It has already been stated (ante, p. 918, Oct. 1906) that skandha, in the plural number, denotes the cervical vertebræ (not the shoulders). To the examples there given the following may be added:—

In the Atharva Veda, vi, 135, verse 1, we read:

Sohgaura is a village on the right (western) bank of the Rāptī, about fourteen miles south-south-east from Gōrakhpūr, situated in a locality which presents various indications that there was a large settlement there in ancient times. It is shewn as ‘Soghowra’ in the Indian Atlas sheet No. 102 (1880), in lat. 26° 32′, long. 83° 30—a small thing measuring about 2½″ by 1⅞″— was discovered there, in digging the foundations for a house, some thirty-three years ago. Mr. Hoey secured it in 1893, and presented it to the Asiatic Society of Bengal; and we are greatly indebted to him for rescuing this relic of antiquity and ensuring the preservation of it. The standard of the Brahml characters of the inscription refers it to at any rate an early date in the Maurya period, B.C. 320 to about 180; and the method of spelling presented in it, along with the use of those characters and the general style of the record, would justify our placing it even before that time.

The great merit of the laborious publication of the Bower Manuscript by Dr. Hoernle need not here be repeated. Since I met this excellent scholar some years ago, I have carefully examined the whole Chinese Tripiṭaka to identify the manuscript, but I have only been able to find one of the various texts of which it is composed. This is, however, one of the most important Sūtras of Buddhist mysticism; and its curious relation with the Pāli scriptures in many places throws some light upon the dark question of the history of Buddhist literature.

In the first place acknowledgments are due to M. Kuli Khan, lately Naib-Tahsildar at Sarwekai, who at my request took down these songs from the lips of the singers, and gave me an Urdu translation of them, which is in the main distinguished by insight and accuracy, and secondly to Mr. Lorimer's Grammar and Vocabulary of Wazīrī Pashtu (Government Press, Calcutta, 1902), without which I should have been unable to trace many of the words used in these songs.

On p. 938 (Oct. 1906), 1. 12, for “peak of the shoulder” read “nape of the neck.”

The historical notices concerning the poet Ṭufail al-Ḡanawī are exceedingly scanty. Al-Aṣma'ī states that he was the most ancient poet of the tribes of Qais 'Ailān, and that he was older than an-Nābiḡa. This assertion, which is frequently repeated, may be accounted for by the little knowledge about his life which had come down to the grammarians of al-BaṢra and al-Kūfa; it can, however, hardly be correct, when we consider the few historical facts wrhich I have been able to gather. His name and genealogy is, with slight variations, given on the authority of Ibn al-Kalbī, the same as in the introduction to the poem: Abū Qirān Ṭufail b. 'Auf b. b. Ḍubais b. Mālik b. Sa'd b. 'Auf b. Ka'b b. Jillān b. Ka'b b. Ḡanm b. Ḡanī b. A'ṣur b. Sa'd b. Qais (b.) 'Ailān b. Muḍar.

Nine years ago, in the J.R.A.S. for January, 1898, pp. 61–94, I published an article entitled Some Notes on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurúfi Sect. The materials for that article were chiefly derived from a manuscript of the Jávidán-i-Kabír (Ee. 1. 27) in the Cambridge University Library, and two manuscripts (Anciens Fonds Persan, 24, and Supplément Persan, 107) in the Bibliothèque Rationale at Paris, of which the former contained (1) the Istiwá-náma of the Amír Ghiyáthu'd-Dín Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-Ḥusayní, of Astarábád, composed shortly after A.H. 828 ( = A.D. 1425), (2) an allegorical mathnawi poem, and (3) a glossary of the dialect words used in the Jávidán-i-Kabir; while the latter contained another Huriifi treatise which appeared to be that entitled the MaḤabbat-náma. Thanks to information contributed by the late Mr. E. J. W. Gribb, I was also able to prove that the sect, which appears not to have taken root in Persia, the land of its birth, spread into Turkey, where it caused some commotion at several different periods, and suffered several fierce persecutions, amongst the victims of which (in A.H. 820 = A.D. 1417–18) was the bilingual poet Nesími, whose Díwán is not uncommon in manuscript, and was printed at the Akhtar Press in Constantinople in A.H. 1298 ( = A.D. 1881).

To the life and doctrines of the famous founder of the Ḳādirī Order a certain amount of attention has already been devoted in Europe, yet scarcely sufficient to render further investigation of the subject unnecessary.

With aša (as the ritual sanctity) I will offer this, zaoθra having the Haoma with it, and the flesh with it, and the haδānaēpatā, (also) lifted up with (ritual) sanctity (aša). (2) To thee, 0 Ahurian One of Ahura, will I offer it, (3) for the propitiation of Auharmazd (Ahura Mazda), the radiant, the glorious, and of the Amešaspends, the August Immortals, and of Sraoša, the Holy, and of Aūharmazds Fire, the lofty Chief who is of Aša, the sacred Law, etc.; see S.B.E. xxxi at Y. VII, 5–13; see also Y. XXII, XXVII, 24–27.

(fol.91b) According to a tradition, the Prophet had foretold to ‘Abbās that the Khalifate would go to his posterity (ṫab. iii, 23–4); other traditions follow on the names to be borne by them. Ibrāhīm the Imām died in prison, having settled the succession, and ordered the members of his house to go to Kūfa, where Saffāḥ was proclaimed, ib. 27–8. His birth (in 105 A.H.) and parentage are stated, ib. 88, and Fragm. 214; and (fol. 92a) that he was younger than his brother al-Manṣūr; and that his laqabs were Saffāḥ, Murtada, and Qāim, the origin of the first being explained. He stigmatised a denunciation sent under the title of ‘good advice,’ as repulsive alike to Allah and to himself.

Much of what I shall say here has appeared before in scattered essays which are not likely to have been seen by many members of the Royal Asiatic Society, and I am grateful for the opportunity now given for considering the question as a whole, and for hearing in the discussion which will, I hope, follow, any arguments that may have escaped my notice for and against the theories advanced. The object of the present paper is to show how the beliefs of the early Nestorian Christians have been absorbed by Hinduism, and how they have profoundly affected the religious system current over a large portion of India.

Khusrau was the eldest son of Jahangīr, and was born at Lahore on August 4th, 1587. His mother was the daughter of Rajah Bhagwān Dās. Her original name does not seem to be known, but after birth Jahangīr, or, as he then was, Prince Selīm, gave her the name of Shāh Begam. She poisoned herself with opium on May 6th, 1605, on account, her husband says, of the bad behaviour of and of one of her brothers. But there was madness in the family, and her father once tried to kill himself.

There are three interesting points connected with First, was he blinded by his father? Secondly, was he murdered by his half-brother, Shāh Jahān? Thirdly, what is the date of his death?

For want of a critical edition of the Mahābhārata, such an eminent scholar as Professor Rhys Davids has been led to think that, though there is no mention of the worship of Śiva under the form of the Linga in the old Buddhistic records, “Phallus-worship is often mentioned, quite as a matter of course, in the Mahābhārata” (“Budhistic India,” p. 165). Whatever may be the date of the Mahābhārata Saṁhitā, it may be successfully shown that the Linga, as a form of Śiva, is not recognised in that great epic.

Fa-Hian tells us that a journey of four yojanas to the east from Vaiśālī brought him to “the confluence of the five rivers,” and that then, crossing the river (the Ganges) and going south for one yojana, he arrived at Pāṭaliputra in the kingdom of Magadha.

In many parts of the world there exist social relations between a man and his mother's brother which are in many ways closer than those between the man and his own father. Often these are associated with the condition of society best known as mother-right, in which the child belongs to the social division of his mother and her brother, to whom may fall the chief or sole direction of the life of the child. In other cases a similar close relation is found between maternal uncle and nephew when descent is no longer counted in the female line, and there is definite evidence1 that in some cases this relation is a survival of a previously existing condition of matrilineal descent.

In continuing the inquiry into the tradition about the subsequent fate of the eight original deposits of the corporeal relics of Buddha, we take next the second Ceylonese chronicle, the Mahāvaṁsa; or, more precisely, the earlier part of that work, which was composed, by way of being a commentary on the Dīpavaṁsa, by the Thēra Mahānāma, in or about the period A.D. 520 to 540.

Like the Dīpavaṁsa, the Mahāvaṁsa does not present any narrative such as that found in the Divyāvadāna. But, as we shall see, it gives a story about the relics at Rāmagrāma which is not found in either of those works.

By the courtesy of the Rev. G. E. White, of the American College at Marsovan, I have been permitted to copy a fragment of a Hittite cuneiform tablet which was picked up at Boghaz Keui, the northern capital of the Hittites. The tablet was of red clay, and must have been of large size. What remains of it is 3 centimetres thick, 8 cm. in length, and 5 cm. in breadth, and originally formed the left-hand portion of the central part of the tablet. The characters of the text resemble those of the so-called ‘Yuzgât’ tablet published by Dr. Pinches and myself, which really came, not from Yuzgât, but from Boghaz Keui. The subjectmatter of the two texts also seems to have been similar.

The establishment of the town of Fusṭâṭ as a new capital of Egypt is an important event in the Arab conquest, inaugurating as it does the permanent occupation of the country by the Arabs. One has to look to Arab authorities alone for details. In the works that are generally available at the present time by having been printed, the particulars are but few. The direct references in these books to the foundation of the town, containing information beyond a mere mention of the fact, do not take long to sum up. Traced back as far as possible to their originals, so as to eliminate repetition which adds nothing to our knowledge, they appear to be included in the following passages:—