The project of writing the “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments” has long occupied my thoughts, but the duties of my office do not permit me, so long as I remain in active service, to devote the time and attention necessary for the execution and completion of so arduous an undertaking. There is, indeed, little prospect that my project will ever be fully carried into effect by me. Be that as it may, I have made some small progress in the collection of materials, and have been compelled from time to time to make detailed preparatory studies of special subjects. I propose to publish these studies occasionally under the general title of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History.” The essay now presented as No. I of the series is that which happens to be the first ready. It grew out of a footnote to the draft of a chapter on the history of Candra Gupta II.

The following history of the reign of the great conqueror, Samudra Gupta, who was emperor of Northern India, and made extensive, though temporary, conquests in the south, about the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era, is offered as a specimen of the author's projected “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments.” Though that projected history may never be completed, I venture to think that fragments of it may not be altogether valueless, and that they may suffice to prove that even now the materials exist for the construction of an authentic and fairly readable “History of Ancient India.”

In the early years of the tenth century a.d. the Emperor Leo VI, surnamed the Philosopher, gave much scandal to the ecclesiastics of Constantinople by his fourth marriage with the beautiful Zoe; a fourth being naturally a degree worse than a third marriage, and this the Eastern Church had lately “censured as a state of legal fornication,” for reasons which Gibbon discusses in chapter xlviii of the “Decline and Fall” However, “the Emperor required a female companion, and the Empire a legitimate heir,” and so, since he had found himself again a childless widower, Leo the Philosopher promptly celebrated his fourth nuptials, the patriarch Nicholas notwithstanding, who, having refused his blessing, was exiled. The fruit of this marriage was Constantine, surnamed Porphyrogenitus, that is, Born-in-the-Purple, from the porphyry chamber in the palace at Constantinople, where he had first seen the light; and in the year 911 a.d., when of the age of six, Constantine VII succeeded his father on the throne.

I was not allowed inside the shrine inclosure at Jām, so sent my Mirza to look for the “Yadgār” of Humāyūn, which the Sheikh told me was there. The Mirza brought back a copy of the inscription, and described the situation as follows:—“The above inscription is written, or rather painted, with black ink or some other composition, on an oblong slab of white Herat stone, which is fixed with mortar on to the top of the railing (partly built of plain and glazed bricks and partly of stone) enclosing the grave of Sheikh Jāmi, which is in the open air. The slab in question is about ¾ ẕar' (about 30 inches) in length and about 3 girah (8 inches) in breadth, the inscription running lengthwise. The surface bearing the writing is smooth and polished. In some places the paint—or ink—has been removed, and it shows that the surface of the slab was first punctured with some pointed instrument, and afterwards the paint laid on. An old Khwāja told me that formerly this slab was fixed in the Diwān (arch) facing the Sheikh's tomb, but that afterwards it was removed from there and placed on top of the railing where it now stands. The Khwāja also said that he used to see the word Hindi written after ‘Muhammad Humāyūn,’ but that now it has been obliterated. Sheikh Abdur Rahmān, one of the descendants of Sheikh-i-Jām, says that the inscription is believed to be in Humāvūn's own handwriting.”

In the Calcutta Review of 1877, I published an Essay on the Phenician Alphabet, which was reprinted in Series I of my “Linguistic and Oriental Essays,” 1880. In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1884, I published an Essay on the Origin of the Indian Alphabet, which was reprinted in Series II of my “Linguistic and Oriental Essays,” 1887. As further light has been thrown upon the subject in the years, which have elapsed since 1877 and 1884, I return to this difficult, but interesting, subject, treating each branch of it separately.

About four miles from Larnaca, in Cyprus, on the western shore of thegreat salt lake from which the town. (Túzla) takes its Turkish name, standsthe Khálat-i-Sulṭán Tekyé, a much - frequented Moslem shrine. The situation is picturesque. The noble outline of the mountain of the Holy Cross (Santa Croce or Stavro Vouni) bounds the view on the west; andthe domes and minaret, embowered in. garden and grove, are not without grace, especially when seen reflected in the still waters of the lake. The shrine is held in great veneration by Moslems of every country; vessels carrying the Ottoman flag salute it as they pass, and the gardens are a favourite place of resort on Musalmán holidays. The whole is dedicated to a lady known as Umm Ḥarámbint Milḥán, whose body lies in this holy place.

The Gabrī dialect, as is well known, is spoken only by the Zoroastrians, or “Guebres,” of Persia (by whom it is called “Darī”), and is consequently almost confined to the towns of Yezd and Kirmān. It has been discussed, and specimens of it have been published, by Berésine, Rehatsek, Justi, Houtum-Schindler, and Huart (cf. J.R.A.S. for October, 1895, pp. 783–4), yet the total amount of material for its studyis so small that the short text which I now propose to publish will, I feel sure, be welcomed by Persian philologists. It was sent to me nearly a year ago, in response to a request more than once repeated, by my friend Ardashīr Mihrabān, whose hospitality I enjoyed during my three weeks' stay at Yezd in the early summer of 1888.