A Cylindrical brass box then belonging to the collection of Mme Delort de Gléon (and now in the Louvre, Inv. No. 7438) was shown at the Exhibition of Muslim Art held in Paris in 1903. It was briefly described in the catalogue and the Arabic inscriptions which decorate it were published by M. Sobernheim. But, to the best of my knowledge, no illustrations of this box have so far been reproduced.

The earliest dated signature of a Mawṣilī artist is incised on a small inlaid brass box belonging to the Benaki Museum, Athens (Case 65, No. 17). This is an oblong miniature piece which measures only 6·3 cm. in length and 3·6 cm. in width. It is 2·3 cm. high and provided with an overlapping, bevelled lid (1·1 cm. high) which is fixed by means of two tiny hinges at the back and with a hasp in front. Its shape strongly resembles that of a snuff box and has no known parallel in Islamic metal work. Despite its exiguous dimensions it is decorated with intricate arabesques and inscriptions. The skilfully worked decor was for the most part filled with fine silver inlay, much of which has survived.

Wolfram eberhard's recent A History of China has attracted great interest. Reviewers have praised it for its readability and broad sweep and for the way in which it goes beyond a mere chronicle of political and cultural events and tries to penetrate to underlying causes. At the same time they have noted many errors of detail and have expressed surprise and incredulity at the many new generalizations presented with an air of established finality. It was, of course, impossible for Eberhard to present detailed evidence or argumentation in support of his views in a brief general history. The subsequent publication of Das Toba-Reich Nordchinas and Conquerors and Rulers has enabled us to form a better judgment of the value of at least a part of his work.

In the Dark Ages there was a break in the ruling dynasty of Ethiopia, and the kingdom fell into the hands of a line called Zāguē, of Agaw origin from Beguenā. (Bugnā), which made its capital at Roha in Lāstā. There is much that is obscure about the events that led to the Zaguē usurpation; the orthodox Ethiopian view, as expressed in the Be'ela nagaśtāt, was that God was angry with the House of David (the dynasty which they believe to be descended from Menilek son of Solomon and the ‘Queen of Sheba’) and gave the kingdom to the Zāguē. According to a document at Dabra Libānos in Šimezana, 2 a woman called Terde'a Gabaz transferred the kingdom to the Zāguē after the reign of Ḥezba Nañ, ‘and they reigned for 133 years, 700 years from the bringing of the Faith to Ethiopia’ (= A.D. 1033). This suggests that Terde'a Gabaz was the daughter of Ḥezba Nañ and married the first Zāguē king, thereby establishing him on the throne. These Zāguē, being Agaw, are referred to in the Chronicles as ‘not Israelites’, as in the Paris Chronicle, f. 2: ‘Anbasa Wedem begot Delna'ād, from whom the throne was taken3 and given to others who were not Israelites’. The end of the Zāguē line came in 1268, when ‘Takla Hāymānot restored the kingdom to Yekuno Amlāk’ (Paris Chron., f. 3), a descendant of the last king before the Zāguē. That there was a break and a restoration cannot be doubted, but the manner of the restoration is not clear and the evidence is conflicting, as well as of late date.

In their Notes d'Etymologie Taï, published in 1926 in the Journal of the Siam Society, vol. xx, pt. i, MM. J. Burnay and G. Coedès have compared the various Taï words meaning “a hundred”. Ahom pāk, Shan pāk1, Khamti pāk1, White Taï pdk1, Thô pāk1, Nùng pāh1, Dioi pā1—all go back to a form *pāk, which is very close to the sixth century Chinese (pak).

The ‘Analects of Confucius’ 1/13 records a saying of Yu Tzu which begins as follows:

The meaning of yen k'efu yeh has never, to my knowledge, been satisfactorily explained. Any acceptable explanation, it seems to me, must furnish satis-factory answers to three questions. (1) What does the wordfu mean in this context ? (2) What is the construction of the sentence ? (3) What is the point of the saying ?

The publication of P'u-yi's autobiography is an occasion of great importance, not merely to sinologists and historians, but also to sociologists and political scientists, for the book contains a wealth of valuable information about the recent past of China, life in the Manchu court, particularly that of the author, and the technique of political education adopted by the Chinese Communists. The book itself is a unique document in two respects—it is the first autobiography of a Chinese monarch and this monarch's life spans the period from the medievalism of Aisin-Gioro to the Communism of Mao Tse-tung.

The quantity of Oriental, and particularly Indian curiosities brought to the British Isles in two centuries of imperial rule has till very recently exceeded the interest of the educated British public in them. Many have lain unregarded for long periods in the attics and basements of the descendants of those who originally brought them back. Hence amid a mass of worthless or commonplace objects there are still pieces of historical or stylistic interest, in private ownership as well as in our great public collections, which have not yet attracted scholarly interest.

The recently edited fragments of the Sīra of Wahb b. Munabbih are probably the earliest extant document of sīra-literature. R. G. Khoury painstakingly performed the laborious task of deciphering the extremely difficult text of the papyrus, and has prepared a careful edition of it. There remain, however, some misreadings which may lead to an erroneous understanding of the text. These are corrected in the present paper.

The following study contains a translation of al-Bīrūnī’s rendering into Arabic of the fourth and last chapter of Patañjali’s Yogasūtra cum commentary. Our translation of the three preceding chapters was published in BSOAS, xxix, 2, 1966, 302–25 (henceforth abbreviated as BSOAS ch. I); BSOAS, XL, 3, 1977, 522–49 (henceforth abbreviated as BSOAS, ch. II); BSOAS, XLVI, 2, 1983, 258–304 (henceforth abbreviated as BSOAS, ch. III). This translation is based on Ritter’s edition of the Arabic text. Comparison has been made with the unique MS of Ritters Text: Kopriilii, 1589, fols. 412a–419a (written on the margins). We have also compared the text with parallel passages and expressions in al-Birunl's India.

This vocabulary has been collected from the words found in a small Prayer Book in the Longgu language, published by the Melanesian Mission Press in 1916. The book is of 79 pages, 8vo, and contains a translation of some of the services of the Book of Common Prayer, viz. Mattins and Evensong, the Litany, certain prayers, seven liturgical collects, twenty-four Psalms, the Church Catechism, and nineteen hymns.

In four Chinese texts almost certainly written before the middle of the sixth century a.d., of which two have been attributed to the Tsin period (265–420), there were references to two ‘Po-Ssῠ pine resins ’ to a ‘Po-Ssῠ resin’ subsequently likened to ‘pine resin’, and to a resin subsequently attributed to the ‘Po-Ssῠ’ and also likened to ‘pine resin’. They were ‘ju t'ou perfume ’, the ‘mo drug ’, ‘An-hsi perfume ’, and lung nao or ‘P'o-lü perfume ’. An-hsi perfume became the name for benjamin gum (Styrax benzoin Dryander) which, with lung nao or tree camphor (Dryobalanops aromatica Gaertn. f ), were in later times famous trade-products of northern Sumatra. To-day ju, the abbreviated form of ju t'ou, is identified with species of Pistacia (a mastic) or with frankincense (Boswellia spp.) and mo with myrrh (Commiphora spp.). These are products of Somaliland, the Middle East, and India. In the sixteenth century, however, and long before then, Chinese herbalists believed that ju and mo also came from South East Asia. The text which first mentioned ju in fact ascribed it to the ‘Southern Ocean Po-Ssῠ’, a definition indicating a South East Asian origin.

The details of philological processes are generally lost in the mists of obscurity, and most recognized linguistic development is difficult to follow because it took place hundreds or thousands of years ago. We must often have wished for the chance of hearing one sound change into another, and the wish is usually vain. But in the case of English words in India it is frequently possible to see them entering the country and watch the changes taking place.

THE traveller who approaches Harrān from Urfa passes near an isolated domed building known to the local inhabitants as the shrine of Shaikh Hayāt (ziyārat shaikh hayāt). It stands just outside the city, near the southwest corner of the perimeter-wall1 and is surrounded by some modern tombs (PI. I)2.

The tone patterns of the Recent Style (chin-t‘i ) have always given trouble to Western readers of Chinese poetry. Chinese authorities offer us a confusing variety of patterns, each with a different tone sequence for every line of the quatrain, no apparent principle of organization, and seemingly unaccountable licences for certain syllables. Yet if we choose to ignore these patterns, we are left only with such clumsy rules of thumb as that syllables of the same tone tend to fall into pairs and that corresponding syllables within the couplet generally contrast in tone.

The Sanskrit-Khotanese bilingual text edited in this study is contained in the manuscript fonds Pelliot 5538. Since we are still seriously in need of bilingual texts in the elucidation of Khotanese problems, the present short text is welcome. I am deeply indebted to Professor Paul Pelliot who has most kindly and courteously given me permission to read and to publish Khotanese manuscripts of his collection. I was able during the Christmas vacation last year to examine some sixty texts at the Bibliotheque Nationale. The recto of the Manuscript P 5538 contains a carefully written Parau ‘decree’, which is indicated also by a large drawing of the Chinese character ‘imperial commands’, kindly identified for me by M. C. M. Wang.

The term tathāgata has been the subject of much discussion, butthe latest treatment leaves even the etymology undecided. The conclusion reached by the Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionaryis “ derivation uncertain ”. The question of the meaning is also left almost as vague, for what is there said is that Mrs. Rhys Davids, quoting Lord Chalmers, suggests “ he who has won through to the truth ”.

THE political career of King Giorgi V of Georgia, commonly known as Giorgi Brdsqinvale or George the Brilliant, spans an eventful period in the history of the Near East. When Giorgi first came to the throne in 1299, the Il-Khan dynasty of Persia under the able Ghazan Mahmud Khan was at the summit of its power. Ghazan's empire with its vassal states stretched from India to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. He controlled most of Anatolia, including the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and the Christian kingdom of Little Armenia. In 1300 he even seized and held Damascus for a short period. From these strategic positions, the Mongols of Persia were a constant menace to both the Mamluks of Egypt and the Khans of the Golden Horde.