Mr. Golénischeff has just published in the Transactions of the Russian Imperial Society of Oriental Archæology (vol. xiii) a new Vannic inscription of considerable interest and importance. As my memoir on the Vannic Inscriptions is not likely to be continued after the publication of the rich materials collected by Drs. Belck and Lehmann during their exploration of Armenia and Kurdistan, I will deal with this inscription separately, and provisionally number it LXXXVI in continuation of my former notation. The stone on which the inscription is engraved was found in the church of St. Gregory, four versts east of the monastery of Eshmiadzin, and is 2·70 metres high, 63 cent, broad, and 36 cent, thick. It will be seen that it is a record of Ruśas, the son of Argistis, whose existence, first asserted by Dr. Belck, but doubted by myself (J.R.A.S., Oct., 1894, pp. 705, 706), is thus certified.

This chapter is described as being in praise of Iṣfahán, and of the excellence of its inhabitants, their obedience to constituted authority, and their talents, and as showing that the schemes of all such as have intended ill to them, or endeavoured to do them injury, have recoiled on their own heads.

Know that the first step in Hearing is understanding what is heard, and applying it to an idea which occurs to the hearer. Then this understanding has as fruit ecstasy, and ecstasy moving of the members. Let there be a consideration, then, of these three stages.

A notice of alaf b. Aḥmad is contained in Ṣafadi's Wāfi bil-Wafayāt (Paris, 2, 064, 22a). The pedigree does not differ from that given by ahabi, but some further information is given about alaf, and on the authority of Yāqūt — presumably, therefore, from his Mu‘jam al-Udabā. We are told that Khalaf was at one time a rationalist in doctrine, when he became notorious for his persecution of members of the contrary sect. And Yaḥya b. ‘Ammāra, who was in Sijistān at the time, had to make his way to Harāt in the disguise of a woman.

There are many closely related dialects spoken in Rājputānā. No less than fifteen variations of the local speech have been counted in the Jaipur State alone. Omitting minor local variations, I have a list of sixteen real dialects spoken over the area in which Rājasthānī is a vernacular. An examination of them shows that they fall into four main groups, which may be called Mēwātī, Mālwī, Jaipurī, and Mārwārī. These may be considered as the four main dialects of the Rājasthānī language. I propose in this note to show the principal grammatical forms of these four, and to show their connection with the border languages, Western Hindī and Gujarātī. It may be taken as a general statement that Rājasthānī is a language intermediate between these two, and partaking of the characteristics of both. On the whole it is nearer Gujarātī than Western Hindī.

[In the Hunterian MS. the following tractate is ascribed to Ibnu'l ‘Arabī, d. 638 A.H. = 1240 A.D. In one of the Berlin MSS., however, it is called Risālatu'l Balbānīyah, by Muḥammad al Balbānī (Ahlwardt, 3, 250); in another Suyūṭī is given as the author (Ahlwardt, 1, 830). In the British Museum MSS. (Arabic Catalogue, No. DCCCLXXXI, ix, and Supplementary Catalogue, No. 245, x) the author is given as Auḥad al Dīn ‘Abdallah al Balyānī, d. 686 A.H. These MSS. have been used in the Translation. The Librarian of the Royal Library, Berlin, most kindly sent the two mentioned above (as well as a third imperfect one) to the care of the Glasgow University Librarian.]

In my paper entitled “ The Authorship of the Piyadasi Inscriptions” the question of authorship was treated on the assumption that the place of Piyadasi in history was unknown. This mode of treatment was adopted because I desired to examine afresh, and with perfect impartiality, the commonly accepted identification of Piyadasi with Aśoka Maurya. Before I undertook that examination I did not feel absolute certainty that the doubts as to the identification long ago expressed by Professor H. H. Wilson and recently again put forward by Bābū P. C. Mukherjī might not have some basis in fact. The problem of the Aśoka chronology is involved with the question of the identification of Aśoka with Piyadasi, and nearly the whole of the chronology of the history of ancient India depends upon the determination of the date of Asoka. For these reasons I felt compelled, in order to satisfy my own mind, to thoroughly examine the evidence for the identification of Aśoka with Piyadasi, and to see whether or not it is open to any doubt. The result of the examination is that to my mind no doubt is any longer possible respecting either the identity of Aśoka Maurya with Piyadasi, or respecting the approximate dates of the accession both of Aśoka and of his grandfather Candragupta. By “approximate dates” I mean dates with a margin of possible error not exceeding two years.

The following classified references may prove useful and suggestive to the student of the economic conditions of ancient India. The work accomplished by Professor Zimmer in his Altindisches Leben, which contains, among so much of varied interest, almost all that may be gleaned on the political economy of Vedic times, has not been carried on with respect to the advancing civilization of the succeeding centuries. Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt's important compilation, the Civilization of Ancient India, cannot, from the magnitude of its scope, treat adequately of what the literature of that era lets us see concerning rural economy, organization of industry, and methods of exchange. Dr. Fick's Sociale Gliederung im Nordöstlichen Indien is most valuable and suggestive as far as it goes. But it is compiled from a sociological and not from a specifically economic standpoint. Yet if we consider the ancient records now accessible, contemporary respectively with the age which preceded and with that which saw the rise of Buddhism and Jainism, and with the times of the earlier and succeeding ‘law-books’ —covering, from b.c. 800, let us say, a thousand years,— we may find materials sufficient to justify at all events some initial efforts to gain a coherent outline of economic institutions. I do not pretend that the passages noted are at all exhaustive; I am confident that much valuable material remains embedded both in edited and unedited texts.

There are curious passages, found in two places of Fausboll's Jātaka, 4. 490 and 6. 30, which are full both of interest and of difficulty. At Professor Cowell's suggestion I venture to put together a few remarks which may tend to make these passages clearer.