What had of old been the province of Media the Arabs named Al-Jibāl—‘ the Mountains ’—a perfectly appropriate name, as will be seen by a glance at the map, for the great mountain region separating the plains of Mesopotamia from the highlands of Persia. In the time of the Saljūḳ princes, by some misnomer, this, their capital province, came to be called ‘Irāḳ ‘Ajamī, or Persian ‘Irāḳ, a name that was totally unknown to the earlier Arab geographers. Hence in after days Al-‘Irāḳayn, ‘The Two ‘Irāḳs,’ were taken to mean Media and Lower Mesopotamia, which last for distinction was thenceforth called Arabian ‘Irāḳ — ‘Ir¯ḳ ‘Arabī. Originally, it is to be observed, Al-‘Irāḳayn had been a term applied to the two great cities of (Arabian) ‘Irāḳ, namely, Kūfah and Baṣrah; but the Saljūḳs had affected the title of Sulṭān of the Two ‘Irāḳs, which in consequence, as explained above, came to be applied to the two provinces, but as Abu-l-Fidā (p. 408) writes “among the vulgar,” and wrongfully (see also Yāḳūt, ii, 15, and Lane, Dictionary, s.v. ‘Irāḳ). The name, however, has continued in use down to the present time.

When discussing the position of Kuśinagara I was compelled by the necessity of avoiding undue prolixity to assume without proof the correctness of the current belief that the ancient and famous city of Vaisāli (Vesāli) is now represented by the ruins at Basāṛ and the neighbouring villages in the Muzaffarpur District of North Bihār.

It has already been mentioned that, according to Ṣafadi, a correspondence on Vegetarianism between Abu’l - ‘Alā and a certain Hibat Allah Ibn Mūsā, due to a line in the former's Luzūmiyyāt, was excerpted by Yāḳūt. The first volume of Yāḳūt's precious Dictionary of Littérateurs is in the Bodleian Library, soon, I hope, to be published with such other volumes of it as can be found. Yāḳūt, whose acquaintance with literary history was unique, tells us that a passage in the Falak al-Ma‘ānī of Ibn al-Habbāriyyah had roused in him the desire to get at this correspondence, which he reproduces in an abridged form. Abu’l-‘Alā's correspondent was a man of some importance, whose grave was still shown in Maḳrizi's time in Cairo, where he held the post of Chief Missionary. The fact that Abu’l-‘Alā addresses him with the titles ra’īs and ajall shows that he held this or some similar post at the time of the correspondence.

There is in the British Museum a Persian MS., Or. 5,849, which is a translation of an Arabic treatise by Albīrūnī. It is a small quarto containing 175 folios, and at one time belonged to one of the Oude royal libraries, and has several red impressions of seals. It was picked up by me in Lakhnau, in 1899. The MS. is a materia medica, and contains accounts of drugs, vegetable and mineral, in alphabetical order. Its title is Kitāb-i-ṣaidanah, and the translator discusses at some length the origin of this name. Albīrūnī was inclined to derive it from the Indian chandan and the Persian chandal, sandalwood, but this etymology is rejected by the translator. There is a long preface by the translator, and as it is in very high-flown language, and as the MS. is much worm-eaten, it is not very easy to understand his meaning. However, we learn from p. 2b that the translator's name was Abū-bakr, son of ‘Ali, son of Umān Asfaru’l-kāsānī, and further on we find that he came to India in the beginning of amsu-d-dīn Īltatmi's reign, or in the last year of his predecessor and father-in-law, Qubu-d-dīn Aibak, and consequently about 607 A.H. (1211 A.D.). He speaks of staying in Dihlī for eighteen months.

As for āliḥ b. ‘Abdu’l-Ḳuddūs, though his zandaḳa has become notorious, he did not avow it (and knowledge belongs to God alone) until he was convicted out of his own mouth. The following verses are ascribed to his father, ‘Abdu’l-Ḳuddūs: How many a visitor hath Mecca brought to perdition! May God raze Mecca and her houses!May the Merciful refuse sustenance to her living inhabitants, P 149. and may Mercy roast her dead [in hell-fire]!

The well-known history of Buddhism by Tāranātha—not to mention here the book of I-tsing—is filled with tales of the controversies between Buddhists and ‘orthodox’ teachers of the Mīmāṁsā, Nyāya, or Vedānta schools.

Two questions, the early contact of Buddhism with Christianity, and the origins and character of Gnosticism, have attracted much attention of late Although these questions are independent of each other in the main, they happen to join hands in the case of the great Gnostic Basilides. I propose to show that the famous scheme of that arch-Gnostic was an attempt at fusing Buddhism with Christianity, and thus to throw some light upon the one question and the other.

The past tense in Marāṭhī is formed by adding a suffix lā. The same suffix is also used in Bihārī, Oṛiyā, Bengali, and Gujarātī. This form has long been a puzzle to scholars. Mr. Beames, A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India, vol. iii, p. 135, compares the past tense in Slavonic languages; Dr. Hoernle, A Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Languages, p. 139 f., derives la from the suffix ta of the past participle passive in Sanskrit; and Sir Charles Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language, Edinburgh, 1880, p. 48 f., thinks that la is a diminutive suffix added to the old past participle passive. This last view is essentially the same as that held by Dr. Grierson, who some time ago, and before I had arrived at any independent opinion regarding the question, told me that he derives la from the Prakrit suffix illa (Hemacandra, ii, 164).