In 1789 James Augustus Grant wrote that he had resided for several years in Benares as a free merchant under the protection of the East India Company. He evidently specialized on trade with the Gorakhpur district of Oudh. “I have for some time past and by the force of unremitting exertion and a great expense been enabled to establish factories in Gorruckpoor, etc., in the [Nawab's] Dominions for the manufacture of cloths, sugar, opium, etc., and I effected these establishments without any interest or influence except that which became the result of my own industry.” He had incurred considerable initial losses and expenses, chiefly in propitiating various Indian functionaries and landholders and especially the Nawab's land-revenue officers (amils). The amils seem mostly to have farmed the privilege of collecting the land-revenue on short leases and to have been constantly changing, a fact which made all business concerns highly precarious.

A.—Larnaca Museum, Inventory Nr. 1425; from Dromolaxia, 3 miles south-west of Larnaca. Inscribed area 38 by 5 cm.; Maximum height of letters 2 cm. Plate I.

“(1)[On the … day] of the month Pa'ulot in the thirty-fourth year of King Pumiyaton, King of Citium and Id[alion, (2) son of Ki]ng Malkyaton, King of Citium and Idalion, this image is that which he gave and set up.”

1. The Problem. The chain of incident and action in Śūdraka's deservedly popular drama Mṛcchakaṭika commences with a peculiar ritual on a dark night. The hero Cārudatta, an impoverished but virtuous brahmin caravan merchant, has just finished his evening prayers. At the beginning of the first act, he asks his clownish brahmin friend Maitreya to help in the consummation: kṛto mayā gṛhadevatābhyo baliḥ; gaccha, tvam api catuṣpathe mātṛbhyo balim upahara. “I have completed the bali (food-)offerings to the household gods; go thou, offer (this) bali to the Mothers at the crossroads.” This simple request leads to the rescue of the heroine Vasantasenā from abduction. Here we leave the development of the plot, to investigate the ritual.

As in kannada, the earliest Tamil versions of the Mahābhārata were in the Sanskrit campū style of verse and prose. Tradition has it that one such work appeared in the early days of Tamil literature when the last of three academies or sangams flourished in the south under royal patronage at Madurai, the capital city of the Pāṇdiyan kingdom. Epigraphical support for this view is found, it is thought, in line 29 of the panegyric referred to below, where there is a reference to a translation of the Mahābhārata into Tamil and the founding of a sangam. The extract comes from the Ciṉṉamaṉūr copper plate grants, which Dr. S. Krishṇnasāmi Ayyangar thinks belong to the tenth century. Certain citations in the commentary of the learned Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar on sūtras 17 and 21 of Tolkāppiyam, iii, 2, may have come from this early Sangam Pāratam, as they have the true Sangam ring. So thinks M. Rāghava Ayyangar, who has done good work in dating Tamil literature. The verse of the Sangam Pāratam consisted, it is said, mainly of quatrains in veṇpā metre interspersed with passages of akaval, akaval being the declamatory form of verse and veṇpā the form nearer normal speech. Citations in both these forms are found in the commentary just referred to, the first said to be from “Peruntēvaṉār” (reputed author of the Sangam Pāratam) and the rest from “Pāratam”. Peruntēvanār was a name common among poets of Sangam times and the author of the Pāratam was consequently referred to as the one who composed the Pāratam to distinguish him from his namesakes. Two of his poems are included in two of the eight old anthologies of mostly fugitive verse and five of the invocatory poems are his, all eight poems being in akaval. The Sangam Pāratam is also referred to as Pāratavepāṇ, because most of its verse is said to have been in the veṇpā metre.

This note is based on field research made during the summer of 1953, and I must acknowledge the valuable assistance of Fr. J. M. Brahier of the Catholic Mission, Tanyang, the best European speaker of Lepcha. It is by no means exhaustive and certain important aspects require further examination, but even within my present limitations it is interesting to give an account of the religious beliefs of the Lepchas of Tanyang, especially now that their traditions are changing so rapidly.

Much has been written about British activities in the Far East, particularly in China, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, especially by American historians. Dr. H. B. Morse's monumental Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China was first in the field and Professor E. H. Pritchard and J. K. Fairbank have been worthy successors. English scholarship on the subject is naturally somewhat older but, possibly for that reason, the work done has not usually been as detailed or thorough: an exception is Michael Greenberg's recent book, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–42. To find general surveys of Anglo-Chinese relations by British writers which extend back into the seventeenth century, it is necessary to turn to the books of A. J. Sargent and J. Bromley Eames. But as far as the seventeenth century is concerned historical research has been scanty. That Greenberg should have regarded a summary of events before the period with which he was immediately concerned as sufficient for his purpose was only natural. Fairbank's introductory chapters are more comprehensive but show greater interest in the attitude of the Chinese to external intruders than in the efforts of the East India Company to intrude. Sargent, as he himself acknowledged, was mainly concerned with the nineteenth century and his attempt to provide a historical background was very superficial. Eames paid considerable attention to early British contacts with China but was prone to errors of fact which make him unreliable.

One of the major difficulties which face the English student when he comes to read Urdu poetry is that he cannot understand its metre. Even worse, he will find no short account of Urdu metre—either in English or in Urdu—which will help him very far. And finally, if he goes to Urdu speakers for assistance he will find that nearly all of them will frankly admit their ignorance of the subject and their inability to help him. Urdu poets of established reputation are, in general, no exception in this respect.

The Trade Routes. If the prehistoric tracks ran as outlined above, it would be logical to find some of them developing into trade-routes and also into modern roads except where settlements moved down into the valley, by the riverside, as land-clearing progressed. Such movement makes definitive proof rather difficult. But there is enough in common between old tracks and new, particularly the passes, to show the development. The great Buddhist cave monasteries (all near mountain passes) at Karsambḷe, Ṭhāṇālā, Bhājā, āarle, Beḍsā, and Junnar outline main trade routes without any doubt, particularly when smaller intermediate caves are linked up. It is logical to expect merchants to use the tracks most frequented by whatever people lived there before there were ploughusing villages. The Buddhist monks who penetrated the wilderness to preach ahiṃsā and peaceful social behaviour would naturally follow the same tracks in order to reach the greatest number of savages. Their religion insisted upon the cessation of bloodsacrifices, and the cult-spots were the most likely places for their preaching. So these cults and the major Buddhist caves which are obviously at the junctions of great trade-routes should have some demonstrable connection. In fact, this is just what we find.

In 1908 and 1911 the late Lieut.-Colonel D. C. Phillott published in the Bibliotheca Indica two Persian works which he described on the title-pages as The Qawānīnu 'ṣ-Ṣayyad [sic, for 'ṣ-Ṣayyād] of Khudā Yār Khān 'Abbāsī and The Faras-nāma of Zabardast Khān. Curiously enough the person named on each title-page is not the author but the author's father. Colonel Phillott was evidently unfamiliar with what may be called the Ibn i Fulān Fulān formula [cf. PL. I, p. 21618] and so he misunderstood Dā'ūd ibn Yār- Muḥammad 'Abbāsī when he called himself Ibn i Yār-Muḥammad faqīr Dā'ūd (p. ix) and Ibn i Yār-Muḥammad 'urf Khudā-yār Khān Dā'ūd 'Abbāsī (p. xxi).

It is difficult to decide exactly when English interest in Japan revived; as so often it seems to have been individuals who aroused the enthusiasm of important members of the court of committees. Except for the proposals of Hawley and Smethwick and the ensuing debates, the court minutes contain no reference to the possibility of resuming trade with Japan until 1658. In view of the important role later played by Quarles Browne, it may be worth referring to certain details of the preparations begun in that year. When the directors fitted out the Welcome in December, 1657, her destination was China; no mention was made of a voyage to Japan. The venture was abandoned in January, 1658, because of the lateness of the season. Quarles Browne, the former chief factor in Cambodia, arrived home from Bantam on the Society only on 24th December, 1657, and so cannot have influenced the decision to fit out the Welcome. Besides, Browne had come home under a cloud and it was not until 9th February, 1658, that his accounts for the Cambodian factory were approved by the Company's accountants. Browne then rose rapidly in the favour of the directors: in April he was appointed agent at Bantam but had to surrender his claim to that post because of certain unspecified charges against him. He remained in London to defend himself before the lord protector—successfully as it proved. It may well have been at his instigation that the directors began preparations on 6th September, 1658, to send ships to China and Japan; certainly his selection for the post of chief factor in Japan at the unusual salary of £300 per annum suggests that his influence was considerable. But his usefulness ended together with his employment, when the project collapsed in December, 1658.

1. JRAS, I and II, 1960, p. 37, 1. 23. For by the Company after 1670 read by the Company comparable to that after 1670.

The Shī'ite revolts against the Umayyads may be said to have begun in 671. Immediately after his father's death in 661, al-Ḥasan had made an unsuccessful attempt to resist Mu'āwiyah, and had then retired to a life of luxury in Medina. Ten years later there was an abortive revolt in Kūfah led by Ḥujr b. ‘Adī al-Kindī. Next, in the troubled period after the death of Mu'āwiyah in 680, al-Ḥusayn, the younger son of 'Alī and Fāṭimah, with some encouragement from the Shī'ite party in Kūfah, came to 'Irāq and claimed the caliphate. He did not receive the support he had expected, however, and his small force of about a hundred was massacred at Karbalā'. In the confusion of the following years, with considerable support in ‘Irāq for Ibn az-Zubayr, the Shī'ites remained quiet; but on the death of Yazīd in 684 some of the older Shī'ites of Kūfah, led by Sulaymān b. Ṣuraḍ al-Khuzā'ī, preparedfor military action. The basis of this movement was twofold: they were to show that they repented of the betrayal of al-Ḥusayn (and so are known as the tawwābūn or Penitents), and they were to seek vengeance for his blood. Most of those who carried out the massacre at Karbalā' were living in Kūfah, but the governor who had despatched the army against al-Ḥusayn, 'Ubaydallāh b. Ziyād, had been forced to retire from 'Irāq and was now on the Syrian border with an army. After some debate they decided to march against him with their 4,000 men, but they were defeated and several of their leaders killed (Jan., 685).