The Cairo Geniza is surely the most important manuscript source for the study of Judaeo-Arabic texts, that is to say, texts whose language is Arabic written in Hebrew characters. This paper is an overall survey of the Judaeo-Arabic material in the 54 Arabic boxes of the Old Series in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection. This collection which is housed in the Cambridge University Library is the largest collection of Geniza pieces to be found in any one place, with some 140,000 fragments. The Judaeo-Arabic material we are specifically dealing with here comprises some 7,000 manuscript fragments, research on which is now being prepared for publication. The discussion is limited to present research; it does not include references to other oriental collections such as the Firkovitch in St. Petersburg, which comprises not only fragments but codices (some almost complete) and a much wider range of Karaite Arabic material. As the Firkovitch collection is at last becoming more accessible, its contents will obviously need to be studied at a later stage in relation to the Cambridge Geniza material.

Taking as a yardstick the number of copies made (and commentaries provoked), there can be little doubt that the most influential of all Arabic treatises on music has been the kitāb al-Adwār (referred to henceforth as KA) by Safi al-Dīn 'Abd al-Mu'min b. Yūsuf b. Fākhir al-Urmawī (d. 693/1294). Nevertheless, despite its obvious historical significance, this seminal work still awaits a satisfactory critical edition, one of the most important tasks of which should be to investigate the complex relationship between the form(s) in which it is now known and the markedly different version found in an Istanbul MS, Süleymaniye Fatih 3662 (referred to henceforth as F). Pending the more thorough analysis that should attend publication, an attempt is made in the present article to provide a general introduction to this hitherto neglected text.

Among the thousands of Jaina images found throughout India, those from Mathura produced during the Kuṣāṇa period are unique, for they alone contain representations of unclothed Jaina ascetics holding a single small piece of cloth in such a way as to cover their nudity. These curious figures cannot be identified with monks of the present-day Jaina sects of the Digambaras, who practise total nudity, or of the Śvetāmbaras, who wear two long pieces of unstitched white cloth wrapped around their bodies and occasionally a white blanket over their left shoulders. The veteran art-historian, the late Dr. U. P. Shah, in Aspects of Jaina art and architecture briefly mentions these figures, noting that ‘nowhere in the above references from Śvetāmbara as well as Digambara texts do we come across a reference to those figures on the siṃhāsanaof a Jina which we find in a number of sculptures of the Kuṣāṇa period from the Kaṅkāli Tīlā.’ Subsequently, in Jaina-Rūpa-Maṇḍano, he calls these figures ardhaphālakas (monks with partial covering) and speculates that these figures might be Yāpanīya monks, another Jaina sect that is now extinct, and states that these figures need further investigation. In addition to Shah, N. P. Joshi has also discussed these ardhaphālaka images. He states that ‘all the monks seen in the bas-reliefs, except one known to me, seem to belong to the Ardhaphālaka sect. … Besides the monks seen in the bas-reliefs, those hovering in the air (vidyā cāraṇas) or seen on some of the śilāpaṭṭāsare all Ardhaphālakas. This suggests that during the pre-Christian and early Christian centuries a large number of Jainas at Mathura followed this sect’.

Figures of repetition occur very early in Sanskrit literature. In the oldest stratum, the hymns of the Rgveda, this phenomenon seems to be restricted to the repetition of words with the same meaning, its function being either to express continuation or regularity, i.e. in the case when a single word, normally an adverb, is duplicated (āmreḍita, e.g. dive-dive), or to give a special emphasis to a phrase, preferably at the end of a number of stanzas of a hymn (refrain type). Both kinds of repetition continue to be used in later literature, such as the Pāli Jātakas and the two epics, Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa.

Among the well known stories of Indian mythology there is one relating how the god Mahādeva (Śiva) became four-faced and how Indra acquired a thousand eyes. When the divine maiden (divyakanyā) Tilottamā circumambulated the gods, the eyes of all save Pitāamaha (Brahmā) followed her, whence the multiplication of faces and eyes. Indeed, the great epic relates that upon orders from Brahmā, she, consisting of a mass of gems (ratnasaṃghātamayī), was originally fashioned by Viśvakarman. In Indian mythology the figure of Tilottamā is therefore that of the beauty of woman incarnate.

The eighth/fourteenth-century chronicle known as Ta'rīkh al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qal¯wūn wa-awlādihi was edited from the unique exemplar (Berlin, MS Ar. 9833 We. 7) and published with a German translation by Dr. Barbara Schäfer, who had already produced a full preliminary study of the work. The name of the chronicler appears in a single place in the manuscript (f. 116a) as Shams b. al-Shujā'ī. Schäfer regards the correct form of the name as being Shams al-Dīn al-Shujā'ī, as it is given in Ḥājjī Khalīfa's Kashf al-zunūn. The chronicler's only other personal reference (f. 21 Ob) is to his participation in the Pilgrimage of 745/1345, while a textual reference (f. 124b) indicates that he was alive in 756/1355–6. Schāfer found no references to al-Shujā'ī in contemporary sources, although he was mentioned by the later chronicler, Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba (779–851/1377–1448), who actually possessed this manuscript.

In Tibetan Studies, Peking, 1990, there was an article on an early inscription on a stone pillar at Ra Grwa dgon-pa in the Tolung valley west of Lhasa. Unfortunately I have mislaid it apart from a copy of the inscription which, as the authors say, contains words that are difficult to read and others which are completely illegible. In addition, as in all eye-copies, I found dubious readings; also there appeared to be a lack of punctuation signs, and the text was shown continuously, not divided into lines. It was, therefore, desirable to obtain a photographic record and this has been generously supplied by Mr Anthony Aris who visited the place in 1992. His assistant also made an eye-copy of the text.

Edward Harold Stuart Simmonds, who died on November 9, 1994 aged 75, will be remembered as one of the few distinguished scholars who combined a knowledge of both the languages and the literatures of Thailand and Laos, and who, between 1951 and 1967 succeeded almost single-handedly in establishing the study of Tai languages, literature and culture in Britain at university level.