In Sino-Tibetan (1972) P. K. Benedict has offered two different accounts of the significance, for Tibeto-Burman (TB) and Sino-Tibetan (ST) reconstruction, of the three types of ‘vocalic alternation’ in the Written Tibetan (WT) verb, a/a/o, e/a/o and o/a/o. His original account (c. 1942–3) reads: ‘Tibetan, however, shows a puzzling type of vocalic alternation in its verbs, in which stems in a regularly take o in the imperative and often either o or e in the present… The e of the present stem is possibly to be interpreted as an effect of the prefixed element’- <*a- [ə-]. Similarly, the o of the imperative stem has perhaps been conditioned by an archaic imperative suffixc -o…' (pp. 126–7). His revised version (1972) reads: ‘The Chinese vowels cannot be explained without setting up a 7-vowel system for ST … and Tibetan verb forms reflect this early system as follows:

ST/TB *a = T aa (no alternation, except in the imperative)

ST/TB *â = T ao

ST/TB *ə = T ae

We can now, by way of illustration, reconstruct TB *g-sât (T gsod-pa, Pf.bsad) …; also TB*səm “breath, voice, spirit”: T sem(s)-pa. Pf. semsbsams “think” …' (p. 126, n. 344).

The horizontal division of Indian societies into hierarchically ranked castes and sub-castes has been the subject of a considerable literature, and recent anthropological studies of individual villages have largely concentrated on analysing the function and interrelation of such caste groups. The internal organization or vertical divisions of endogamous castes have, on the other hand, received little attention, though the work of Louis Dumont in Tamilnad, of Kathleen Gough in Malabar, and of Adrian C. Mayer in Madhya Bharat, which is for the most part still unpublished, promises to throw considerable light on the internal structure of castes in these areas.

Among the numerous Kharosthi documents recovered from Chinese Turkestan and transcribed and edited by A. M. Boyer, E. J. Rapson, and E. Senart, is one which is in many ways unique. This is the oblong wooden tablet which is numbered 661 in the second volume of these scholars' Kharosthī Inscriptions, where there is given on plate 12 a photographic reproduction of the document in question. It is one of the few documents discovered at Endere, which seems in ancient times to have been a sort of military fort situated about halfway between Charchan (Calmadāna of the inscriptions) and Nina or Niya (Cad'ota). Not only does it show some marked peculiarities of alphabet, dialect, and general style of composition, but as can be seen from the reproduction the form of writing also is quite unusual.

It is written in a very stiff and archaic form of script, but the ink is fresh and the writing is very well preserved and clear and Konow is probably right when he says in his paper on “ The Names of the Kings in the Niya documents ”, published in Acta Orientalia, that “ it does not seem possible to ascribe a late date to E. vi, ii, i, which is probably not an original but a copy from an old tablet ”. Various indications supporting this view of a very early date for the original of this document will be noticed in the course of the following commentary. For the sake of convenience of reference, I repeat the text of the inscription here.

The document here edited is one of the large collection of papers presented by B. H. Hodgson to the library of the India Office, being vol. 29, no. 8 (34/3), ff. 48–51. At the top of the first page is written, presumably by Hodgson,“Ethics and Ritual of Buddhism”; but the word“Ethics”here refers simply to the fact that the text is followed (ff. 52–53) by the standard lists of the ten kuśalas, the ten pāramitās, the four brahmavihāras, the thirty-seven bodhipāksika-dharmas, and so forth, the first two lists being given also in the body of the text. The main text gives in outline the chief rites of Buddhism, daily, monthly, and annual ceremonies (forming, so to speak, a Buddhist “Church′s Year ”), followed by accounts of the thirteen sacraments.

The Mahasin al-majalis of Ibn al-'Arif (†536/1141) is a Sufi treatise of minor dimensions and inconsiderable importance, one of a multitude of such summaries that bridge the gap between the classical works of Kalabadhi, Qushairi, and Makki, and the phenomenal productivity of Ibn al-'Arabi. For all that, the essay (for it is little more) is not without interest; it is allusive and elliptical in style, thus affording material for commentators; and the author begins his discourse proper by quoting, though not by name, the Mawdqif of Niffari; as Ibn al-'Arabi afterwards used Ibn al-'Arif quite freely and approvingly, it is always possible that he got to know and take an interest in Niffari through this intermediary.

Burrow and Emeneau (1961, p. xiii, n. 3) have observed that ‘Ta. and Ma. seem to have evidence for two phonemes [/n/, the dental and /ṉ/, the alveolar]a in PDr., but the matter is not yet clear’. This is mainly due to the non-availability of data about the distribution of these phonemes in those two languages and the allophonic distribution, if any, in other languages. With the help of increased material available now, an attempt is made in this paper to find out the history of the development of the two nasal phonemes in Ta. and Ma. and to establish their allophonic nature in PDr. Since definite information about the phonetic nature of the phoneme /n/ is not available for languages such as Kui, Parji, Nk. [Ch.] etc., this study is incomplete to some extent.

L'Ekottarāgama, ou ‘Corpus des enseignements gradués’, est un recueil de textes bouddhiques, parallèle á 1'Anguttaranikāya du Canon pali. II n'est connuen sa totalité que par une unique traduction chinoise: le Tseng-i a-han ching.

Le moine tokharien Dharmanandin qui connaissait par coeur le Madhyama et l'Ekottarāgama arriva è Ch'angan en 384 p.-C. et, sur l'invitation du magistrat local Chao Cheng, entreprit de publier ces deux ceuvres indiennes en chinois. La traduction de l'Ekottara commenca le 7 mai 384 et se termina en novembrede la même année ou au printemps de l'année suivante. Dharmanandin ‘récita oralement le texte indigène’, c'est-è-dire l'original indien; les śramaṇes chinois Hui-sung, Chu Fo-nien, et d'autres ‘reçurent au pinceau’.

Among the Ethiopic manuscripts in the British Museum, which originate from the Emperor Theodore's Magdala collection, were two copies of the Kebra Nagast ‘Glory of the Kings’, the Ethiopian national saga, catalogued as Orient. 818 and 819 (=Wright, Catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS in the BM, NO. CCXCI). But Orient. 819, written during the reign of the Emperor Iyasu I (1682–1706), was returned to Ethiopia in circumstances which throw a dramatic light on the paramount importance of this work. In August 1872, the Emperor Yohannes of Ethiopia wrote to Queen Victoria and to Earl Granville, the British Foreign Secretary, and requested the return of the Kebra Nagast which had been taken to England by the Napier expedition in 1868.

In 1767 Sir William “borrowed from Dr. Russel and copied the keys of the Chinese language, which he wished to learn” (Life, p. 78). In 1770 he wrote to Count Reviczki, “I succeeded in comparing one of the Odes with the version of Couplet and analysed every word, or more properly every figure in it.” Couplet's version (in Latin) had appeared about a hundred years previously. This is presumably the Ode that Sir William subsequently turned into Latin verse (Works, vol. x, p. 317). Reviczki replied (possibly with slight irony), “Pray inform me when you learned the Chinese language. I did not suspect that this was one of your accomplishments; but there are no bounds to your acquisitions as a linguist.” In 1771 Sir William writes to a friend, “I am sorry the characters you sent me are not Persian but Chinese, which I cannot decipher without a book which I have not at present.” It does not appear that after this period Sir William was ever able to devote time to Chinese linguistic studies. But in a “memorandum on objects of inquiry during my residence in Asia” which he drew up when on his way to India in 1783, he included “The Shi-King or 300 Odes”. The list was a very varied one, and also included “Britain discovered, an Heroic Poem on the Constitution of England. Model, Homer”. In 1790 he undertook to give the second Anniversary Discourse to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His subject was The Chinese. His sources dated chiefly from the end of the seventeenth century. He seems to have been unaware of the Mémoires concernant les Chinois, the bulk of which had already appeared. He told his audience (Works, vol. iii, p. 147), “Their philosophy seems yet in so rude a state as hardly to deserve the appellation,” and “of painting, sculpture, or architecture, as arts of the imagination, they seem (like other Asiatics) to have no idea”. He had probably not seen the essay, “Sur les beaux Arts de la Chine et principalement sur l'Architecture” that had appeared in Lettres d'un missionaire à Pekin, in 1782. Much of the rest of the discourse seems to be still founded on Couplet.