In our article on the Aśokan inscriptions, Dr Raymond Allchin and I pointed out the need for a new edition of Hultzsch's Inscriptions of Asoka, bringing it up to date by including the Aśokan inscriptions in Prakrit found in India, and those in Greek and Aramaic found in Afghanistan, since the publication of Hultzsch's work in 1925. Our statement was particularly applicable to the MREs, since only ten versions of MRE I were known to Hultzsch, of which three had the extra portion at the end usually designated as MRE II. To some extent the need for a replacement of Hultzsch's work had been filled by D. C. Sircar's Aśokan Studies which included reprints of all Sircar's articles dealing with new Aśokan inscriptions. Sircar had published a synoptic version of the 17 versions of MRE I and the seven versions of MRE II which are known to date, and a corrected version of this appeared in his Aśokan Studies, but even the corrected version was not entirely satisfactory, in as much as it did not give new editions of the versions already known to Hultzsch.

Since the Shī'ī response to constitutionalist notions of government is potentially a very large subject, for the purposes of this discussion Shī'ī will be taken to mean the members of the orthodox 'ulamā, those most committed to the sharī'a and learned in its precepts. Whilst even within this group there is a wide diversity of opinion, it is hoped that, by looking at works written over a longer period, the discussion will show that the response by a particular ‘ālim to constitutionalism is to some extent influenced by the political conditions prevailing at the time of writing. These form a factor together with the restrictions imposed by the sharī'a in shaping the views of particular writers. The ideology under consideration is constitutionalism, but it will be observed that for a large part the subject matter treated consists of ideas such as representation, consultation, legislation, freedom and equality, which are allied to the constitutionalist theory of government, rather than the complete theory itself.

Sir John Marshall'S excavations have again brought important results. A new Kharoṣṭhī inscription has been found, which throws new light on the difficult question of the eras used in a series of Indian Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions belonging to the Pahlava and Kuṣāṇa periods. In May last Sir John was good enough to let me have excellent photographs of the new epigraph, for the purpose of editing it in the Epigraphia Indica. In consideration of its great importance, he has, moreover, kindly allowed me to publish a preliminary account in this Journal.

The purpose of the present somewhat desultory notes may be said to be twofold: firstly, to emphasize the necessity of comparing the word stock of one Indo-Chinese language with that of another by word families only, secondly, to make a preliminary investigation into certain variations of a particular type within such families, as there are here certain anomalies of which very careful note will have to be taken in any comparative work along these lines.

The fragment here referred to belongs to Mr. John Quinn, jun., of Liverpool, and was purchased by him from the collection of the late Mr. Boutcher, artist to Mr. W. K. Loftus in Assyria. The height and the width are nearly the same, being about two inches and seven-eighths. Like all the tablets from Nineveh, it is of baked clay, but the colour is much darker than the generality of documents from that site which have not been stained with bitumen, or some other material, in consequence of their 2,500 years' burial in the earth. According to a statement made by the agent who sold it, the fragment, at the time it came into his hands, was covered with grease, which would account for the exceedingly dark brown of the surface. Unfortunately, none of the lines, which number eighteen in all, are complete, about a third only of the middle portion of the longest of them being preserved.

Southern Iouthern abounds in prehistoric remains, mostly of the neolithic, but some few undoubtedly of the palaeolithic age; and of all the districts of the Madras Presidency none is more remarkable in this respect than the country about Bellary. The present area of this division comprises the old capital of the Vijayanagar kingdom, now usually called Hampe, from the name of alittle village on the Tungabhadra River, which in the old palmy daysconstituted a small fraction of the great city. On the south of the districtthe territories of Maisūr form the boundary. The fine old rock-fortress of Adoni lies near its eastern frontier, and on the north the Tungabhadra River divides it from the country belonging to the Nizām of Haidarābād. Within these boundaries are seen in every direction rocky hills with a very sparse covering of vegetation, standing boldly out of the level plain, some singly, some in ridges, and in a few tracts massed together into confused heaps extending in all directions for many miles.

Surprisingly, the history of Chinese studies in Britain has received little academic attention. In fact, its development in the twentieth century, and its problems and lack of world standing actually tell us much about the background to Sino-British relations, and especially about the resources available to enable those interested, for professional, business, evangelical or plainly academic reasons, to understand China and the Chinese. British sinology in the interwar period, if discussed at all, is routinely condemned by historians. After 1949 China was closed off to outside contacts; not surprisingly, commentators thereafter look back jealously to the opportunities for close and frequent contact that were available before the revolution but which they saw as being apparently wasted. This common judgement does not, however, do full justice to the scale of the underlying problems, especially financial ones, faced by academic institutions that taught Chinese.

In Muslim countries adherents of the protected religions had to put up with certain restrictions on their public life. It was held that this was sanctioned by the Ḳur'ān, “Until they pay tribute out of hand, and they be humbled.” This humiliation is often mentioned in the early treaties.

The maps which will be noticed here are evidently closely related to the wellknown Portolan charts of Italian and Catalan origin, of which some dozens of examples survive from the period of approximately A.D. 1300–1600.

Besides Ṡubḥ-i-Ezel and his family, there reside at Famagusta, in Cyprus, three Ezelīs, all natives of Zanjān, who have settled there in order to be near their master. Two of these, Ustā Maḥmūd and Sheykh 'Alī Bakhsh, are brothers, sons of a certain Hājī Muḥammad Ḥuseyn, who was one of the Bābīs put to death in cold blood by Amīr Aslān Khān after the suppression of the Bābī rising at Zanjān in the winter of 1850. The third, named Āqā 'Abdu'1-Aḥad, who is the author of the following narrative, is the most interesting personality of the three. Living alone in a small, bare lodging, surrounded by unsympathetic and suspicious Turks, and admitted to the presence of Ṡubḥ-i-Ezel (for whose sake he has thus cut himself off from his friends, his relatives, and his native land) only, perhaps, once in ten days or a fortnight, he nevertheless exhibits a constant cheerfulness of demeanour, a scrupulous neatness of apparel, and an uncomplaining resignation and patience which command one's respect. I first made his acquaintance, and that of his two fellow-townsmen, during the fortnight which I spent at Famagusta in the spring of 1890; but it was not until the spring of last year (March 18–25, 1896) that I had an opportunity of seeing him again, and only then did I learn that a suggestion which I had formerly made to him, that he should set down in writing his recollections of the siege of Zanjān and of the calamities which subsequently befell the Bābīs there, had actually led him to compile the interesting narrative of which I here offer a translation.

Western science began to penetrate to the Far East at the end of the sixteenth century, along with the Christian faith spread by Portuguese Jesuits.

Astrology was important in both China and Japan. It included not only a limited knowledge of astronomy, but some philosophy and logic. The advent of astronomical knowledge as understood in Europe was the beginning of a new kind of science, which did not affect the East's traditional view of the universe; although at first information from Europe about medicine, physics, and astronomy reached the Far East along with the doctrines of Christianity, as a means of attracting converts to what the Chinese termed a new philosophy of life. An early propagator of Western civilization in China was the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1553–1610), who taught medicine and astrology together with the principles of Catholicism. Another Jesuit, Francis Xavier, advised his superiors to send a mission consisting not only of the devout but also of the cultured.

The Kurdish dialect of Persian has so far received very little attention from Oriental students, though it fully merits study, for while actually nothing more than a Persian dialect it has not submitted to the erosion which time brings about in every language, and which is so marked a feature in the development of modern Persian. Nor has it been subject to that admixture of Arabic words which has become so great a part of Persian since the invasion of the early Muhammadan Arabs. As a consequence it has preserved intact many words now obsolete in the mother language.

In his review of my book The Making of Greater India (JRAS, 1951, p. 216) Professor Heine-Geldem said that he could not agree that the local genius which moulded Khmer culture and art was that of the Older Megalithic. He considered that the evidence I adduced pointed only to the existence of megalithic elements in the pre-Hindu culture of the Khmers, and he saw no evidence of their ever having had a “full megalithic culture”. He asks why, if megalithic monuments in the plains were destroyed or used for temple building by Indianized Khmers, no such monuments have been reported from among related tribes surviving in the neighbouring hills, where there would have been no incentive to build temples. And he concludes: “I am fully prepared to revise my view if megalithic monuments of the respective type should be discovered in south-eastern Indo-China, but I cannot see how the terraces and stepped pyramids of the Khmer could be derived from megalithic terraces and pyramids, the nearest of which are found at a distance of many hundred miles in the hills of Burma and Assam.” So Professor Heine-Geldern sees nothing in my characterization of the Khmer cultural evolution incompatible with my premise that it is guided by the Older Megalithic genius, but requires further evidence which the present paper will show to be available.

The Risālat al-Laduniyya is a short treatise giving an account of al-Ghazālī's religious philosophy, in a compact form. It includes his theory of Knowledge, which is discussed very fully in regard to its nature, its different types, and the means by which it is acquired. The author gives special attention here to Revealed Knowledge and distinguishes between Revelation (), which was limited to the prophets and ceased with them, and Inspiration (), which is granted also to the saints and is, in fact, the awakening of the individual, human soul, by Universal Soul.

The fact that fossils are found at Perim has been noticed by Baron Hugel, Captain Fulljames, and others.

In a paper published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, May, 1836, Captain Fulljames, who has obtained certain of these fossils, has accurately described the general appearance of the island, and the matrix in which the greater portion of the fossils are found, viz., a conglomerate of sandstone, clay, and silex. In addition to what has been written on the subject, I would observe, that the appearance of the island at the ebb of spring tides is extraordinary; and accounts for, if it will not countenance, the legend, that Perim was formerly connected with the main.

E. W. West (born 1824, died 1905) received the Gold Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1900. In his answer to a letter of congratulations sent to him by a fellow worker in the field of Iranian studies, L. C. Casartelli, later Bishop of Salford, he describes how he became attracted to the study of Zoroastrianism and this curriculum vitae was published in part in a French translation in Casartelli's obituary notice of West (Le Musèon, 1905). West's translations of the main works of later Zoroastrianism make difficult reading for those unacquainted with the language of the original texts, but never fail to elicit admiration on the part of modern scholars who cannot but acknowledge that West, for all his selftraining, possessed an unparalleled grasp of Pahlavi long before the reading of the script acquired some measure of certainty through the discovery of the Manichsean texts from Turfan. Still more valuable than his translations were his numerous notes on Pahlavi MSS., scattered throughout his introductions to his Pahlavi Texts and rather summarily collected in his article in the Grundriss.

Maulavi Isma'il was the nephew of Maulavi Sháh Abd-ul-Azíz, whose family is yet universally held in great veneration and respect at Delhi. He was the only son of Abd-ul-Ghani, the son of Shah Tali Allah, the most celebrated traditionist and the best student of divinity of his time. The latter had four sons; namely, the father of the subject of this biography, Maulavi Abd-ul-Azíz, Rafia-ud-dín, and Abd-ul-Kádir. They were all famous for their literary attainments and religious characters. The family traces its pedigree to Omar, the second khálif of Muhammad the Prophet.

Much has been written, much has been said in various places, and amongst them in this Society, about Buddha, and the religious system which bears his name, yet it may be suspected that the notions which have been entertained and propagated, in many particulars relating to both the history and the doctrines, have been adopted upon insufficient information and somewhat prematurely disseminated. Very copious additions, and those of a highly authentic character, have been, but very recently, made to the stock of materials which we heretofore possessed, and there has scarcely yet been sufficient time for their deliberate examination. Copious also and authentic as they are, they are still incomplete, and much remains for Oriental scholars to accomplish before it can be said that the materials for such a history of Buddha as shall command the assent of all who study the subject, have been conclusively provided. I have, therefore, no purpose of proposing to you in the views I am about to take, that you should consider them as final; my only intention is to bring the subject before you as it stands at present, with some of that additional elucidation which is derivable from the many valuable publications that have recently appeared, and particularly from the learned and authentic investigations of the late Eugene Burnouf, the only scholar as yet who has combined a knowledge of Sanscrit with that of Pali and Tibetan, and has been equally familiar with the Buddhist authorities of the north and south of India: unfortunately he has been lost to us before he had gone through the wide circuit of research which he had contemplated, and which he only was competent to have traversed; and although he has accomplished more than any other scholar, more than it would seem possible for any human ability and industry to have achieved, it is to be deeply and for ever regretted that his life was not spared to have effected all he had intended, and for which he was collecting, and had collected, many valuable and abundant materials.

After being encamped for ten days at the foot of the Babylonian Mound of the Kasr, employed in a careful examination of the great mass of the ruins and the surrounding topography, I took advantage of the first break in the weather to pay a flying visit to the Birs-Nimrud, where excavations had been carried on for above two months, under my directions and on account of the British Museum, by an intelligent youngman, M. Joseph Tonietti by name, with a view of ascertaining the general features of thebuilding, and thus finally disposing of the many difficult questions connected with this remarkable ruin. Crossing the river at the village of Anana, a ride of three hours and a quarter brought our small party, which consisted of Dr. Hyslop, the Rev. Mr. Leacroft, and myself, to the spot in question. We found our tents already pitched at the camp, or village, which our labourers had formed a short distance to the north of the mound, but without alighting we proceeded on at once to inspect the excavations. That day was consumed in making a careful inspection of the various works in progress, and in endeavouring to realize and restore a general plan of the original building from a comparison of the various sections of exterior wall, and interior strata of brickwork, which had been laid bare by the vertical and horizontal trenches now seaming the mound.

It is one of the most popular devices of wits and humorists of all nations to make use of various slang expressions, dialectical or rustic sentences, or local words in order to add to the “fun” in their narrative. Persians are no exception to this. Moreover, educated people regard all the numerous local dialects of Iran as unwritten languages and in their writings occasionally make use of them, but only for such facetious purposes. Peasants and the less educated people strive to use high-flown diction in their correspondence, and even in their songs an imitation of this appears instead of their native dialects.