The Candimā-sutta or ‘discourse on the moon’ in the Samyuttanikāya of the Pali canon based on the Indian myth according to which eclipses of the moon as well as of the sun are caused by a demon named Rāhu ‘the Seizer’, who is supposed to try to lay hold of one or the other of the two planets at certain times. The Sutta reports that on such an occasion the god dwelling in the moon takes his refuge in the Buddha who successfully shows his power and pity by directing Rāhu emphatically to set the moon at once at liberty.

Between October 1963 and August 1964 the writer was engaged in linguistic field-work in the Cairns Rain Forest of North Queensland, while employed as Research Officer by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Intensive studies were made of the Dyirbal, Giramay, and Mamu languages, and linguistic descriptions of these languages are at present being prepared for publication. In 1942 Tindale had mentioned a language that he called ‘Barbaram’, spoken on top of the Dividing Range about 70 miles inland from Cairns. Entirely on the basis of the 11 words Tindale quoted, it seems, Mbabaram acquired a reputation of mystery, and has been singled out as one of the two Australian languages which seem least able to be fitted into the linguistic pattern of the continent. Recent work by Hale on 30 Cape York languages seemed to emphasize the possible uniqueness of Mbabaram.

Some years ago I received from the India Office Library a xerox copy of a short document found at Kew among the papers of Sir Joseph Hooker, with an inquiry as to whether it was a permit for him to travel in Sikkim for the botanical research described in his Himalayan Journals (1854/1905). I knew enough Lepcha to be able to report to the India Office Library that the 42 lines of Lepcha script (romanized and translated at (II) below) were some sort of statement of accounts in East India Company rupees (kúm-pá-nyi kóm tsu; line 1); but I was not able to arrive at the sense of the text in detail until my present stay in Kalimpong again put me in touch with Lepchas, especially Mr. A. Foning, of the Kalimpong Lepcha Association, whose help it is a pleasure to acknowledge.

Among the numerous extant manuscripts of the Lao-tzu, Tao te ching perhaps the best known, apart from the famous Ma wang tui manuscripts discovered in Hunan province in 1973 and the Hsiang erh chu manuscript from Tun Huang (important primarily for its commentary), is the long fragment known as the So Tan manuscript, currently in the private collection of Mr. John B. Elliott and through his generosity on extended loan to the University Art Museum at Princeton. The manuscript is said to have been a part of the Tun Huang finds of the turn of the century. It appears to be one of the few of those manuscripts that remained in China after its discovery rather than immediately finding its way to France, England, or some other Western country. It moved from private collector to private collector, from Peking to Hong Kong to Japan and back again, only becoming a part of the John B. Elliott collection relatively recently.

Among the well known stories of Indian mythology there is one relating how the god Mahādeva (Śiva) became four-faced and how Indra acquired a thousand eyes. When the divine maiden (divyakanyā) Tilottamā circumambulated the gods, the eyes of all save Pitāamaha (Brahmā) followed her, whence the multiplication of faces and eyes. Indeed, the great epic relates that upon orders from Brahmā, she, consisting of a mass of gems (ratnasaṃghātamayī), was originally fashioned by Viśvakarman. In Indian mythology the figure of Tilottamā is therefore that of the beauty of woman incarnate.