In modern English the pun as a form of word-play tends to be associated with wit and humour. It has long been recognized that Japanese literature of various genres abounds in the punning type of word-play, although it is not necessarily humorous. A typical example would be matsu ‘pine tree’ and matsu ‘to wait’, often neatly translated into English as ‘pine’ in both senses. This pun is so frequent in classical Japanese literature that the mere mention of a pine tree can connote yearning for or missing a loved one without further overt reference. The pun thus even creates a metonym.

Although your scholarly fame, Sir Ralph, rests principally on your achievements as a comparative linguist, your work on certain Asoka inscriptions has shown that you are no less at home in the field of epigraphy. I gratefully recall how generously you helped me when, some years ago, I struggled with a particularly difficult inscription (also attributable to Asoka) from the Indo-Iranian borderland. This interest in matters of epigraphy encourages me to hope that you will not disdain, as a modest tribute, the following notes on some new inscriptions, discovered at a place not far beyond the confines of ancient India.

The account given of the Bamboo Annals pre-Conquest chronology in Part 1 of this paper bears comparison with the internally consistent chronological sequence found in Yi Zhou shu, whose coherence has not been fully appreciated by those attempting to reconstruct the chronology. As we saw in the discussion of King Wu's reign in Part 1, Yi Zhou shu ‘Da kuang’ and ‘Wen zheng’ chapters are correct in dating the appointment of King Wu' s siblings as viceroys in the former Shang domain, which event we know took place in the Conquest year, to the 13th year of the Mandate, a finding that is fundamentally incompatible with Chou Fa-kao's, David Nivison' s, and Edward Shaughnessy' s account. The same two chapters in combination with ‘Zuo luo’ are also correct in implying that King Wu died in the 14th year. Furthermore, ‘Wen zhuan’ chapter of Yi Zhou shu correctly dates King Wen' s demise to the ‘9th year of the Mandate’ in those very words.

I. Rarotongan is a Polynesian language spoken on the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. A phonemic analysis yields a nine-term consonant system comprising four voiceless plosives (bilabial, dental, velar, glottal), three nasals (bilabial, alveolar, velar), a bilabial voiced fricative, and an alveolar flapped ‘r’. There is the usual Polynesian five-term vowel system (close front, close back, mid front, mid back, open central). All vowels may be either short (one mora) or long (two morae). Long vowels and short-vowel diphthongs behave phono-logically as dissyllables and are so treated in this paper. Syllable structures are limited to V and CV.

Ever since the publication of the text, scholars have disagreed on the date of the composition of the Śukraniti. Oppertx placed it very early, in the period of the Smrtis and the early epic literature. V. S. Agrawala and Syamlal Pandya regard it as a work of the Gupta period. But generally the text is utilized as a source for the early medieval period, especially the eleventh or the twelfth century. Rajendra Lai Mitra held that the work could not be older than the sixteenth century. Sanskritists, following the lead of Keith and Kane, dismiss the text as of quite a late date and hence not applicable to the Hindu period.

The discoveries in Chinese Turkestan have brought to light extensive remains of one or two ancient Indian dialects. In the first place we have the Dutreuil de Rhins manuscript, which has found its way to Paris and Leningrad, and, in the second, the numerous Kharosthī documents found by Sir Aurel Stein and now available in the splendid edition of Messrs. Boyer, Rapson, and Senart. I shall distinguish them as Dhp. and Doc. respectively.

The Chinese demonstrative fwu has recently been examined in an article by Dr. B. Schindler.1 The use of as a final particle is, however, discussed only in connexion with the combination and Schindler does not commit himself to a definite decision as to its function. That the final f￡ deserves a detailed investigation is sufficiently shown by a glance at the definitions given by standard Western authorities:

The subject of oracles and divination usually calls to mind two topics, the shells and bones of the Shang–Yin period, and the cast of the yarrow stalks with a view to constructing the hexagrams. Attention may then fasten on the inscriptions of the shells and the bones, or on the Changes, and their respective places in linguistic, religious, historical or philosophical studies. However, it is by no means always recognized that divination and oracles continued to be matters of considerable importance in their many forms in later ages, playing a significant role alike in political decisions, religious practice and scientific enquiry.

[The following pages form a portion of what has been written by me for the section of the Grundriss der Indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, dealing with the Indo-Aryan Vernaculars. The work was not completed when the War broke out, and as there is no immediate prospect of their publication as originally intended, I gladly accept Sir Denison Ross's suggestion, and offer them as they stand for preliminary publication in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies.]

Abū Dāwūd Sulaimān b. al-Ash'ath al-Sijistānī (202–275/817–889) was the author of the Sunan which has come to be recognized as one of the six authoritative books of tradition accepted by Sunnīs. Ibn Dāsa is frequently quoted as authority for the statement that Abū Dāwūd selected the 4,800 traditions in this work from a mass of 500,000 traditions which he had collected, those given a place in his book being ‘sound traditions, those which seem to be so, and those which are nearly so’. But he adds that only four traditions are necessary for one's religious guidance: (1) Deeds are judged by intentions; (2) To abstain from what does not concern him is a part of a man's good observance of Islam; (3) A believer is not a believer till he likes for his brother what he likes for himself; (4) What is lawful is clear and what is unlawful is clear, but in between are dubious matters.