581–604 AD). Simocatta names their ruler as "Taisson", which he claimed meant Son of God, either correlating to the Chinese "Tianzi" (Son of Heaven) or even the name of the contemporary ruler Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649 AD). Later medieval Europeans in China wrote of it as two separate countries, with "Cathay" in the north and "Mangi" in the south, during the period when the Yuan dynasty led by Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (r. 1260–1294 AD) conquered the Southern Song Dynasty.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Detailed geographical information about the Roman Empire, at least its easternmost territories, is provided in traditional Chinese historiography. The "Shiji" by Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC) gives descriptions of countries in Central Asia and West Asia. These accounts became significantly more nuanced in the "Book of Han", co-authored by Ban Gu and his sister Ban Zhao, younger siblings of the general Ban Chao, who led military exploits into Central Asia before returning to China in 102 AD. The westernmost territories of Asia as described in the "Book of the Later Han" compiled by Fan Ye (398–445 AD) formed the basis for almost all later accounts of Daqin. These accounts seem to be restricted to descriptions of the Levant, particularly Syria.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Historical linguist Edwin G. Pulleyblank explains that Chinese historians considered Daqin to be a kind of "counter-China" located at the opposite end of their known world. According to Pulleyblank, "the Chinese conception of Dà Qín was confused from the outset with ancient mythological notions about the far west". From the Chinese point of view, the Roman Empire was considered "a distant and therefore mystical country," according to Krisztina Hoppál. The Chinese histories explicitly related Daqin and Lijian (also "Li-kan", or Syria) as belonging to the same country; according to Yule, D. D. Leslie, and K. H. G. Gardiner, the earliest descriptions of Lijian in the "Shiji" distinguished it as the Hellenistic-era Seleucid Empire. Pulleyblank provides some linguistic analysis to dispute their proposal, arguing that Tiaozhi () in the "Shiji" was most likely the Seleucid Empire and that Lijian, although still poorly understood, could be identified with either Hyrcania in Iran or even Alexandria in Egypt.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The "Weilüe" by Yu Huan (c. 239–265 AD), preserved in annotations to the "Records of the Three Kingdoms" (published in 429 AD by Pei Songzhi), also provides details about the easternmost portion of the Roman world, including mention of the Mediterranean Sea. For Roman Egypt, the book explains the location of Alexandria, travelling distances along the Nile and the tripartite division of the Nile Delta, Heptanomis, and Thebaid. In his "Zhu Fan Zhi", the Song-era Quanzhou customs inspector Zhao Rugua (1170–1228 AD) described the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria. Both the "Book of the Later Han" and the "Weilüe" mention the "flying" pontoon bridge () over the Euphrates at Zeugma, Commagene in Roman Anatolia. The "Weilüe" also listed what it considered the most important dependent vassal states of the Roman Empire, providing travel directions and estimates for the distances between them (in Chinese miles, "li"). Friedrich Hirth (1885) identified the locations and dependent states of Rome named in the "Weilüe"; some of his identifications have been disputed. Hirth identified Si-fu () as Emesa; John E. Hill (2004) uses linguistic and situational evidence to argue it was Petra in the Nabataean Kingdom, which was annexed by Rome in 106 AD during the reign of Trajan.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The "Old Book of Tang" and "New Book of Tang" record that the Arabs ("Da shi" ) sent their commander Mo-yi (, pinyin: "Móyè", i.e. Muawiyah I, governor of Syria and later Umayyad caliph, r. 661–680 AD) to besiege the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and forced the Byzantines to pay them tribute. The same books also described Constantinople in some detail as having strong granite walls and a water clock mounted with a golden statue of man. Henry Yule noted that the name of the Byzantine negotiator "Yenyo" (the patrician John Pitzigaudes) was mentioned in Chinese sources, an envoy who was unnamed in Edward Gibbon's account of the man sent to Damascus to hold a parley with the Umayyads, followed a few years later by the increase of tributary demands on the Byzantines. The "New Book of Tang" and "Wenxian Tongkao" described the land of Nubia (either the Kingdom of Kush or Aksum) as a desert south-west of the Byzantine Empire that was infested with malaria, where the natives had black skin and consumed Persian dates. In discussing the three main religions of Nubia (the Sudan), the "Wenxian Tongkao" mentions the Daqin religion there and the day of rest occurring every seven days for those following the faith of the "Da shi" (the Muslim Arabs). It also repeats the claim in the "New Book of Tang" about the Eastern Roman surgical practice of trepanning to remove parasites from the brain. The descriptions of Nubia and Horn of Africa in the "Wenxian Tongkao" were ultimately derived from the "Jingxingji" of Du Huan (fl. 8th century AD), a Chinese travel writer whose text, preserved in the "Tongdian" of Du You, is perhaps the first Chinese source to describe Ethiopia ("Laobosa"), in addition to offering descriptions of Eritrea ("Molin").


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Some contact may have occurred between Hellenistic Greeks and the Qin dynasty in the late 3rd century BC, following the Central Asian campaigns of Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, and the establishment of Hellenistic kingdoms relatively close to China, such as the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. Excavations at the burial site of China's first Emperor Qin Shi Huang (r. 221–210 BC) suggest ancient Greeks may have paid tribute and submitted to the supreme universal rule of the Han Chinese Qin dynasty emperor by giving him gifts with Greek stylistic and technological influences in some of the artworks found buried there, including a few examples of the famous terracotta army. Cultural exchanges at such an early date are generally regarded as conjectural in academia, but excavations of a 4th-century BC tomb in Gansu province belonging to the state of Qin have yielded Western items such as glass beads and a blue-glazed (possibly faience) beaker of Mediterranean origin. Trade and diplomatic relations between China's Han Empire and remnants of Hellenistic Greek civilization under the rule of the nomadic Da Yuezhi began with the Central Asian journeys of the Han envoy Zhang Qian (d. 113 BC). He brought back reports to the court of Emperor Wu of Han about the "Dayuan" in the Fergana Valley, with Alexandria Eschate as its capital, and the "Daxia" of Bactria, in what is now Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The only well-known Roman traveller to have visited the easternmost fringes of Central Asia was Maes Titianus, a contemporary of Trajan in either the late 1st or early 2nd century AD who visited a "Stone Tower" that has been identified by historians as either Tashkurgan in the Chinese Pamirs or a similar monument in the Alai Valley just west of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The historian Florus described the visit of numerous envoys, including the "Seres" (possibly the Chinese) to the court of the first Roman Emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC – 14 AD):


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: In the entire corpus of Roman literature and historiography, Yule was unable to uncover any other mention of such a direct diplomatic encounter between the Romans and the Seres. He speculated that these people were more likely to have been private merchants than diplomats, since Chinese records insist that Gan Ying was the first Chinese to reach as far west as Tiaozhi (; Mesopotamia) in 97 AD. Yule notes that the 1st-century AD "Periplus" mentioned that people of "Thinae" (Sinae) were rarely seen, because of the difficulties of reaching that country. It states that their country, located under Ursa Minor and on the farthest unknown reaches of the Caspian Sea, was the origin of raw silk and fine silk cloth that was traded overland from Bactria to Barygaza, as well as down the Ganges.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The Eastern Han general Ban Chao (32–102 AD), in a series of military successes which brought the Western Regions (the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang) back under Chinese control and suzerainty, defeated the Da Yuezhi in 90 AD and the Northern Xiongnu in 91 AD, forcing the submission of city-states such as Kucha and Turfan, Khotan and Kashgar (Indo-European Tocharian and Saka settlements, respectively), and finally Karasahr in 94 AD. An embassy from the Parthian Empire had earlier arrived at the Han court in 89 AD and, while Ban was stationed with his army in Khotan, another Parthian embassy came in 101 AD, this time bringing exotic gifts such as ostriches.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: In 97 AD, Ban Chao sent an envoy named Gan Ying to explore the far west. Gan made his way from the Tarim Basin to Parthia and reached the Persian Gulf. Gan left a detailed account of western countries; he apparently reached as far as Mesopotamia, then under the control of the Parthian Empire. He intended to sail to the Roman Empire, but was discouraged when told that the trip was dangerous and could take two years. Deterred, he returned to China bringing much new information on the countries to the west of Chinese-controlled territories, as far as the Mediterranean Basin.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Gan Ying is thought to have left an account of the Roman Empire (Daqin in Chinese) which relied on secondary sources—likely sailors in the ports which he visited. The "Book of the Later Han" locates it in "Haixi" ("west of the sea", or Roman Egypt; the sea is the one known to the Greeks and Romans as the Erythraean Sea, which included the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and Red Sea):


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Yule noted that although the description of the Roman Constitution and products was garbled, the "Book of the Later Han" offered an accurate depiction of the coral fisheries in the Mediterranean. Coral was a highly valued luxury item in Han China, imported among other items from India (mostly overland and perhaps also by sea), the latter region being where the Romans sold coral and obtained pearls. The original list of Roman products given in the "Book of the Later Han", such as sea silk, glass, amber, cinnabar, and asbestos cloth, is expanded in the "Weilüe". The "Weilüe" also claimed that in 134 AD the ruler of the Shule Kingdom (Kashgar), who had been a hostage at the court of the Kushan Empire, offered blue (or green) gems originating from "Haixi" as gifts to the Eastern Han court. Fan Ye, the editor of the "Book of the Later Han", wrote that former generations of Chinese had never reached these far western regions, but that the report of Gan Ying revealed to the Chinese their lands, customs and products. The "Book of the Later Han" also asserts that the Parthians (Chinese: 安息; "Anxi") wished "to control the trade in multi-coloured Chinese silks" and therefore intentionally blocked the Romans from reaching China.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: It is possible that a group of Greek acrobatic performers, who claimed to be from a place "west of the seas" (Roman Egypt, which the "Book of the Later Han" related to the Daqin empire), were presented by a king of Burma to Emperor An of Han in 120 AD. It is known that in both the Parthian Empire and Kushan Empire of Asia, ethnic Greeks continued to be employed after the Hellenistic period as musicians and athletes. The "Book of the Later Han" states that Emperor An transferred these entertainers from his countryside residence to the capital Luoyang, where they gave a performance at his court and were rewarded with gold, silver, and other gifts. With regard to the origin of these entertainers, Raoul McLaughlin speculates that the Romans were selling slaves to the Burmese and that this is how the entertainers originally reached Burma before they were sent by the Burmese ruler to Emperor An in China. Meanwhile, Syrian jugglers were renowned in Western Classical literature, and Chinese sources from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD seem to mention them as well.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The first group of people claiming to be an ambassadorial mission of Romans to China was recorded as having arrived in 166 AD by the "Book of the Later Han". The embassy came to Emperor Huan of Han China from "Andun" (; Emperor Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), "king of Daqin" (Rome):


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: As Antoninus Pius died in 161 AD, leaving the empire to his adoptive son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and the envoy arrived in 166 AD, confusion remains about who sent the mission, as both emperors were named "Antoninus". The Roman mission came from the south (therefore probably by sea), entering China by the frontier of Rinan or Tonkin (present-day Vietnam). It brought presents of rhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoise shell, probably acquired in Southern Asia. The text states that it was the first time there had been direct contact between the two countries. Yule speculated that the Roman visitors must have lost their original wares due to robbery or shipwreck and used the gifts instead, prompting Chinese sources to suspect them of withholding their more precious valuables, which Yule notes was the same criticism directed at papal missionary John of Montecorvino when he arrived in China in the late 13th century AD. Historians Rafe de Crespigny, Peter Fibiger Bang, and Warwick Ball believe that this was most likely a group of Roman merchants rather than official diplomats sent by Marcus Aurelius. Crespigny stresses that the presence of this Roman embassy as well as others from Tianzhu (in northern India) and Buyeo (in Manchuria) provided much-needed prestige for Emperor Huan, as he was facing serious political troubles and fallout for the forced suicide of politician Liang Ji, who had dominated the Han government well after the death of his sister Empress Liang Na. Yule emphasised that the Roman embassy was said to come by way of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam, the same route that Chinese sources claimed the embassies from Tianzhu (northern India) had used in 159 and 161 AD.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The "Weilüe" and "Book of Liang" record the arrival in 226 AD of a merchant named Qin Lun () from the Roman Empire (Daqin) at Jiaozhou (Chinese-controlled northern Vietnam). Wu Miao, the Prefect of Jiaozhi, sent him to the court of Sun Quan (the ruler of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms) in Nanjing, where Sun requested that he provide him with a report on his native country and its people. An expedition was mounted to return the merchant along with ten female and ten male "blackish coloured dwarfs" he had requested as a curiosity, as well as a Chinese officer, Liu Xian of Huiji (in Zhejiang), who died en route. According to the "Weilüe" and "Book of Liang" Roman merchants were active in Cambodia and Vietnam, a claim supported by modern archaeological finds of ancient Mediterranean goods in the Southeast Asian countries of Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Yule mentions that in the early 3rd century AD a ruler of Daqin sent an envoy with gifts to the northern Chinese court of Cao Wei (220–266 AD) that included glassware of various colours. Several years later a Daqin craftsman is mentioned as showing the Chinese how to make "flints into crystal by means of fire", a curiosity to the Chinese.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Another embassy from Daqin is recorded as bringing tributary gifts to the Chinese Jin Empire (266–420 AD). This occurred in 284 AD during the reign of Emperor Wu of Jin (r. 266–290 AD), and was recorded in the "Book of Jin", as well as the later "Wenxian Tongkao". This embassy was presumably sent by the Emperor Carus (r. 282–283 AD), whose brief reign was preoccupied by war with Sasanian Persia.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Chinese histories for the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) record contacts with merchants from "Fulin" (), the new name used to designate the Byzantine Empire. The first reported diplomatic contact took place in 643 AD during the reigns of Constans II (641–668 AD) and Emperor Taizong of Tang (626–649 AD). The "Old Book of Tang", followed by the "New Book of Tang", provides the name "Po-to-li" (, pinyin: "Bōduōlì") for Constans II, which Hirth conjectured to be a transliteration of "Kōnstantinos Pogonatos", or "Constantine the Bearded", giving him the title of a king (王 "wáng"). Yule and S. A. M. Adshead offer a different transliteration stemming from "patriarch" or "patrician", possibly a reference to one of the acting regents for the 13-year-old Byzantine monarch. The Tang histories record that Constans II sent an embassy in the 17th year of the Zhenguan () regnal period (643 AD), bearing gifts of red glass and green gemstones. Yule points out that Yazdegerd III (r. 632–651 AD), last ruler of the Sasanian Empire, sent diplomats to China to secure aid from Emperor Taizong (considered the suzerain over Ferghana in Central Asia) during the loss of the Persian heartland to the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate, which may also have prompted the Byzantines to send envoys to China amid their recent loss of Syria to the Muslims. Tang Chinese sources also recorded how Sasanian prince Peroz III (636–679 AD) fled to Tang China following the conquest of Persia by the growing Islamic caliphate.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Yule asserts that the additional Fulin embassies during the Tang period arrived in 711 and 719 AD, with another in 742 AD that may have been Nestorian monks. Adshead lists four official diplomatic contacts with Fulin in the "Old Book of Tang" as occurring in 643, 667, 701, and 719 AD. He speculates that the absence of these missions in Western literary sources can be explained by how the Byzantines typically viewed political relations with powers of the East, as well as the possibility that they were launched on behalf of frontier officials instead of the central government. Yule and Adshead concur that a Fulin diplomatic mission occurred during the reign of Justinian II (r. 685–695 AD; 705–711 AD). Yule claims it occurred in the year of the emperor's death, 711 AD, whereas Adshead contends that it took place in 701 AD during the usurpation of Leontios and the emperor's exile in Crimea, perhaps the reason for its omission in Byzantine records and the source for confusion in Chinese histories about precisely who sent this embassy. Justinian II regained the throne with the aid of Bulgars and a marriage alliance with the Khazars. Adshead therefore believes a mission sent to Tang China would be consistent with Justinian II's behaviour, especially if he had knowledge of the permission Empress Wu Zetian granted to Narsieh, son of Peroz III, to march against the Arabs in Central Asia at the end of the 7th century.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The 719 AD a Fulin embassy ostensibly came from Leo III the Isaurian (r. 717–741 AD) to the court of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756 AD), during a time when the Byzantine emperor was again reaching out to Eastern powers with a renewed Khazar marriage alliance. It also came as Leo III had just defeated the Arabs in 717 CE. The Chinese annals record that "In the first month of the seventh year of the period Kaiyuan [719 CE] their lord [拂菻王, "the King of Fulin"] sent the Ta-shou-ling [an officer of high rank] of T'u-huo-lo [吐火羅, Tokhara] (...) to offer lions and ling-yang [antelopes], two of each. A few months after, he further sent Ta-te-seng ["priests of great virtue"] to our court with tribute." During its long voyage, this embassy probably visited the Turk Shahis king of Afghanistan, since the son of the king took the title "Fromo Kesaro" when he acceded to the throne in 739 CE. "Fromo Kesaro" is a phonetic transcription of "Roman Caesar", probably chosen in honor of "Caesar", the title of Leo III, who had defeated their common enemy the Arabs. In Chinese sources "Fromo Kesaro" was aptly transcribed ""Fulin Jisuo"" (拂菻罽娑), "Fulin" (拂菻) being the standard Tang Dynasty name for "Byzantine Empire". The year of this embassy coincided with Xuanzong's refusal to provide aid to the Sogdians of Bukhara and Samarkand against the Arab invasion force. An embassy from the Umayyad Caliphate was received by the Tang court in 732 AD. However, the Arab victory at the 751 AD Battle of Talas and the An Lushan Rebellion crippled Tang Chinese interventionist efforts in Central Asia.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The last diplomatic contacts with Fulin are recorded as having taken place in the 11th century AD. From the "Wenxian Tongkao", written by historian Ma Duanlin (1245–1322), and from the "History of Song", it is known that the Byzantine emperor Michael VII Parapinakēs Caesar (, "Mie li sha ling kai sa") of Fulin sent an embassy to China's Song dynasty that arrived in 1081 AD, during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song (r. 1067–1085 AD). The "History of Song" described the tributary gifts given by the Byzantine embassy as well as the products made in Byzantium. It also described punishments used in Byzantine law, such as the capital punishment of being stuffed into a "feather bag" and thrown into the sea, probably the Romano-Byzantine practice of "poena cullei" (from Latin 'penalty of the sack'). The final recorded embassy arrived in 1091 AD, during the reign of Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118 AD); this event is only mentioned in passing.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The "History of Yuan" offers a biography of a Byzantine man named Ai-sie (transliteration of either Joshua or Joseph), who originally served the court of Güyük Khan but later became a head astronomer and physician for the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol founder of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368 AD), at Khanbaliq (modern Beijing). He was eventually granted the title Prince of Fulin (, "Fúlǐn wáng") and his children were listed with their Chinese names, which seem to match with transliterations of the Christian names Elias, Luke, and Antony. Kublai Khan is also known to have sent Nestorian monks, including Rabban Bar Sauma, to the court of Byzantine ruler Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282–1328 AD), whose half-sisters were married to the great-grandsons of Genghis Khan, making this Byzantine ruler an in-law with the Mongol ruler in Beijing.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Within the Mongol Empire, which eventually included all of China, there were enough Westerners travelling there that in 1340 AD Francesco Balducci Pegolotti compiled a guide book for fellow merchants on how to exchange silver for paper money to purchase silk in Khanbaliq (Beijing). By this stage the Eastern Roman Empire, temporarily dismantled by the Latin Empire, had shrunk to the size of a rump state in parts of Greece and Anatolia. Ma Duanlin, author of the "Wenxian Tongkao", noted the shifting political boundaries, albeit based on generally inaccurate and distorted political geography. He wrote that historians of the Tang Dynasty considered "Daqin" and "Fulin" to be the same country, but he had his reservations about this due to discrepancies in geographical accounts and other concerns (Wade–Giles spelling):


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The "History of Ming" expounds how the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD), sent a merchant of Fulin named "Nieh-ku-lun" () back to his native country with a letter announcing the founding of the Ming dynasty. It is speculated that the merchant was a former archbishop of Khanbaliq called Nicolaus de Bentra (who succeeded John of Montecorvino for that position). The "History of Ming" goes on to explain that contacts between China and Fulin ceased after this point and an envoy of the great western sea (the Mediterranean Sea) did not appear in China again until the 16th century AD, with the 1582 AD arrival of the Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci in Portuguese Macau.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Direct trade links between the Mediterranean lands and India had been established in the late 2nd century BC by the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. Greek navigators learned to use the regular pattern of the monsoon winds for their trade voyages in the Indian Ocean. The lively sea trade in Roman times is confirmed by the excavation of large deposits of Roman coins along much of the coast of India. Many trading ports with links to Roman communities have been identified in India and Sri Lanka along the route used by the Roman mission. Archaeological evidence stretching from the Red Sea ports of Roman Egypt to India suggests that Roman commercial activity in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia declined heavily with the Antonine Plague of 166 AD, the same year as the first Roman embassy to Han China, where similar plague outbreaks had occurred from 151 AD.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: High-quality glass from Roman manufacturers in Alexandria and Syria was exported to many parts of Asia, including Han China. The first Roman glassware discovered in China is a blue soda-lime glass bowl dating to the early 1st century BC and excavated from a Western Han tomb in the southern port city of Guangzhou, which may have come there via the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Other Roman glass items include a mosaic-glass bowl found in a prince's tomb near Nanjing dated to 67 AD and a glass bottle with opaque white streaks found in an Eastern Han tomb of Luoyang. Roman and Persian glassware has been found in a 5th-century AD tomb of Gyeongju, Korea, capital of ancient Silla, east of China. Roman glass beads have been discovered as far as Japan, within the 5th-century AD Kofun-era Utsukushi burial mound near Kyoto.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: From Chinese sources it is known that other Roman luxury items were esteemed by the Chinese. These include gold-embroidered rugs and gold-coloured cloth, amber, asbestos cloth, and sea silk, which was a cloth made from the silk-like hairs of a Mediterranean shellfish, the "Pinna nobilis". As well as silver and bronze items found throughout China dated to the 3rd–2nd centuries BC and perhaps originating from the Seleucid Empire, there is also a Roman gilded silver plate dated to the 2nd–3rd centuries AD and found in Jingyuan County, Gansu, with a raised relief image in the centre depicting the Greco-Roman god Dionysus resting on a feline creature.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: A maritime route opened up with the Chinese-controlled port of Rinan in Jiaozhi (centred in modern Vietnam) and the Khmer kingdom of Funan by the 2nd century AD, if not earlier. Jiaozhi was proposed by Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 to have been the port known to the Greco-Roman geographer Ptolemy as Cattigara, situated near modern Hanoi. Ptolemy wrote that Cattigara lay beyond the Golden Chersonese (the Malay Peninsula) and was visited by a Greek sailor named Alexander, most likely a merchant. Richthofen's identification of Cattigara as Hanoi was widely accepted until archaeological discoveries at Óc Eo (near Ho Chi Minh City) in the Mekong Delta during the mid-20th century suggested this may have been its location. At this place, which was once located along the coastline, Roman coins were among the vestiges of long-distance trade discovered by the French archaeologist Louis Malleret in the 1940s. These include Roman golden medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius and his successor Marcus Aurelius. Furthermore, Roman goods and native jewellery imitating Antonine Roman coins have been found there, and Granville Allen Mawer states that Ptolemy's Cattigara seems to correspond with the latitude of modern Óc Eo. In addition, Ancient Roman glass beads and bracelets were also found at the site.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The trade connection from Cattigara extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the way to Roman-controlled ports in Egypt and the Nabataean territories on the north-eastern coast of the Red Sea. The archaeologist Warwick Ball does not consider discoveries such as the Roman and Roman-inspired goods at Óc Eo, a coin of Roman emperor Maximian found in Tonkin, and a Roman bronze lamp at P'ong Tuk in the Mekong Delta, to be conclusive proof that Romans visited these areas and suggests that the items could have been introduced by Indian merchants. While observing that the Romans had a recognised trading port in Southeast Asia, Dougald O'Reilly writes that there is little evidence to suggest Cattigara was Óc Eo. He argues that the Roman items found there only indicate that the Indian Ocean trade network extended to the ancient Kingdom of Funan.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Chinese trade with the Roman Empire, confirmed by the Roman desire for silk, started in the 1st century BC. The Romans knew of wild silk harvested on Cos ("coa vestis"), but they did not at first make the connection with the silk that was produced in the Pamir Sarikol kingdom. There were few direct trade contacts between Romans and Han Chinese, as the rival Parthians and Kushans were each protecting their lucrative role as trade intermediaries.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: During the 1st century BC silk was still a rare commodity in the Roman world; by the 1st century AD this valuable trade item became much more widely available. In his "Natural History" (77–79 AD), Pliny the Elder lamented the financial drain of coin from the Roman economy to purchase this expensive luxury. He remarked that Rome's "womankind" and the purchase of luxury goods from India, Arabia, and the Seres of the Far East cost the empire roughly 100 million sesterces per year, and claimed that journeys were made to the Seres to acquire silk cloth along with pearl diving in the Red Sea. Despite the claims by Pliny the Elder about the trade imbalance and quantity of Rome's coinage used to purchase silk, Warwick Ball asserts that the Roman purchase of other foreign commodities, particularly spices from India, had a much greater impact on the Roman economy. In 14 AD the Senate issued an edict prohibiting the wearing of silk by men, but it continued to flow unabated into the Roman world. Beyond the economic concerns that the import of silk caused a huge outflow of wealth, silk clothes were also considered to be decadent and immoral by Seneca the Elder:


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Trade items such as spice and silk had to be paid for with Roman gold coinage. There was some demand in China for Roman glass; the Han Chinese also produced glass in certain locations. Chinese-produced glassware date back to the Western Han era (202 BC – 9 AD). In dealing with foreign states such as the Parthian Empire, the Han Chinese were perhaps more concerned with diplomatically outmaneuvering their chief enemies, the nomadic Xiongnu, than with establishing trade, since mercantile pursuits and the merchant class were frowned upon by the gentry who dominated the Han government.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Valerie Hansen wrote in 2012 that no Roman coins from the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) or the Principate (27 BC – 284 AD) era of the Roman Empire have been found in China. Nevertheless, Warwick Ball (2016) cites two studies from 1978 summarizing the discovery at Xi'an, China (the site of the Han capital Chang'an) of a hoard of sixteen Roman coins from the reigns of Tiberius (14–37 AD) to Aurelian (270–275 AD). The Roman coins found at Óc Eo, Vietnam, near Chinese-controlled Jiaozhou, date to the mid-2nd century AD. A coin of Maximian (r. 286–305 AD) was also discovered in Tonkin. As a note, Roman coins of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD have been discovered in Japan; they were unearthed from Katsuren Castle (in Uruma, Okinawa), which was built from the 12th to 15th centuries AD.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Shortly after the smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire from China by Nestorian Christian monks, the 6th-century AD Byzantine historian Menander Protector wrote of how the Sogdians attempted to establish a direct trade of Chinese silk with the Byzantine Empire. After forming an alliance with the Sasanian Persian ruler Khosrow I to defeat the Hephthalite Empire, Istämi, the Göktürk ruler of the First Turkic Khaganate, was approached by Sogdian merchants requesting permission to seek an audience with the Sasanian king of kings for the privilege of travelling through Persian territories to trade with the Byzantines. Istämi refused the first request, but when he sanctioned the second one and had the Sogdian embassy sent to the Sasanian king, the latter had the members of the embassy killed by poison. Maniakh, a Sogdian diplomat, convinced Istämi to send an embassy directly to Byzantium's capital Constantinople, which arrived in 568 AD and offered not only silk as a gift to Byzantine ruler Justin II, but also an alliance against Sasanian Persia. Justin II agreed and sent an embassy under Zemarchus to the Turkic Khaganate, ensuring the direct silk trade desired by the Sogdians. The small number of Roman and Byzantine coins found during excavations of Central Asian and Chinese archaeological sites from this era suggests that direct trade with the Sogdians remained limited. This was despite the fact that ancient Romans imported Han Chinese silk, and discoveries in contemporary tombs indicate that the Han-dynasty Chinese imported Roman glassware.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The earliest gold "solidus" coins from the Eastern Roman Empire found in China date to the reign of Byzantine emperor Theodosius II (r. 408–450 AD) and altogether only forty-eight of them have been found (compared to 1300 silver coins) in Xinjiang and the rest of China. The use of silver coins in Turfan persisted long after the Tang campaign against Karakhoja and Chinese conquest of 640 AD, with a gradual adoption of Chinese bronze coinage during the 7th century AD. Hansen maintains that these Eastern Roman coins were almost always found with Sasanian Persian silver coins and Eastern Roman gold coins were used more as ceremonial objects like talismans, confirming the pre-eminence of Greater Iran in Chinese Silk Road commerce of Central Asia compared to Eastern Rome. Walter Scheidel remarks that the Chinese viewed Byzantine coins as pieces of exotic jewellery, preferring to use bronze coinage in the Tang and Song dynasties, as well as paper money during the Song and Ming periods, even while silver bullion was plentiful. Ball writes that the scarcity of Roman and Byzantine coins in China, and the greater amounts found in India, suggest that most Chinese silk purchased by the Romans was from maritime India, largely bypassing the overland Silk Road trade through Iran. Chinese coins from the Sui and Tang dynasties (6th–10th centuries AD) have been discovered in India; significantly larger amounts are dated to the Song period (11th–13th centuries AD), particularly in the territories of the contemporary Chola dynasty.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: Even with the Byzantine production of silk starting in the 6th century AD, Chinese varieties were still considered to be of higher quality. This theory is supported by the discovery of a Byzantine "solidus" minted during the reign of Justin II found in a Sui-dynasty tomb of Shanxi province in 1953, among other Byzantine coins found at various sites. Chinese histories offer descriptions of Roman and Byzantine coins. The "Weilüe", "Book of the Later Han", "Book of Jin", as well as the later "Wenxian Tongkao" noted how ten ancient Roman silver coins were worth one Roman gold coin. The Roman golden "aureus" was worth about twenty-five silver "denarii". During the later Byzantine Empire, twelve silver "miliaresion" was equal to one gold "nomisma". The "History of Song" notes that the Byzantines made coins of either silver or gold, without holes in the middle, with an inscription of the king's name. It also asserts that the Byzantines forbade the production of counterfeit coins.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: In 2010, mitochondrial DNA was used to identify that a partial skeleton found in a Roman grave from the 1st or 2nd century AD in Vagnari, Italy, had East Asian ancestry on his mother's side.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: A 2016 analysis of archaeological finds from Southwark in London, the site of the ancient Roman city Londinium in Roman Britain, suggests that two or three skeletons from a sample of twenty-two dating to the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD are of Asian ancestry, and possibly of Chinese descent. The assertion is based on forensics and the analysis of skeletal facial features. The discovery has been presented by Dr Rebecca Redfern, curator of human osteology at the Museum of London. No DNA analysis has yet been done, the skull and tooth samples available offer only fragmentary pieces of evidence, and the samples that were used were compared with the morphology of modern populations, not ancient ones.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: The historian Homer H. Dubs speculated in 1941 that Roman prisoners of war who were transferred to the eastern border of the Parthian empire might later have clashed with Han troops there.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: After a Roman army under the command of Marcus Licinius Crassus decisively lost the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, an estimated 10,000 Roman prisoners were dispatched by the Parthians to Margiana to man the frontier. Some time later the nomadic Xiongnu chief Zhizhi established a state further east in the Talas valley, near modern-day Taraz. Dubs points to a Chinese account by Ban Gu of about "a hundred men" under the command of Zhizhi who fought in a so-called "fish-scale formation" to defend Zhizhi's wooden-palisade fortress against Han forces, in the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BC. He claimed that this might have been the Roman testudo formation and that these men, who were captured by the Chinese, founded the village of Liqian (Li-chien, possibly from "legio") in Yongchang County.


title: Sino-Roman relations

text: There have been attempts to promote the Sino-Roman connection for tourism, but Dubs' synthesis of Roman and Chinese sources has not found acceptance among historians, on the grounds that it is highly speculative and reaches too many conclusions without sufficient hard evidence. DNA testing in 2005 confirmed the Indo-European ancestry of a few inhabitants of modern Liqian; this could be explained by transethnic marriages with Indo-European people known to have lived in Gansu in ancient times, such as the Yuezhi and Wusun. A much more comprehensive DNA analysis of more than two hundred male residents of the village in 2007 showed close genetic relation to the Han Chinese populace and great deviation from the Western Eurasian gene pool. The researchers conclude that the people of Liqian are probably of Han Chinese origin. The area lacks archaeological evidence of a Roman presence.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Parineeta () is a 2005 Indian Hindi-language musical romance film adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's 1914 Bengali novella of the same name. Directed by debutant Pradeep Sarkar, it was based upon a screenplay by the film's producer, Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The film stars Vidya Balan (in her Bollywood debut) alongside Saif Ali Khan and Sanjay Dutt in lead roles, with Raima Sen, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty and Dia Mirza in supporting roles. The film has several notable allusions to Indian literature and cinema.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: "Parineeta" primarily revolves around the lead characters, Lalita and Shekhar. Since childhood, Shekhar and Lalita have been friends and slowly this friendship blossoms into love. A series of misunderstandings surface and they are separated due to the conniving schemes of Shekhar's father. The plot deepens with the arrival of Girish, who supports Lalita's family. Eventually, Shekhar's love defies his father's greed and he seeks out Lalita.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Parineeta released on 10 June 2005, and despite pre-release inhibitions, it proved to be a commercial success at the box office, grossing ₹32.63 crore worldwide. It received positive reviews upon release, with praise for its screenplay, soundtrack, production design, costumes and performances of the cast; however its pacing and climax received criticism. It was showcased at several international film festivals.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: At the 53rd National Film Awards, "Parineeta" won Best Debut Film of a Director (Sarkar). At the 51st Filmfare Awards, the film received a leading 13 nominations, including Best Film, Best Director (Sarkar), Best Actor (Khan) and Best Actress (Balan) and Best Supporting Actor (Dutt), and won 4 awards, including Best Female Debut (Balan).


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: The story takes place in 1962 in Kolkata. As the credits roll, scenes from erstwhile Calcutta are displayed along with the narrator's (Amitabh Bachchan) introduction of the era.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: On the night of his arranged marriage to Gayatri Tantiya, (the daughter of one of his father's business connections), Shekhar has images of his childhood friend, Lalita, calling him by his name flashing through his mind.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Meanwhile, downstairs, musical celebrations begin as Shekhar meets Vasundhara, a widow from his neighbourhood, who is thankful to her son-in-law, Girish (Sanjay Dutt), for supporting their family after the death of her husband, Gurcharan. Lalita, who is present there, playfully confronts Shekhar as to why he is being indifferent to her. Shekhar admonishes her for speaking so in spite of being married.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: An angry Shekhar comes back home to play a favourite tune from the past on his piano. The flashback shows a young Shekhar playing Rabindranath Tagore’s tune on his piano while young Lalita and Koel are around. Lalita, with her parents having died in a car accident, lives with Gurcharan’s family. Koel is her cousin whereas Charu is her neighbour. As this scene flashes across Shekhar’s mind, he sings a song full of sadness and loss. As time flies, they grow up to become close friends. The rebellious and musically inclined Shekhar spends his days playing the music of Rabindranath Tagore or Elvis Presley and composing his own songs with Lalita rather than becoming part of his shrewd father's business. Part of this rebellion involves resistance to meeting Gayatri Tantiya, the beautiful but devious daughter of a wealthy industrialist, whom his father would like Shekhar to marry. Meanwhile, Girish, a steel tycoon from London, makes a dramatic entry into Charu’s house. Girish seems smitten by Lalita while Koel is by Girish. Shekhar is visibly jealous of Lalita’s close friendship with Girish.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: One day, a shocked Lalita, who is employed at the Roy’s office, remembers a hotel project from Gurcharan’s ancestral "haveli" (palatial house). On an earlier occasion, Gurcharan had borrowed money from Naveen Roy after putting his "haveli" on mortgage. She understands that if the money is not repaid in a few months, Naveen Roy would take over the property. She immediately thinks of asking Shekhar for monetary help. Unforeseen circumstances prevent this, and Girish, upon realising this, alleviates their problem by making Gurcharan his business partner. Gurcharan repays the debt and the turn of events prompts Shekhar to think why Lalita chose to ask Girish for money instead of him. On one auspicious night, Shekhar and Lalita exchange garlands and consummate their "marriage" unbeknownst to anyone else.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: While Shekhar is off to Darjeeling on a business trip, Naveen Roy violently thunders at Lalita about the loss of his hotel project, embarrassing and humiliating her. Roy gets a wall built between his and Gurcharan's house symbolising the end of their association. Gurcharan, unable to digest this, suffers a heart attack. Upon Shekhar's return, Roy informs him of the ill-health of his mother and Gurcharan viciously adds a note of Lalita and Girish's marriage. Shekhar is disgusted to hear of the marriage and in his anger he scowls at Lalita, humiliating her like his father. Meanwhile, Girish assists Gurcharan's family and takes them to London for the heart treatment. Misunderstandings follow and upon the family's return from London, Shekhar assumes that Girish and Lalita are married and agrees to marry Gayatri. The film returns to the night of Shekhar's marriage when Girish hands him the ownership papers of Gurcharan's "haveli". He shocks Shekhar by telling him that he married Koel because Lalita rejected his marriage proposal. As a conclusion, Shekhar confronts his father and symbolically breaks down the wall separating the two families. He then brings Lalita to his home as his bride much to the delight of his mother.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Before "Parineeta", Pradeep Sarkar was a well-known personality in the area of advertisements. With 17 years in mainstream advertising and 7 years of advertisement film-making and commercial cinema, he completed about 1000 commercials and 15 music videos. Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the producer, took notice of his music videos and contacted Sarkar to direct some of the music videos of the film "Mission Kashmir" (2000). After carving a niche in filming music videos, Sarkar gave the thought of filming "Parineeta" to Chopra. There began the making of the film.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: About the film's comparison with the novel, Chopra said in an interview that, as compared to its 1953 namesake film by Bimal Roy, the story was based in the year 1962. He said that it took them one and a half years to script the film, with them adding new characters and emphasizing under-represented characters from the novel. In a separate interview, Chopra admitted that he was actively involved with the screenplay because the film was an adaptation of the novel. When speaking about cinematic adaptation, Chopra gave due credit to Sarkar, and Natarajan Subramaniam (the film's cinematographer), for providing the vintage visuals. Saif Ali Khan once said that the film was initially attempted to be made in a contemporary way. When the film's crew did not find the depiction appealing, the filming began with the 60s look.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Chopra once cited an interesting anecdote about his belief in Sarkar's film-making abilities. He said that he never personally signed the cheques for the film's expenditure. He transferred money into Sarkar's bank account and the cheques were eventually signed by Sarkar and his spouse.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Chopra said in an interview that Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan were not the first choices for the lead roles in "Parineeta". In fact, Abhishek Bachchan was being cast as Shekhar and Saif Ali Khan as Girish. However Abhishek walked out of the project and Saif readily was accepted as a replacement. This fact was corroborated by Saif in an interview when he said that even though Sarkar had faith in his abilities, Chopra was not too keen on having him.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: The choice of Vidya Balan came with Sarkar's prior work experience with her in three music videos. Chopra said that Vidya was screen-tested for six months and only then they were sure of her acting abilities. Saif once said that he was not convinced of Vidya's abilities, since "Parineeta" was to be her first film. He instead hoped to work with established actresses like Aishwarya Rai or Rani Mukherjee. However, after seeing Vidya portray the character of Lalita, he was thoroughly appreciative of her performance. Getting an opportunity to debut with big names from the industry along with a lovely character to portray made Vidya accept the role of Lalita.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: The choice of Sanjay Dutt was because of his versatility, said Chopra in an interview. He also said that the affable nature of Sanjay was a plus during film making.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Sreelekha Mitra was approached to portray the role of Gayatri but she refused due to her pregnancy. Dia Mirza liked the script so well that she chose to play the role in spite of it being a short role. Raima Sen had a similar story with her want to work with the duo of Chopra and Sarkar. The cameo of the veteran actress, Rekha was purely out of her interest in the song, "Kaisi Paheli Zindgani".


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Since Sarkar knew the city of Kolkata very well, the film was primarily shot there. While most of the film was made in Kolkata, a small portion was shot in Darjeeling.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: To re-create the 60s era, lot of efforts were made by the producers. For instance, Chopra said that it cost them money and difficulty to procure the green coloured car which was driven by Shekhar in the film. Chopra confirmed the authenticity of the piano used in the song "Piyu Bole", and of the toy train used in the song "Kasto Mazza". About the look of the characters, Mirza said that the 60s look was well captured by the make-up artist, Vidyadar. The song "Kaisi Paheli Zindagani" was based on the tune to Louis Armstrong's "A Kiss to Build a Dream on".


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Critics had high expectations from "Parineeta"'s music because of the award-winning music that was provided in some of Chopra's previous films, such as "" (1994) and "Mission Kashmir" (2000). Shantanu Moitra, "Parineeta's" music director composed hundreds of tunes before six of them got finalised after a year's effort. After finalizing the soundtrack, Chopra was appreciative of the musician's abilities when he said that Moitra has the potential to become another R. D. Burman, a yesteryear Bollywood music director.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, the author of "Parineeta", was a contemporary of Rabindranath Tagore; both authors documented Bengali life and social issues at the turn of the century. The 2005 cinematic version of "Parineeta" pays homage to this relationship by referencing Satyajit Ray's film "Charulata" (1964), which itself is based upon Tagore's noted novella, "Nashtanir". Lalita ("Parineeta") is dressed to resemble "Nashtanir" / "Charulata"s Charu (Madhabi Mukherjee), particularly during the song "Soona Man Ka Aangan", which incorporates Tagore's song "Phoole Phoole Dhole Dhole." In both "Parineeta" and "Charulata", "Phoole Phoole Dhole Dhole" is sung while Lalita and Charu are each on a swing. The film continues the above connection by placing Saif Ali Khan on the same train used in the film "Aradhana" (1969) which featured his mother, Sharmila Tagore.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: This film was the third one to bear resemblance to the novella, the other two being its 1953 namesake film and "Sankoch" (1976).


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: "Parineeta" collected over Rs 170 million in India at the end of 2005. Its overseas success was notable as well with gross collections of Rs. 36 million in the United Kingdom, Rs. 35 million in North America, and Rs 15 million in the rest of the overseas.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Before its release on 10 June 2005, one preview wondered how the film would fare at the box office. Citing comparisons with the 1953 version, the preview suggested that debutant director, Sarkar's inexperience in film-making, the probable inability of debutant actress, Balan to portray Lalita's character appropriately, suitable 1960s depiction by contemporary actors and musician, Shantanu Moitra's until-then unimpressive soundtracks, could be impediments to a successful adaptation.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Post-release, the same critic said "Vidhu Vinod Chopra's ""Parineeta"" – a remake of an old classic of the same name...(had) the love story (which) was received well by the younger generation and it went on to become the biggest hit of the year." It was generally well-received by the critics, with one of them terming the film as "...a beautiful story, beautifully told. It approximates what most of us expect, and increasingly yearn for, in vain, our cinematic experience." A reviewer from About.com said that it is "contemporary retelling of...(an) engaging and timeless tale rich with human emotion and universal drama". The reviewer appreciates the film in most of the nuances of film making saying that this is "enhanced by a brilliant musical score, and accentuated by superb performances by Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Raima Sen, Diya Mirza and debutante Vidya Balan in the lead role of Lalita". 3000 copies of the novella were sold within weeks of the film's release, owing to the film's good reception.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: Derek Elley from Variety said "A character-driven meller that's a treat for the eyes, with performances to match, ""Parineeta"" is high-end Bollywood near its best". He also says that, "though the climax is still emotionally powerful, it comes over as overcooked." A mixed review from "Mid-Day" says "Pradeep Sarkar weaves the story like magic, especially in the first half ... excelling in the detailing ... the vintage look of the film (that stood out) with authentic costumes, props and the roads of Kolkata". However, the review criticised the film's climax terming it as amateur, thereby diluting the whole film's impact. Another such review came from "The Hindu" which begins by saying "A simple enough story, but Sarkar tells it well, with some great shots of Shekhar and Lalita together." The review eventually says "Except for the end ... where it is too much to bear."


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: The issue of piracy cropped up when a news article published in "The Indian Express" exposed the dark side of the film market. Hardly into weeks of the film's release, CDs were being sold at as low as Rs. 40. Another blemish was that Soumitra Dasgupta, a writer and close associate of Sarkar alleged that the film's story had a striking resemblance to his parallel work on the novella. On Saif Ali Khan's 48th birthday, August 16, 2018, it was one of the films to prove his versatility as an actor.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: In 2005, "Parineeta"s cast got a red carpet walk when it was the "World Premiere Film" at the International Indian Film Awards (IIFA) weekend in Amsterdam. Owing to this European premiere, Sarkar said that the film had a great opening in the American and English box-offices. The film was on the UK Top Ten films for four consecutive weeks.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: The film was chosen among 15 debut works for the 2006 Berlin Film Festival. It received enthusiastic reception from the audience as it ran to packed houses to the Chopra's surprise. Expecting an audience of about 100 Westerners, a critic visiting the festival was surprised to see the cinema hall full and people jostling for seats even on the steps.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: At the 24th Annual Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival held in April 2006, "Parineeta" was the only Indian mainstream cinema to feature among 135 films from 40 countries.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: In 2006, the film featured in the Palm Springs International Film Festival, 24th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Helsinki Film Festival and the International Film Festival of Marrakech.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: At the 53rd National Film Awards, Sarkar won the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: The first version of the DVD version of "Parineeta" was released by UTV Motion Pictures on 30 October 2006. It has subtitle options in English, Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian, Malay, and French. An additional disc includes interviews with the actors and a behind the scenes look at the making of the film. It is available in Anamorphic widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, progressive 24 FPS, widescreen and NTSC format. The film is also available on Netflix.


title: Parineeta (2005 film)

text: The soundtrack to "Parineeta" was released by Tips Music in April 2005. It received positive reviews, with a reviewer stating, "praising the soundtrack of Parineeta leaves you at a loss for superlatives. In each song, the trend was great singing, great composition, and great lyrics". It was later re-released by Zee Music Company in 2018. Shantanu Moitra composed the music and Lyrics were penned by Swanand Kirkire.


title: False equivalence

text: False equivalence is an informal fallacy in which an equivalence is drawn between two subjects based on flawed or false reasoning. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency. Colloquially, a false equivalence is often called "comparing apples and oranges."


title: False equivalence

text: This fallacy is committed when one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result. False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence does not bear scrutiny because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors. The pattern of the fallacy is often as such:


title: False equivalence

text: In an even more fallacious version, "d" is not required to exist in both sets; merely a similarity of two items in set and in set is cited to assert equivalence among the sets.


title: False equivalence

text: False equivalence arguments are often used in journalism and in politics, where flaws of one politician may be compared to flaws of a wholly different nature of another.


title: False equivalence

text: Thomas Patterson of the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University wrote about the false equivalency used by the media during the 2016 United States presidential election:


title: Jodhpurs

text: Jodhpurs, in their modern form, are tight-fitting trousers to the ankle, where they end in a snug cuff, and are worn primarily for horse riding. The term is also used as slang for a type of short riding boot, also called a "paddock boot" or a "jodhpur boot", because they are worn with jodhpurs. According to Mayer, "Jodhpurs … exemplify the material and cultural exchanges between Britain and its Indian colony in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."


title: Jodhpurs

text: Originally, jodhpurs were snug-fitting from just below the knee to the ankle, and were flared at the hip to allow ease for sitting in the saddle. Modern jodhpurs are made with stretch fabric and are tight fitting throughout. They are supportive and flexible.


title: Jodhpurs

text: Jodhpurs were adapted from traditional clothing of the Indian subcontinent as long trousers, reaching to the ankle, snug from the calf to the ankle, with reinforced fabric protecting the inner calf and knee from rubbing. The thighs and hips were flared, a traditional South Asian style that allowed free movement of the hip and thigh while riding.


title: Jodhpurs

text: The jodhpurs were adapted from an ancient style of Indian trouser called the Churidar, which is tight around the calf and loose at the hips. It is still worn at traditional Jodhpuri weddings. This is a special traditional style of clothing in Northern India, especially in what is today the modern state of Rajasthan. Sir Pratap Singh, a younger son of the Maharaja of Jodhpur, popularised in England the style of riding trousers worn in Jodhpur, a design that he apparently improved and perfected and first had tailored in India around 1890.


title: Jodhpurs

text: Singh was an avid polo player. When he visited Queen Victoria in England during her Diamond Jubilee celebrations of 1897, he brought his entire polo team, who caused a sensation among the fashionable circles of the United Kingdom by their riding clothes. In addition, they won many polo matches. Singh's jodhpur style of flared thigh and hip was rapidly taken up by the British polo-playing community, who adapted it to the existing designs of English riding breeches, which ended snugly at mid-calf, and were worn with tall riding boots.


title: Jodhpurs

text: The full-legged design of the true Jodhpur was not adopted as British polo apparel. Early photographs of European polo teams show the continued use of tall boots and breeches. Though the term "jodhpurs" was applied colloquially to this style of breeches, they were not true jodhpurs and are more accurately termed "flared-hip breeches". This British version was soon being produced by Savile Row tailors in London. The use of the Indian-style, ankle-length Jodhpurs allowed riders to use short, less expensive boots, as their calves were protected by the reinforced design and snug fit.


title: Jodhpurs

text: Special adaptations for riding include a pattern cut with the leg seams on the outside of the leg; a patch on the inside of the knee, sometimes of a hard-wearing material such as leather; and in some cases similar leather or leather-like panel on the seat that helps the rider stay still in the saddle. Classic jodhpurs are beige or white, but for working purposes are now made in a variety of colours. They are particularly well-suited for children, as the shorter paddock boots cost less than tall boots to replace as a child's feet grow.