This small head is one of the world's supreme masterpieces, A exhibiting all the qualities of the greatest sculpture.

The face is wistful. A faint smile plays almost imperceptibly round the curves of the mouth, the nostrils, and the languid eyes. So sensitive is the modelling that the very flesh appears to vibrate under the skin, and the eyes seem liquid and alive. The technique is detailed enough to bring out the profound individuality of the Egyptian queen, but it does not mar the bland unity of the whole, planes flowing one into another with unbroken continuity.

The border of this stone is composed of several rows of ornament. The outermost rim is carved in low relief that not only confines but gives width to the row of animals next to it. Those animals chase one another with the vigour of beasts in a circus ring, their exuberance apparent not only in the general rhythm but in the individual shape of every one of them. Each elephant is modelled with extreme sensitiveness in spite of his monumental form. The horses trot briskly with an air of concentration. The lions are alert and aggressive as if in. the presence of danger, while the cows are tame and placid. In every animal the massiveness of the body is a prominent feature, while sculptural stability is retained by the exaggerated shortness of the legs. The animals tread a row of foliated pattern, which gives the feeling of ground for their support and by its elaboration brings out the simplicity of the animals above and the geese beneath. The geese at first glance look symmetrical, yet they are not only pattern but alive, and the reason is that though they are subdued to an architectural purpose, there is individuality in every goose, and a slight variation in the gesture of every head. The lowest part of the border consists of two rows of lotus petals, delicate and faintly traced, the larger row climbing a swelling curve in the stone. The plain centre underlines the smallest modulation in the carving. This stone, which at first sight might be taken for decoration in the modern sense of a trade piece, proves on examination to be particularly rich and beautiful. How very different, for example, from Mestrovic's “Canadian War Memorial” illustrated in Some Modern Sculptors, by Stanley Casson.

This Ṛg-vedic word, for which Grassmann's Wörterbuch proffers the meanings—

1. “noble,” “of high origin (Abkunft)”;

2. (of goods, possessions) “fine”, “excellent”

recurs in the Sāma-veda and in the Kāṣhaka-saṃhitā and Maitrāyaṅī- s. of the Black Yajur-veda, but only in two passages taken verbatim from the Rv., viz. Vi.42.4 = Sv. II.6.3.2.4, and V, 1, 5 = Ks. XVI, 3, XIX, 4, Ms. II.7.3. In the other Vedic texts, in the Nirukta, in Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyi and its commentaries, in the Gaṇa-pāṭha, the Uṇādi lists and in the whole subsequent independent literature it seems to be uninstanced. The Ṛg-veda commentaries, which could not fail to interpret it, propound meanings for the most part different from those adopted by Grassmann.

There can be no doubt that to Asiatic ingenuity we owe the beginnings of the world's principal types of Water Transport. Early man in Asia invented means of extraordinary diversity to enable him to cross rivers, coast along the sea-shore, transport the produce of his little fields and the spoils of the chase to the tribal barter centre, carry his family and his scanty belongings to a new settlement, go afloat for fishing or waging war or to escape from hostile raids.

During 1937–38, with my wife's tireless co-operation, I archæologically explored the Malay States of Kedah, Perak, and Johore, with the primary object of obtaining data on the spread of Indian civilization in South-East Asia. The full report, including that of the systematic excavation of many sites of the “Hindu period” in Kedah, was published in JRASMB, vol. xviii, part 1, 1940, with 89 plates and 15 figures. Subsequently we excavated one or two other sites in Kedah and also explored Province Wellesley. The report of this supplementary work, delayed by the war, will shortly appear in JRASMB. The object of the present paper is to give a summary of our main Malayan results in the sphere of cultural history, as well as to point out some wider implications in conjunction with my earlier excavations in Siam, which these Malayan investigations do much to complete and illuminate.

A Version of the story of Sītā is related during the performance of the “Kohoābā Yakkama” or the “Kohoābā Kankāriya”, popularly called “Kankāriya”, one of the most interesting of ceremonies extant among the Sinhalese. The rite is supposed to have been first performed during the reign of Pṇḍduvāsadeva, the second Sinhalese king of Ceylon (circa fifth century B.C.).

Although Tibet is a large country, over 900 miles in its greatest length and over 800 miles in its greatest width, with a frontier of over 2,000 miles, very little was known about it before Sir Francis Younghusband's Expedition in 1903–4. The reason for this is its frontiers of high mountain ranges, some of them the highest in the world.

“Quanta sea la aversion entre Portuguéses, y Castellânos, es cósa tan sabída, que no necessita testimónios,” wrote the Spanish Friar, Juan Francisco de San Antonio, O.F.M., in his Chronicas of the Franciscan Order in the Philippines, China, and Japan, printed at the Convent of Our Lady of Loreto, at Sampaloc, a suburb of Manila, in 1738–41 (vol. ii, book i, ch. xv, page 81). Although, like most ex-cathedra pronouncements, this sweeping statement does not hold good for all times and places, it was undoubtedly correct for the region and century with which this essay is primarily concerned.

In a paper entitled “Two Notes on Ptolemy's Geography of India” published in JRAS., 1941, pp. 208 ff., the late Professor E. H. Johnston discussed the location of a place named “Dounga” by Ptolemy, book vii, ch. 1, s. 6. He also examined the historical circumstances relating to Dounga and suggested its possible identity with Dhenukākaṭa mentioned in some of the cave inscriptions ofthe Bombay region. Professor Johnston, however, did not arrive at a sufficiently exact idea of the topography, possibly because he was without that local knowledge which adds so much to any reading of a map. Consequently, some of his suggestions appear to be susceptible of amendment.

There are few aspects of Vedic civilization and history more neglected by modern scholars than the organization of ancient Brahmanical society in exogamous clans. It is, of course, recognized that from the time of the Sūtras to the present day the rule has always been that, as well as marrying within his caste, a Brahman must marry outside his own gotra; but further than this few have cared to inquire. The reason for this neglect is no doubt in part the extraordinary state of textual corruption in which our chief sources, the Pravara-adhyāyas of the Śrauta Sūtras, have come down to us, as well as the suspicion, not altogether justified, that the material contained in them is not truly “historical”, or at least has suffered a considerable amount of “künstliche Behandlung”.

In the book of Esther ii, 7, we are told that Mordecai brought up his niece Hadassah, and it adds “Hadassah that is Esther” . While it has been generally recognized that is the feminine of “Myrtle” which occurs several times in the Bible (Is. xli, 19; lv, 13; Zach. i, 8, 10, 11; Neh. viii, 15), there has never been any clear and definite opinion as to the meaning of Esther. Already in olden times it was felt that Esther was of foreign origin, but no one thought that meant to convey that there was an identity of meaning in both names. Thus, we find in the Bab Talmud, Megilla 13A, that Rabbi Nehemia was of the opinion that her name was Hadassah, but that she was called by the Gentiles Esther, after the “star-Venus” whereas according to Rabbi Jehoshua, her name was Esther, and she was subsequently characterized as Hadassah “Myrtle” because of the greenish colour of her face.

In 1922 a collection of four Bhāṇas was published from South Indian Manuscripts under the title of Caturbhāṇī by M. Ramakrishna Kavi and S. K. Ramanatha Sastri. In a short introduction the editors discussed the age and authorship of these works and assigned them varying degrees of antiquity. As the type of dramatic composition in Sanskrit known as bhāṇa, although ancient in origin, had hitherto been represented only by very modern examples, it was naturally a matter of considerable interest and importance for literary history, if the plays should turn out to belong to an early period as the editors claimed.

The Sogdian fragment of the Acts of St. George, published by O. Hansen in APAW., 1941, contains a number of words and passages mistranslated or left untranslated by the editor, which can be understood through careful examination of the text and its parallel versions. I have to thank Dr. Henning for lending me his reprint of Hansen's paper and allowing me to include in what follows his marginal notes on restoration and translation of numerous passages. The words zwby 273, and r'n' 278, which Hansen has not attempted to explain, will be treated first.

Japan's gradual interest in Korea and the expansion on this peninsula goes back to the third century A.D. The establishment of the Japanese sphere of influence in Korea, and the domination of Mimana in Southern Korea, were dictated by economic, cultural, and military reasons of Ancient Japan, or the Yamato country. This in the middle of the fourth century A.D. became the strongest and most powerful of many clan (uji) rivals in the central Sovereign, Tennō in the Japanese archipelago.

From the close of the eighth century A.H. till the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in A.H. 922 the Mamlûk army underwent a slow but steady decline. There were three main causes:—

(a) Economic: the exhaustion of Egypt's rich resources due to the predatory economic system of the Mamlûks.

(b) Military: deterioration of discipline in the army; its excessive occupation with politics; the corrupt practice in one section of the army to obtain, for payment, exemption from participation in military expeditions; neglect of the traditional military training (based mainly on the furûsiyya games); the insufficient use of new methods of warfare arising from the introduction of firearms.

(c) Reduced manpower: the continuous decrease of the population in the native countries of the Mamlûks (especially the steppes of Southern Russia and the Caucasus); the outbreaks of plague in Egypt.

There exists in some parts of Ceylon an occult ceremony called the Kohobā Yakkama, which according to tradition was introduced into the island by the three sons of Sita: Malaya, Kit-Śrī, and Sadalidu, among whom Malaya, the flower-born prince, took the leading part. This is the story connected with the first ceremony of its kind.

To examine a piece of literature bearing a great name and find that it has been wrongly ascribed may be profitable if the work is interesting. Unfortunately, the collection of letters described in Professor Browne's Literary History of Persia (vol. iii, pp. 80 ff.) and the Catalogue of Oriental MSS. belonging to E. G. Browne (pp. 146 f.) would only have had interest and significance if they had indeed been a transcript of the vizier Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl-Allah's own correspondence or despatches.

G. Huth, when translating the Hor-chos-ẖhbyuṅ (Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei, i, Strassburg, 1892), attributed this chronicle to ẖJigs-med nam-mkhaẖ, a high incarnate bLa-ma of the great bLa-bran bKra-śis-ẖkhyil monastery in the Amdo Province of North-Eastern Tibet. For over fifty years this attribution remained unchallenged, notwithstanding the fact that it is based on a wrong translation of the Tibetan text of the closing paragraphs of the chronicle. An attentive perusal of the Tibetan text shows that ẖJigs-med nam-mkhaẖ, whose short biography is given on p. 225 of the Tibetan text of the Hor-chos-ẖbyuṅ (ed. G. Huth), and on p. 356 of Huth's translation (Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei, ii, 1896), was not the author of the chronicle, but the inspirer of the work which was carried out at ẖJigs-med nam-mkhaẖ's command by Gu-śri (kuo-shih or State Preceptor) dKaẖ-bcu Su-dhī (Śuddhi) Ā-yu-warta (Āyurvarta), also known by the name of dbYaṅs-can sGeg-pahi blo-gros ẖJigsmed Rig-paẖi rdo-rje. The author of the chronicle met with ẖJigsmed nam-mkhaẖ during the latter's visit to the Barūn Türned principality in Eastern Mongolia (see Hor-chos-ẖbyuṅ, pp. 227–8). This ẖJigs-med nam-mkhah, better known by his title of Zam-tsha sku-zabs rin-po-che, was one of the “Four Golden Pillars” of bLa-bran in Amdo.1 Soon after A.D. 1803 (chu-phag lo, Water- Hog year) ẖJigs-med nam-mkhah was appointed to the abbot's chair (chos-khri) of the Yung Ho Kung () monastery in Peking. Later he was nominated tamaya lama (tha-ma-ka bla-ma) of Dolōn-nūr (mTsho-bdun) in Chakhar (E. Mongolia).

My article in the Journal (1942,111–121) has evoked two repliesfrom Professor Driver: the first I answered (1943, 251–254) under twelve heads; Professor Driver has dealt with four only in his second article. If this interchange is to go on I hope that it will follow the precedent set by Professor Driver's controversy with Professor Rowley in the Z.D.M.G. Professor Driver had put forward the theory that the Hebrew preposition was a dual form and not a plural and that it was originally the noun “buttocks”. He stated his case and his opponent wrote his reply to each point of the argument. The advantages of this method are that the disputant has to rebut or concede his opponent's points, and the reader does not have to wait six months or more to read a reply to a halfforgotten controversy.

Since I wrote a paper on the above (JRAS., 1945) I have received programmes of the installations of the present Sultan of Selangor in January, 1939, and the present Sultan of Perak in March, 1939.