It is unfortunate that almost all investigators of the origin and development of the Nights have been, more or less, under the spell of that quite modern recension which Zotenberg first identified and called “la redaction égyptienne” (hereafter ZER). In the numerous Egyptian prints derived from the I Būlāq edition (Būlāq, a.h. 1252=a.d. 1835), in the Calcutta edition of the same recension (II Calcutta, a.d. 1839–42), in at least two Beyrout editions (Salhani and Adabīya Press), this recension has attained to the dignity of a Vulgate, and of it most people, even most Arabists, think when they refer to the Arabian Nights. This almost subconscious assumption was the great obscuring element in Lane's mind and with De Goeje in his Britannica article on the Nights. From this point of view it is especially unfortunate that Zotenberg did not publish any further researches; he was evidently on his way to complete freedom of attitude.

This is the title of an article which I have just submitted for publication in the Epigraphia Indica. As the controversy about the various problems connected with the Kushana period of the Indian History has been carried on chiefly in the pages of this Journal, I venture to present a brief note on the new details furnished by the three inscriptions concerned. All the three records were discovered by Rai Bahadur Pandit Radha Krishna, Honorary Curator of the Museum of Archæology at Mathurā (vulgo Muttra). Inscriptions Nos. 1 and 2 were brought to light in the year 1918–19 and 1920–1 respectively, and have been briefly noticed in the Annual Report of the Archæological Survey of India, Northern Circle, Hindu and Buddhist Monuments for those years. The contents of the third inscription were summarized by Dr. Vogel in the Annual Report of the Director-General of Archæology in India, part ii, for 1911–12, p. 125. In this note I propose to publish a complete transliteration of the existing portion of the record and to draw attention to one or two points which escaped Dr. Vogel's notice.

In presenting another instalment of these papers, and after reading the proofs, I am reminded (without being cheered) of the quatrain of an alleged competitor in the Newdigate prize poem on “Nebuchadnezzar”:

“Nebuchadnezzar, when put out to grass,

Like stallèd oxen, or the patient ass,

Said, as he munched the unaccustomed food,

‘It may be eaten, but it is not good.’”