On savait depuis longtemps que Hamdullāh al Mustaufī al-Kazwīnī, dans la partie d'histoire naturelle de son Nuzhatu-’l-ḳulūb de 1339, avait donné les noms de beaucoup d'animaux, et parfois de minéraux et de plantes, en turc et en mongol, mais le texte n'était accessible qu'en manuscrit ou dans une médiocre édition lithographique de Bombay parue en 1893-4.

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.

An important passage which has often been treated, but not so far satisfactorily, is found on page 186 of the Iranian text of the Bundahišn, lines 11–12,

that is, but dēv ān kē-š pat Hindūkān paristēnd api-š vaχš pat ān butīhā mēhmān <i > čēegōn bōδˇāsaf paristēt: “the demon But is that which they worship in India and in his images a spirit is resident which is worshipped as Bōδāsaf.”

Alchemy, on the rare occasions when it has been made the subject of reasonable inquiry, has usually been studied as part of what one may call the pre-history of science. But if, to use a favourite phrase, we are to see in alchemy merely “the cradle of chemistry”, are we not likely, whatever its initial charm, to lose patience with an infancy protracted through some fifteen centuries?

It is certain in any case that another aspect of alchemy—its interest as a branch of cultural history—has hitherto been strangely neglected. Mr. Walter Scott, for example, omits alchemistic writings from his great edition of the Hermetica on the odd ground that they are merely “masses of rubbish”. But if texts are to be dismissed as rubbish because they contain beliefs that we cannot share, I see no reason why the religious and philosophical parts of the Hermetica (and with them many books which to-day enjoy a far wider popularity) should continue to claim attention.

Dans la plus ancienne cosmologie védique, l'univers est partagé en deux zones: le monde d'en haut lumineux, ou monde des dieux (devaloka); le monde d'en bas sombre, ou monde des mânes (pitloka).1 Cette conception dualistique, qui remonte sans doute a la période indo-iranienne, s'est developpee dans l'lran et y a pris un aspect théologique et moral: Ohrmazd, qui personnifie la lumière et le bien, s'oppose à Ahriman qui symbolise les tèébres et le mal.

Dans l'lnde, l'ancienne cosmologie a bientôt ètè remplacèe par une division de l'univers en trois mondes: ciel, atmosphère, terre; et, comme l'a nettement ètabli Emile Senart, la thèorie des guna est en relation avec cette sèrie de trois mondes. Le problème que je me propose d'examiner est le suivant: quelles croyances, quelles conceptions ont dèterminè une nouvelle segmentation de l'univers et prèsidè à, l'èlaboration de la thèorie des guna ?

The apocalypse proceeds to describe three episodes of rulers who are to appear respectively in .XVarāsān, NēmrōČ, and PatašXvārgar and to be followed by the coming of Pišyōθn, son of Vištāsp. The language touches that of the Bahman Yašt at many points. Religious views are closely interwoven. The “Xvarr of PatašXvārgar” is of interest, as are also the revelation of many mysteries by Mihr Yazd,and Mihr's conflict with Ēšm. The druž Vat-yavakān seems not to be known elsewhere.

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 the course of a description of India Strabo makes the following statement, apparently drawn from a source other than theMemoirs of Megasthenes (Geogr. xv, C. 719): “they mention as philosophers in opposition to the Brahmans the Pramnai, who are addicted to wrangling and refutation; and [they say] the Brahmans study natural science and astronomy, but are derided by the others [i.e. the Pramnai] as impostors and fools.”

Dans toutes les inscriptions d’Asoka recueillies sur la côte orientale et dans le bassin du Gange, l’ēquivalence: As.e ═ skr. –aḥ est constante et doit s’interprēter phonētiquement. C’est le cas pour les nominatifs singuliers thēmatiques masculins comme devānaảpiye, et accessoirement pour l’ancien neutre dāne; dans les thēmes en -non a nom. pl. Iājāne, gēn. sg. piyadasine Iājine; dans les thèmes en –r-, nom. pi. natāle; dans les pronoms, ne, ve; il faut ajouter –te adverbial exprimant l’origine dans mukhate, Takhasilāte, mamate (cf. Woolner, I, p. xxvi; le verbe kaleti n’a bien entendu rien à faire ici).

In connection with an invitation I had received to make a supple-ment to Steingass's Persian dictionary I happened to ask a young Persian friend of mine who was staying in London if he would go through Steingass and note any important omissions. The name of my friend was Mr. M. A. Maliki, and when I made this request I knew very little about his linguistic attainments. By good fortune he turned out to have a really astonishing feeling for language and a very special knowledge of his mother tongue.

This monument is found somewhat farther to the East than the two foregoing ones, about 48° N. and a little more than 107° W. of Greenwich, near a place said to have the name of Bain Chokto, between the Nalaikha post-station and the right bank of the upper waters of the Tola. The inscription is graven on two pillars that are still standing upright; on the first and larger of these the inscription starts on one of the narrow sides, the one turned to the West, and is continued round towards South, East, and North. On the other one, the inscription, which is a direct continuation of that on the larger stone, likewise begins on the West side, but here this is one of the broad sides. The latter stone is more weathered than the first, and the inscription from the very beginning not being here so carefully incised as on the other. On both stones the inscriptions are written in vertical lines as in the Orkhon inscriptions; but with this difference that while the lines in the latter read from right to left here they read from left to right.

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.

In the last fifteen hundred years the Japanese have borrowed thousands of Chinese words and idioms, which have eventually brought the Japanese language into a state of utter confusion. Such borrowing, it would seem, had its beginning some centuries before its remarkable development in the fifth century A.D., which may be called the period of demarcation dividing the Chinese loan-words into two classes, the early loans and the later, each having certain phonetic characteristics.

The early loan-words, which, unlike the vast majority of their later confreres, seem to have been thoroughly naturalized already in the seventh century A.D., attracted the attention of the English sinologist, E. H. Parker, in the 'eighties, but the investigation has since then been discarded almost entirely because of the insufficiency of knowledge possessed of the ancient phonetic values of the Chinese characters.

However, thanks to the untiring labour of Karlgren, Maspero, Simon, and other sinologists, we are now in a more favourable position for an inquiry into the early relationship between the two languages, and the problem has since been taken up afresh by Karlgren himself, who, in his most interesting little book Philology and Ancient China, suggests twenty-two Japanese words as probable early loans from Chinese.1 Of these I need only quote a few that have direct bearing upon the present subject.

Der Name für „Garten“ lautet im Arabischen . Er ist wohl aus dem syr. , aram. übernommen. Auch im Hebräischen kommt neben dem gewöhnlich gebrauchten auch , (st. constr. ) vor, welchem genau das arab. entspricht. Im Ḳurān kommt in der allgemeinen Bedeutung „Garten“ in 2, 268 u.s., Dual 18, 31 u.s., PI. 6, 99 u.s. vor. Der Garten, in welchem das erste Menschenpaar seinen Aufenthaltsort hatte, heisst hebr. , Gen. 2, 15; 3, 23. 24. Wenn (ohne ) in diesen Abschnitten gebraucht wird, so wird es immer mit dem Artikel versehen, es ist. „der Garten (Eden)“. übersetzt Onkelos immer .

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.

As the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa is, among Western scholars, Sanskritists as well as non-Sanskritists, the most popular and best-known of the Brāhmaṇas, it may be of use to publish a list of corrections of Eggeling's translation in the Sacred Books of the East, vols. xii, xxvi, xli, xliii, and xliv. For previously proposed corrections the reader may be referred to the Vienna Oriental Journal (W.Z.K.M., vols. xxiii and xxvi) and the German Oriental Journal (Z.D.M.G., vol. lxxii). The accents in the citations have been neglected, except when they are required for understanding the text.

All students of Chinese must be grateful to Miss Edwards for introducing them to this quaint and little-known work of the poet Li Shang-yin (see Bull. S.O.S., vol. v, pp. 757–85). Not only has she given a vigorous and idiomatic rendering of the sayings, but she has also had the courage to include the Chinese text, transcribed from the T‘ang tai ts‘ung shu, a work which is not likely to be in every reader's library. I cannot agree, however, with her remark that “the meaning of the sayings seems clear enough”.

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.

It is too well known to need more than a formal repetition here that two of the Rock Edicts of Aśoka mention as his contemporaries a number of kings of the West, the foremost of which is a certain Antiochus. The most important passage is that of the Edict XIII (P–Q), which I quote from the only version that is here wholly preserved, viz. that of Shāhbāzgaṛhī:—

ayi ca mukhamutavijaye Devanaṃpriyasa yo dhramavijayo ║ so ca puna ladho Devanaṃpriyasa iha ca sareṣu ca aṃteṣu[a] ṣaṣu pi yojanaśateṣu yatra Aṃtiyoko nama Yonaraja paraṃ ca tena Atiyokena cature 4 rajani Turamaye nama Aṃtikini nama Maka nama Alikasudaro nama ║

I Give below a portion of the Pahlavi Žāmāsp-Nāmak with notes. The text is easily accessible in J. J. Modi's Jâmâspi, Pahlavi Pâzend and Persian Texts, 1903, Bombay, and, for a part only, in West's edition in Avesta, Pahlavi, and Ancient Persian Studies, 1904. It has, therefore, seemed unnecessary to reprint the Pahlavi. West used a MS., entitled DP., of the late Shams ul Ulama Dastur Dr. Peshotanji Behramji Sanjana (West, loc. cit.), for the other MSS. see Modi's introduction, loc. cit. I have noted the chief discrepancies only (Modi's MSS. are quoted as “ MSS.”, or separately as MU.,DE.).