In his fundamental study of the Dome of the Rock Professor K. A. C. Creswell discusses the date of the ceilings, and in connection with this he draws attention to some interesting facts discovered in 1873 by Dr. Thomas Chaplin: “There is a very old carved wooden cornice still running round the building in the space between the ceiling and roof of the outer corridor on the inner wall of the latter, just above the ceiling.” And further: the roof of this outer ambulatory was found to have Kufic inscriptions on one beam and on “6 or 8 more rafters” in the name of the ‘Abbāsid Khalif al-Muqtadir bi'llāh (295–320 H./908–32 a.d.).

Dr. Kalika Ranjan Qanungo's short work “Studies in Rajput History” consists of six lectures on the history of Rajasthan. The first is entitled “A Critical Analysis of the Padminī Legend”, and we disagree with Dr. Qanungo in many vital points, the most important of which is his theory on the main cause of the sack of Chitor by ‘Alā-ud-Dīn Khaljī. His error is linked up with his confusion about the various chiefs named Ratnasiṁha mentioned by different sources.

I. The Gandhāra and Mathurā Schools of Art made a revolutionary contribution to the traditions and history of Buddhist art. Early Buddhist art was aniconic. At Bhārhut, Sānchi and Amaravātī before the 1st century a.d., the Buddha was represented only in symbols; a riderless horse, the tree or wheel, stūpa, and the rest indicated the great renunciation, enlightenment, preaching of the doctrine and the nirvāṇa. In Gandhāra and Mathurā art, however, the Buddha was represented in human form, and many sculptures representing bodhisattvas have been found in Gandhāra.