In a recent paper Dr. Bloch has made a valuable contribution to knowledge by publishing an edition and translation of the inscription on the colossal statue found at Sāheṭ-Māheṭ by Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1862–63. When Dr. Bloch published this paper he had not read my essay entitled “Kauśāmbī and Śrāvastī.” I have since sent him a copy of my paper, but he still adheres to the view expressed in his. I may therefore deal with Dr. Bloch's statement of opinion as if he had expressly considered my views and had rejected them. I propose in the following pages to defend my position.

These notes are the result of a personal examination of Brāhmī-Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions on coins published by Sir A. Cunningham in his Coins of Ancient India (London, 1891 = C. CAI. in the following pages), and now in the British Museum. I have selected here only those coins on which we find a Brāhmī inscription word by word confirmed by a Kharoṣṭhī inscription. The best known of these biliteral coins are those of the Kuṇindas, to which I have devoted another monograph which I hope to publish shortly. In this monograph I enter more fully into the discussion of certain questions of phonetics, which equally affect the inscriptions dealt with in the present article. By examining and comparing the readings thus given in both alphabets, we may hope to obtain some definite results as to the decipherment of the various forms of each. In the first place, an account is given of these forms as they occur in each inscription, so that they may be compared with those already known from other sources, and their readings determined in accordance with results already obtained. As a rule, these inscriptions exactly correspond, syllable for syllable, to each other. Such differences as do occur—e.g., in case-forms, in vowels, in varied representations of the same sound—are of great interest from the point of view of phonetics.

Among the tales that make up the well-known Kalilah and Dimnah cycle, or the Fables of Bidpai, there is one which has a history of its own. In the Syriac version published by Bickell, probably the oldest text available, it is called the “Gate of Bilar” (German translation, p. 93 ff.). In the Arabic recension, and in the Syriac which rests upon it, it is called similarly, “The Story of the Wise Bilar.” A full account of this text, together with an English rendering, has been given by I. G. N. Keith-Falconer (“Kalilah and Dimnah,” Cambridge, 1885, p. xxxi ff., 219 ff., and notes p.301 ff.). By referring the reader to these “notes” I can dispense with any lengthy discourse on the history of this chapter within the frame of the Panchatantra. In one form or another it has travelled, together with the rest of the book, from one country to another, always forming an integral portion of it. The curious point about this chapter is, that hitherto no Sanscrit text of it has as yet come to light. The reason assigned for its disappearance has been, that it is of a pronounced Buddhist character and that a humiliating position is given to the Brahmins in this tale. The Brahmins, not being able to modify it by some slight eliminations, have suppressed it entirely. To Schiefner is due the merit of discovering a Tibetan counterpart of it, thus making the Indian origin and Buddhist character of the tale perfectly clear.

The manuscript to which the present note refers was purchased by me at Śrīnagar in October, 1898. It is written in Śāradā characters, and contains the Gada, Sauptika, Strī, and Aśvamedha Parvans of the Mahābhārata. The manuscript acquired by me originally formed only a portion of a codex which must have contained the whole of the great Sanskrit epic. This is made clear by the curious notice I shall proceed to discuss, as well as by the fact that other portions of the codex have been seen by me in Śrīnagar during earlier visits. The whole must have formed two large folio volumes which, judging from the writing and the paper, were probably copied in the sixteenth century, or in the early part of the seventeenth. The manuscript is very carefully written, evidently by the hand of a Paṇḍit, and represents a very good specimen of the text of the Western recension of the Mahābhārata current in Kaśmīr.

Amongst the many interesting places that lie near the old town of Pragjotishpur or Ganhati is Aśwakrāntā, or, as some people call it, Aśwakrāntā. It is called Aśwakrāntā because the route of Krishna is said to have been viâ Aśwakrāntā when he was carrying off his bride, Rukmini (Aśwa ‘horse’ and krāntā ‘passed by’). If it is called Aśwakrāntā, it means the place where the horse was tired; klāntā meaning ‘tired’ or ‘ weary.’ It should also be remembered that r and l are often interchangeable. Compare Sukreshwar, which is often called Sukleshwar. Aśwakrāntā, or Aśwakrāntā, is on the north side of the Brahmaputra, a little to the west of the island of Umananda, which lies in the midst of the mighty Brahmaputra. The people at the temple show you various holes in the rock at Aśwakrāntā, which, they say, are the footprints of Krishṇna's horses. It is at this place that the people bathe during the Asokastami festival, the day when the current of the Brahmaputra is thought to flow backwards, the reverse current being popularly supposed to be the holy Gangā. The origin of the festival is said to be due to Aśwakrāntā having been the bathing-place of Rukminī. This goddess bathed in the river, but was annoyed by people staring at her from the opposite bank, upon which Krishṇa promptly interposed what is now known as the “ Ar parbat” as a screen.

Thanks to the investigations of Professor O. Franke and of Mr. A. Viktor Bergny the readings of practically all the known biliteral coin-legends in Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī characters may now be regarded as finally settled. In this field of Indian numismatics, as in so many others, General Sir A. Cunningham was a pioneer, and it is, therefore, in no way surprising that many of his readings of these inscriptions as given in his Coins of Ancient India require correction. It is only within the last few years that the progress of the study of Indian epigraphy has made a scholarly treatment of this subject possible.

In a recent number of the Journal (July, 1899, p. 671 seq.) I briefly described a manuscript, now in my possession, of the Risāalatu'l-Ghufrān, and promised to give some further account of it at an early date. The work in question is mentioned by Safadil and probably, as I have shown, by Ḥājī Khalīfa. Dhahabī, in his list of Abū'l-'Alā's writings, includes it tacitly under the heading dīvānu'l-rasā'il, but he makes ample amends by setting it in the very forefront of his article on Abū'l-'Alā, which begins:

To the curious book of which the full title stands at the head of this article, I have already alluded in my communication to the Journal of January, 1899, on The Sources of Dawlatsháh, pp. 51–53. I now propose to give such account of its contents as is possible within the limits here prescribed. For this purpose I have made use of the Cambridge Codex (belonging to the Burckhardt Collection) marked QQ. 225. Though the book is a rare one, at least three other manuscripts are known — two in the British Museum (see the old Arabic Catalogue, pp. 418 and 581) and one (marked A. 1741) at Gotha. The last was used by Professor Nöldeke, in his reference to the Niháyat, at pp. 475–476 of his excellent Geschichte … der Sasaniden. He describes it as “in the main a quite arbitrary recension of Dínawarí, though here [namely, in the Romance of Bahrám Chúbin] it had before it an essentially fuller text than this,” and briefly characterizes it as “das seltsame, ziemlich schwindelhafte Werk.”

In pursuance of the plan set forth in my article on the Sources of Dawlatsháh (J.R.A.S. for Jan., 1899, pp. 37–69), I propose in this place to give a translation of that section (the sixth of the fifth chapter) of the Táríkh-i- Guzída which treats of the Persian poets. On the importance of that excellent historical manual, which I hope to include in my Persian Text Series, I have already insisted in the above-mentioned article (pp. 39, 40, and 53–54); and of this particular section, to which my attention was especially directed by the references made to it by Dawlatsháh, I long ago prepared a text and translation. These I was more than once on the point of publishing, but certain difficulties remained, on each revision, insoluble; and I waited in the hope of obtaining further material or fuller light. Of these difficulties the chief were the so-called “Pahlaví” (i.e. dialect) verses of Abu'l-Májid Ráyagání, U'yánj or U'tánj, Júláha of Abhar, 'Izzu'd-Dín Hamadání, Káfí-i-Karají, and other poets, who, not content with the classical language, chose to employ the dialects of their native places as the vehicle of their thoughts. These dialects have, in most cases, either become extinct, or undergone great changes, since the time when the Táríkh-i-Guzída was written (a.h. 730 = a.d. 1330); and since we possess but little knowledge of them, while such fragments as are preserved have generally been hopelessly mutilated and corrupted by a succession of scribes, copying one from another, to whom they were as unintelligible as they are to us, there is but little hope that we shall ever arrive at a complete understanding of them.

As there is still much uncertainty as to use of these terms, found exclusively, of course, in Mahāyāna texts, I have brought together a series of passages in which the expressions occur, and would venture to draw one or two conclusions from the manner in which they are used.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to present an account of the contents of a document, which needs some special acquaintance with the details of village history to understand it, but which possesses considerable interest since it is the earliest known account of a local group of Indian villages written by an European observer.

In January last, having heard that important ruins at a place called Sohnāg, in the eastern part of the Gorakhpur District, where I was then stationed as Commissioner, were being excavated for bricks by a railway contractor, I caused the work to be suspended until inquiries should be made, and on the 14th January visited the ruins. The buildingdisclosed by the excavations is of such a remarkable character, unique indeed in its massive dimensions, so far as my knowledge extends, that it is desirable to place on record an accurate description of it.

The information contained in the following notes on the MSS. of the Turkī text of Bābar's autobiography I have not seen put together elsewhere. It is offered as an ad interimcontribution towards a better knowledge of the Turkī text.

The Japji is the prayer which must be repeated every morning by all true Sikhs. It was composed by Baba Nanak in advanced years, and gives a brief summary of his idea of God, religion, ethics, and cosmogony. His views on these subjects are found much further expanded in his other compositions incorporated in the Ad Granth. The Sikhs regard the Japji as the key to the teaching of the early Gurus.

At the end of January of the year 1258 A.D., after a siege of more than a month, the Mongol array stormed and took possession of Baghdad; then, on or about the 18th of February following, the thirty-seventh and last Caliph of the House of Abbas, Al-Musta'ṣim-billah, was by order of Hūlāgū put to death. Concerning the manner of his death the accounts differ; unfortunately there has come down to us no narrative by an eye-witness of these events, for the only really contemporary historian, the author of the Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣirī, was a native of India and wrote at Delhi.

Malayalam is the language of the south-west of the Madras Presidency. It is the third most important language of the Presidency, the first and the second being Tamil and Telugu respectively. It is spoken in Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore. Out of a total of 5,932,207 inhabitants of these parts, 5,409,350 persons are those who speak Malayalam. These countries, taken as a whole, are bounded on the north, by South Canara, on the east by the far-famed Malaya range of mountains, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the west by the Arabian Sea.

The history of Aḥiḳar and his nephew Nadan forms part of Eastern popular literature. When publishing my history of Roumanian popular literature seventeen years ago (Bucureesti, 1883) I devoted a special chapter to the Roumanian versions of this history (pp. 104–114). I was the first to recognize the connection between the Roumanian and Slavonic versions and those contained in the Arabian Nights. I then drew attention to the intimate relation between this legend and that which has entered the Greek life of Æsop. Since that time scholars have paid much attention to this legend, especially as through Meissner's studies it is being considered as one of the lost Apocrypha mentioned already in the Book of Tobit.

The work of filling in the interstices left by Mr. Thomas in his Catalogue of Pathan Coins has of late made such steady progress, that the time would seem to have come to collect the scattered notices of new coins brought to light during the past twenty years, and to prepare a comprehensive catalogue of the coins of this period. Under present conditions the private collector, who desires to know how far his own coins add to the general knowledge, has to devote to his object an amount of research for which he is often little able to spare time, through journals and proceedings to which he possibly may not have easy access.

Since writing my last paper on the coins of the Pathán Sultáns of Dehli I have had the opportunity of examining with some minuteness the rich collections of the British Museum and Dr. L. White King, C.S.I. In the former are to be found the choicest specimens of General Cunningham's Muhammadan coins, of which many have already been brought to notice by Mr. Gibbs and Mr. C. J. Rodgers, but others are now, through the courtesy of the Museum authorities, described for the first time.

At p. 115 of Mr. William Foster's admirable edition of Sir Thomas Roe's Journal of his Embassy to the Court of the Great Mogul, 1615–1619, recently published by the Hakluyt Society, there is an engraving representing (amongst others) the Emperor Jahángír.