The interest in ‘Omar Khayyám is perennial, not only among those who can only appreciate FitzGerald's masterly version, but also among those who can study the Persian poet at first hand: and within the last few years notable contributions have been made to the biography of 'Omar and more critical examination of the verses attributed to him. It is with this last subject that I wish to deal in the present article.

In my Foreword to the fifth volume of The Ocean of Story (Mr. Penzer's reprint of Tawney's translation), I had occasion to discuss the well-known Burzoë Legend, which forms part of the preliminary matter in Ibn Muqaffa's Kalila wa Dimna. This legend relates how Burzoë, a physician at the court of Anushirwan the Just, was sent to India to discover a wonderful book of wisdom, how after infinite pains he found it, and having translated it, brought back a Pahlavi version to the Persian monarch. The story is too well known to need repetition, nor am I here concerned with the question of its origin.

The chinese have held to the architectural standards of the past no less tenaciously than to other traditions of their ancient civilization. Buildings standing at the present day testify to this fact, and innumerable written records indicate a continuity of architectural practice lasting more than 2,000 years. The probability is that foreign importation has affected Chinese architecture least of all the arts.

While busying himself with reviewing, for this Bulletin, vols. iii–v of Professor von Le Coq' great work Die Buddhistische Spätantike in Mittelasien the present writer had an opportunity of making a somewhat closer acquaintance also with Professor Grünwedel's very important book Altbuddhistische Kultstätten in Chinesisch-Turkistan (1912). Various Passages of this work, and most specially pp. 65–75, contain interesting descriptions and pictures of Jātakas (or Avadānas) found in the different caves in Eastern Turkestān Visited by Herren Grünwedel and von Le Coq.

Burushaski, the language of Hunza and Nagir, has not up to the present received any undue measure of attention.

The list of authorities in the Linguistic Survey of India is a short one containing only nine items. Of these only three are of serious importance:—

Dr. G. W. Leitner, The Languages and Races of Dardistan, Lahore, 1877.

Col. J. Biddulph, JRAS., vol. xvi, pt. i (1884), “The Boorishki Language,” being a corrected reprint of the Grammar and Vocabulary of the language, published in his Tribes of the Hindu Rush, Calcutta, 1880.

Dr. G. W. Leitner. The Hunza and Nagyr Handbook, pt. i, Calcutta, 1889.

In drawing attention to some of the archaic features of Khowar (Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan, p.71), Dr. Morgenstierne says: “The preservation of t as r … is a very archaic feature, with parallels only, to some extent, in Shina, some Kohistani dialects and Romany.”

Jnānadeva's commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, completed in the year A.D. 1290 as recorded in the iti śrī in chapter xviii, shows, after making allowances for the errors and glosses of copyists, the state of the Marāthī language at the end of the thirteenth century A.D. The oldest known existent copy is dated by the poet Ekanātha in the Śaka year 1506, corresponding to A.D. 1584.

In the fourth volume of the Linguistic Survey of India, which includes most of the important varieties of Dravidian, Konow has tried to classify the languages described. Evidently Kanara goes with Tamil, Gondi with Kui, and Kurukh with Malto, while Brâhui and Telugu do not seem to be closely related to any of the other main divisions. Unfortunately the Linguistic Survey fails to give accounts of Kodagu (the language of Coorg) and Tulu.

One of the most popular stories in India and East Asia is the story of the adventures of Rāma, whose consort Sītī is carried off by the giant king Rāvana. From this event proceeds a great war, which leads to the destruction of the tyrant and the return of Sītā.

The material for the study presented here is derived from two sources: (1) grammatical and linguistic notes, sentences, and texts prepared by Bishop Patteson at the Melanesian Mission Headquarters at Kohimarama, Auckland, New Zealand, in the years 1863–4, and subsequently included by H. C. von der Gabelentz in the second part of his Melanesischen Sprachen, 1873; (2) grammatical and linguistie notes collected by myself, along with a certain number of words, in the year 1925 at Sa'a, Mala. This is the only study of the language made since 1873.

The text of Jānakī-harana xvi, published by Dr. L. D. Barnett in BSOS., vol. iv, pt. ii, pp. 285 f., from an old Malayalam MS., gives me an opportunity of furnishing readings of the same text from another MS. recently acquired by the Madras Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, of which a certified transcript exists in the Dacca University Library. The acquisition of this MS. by the Madras Library was reported in their Report of the Working of the Peripatetic Party, during the Triennium 1916–17–18–19.