It is clear then that the ships plying in the Arabian Sea in 1250–1350 were structurally weak. The question whether this feature persisted until 1500 must be answered almost exclusively from the early Portuguese literature. It is very voluminous; most of it is either badly indexed or not indexed at all; and I have not been able to search it all through, but have looked only in the likely places. My collection of passages may thus be incomplete, while those I have found are mostly fragmentary, and to interpret them itis necessary to have a general view of the course of shipping in the Arabian Sea.

Before publishing, with a view to further study by scholars, the available text or texts in this language, it may be advisable to supplement the notes previously contributed to this Journal (JRAS., 1926, pp. 505–6; 1928, pp. 630–4) by a few further observations.

Certain periods of Indian history present extraordinary difficulties to the scholar who would deal with them, because he should be equally expert inso many different languages and literatures, and no one in practice can be a specialist in all. This is particularly true for the centuries when the Greeks were a force in the land. Incomplete and scattered statements from Greek and Latin historians and geographers have to be dovetailed in with the stillmore imperfect information to be derived from Sanskrit and Pali literature, as well as with inscriptions and coins; and in addition Chinese reports haveto be reckoned with. Hitherto this period has been mostly treated from the Indian angle and, though much use has been made of the classical authorities, that use has not been accompanied by adequate critical knowledge of the sources. We Indologists have therefore every reason to be deeply grateful to Dr.Tarn, whose recently published Greeks in Bactria and India, the fruit of many years' labour, explains authoritatively the bearing of the Greek evidence and enables us for the first time to see the history of the age as a coherent and intelligible whole. In carrying out his task, he has naturally had occasion to draw deductions from the Indian material, for which he is dependent on second-hand information. Now, while I have no desire spill ink on so useless a matter as purely destructive criticism, I am of opinion that some of his inferences are based on misunderstanding of the evidence from this source and will not stand the test of critical examination.

Though much has been written on the Jātakas or Buddha's Birth-stories, there is no consensus of opinion as yet about the exact signification of the term Jātaka as employed in Buddhist literature. One may correctly say, no doubt, with the late Professor Rhys Davids that the Jātaka proper is atītavatthu or the “story of the past”. It is precisely in this sense that the Bharhut labels designate many of the illustrations. Though this is generally the case with the Jatakas, Professor B. M. Barua contends for a definition of Jataka which embraces also the paccuppanna-vatthu, or the “story of the present”. He points out that according to the Culla-Niddesa, a work of the Pāli Canon, which cannot be dated earlier than the third century b.c., the term Jātaka is obviously applied alike to the story of the present and to that of the past, the undermentioned four Suttantas being mentioned as typical examples of Jātaka:—

(1) Mahāpadāniya.

(2) Mahā-Sudassanīya.

(3) Mahā-Govindiya.

(4) Maghādeviya.

Some twenty-four years ago there was carried on a high and formidable argument between two Professors of Chinese concerning the rhinoceros and his Chinese name. In the end each contestant remained, as is usual in such literary warfare or “incidents”, of the same opinion still, while the third parties to the dispute finding their minds in some confusion on the matter, concluded that either Professor A was in the right, or else, perhaps, it was Professor B. And so the question rested for some years, and sleeping dogs were allowed to lie. But in due course An Yang in the Province of Honan surrendered its long hidden store of bone and tortoise-shell, inscribed with archaic characters. And on the discoveries and problems thus presented we have been browsing ever since. Among these novel forms are two, each of which is partly one and partly the other. Discoveries, because though written forms do exist, these do not descend from the archaic figures under discussion. Problems, because the equation of certain bone pictures with the exact identity of the quadrupeds indicated in the inscriptions, has hitherto been disputed or equivocal. The bone figures of both these novelties display beasts of large bulk, both have horns, and both are furnished with tails, carefully marked by trifid tufts by the scribe. In the recording entries both follow a word chu, meaning to chase, and those who hunted the quarry were the Yin Sovereigns of the time. Where then is the difficulty in identifying the particular species of Big Game hunted by the sporting rulers of the Shang-Yin line ? Briefly, the horns in each case have been a dilemma hindering full assurance of our conclusions