The Stein Collection of MSS. from Tun–huang at the British Museum, so rich in other respects, includes very few documents of a purely topographical nature. The two most interesting texts belonging to this class are the Tun huang lu (S. 5448), which was published with translation and notes in the JRAS. for July, 1914, and the present roll (S. 367), which is unfortunately imperfect at the beginning and lacks a title. The Tun huang lu deals with the district immediately surrounding Tun-huang itself, but the other treatise goes farther afield, and follows the “ southern route ” as far as Charchan, after which it doubles back to the oasis of Hāmi and the neighbouring territory. If Sha Chou was the starting-point, it is not likely that much has been lost at the beginning, since the first paragraphs are concerned with the Nan-hu oasis, which is only some 30 miles distant from that centre.

The geographical statements of Mubarakshah Ghuri (Ta'rikh, pp. 4–6) are taken from Alberuni, precisely from his book al-Qānūn al-Mas'ūdi (cf. the MS. of the Library of Veliettin-Efendi, in the Bayazid Mosque, Constantinople, No. 2277, fol. 145b–153b). The following words and phrases of Mubarakshah are to be read in Alberuni:.

In a very interesting article,1 Professor Jacobi has arrived at the conclusion that, contrary to the Buddhist tradition, we must hold that Mahavlra outlived the Buddha, probably by some seven years. In point of fact, of course, it may seem of very little consequence whether we accept this view or that of Buddhist tradition, but the issue involves a very important question affecting the value of our authorities, and on this point it seems to me clear that the position adopted by Professor Jacobi involves serious difficulties.

Professor Jacobi treats as the assured foundations for his investigations the dates of the Nirvanas of the Buddha and of Mahavlra as 484 and 477 B.C. But it must be admitted that both these dates rest on very unsatisfactory and late evidence. The question of the date of the Buddha has been set out, with his usual acumen and precision, recently by Professor de La Vallée Poussin,2 and he has shown how utterly uncertain is the date 483 or 484 B.C. for the Nirvāṇa. From a very different point of view the late Professor Rhys Davids confessed 3 that the date was purely conjectural.

We must be thankful to Professor Berriedale Keith for once more calling attention to the problem of the doctrine preached bythe Buddha. The problem is indeed important for the history of Indian civilization, as well as for the comparative history of philosophy. Was there or was there not a real philosophy, or, to use an expression of the late M. Émile Senart, “ une pensée maàtresse d'ellemêeme,” in the sixth century B.C. in India ? Professor Keith thinks it “ really impracticable to discover with any precision the doctrine which Buddha in fact expounded ”. The reasons for this despair are several. First of all, an extraordinary diversity of doctrine has developed from the teaching of the Buddha in the sixth century B.C.1 Professor Keith apparently thinks that if a doctrine has much developed, it becomes “ undiscoverable ”. I rather feel inclined to disbelieve such an axiom. A rotten seed will have no growth; but a seed strong and healthy may produce luxuriant vegetation. The other reason is more plausible. “ What assurance have we that the Pali Canon really represents the views of the Buddha with any approach to accuracy ? ” But, even if it contained the records of contemporary eyewitnesses, the scepticism of Professor Keith would not be shaken, for “we need”, he says, “ only remember the difficulties presented by the Aristotelian view of the doctrine of Plato ”—in order to disbelieve an eyewitness of the highest authority.

I. Tuḷuva, a Dravidian speech spoken by about 400,000 people within a comparatively small area in the district of south Kanara, on the west coast of Madras Presidency, has preserved its individuality from a very early time, despite its being an uncultivated dialect with no literature of its own. The Mangalore missionaries were the first to reduce this unwritten language to writing, and they published in the closing decades of the last century a grammar and a dictionary of this speech, besides a few scriptural texts. An attempt is now being made by educated Tuḵuvas to cultivate their mother tongue as a literary speech through the composition of essays, stories, and poems.

These records were made in 1920 to the dictation of a well-known professional story-teller, Bāqir ‘Alī, who belonged to Delhi.

A phonetic transcript which has been published is of great value for the study of Urdu sounds. I made the original transcript of both records and had two proofs printed. Professor Daniel Jones, Professor of Phonetics in the University of London, who has to take responsibility for the publication of all transcripts in this series, went over my second proof, made some alterations, and prepared the final proof, which was ultimately printed. He is, therefore, responsible for the transcripts in their present form. I have, however, my proofs before me. The differences between his final print and my proofs are slight, and this article gives our joint views. Where there is any necessity for distinguishing them they are marked with the initials J. for his views and B. for mine.

Banārsī dās of Jaunpūr belonged to the Jain community and was born in 1586. The following charming extracts are taken from his most famous work, Arddh Kathānak, an autobiography completed in 1641.

His wonderful power of word painting is exemplified in these passages. The first describes the commotion in Jaunpūr when the news of Akbar's death was received in 1605. We feel the spell of the description, and tremble with the frightened populace. This picture should be compared with Zaṭallī's account of the turmoil after the death of Aurangzeb. (See below.)

The second tells of the Black Death, bubonic plague, in Agra during 1616, the first time the city was visited by that pestilence. Anyone who has been in India during a plague epidemic will realize the force of his words, the rats dying, the spread of the disease among the people, the glandular swellings, the sudden deaths, the mortality among the physicians, the despair and flight of the townsfolk afraid even to partake of food.

In the Bahman Yašt, ii, 49, there is an interesting list of geographical names. The readings of two MSS. of the Pahlavi Text as well as the Pāzand version (unhappily Pāzand far inferior to that of the Mēnōkē χrat) are available, the Pahlavi in the facsimile of K 20 (fol. 135 recto, 1. 4 et seq.) published by the University of Copenhagen, 1931, and the edition of Dastūr Nosherwān Kaikobād Ādarbād, The Pahlvi Zand i Vôhûman Yasht, 1899, a copy of a MS. dated 554 A.Y., and the Pāzand in Antia, Pazend Texts, p. 339 seq. Translations of ii, 49, have been attempted by West, SBE., v, p. 209, by Dastūr Nosherwān in his edition, and also by Markwart in Caucasica, vi, 1, 54, and in A Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of Eranshahr, p. 69, an edition of the šahrīhā i Ērān. But as finality in the translation of Pahlavi texts is hard to attain, yet another attempt is here offered. The text is as follows:—

According to Manu the samskāras, or Hindu initiation rites, are twelve in number, but by other early Indian writers the list is variously estimated as from ten to sixteen or even more. In the Siamese Brahmanical books the number laid down is ten, and these rites are known as “ the ten auspicious ceremonies ” (bidhī daśamaṅgala), but there are in addition some ceremonies in connection with conception and birth which would bring the number up to sixteen or more. The latter remain in force, but of “ the ten auspicious ceremonies ” most are obsolete and the only ones that are still in general favour are the shaving of the first hair of the newborn, the giving of the first name to the child, and the tonsure; while the ceremony which we are about to consider has been performed up to modern times, but for princes and princesses of the highest rank only. With the exception of the tonsure, which was made the subject of a scholarly monograph by the late Colonel Gerini,2 none of these ceremonies has ever been seriously studied by European scholars. This is perhaps in the main due to the difficulty of obtaining information on account of their private or domestic nature and the fact that there is little mention of them in Siamese literature. But since the river-bathing ceremony of , like their tonsure, is of a semi-public and very spectacular nature, some interesting official records of it have been preserved.

Marau Sound lies at the south-east end of the island called Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. There is no native name for the Sound as a whole, and it received its present name owing to the fact that the island which lies at the eastern entrance to the Sound is called Marau, i.e. Island. Other islands in the Sound are named Peura, Sinamairuka (Sinamailuka), Tawaihi, Marapa. The last-named island, Marapa (Malapa), is the “ home of the dead ” for the peoples of the South-East Solomons. The local native name for the hill districts above the Sound is Kera. The name which was given both to the Sound, and to the coastal districts of the mainland near, by the first white visitors in modern days, Bishops G. A. Selwyn and J. C. Patteson, is Gera, which is the name used of the Sound by the people of San Cristoval. The people of the Sound are immigrants from Wairokai, Waisisi, Wairoha, and Uhu on the west coast of Big Mala, and their language is closely allied to that of Oroha, Little Mala, and Areare, the language spoken at Wairokai, etc. It is probable that the first migration from Mala to the Sound settled at Marau, the island at the eastern entrance. There is a ghost called Huu ni nima connected with Marau Island, who is said to have led the migration. War and fighting are said to have been the reasons which led to the migration. The present Mala people were already occupying the islands in the Sound at the time of the visit of the Spanish explorers in 1568, as is shown by the fact that they acted as guides and took the Spaniards to the neighbourhood of Wairokai and Waisisi.