Soon after the rise of the T'ang dynasty, the Parinirvāna Sūtra seems to have lost its popularity, and in the second half of the seventh century its place is definitely taken by the Lotus Sūtra. Out of a total of fifty-six dated texts, no fewer than twenty-nine are sections of this work.

Since Motoori Norinaga invented the term kakari, lit. “nexus”, more than 150 years ago Japanese scholars have been labouring to find out the precise signification of the word he had left unexplained beyond vaguely applying it to several grammatical devices which included the uses of the particles wa, mo, zo, and koso.

The bibliography of the literature of Tibet is beset with extraordinary difficulties. The access to the literary treasures of this country is not easy and our knowledge in this domain is therefore exceedingly limited. If we exclude the two great Collections of Translations (the Kanjur and the Tanjur) which are tolerably well known from the bibliographical standpoint, we must confess that the great ocean of the original Tibetan literature, the literature of Tibet proper, remains almost entirely unknown.

Ch. 47 is an incomplete roll of the Stein collection at the India Office, measuring 130 X 31 cm. The accompanying photograph shows the roll except the lower part (32 cm.) containing six short vertical lines (a business account) in Chinese, the last 10 cm. being blank. The reverse of the roll contains the Chinese version of the Aparimitāyuh Sūtra, and one line in Tibetan script.

The (Vedânta-)Siddhântamuktâvalī of Prakāśânanda, a work of the sixteenth century, written in refutation of Rāmânuja's Tattvasāra, has been edited and translated in another manner by A. Venis in the Pandit, N.S., vols. 11 and 12, and reprinted separately, Benares, 1912. In our version we have endeavoured to be absolutely literal without employing the customary phraseology of Sanskrit scholarship, some of which is actually misleading, and other parts obscure to the general reader.

Neither in Hobson-Jobson nor in Dalgado's excellent Glossário Luso-Asiático is found a single word concerning a word post(ā), meaning an infusion or decoction of opium, which seems to have played rather an important role in Mogul times. As several passages in the works of older European authors give the word in the form post (or at least something very near to it) I shall here put together what I have found about it. Probably several passages have so far escaped my attention and may be added later on.

A Bout three years ago, I sent a paper on “The Date of the Bhāga-vata Purāṇa” to the I.H.Q. The publication of the paper was delayed, and it was forestalled by B. N. Krishnamurti Sarma's paper on the same subject, which appeared in the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. xiv, pts. iii-iv. The object of both the papers was the same, viz. to controvert the views of Vaidya and Winternitz who proposed the tenth century A.D. as the date of the Bh.P. Sarma suggests that this Purana was composed in the fifth century, if not earlier. My own view is that the work came into being some time between A.D. 550 and 650. The mention therein of the Huns (ii, 7, 26) and of the Tamil Saints (xi, 5, 38–40) would go against Sarma's hypothesis. Sarma and the present writer adopted somewhat different lines of attack upon the position taken up by Vaidya and Winternitz. It is unnecessary, however, to state the additional matter my paper contained, or to publish it. This will be done if the other view finds a defender who has to be refuted.

Rāmnārāyan's Kulīn Kulsarbasva (1854) is often regarded as the first Bengali drama, but there are many other Bengali plays of one sort or another anterior to it in date.

Although Herasim Lebedeff, a Russian adventurer, staged two Bengali plays in Calcutta towards the end of the eighteenth century, these have not come down to us. It is doubtful if Lebedeff's plays, which were translations of English dramatic works, were ever published. No clue to the subsequent fate of these plays is found in the autobiographical introduction to Lebedeff's Grammar of Pure and Mixed East Indian Languages, printed in London in 1801

The task of publishing the Khotanese Saka texts of the India Office and the British Museum, on which I am engaged, is likely to be long protracted. It therefore seems advisable to make known as soon as possible a list of the words for which parallel texts guarantee the meanings in Tibetan, Chinese, or Sanskrit. Most of the following words are from the Siddhasāra-śāstra of Ravigupta, of which there are extant sixty-five folios. The Tibetan is to be found in the Tanjur. Two short passages of the Sanskrit are preserved in a compilation in a Madras MS., of which a copy (made in 1902) is in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Through the courtesy of the Librarian I have been ableto make use of this.

Owing to the voluminousness of the great Arabic works on general history, from the fourth century A.H. onwards many abridgments were made from them by both the authors of the large works themselves and later hands. These concise works contain a brief survey of the history of Islām as is seen in the Kitāb duwal al-islām of adh-Dhahabī or an enumeration oxf the illustrious persons of a longer period as is seen in the Tabaqāt al-huffāz of the same author.

Mīrzā Mahdī the biographer of Nādir Shāh, gives but little information on the subject of the Iranian campaigns in 'Omān during the period 1737 to 1744, probably because 'Omān was, relatively speaking, merely a secondary theatre of war and because Nādir did not go there in person. Fasa'I, in his Fārsnāma-yi-Nāsirī, also devotes but little space to the subject, notwithstanding the fact that Muhammad Taqī Khān Shīrāzī, the Beglarbegi of Fārs, played a prominent part in the campaigns.

The establishment of the theatre in Egypt, like many other Western innovations, was aided by the initiative of the KhediveIsmail. The Suez Canal was completed in the year 1869; to celebrate its opening the Khedive decided to form the Ezbekia Gardens and to build the Opera House which still exists beside them. This building, in. whose fabric wood occupies a dangerously large part, was erected in a great hurry and inaugurated in November, 1869. The opera Aida which Verdi was composing for the occasion in return for a fee of 150, 000 francs, on a libretto originally arranged by Mariette Pasha, was not completed in time for the opening, and a performance of Rigoletto was given instead.

Although it is generally admitted that European and extra European grammatical categories do not absolutely coincide, one very rarely sees the grammar of a native language worked out on the clear recognition of this fact. The following paper is intended to illustrate the differences in grammatical thought between English and one language of the New Hebrides. It is not intended to be a full study of that language, but only to indicate what seems to be the mental outlook of the people who speak it. The language in question is that of Achin, one of a group of small islands off the north-eastern coast of Malekula in the northern New Hebrides. The material which has formed the basis of this study I owe to the kindness of Pastor A. G. Stewart, of the Seventh Day Adventist Mission.