This article examines a group of ten Indonesian inscriptions citing a range of gāthās, mantras and dhāraṇīs. The texts, contextualized and in some cases read and identified for the first time, underline the pan-Asian character of Buddhism and the integral place the Indonesian archipelago once held in the ancient Buddhist world. The identification of the sources of several of these texts in known Sanskrit scriptures raises the question whether some of these texts, none of which survives as such in the archipelago, were once transmitted there in manuscript form.

The maqāma genre has had a place in Arabic literature for nearly a thousand years. With the maqāmāt of Badī' al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī (357–98/969–1007), it appears as a fully developed, independent literary form, although precursors of it have been traced back beyond al-Hamadhānī to the argot and cant of thieves and beggars as displayed, for instance, in the Kitāb al-bukhalā’ of al-Jāḥiẓ and the qaṣīda al-sāsāniyya of Abū Dulaf Mis'ar b. Muhalhil, and possibly back to the model of a lost Kitdb al-arba'īn of the philologist and lexicographer Ibn Duraid. The history of the maqāma in its classical form closes only with the productions in the last century of such writers as the Baghdādī scholar Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Alūsī (1217–70/1802–54) and the Lebanese Christian Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī (1800–71). It is true that in the early decades of our own century, such Egyptian writers as Muḥammad Ibrāhīm al-Muwailḥī and the poet Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm used a very free adaptation of the maqāma form for the entirely novel purpose of social criticism; but with the disappearance to-day of the florid and artificial style of Arabic writing, it is unlikely that anyone will ever resuscitate the classical maqāma and we may safely conclude that it has died out.

The purpose of this essay is to trace in outline the history of the languages used in Calcutta and its environs during a period extending roughly from 1760 to 1840. The languages were Arabic, Bengali, English, Hindustani, Persian, Portuguese, and Sanskrit. Account has been taken of the status of the languages at different times, the people who used them, the extent to which they were used, and the purposes they served. To do this it has been necessary to take a wide view of the history of the period, and make references which properly fall within the field of political, social, religious, and economic history: such as the policies of the East India Company, both in London and Calcutta, the plans and actions of the Christian missionaries, the attitudes and preferences of the main religious communities, the development of education, and the changing opportunities in the economic life of the people.

Certain parallels between musical structure and linguistic structure have been insisted on by Professor J. R. Firth in several publications. This is an attempt to illustrate a parallel musical and linguistic analysis within a strictly limited field, and in a ‘restricted language’, and thereby to exhibit in this field a congruence of musical and linguistic structuring. It is hoped that the material employed will be of interest as being the first published, examples of songs from the Yurok community.

Since the publication of Professor J. Takakusu's ‘Life of Vasubandhu by Paramārtha’ in the year 1904, several scholars have made attempts to determine the date and works of Vasubandhu. The problem is beset with several difficulties. Tradition gives three dates (A.N. 900, 1000, and 1100) based on different reckonings of the Nirvana era. Vasubandhu, himself a Sautrāntika, is the author of the celebrated Vaibhāsika work, viz., the Abhidharma-kox015B;a (and its Bhāṣya), and is at the same time credited with the authorship of several major works of the Vijñānavāda school. The problem is rendered more complex by the mention in Yaśoṁitra's Sphuṭārthā Abhidharma- kośa-vyākhyā of an elder (Vṛdāhacārya) Vasubandhu, leading to a recent theory of two Vasubandhus advocated by Professor E. Frauwallner.

The speech here investigated is that of Mr. Josua Bogidrau of Suva, Fiji. Mr. Bogidrau was born in Lakemba, Lau, where the language has marked local characteristics, but at the age of thirteen he was sent to the Queen Victoria School at Suva, capital of Fiji, and has modified his speech in accordance with Bauan, the dialect with the greatest prestige. I have been able to check a number of points with a native Bauan speaker, who tells me that B.′s pronunciation is acceptable Bauan.

The Nilotes refer to their cattle in a number of ways, and one of these is by colour or interrelation of colours which are associated in their minds with some animal or bird or reptile. Their cattle are thus called by colour-analogy crocodile cow, fish eagle cow, leopard cow, and so on. The Dinka go even farther and make a double analogy in referring to their cattle by terms which suggest some activity associated with, or some attribute of, the creature that displays similar colouring to the cattle.

In connexion with Professor Wittek's article ‘Devshirme and sharī'a’ in BSOAS, xyn, 2, pp. 271–8, a passage in Idrīs Bitlīsī's Hasht bihisht is of interest, for there the author, far from feeling any incompatibility between the devshirme and the sharī'a, even shows the former as justified by the latter.

Kalam Kohistani is a Dardic language spoken in the upper parts of the Swat and Panjkora valleys (Swat Kohistan and Dir Kohistan), in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. In the literature, the language is known by different names, the most familiar of which are Garwi and Bashkarik. The name Garwi occurs in the Linguistic Survey of India (LSI, 8/2: 507ff.), while Bashkarik is used by Morgenstierne (1940), which is the standard reference on the language to date.

Although until recently no study had been undertaken to investigate the poetry included in Ibn Isḥāq's Sīra with a view to establishing on internal evidence the authenticity of such of it as may be genuine and revealing the spurious character of the forgeries, doubts as to the authenticity of this poetry in general or of certain poems in particular have been expressed by various writers, critics or other persons, since the time of Ibn Ishaq himself. Internal evidence attesting to the spurious character of the different poems varies widely from the immediately obvious, such as ascribing to a Himyarite king lines in simple plain Arabic or ascribing to a polytheist a poem allegedly attacking the Prophet and the Muslims which yet speaks of him in reverential terms and of his companions with respect, to the more subtle. The purpose of this article, however, is to survey and comment on some of the opinions which directly or indirectly stigmatize the poetry of the Sira in whole or in part as spurious.

Some scheme of political organization can also be detected in the text of Vīs u Rāmīn.

The capital Marv is definitely considered the centre of a world monarchy, within the limits which we have tried to elucidate.1 Mōbad is the king of kings, shahriyār, to whom all the shahs owe obedience (banda būdand) (p. 28). His personal dominions he in North-Eastern Iran and are surrounded by a belt of vassal territories (abaristān, Gurgān, Dihistān, Khwārazm, etc.), but politically his authority extends to Media and beyond it to Transcaucasia (Arrān) and Armenia, reaching even the Mediterranean and North African territories.

The literary genres of nawrīyāt and rauḍīyāt, the description respectively of flowers and gardens, figure amongst those most cultivated by Hispano-Arab poets, and it would be superfluous to identify all the poets who found in a garden the most congenial source of their inspiration. One case must suffice: that of Ibn Khafāja, styled al-jannān ‘the gardener’ on account of the predilection he showed for this genre. Just as the full understanding of Graeco Raman poetry is impossible unless the reader know what such plants as laurel, ivy, and myrtle signifed to the ancients, the study of Arab gardening is important in superlative degree for the correct interpretation of Arabic poetry. But this is not the only point of contact between gardening and literature: for, by strange coincidence, the normalk critical procedure used in analysing a work of literature, namely to consider it under its dual aspect of form and content, is equally aplicable to garden design and we purpose here first to discover the plan or form of the Hispano-Arab garden and then examine its content or flora.

This article examines how and why non-Muslim dhimmīs were employed in a variety of important posts during the ʿAbbāsid period, notably as viziers (wuzarā') and secretaries (kuttāb). One of the aims is to show that Jews and Christians were employed in the state administration to the extent that some of them were able to achieve the second highest office after the caliph: the vizier. It is argued that, despite certain legal restrictions outlined by Muslim jurists, dhimmī employment in the government had long been an established policy. The first section discusses the juristic debate on whether non-Muslims could be appointed to public office. The second examines examples of non-Muslim viziers and the nature of their political power. The final section offers possible explanations as to why non-Muslims were needed to help the caliphs administer this governmental office. The article concludes with a brief reflection on the significance of this study for the discussion of the nature of state–religion relations in early Islam.

Compared with the heyday under the Fāṭimids, the position of the non-Muslims, or dhimmīs, in the late Mamlūk period was bleak. Victims of the general demographic and economic decline, objects of considerable hostility on the part of Muslim theologians, and targets of frequent persecution, the Jews and Christians of Egypt found life more difficult and more oppressive in the fifteenth than in the eleventh or twelfth century. For the Jews, hard times were reflected both in tensions with the surrounding Muslim society and in the depressed condition of community life.

The first part of this paper discussed a large collection of documents from Upper Egypt illustrative of society and economy in the time of Muʿāwiya. Here, further papyri, of pagarchs of Arsinoe, present supplementary information about grain production, taxation, great estates, the postal service and the role of the church in the local economy. Information about Fusṭāṭ and Alexandria depends on literary sources and archaeology. Fusṭāṭ, which started as a camp, became more organized and controlled under Muʿāwiya's governors when the main shipyard was moved there. Alexandria, despite romantic descriptions, was at least partly ruined. Like Fusṭāṭ, it was the seat of a major garrison. Taken together, the evidence from Egypt shows much administrative continuity from Byzantine times, but with important new taxes and requisitions and a tighter central control. It suggests that Muʿāwiya ran a sophisticated and effective state.

Unlike most ancient Arabic poetry, the poems attributed to Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt treat subjects that are also prominent in the Quran, such as creation, eschatology, and episodes from Biblical history. The authenticity of this corpus has, however, been the subject of some controversy. After a critical survey of previous scholarship, this article examines one particular passage from the Umayya corpus dealing with the destruction of the ancient tribe of Thamūd, which, it is argued, is likely to be pre-Quranic. The article then proceeds to highlight the crucial differences, both in content and in literary format, that exist between Umayya's retelling of the Thamūd narrative and its earliest Quranic version, and concludes with a number of general remarks on the Quran's religious milieu as reflected in Umayya's literary output.

The sanctuary of Shaykh ʿAdī, the only monumental complex of the Yezidis, lies at Lalish, 35 kilometres north of Mosul, in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is dedicated to its founder, Shaykh ʿAdī (d. 1162). Although it has been suggested that it was converted from a Christian monastery, Arabic sources and architectural analysis indicate that it may originally have been the zāwiya where Shaykh ʿAdī and his disciples retired to meditate. After his death, the sanctuary grew up around his tomb and became a centre of pilgrimage. It is a large complex containing buildings of different sizes and functions. It was not conceived as a centrally planned structure and its different parts were added progressively as and when circumstances dictated. The dominant architectural style is derived from that which characterizes the twelfth–thirteenth-century Shiite buildings of Mosul, and was continued by the Yezidis until the present day.

For more than a millennium, cow slaughter has been a source of bitter contention in South Asia. Hindus revere the animal; Muslims like to eat it and, until recently, the cow has been the preferred animal of sacrifice at the Islamic festival of ‘Id-ul-Adha¯. This paper looks at how, over the twentieth century, Indian governments of differing type and ideological colour—British and princely during the late colonial period and Congress nationalist after 1947—have tried to mediate this vexed question. It finds that while policies differed widely, there was a tendency for all governments in the early twentieth century to be guided by social custom and local opinion, so that in the small Muslim-ruled state of Mangrol, which had an official ban, the Muslims who killed cows occasionally for food were never prosecuted so long as they kept their activities discreet—but this ‘discretionary’ option became politically unviable once the country embraced democracy.

In this article I provide a complete translation and analysis of the recently unearthed bamboo manuscript, Rong Cheng shi, from the Shanghai Museum collection. This manuscript presents a previously unknown version of China's early history from the time of legendary rulers Yao, Shun, Yu and their predecessors to the establishment of the Zhou dynasty. The narrative is critical of both the dynastic principle of rule and “righteous rebellion”, and advocates instead the ruler's abdication in favour of a worthier candidate as the best mode of rule; in addition, it hints at the unusually active role of “the people” in establishing the supreme ruler. Moreover, despite being associated with the southern state of Chu, the Rong Cheng shi presents a unitary view of the past, which rejects the multi-state world and promulgates the notion of the unified “All-under-Heaven” as singularly legitimate. The text has far-reaching significance in terms of both history of Chinese political thought and of early Chinese historiography.