The tribes of Upper Burma and Eastern Assam known as Kachins have, both before and after the annexation of Northern Burma, attracted a great deal of attention from ethnologists and philologists. A considerable literature has accumulated on the subject since the time Colonel Hannay, in 1846, and Dr. Anderson, in 1868, gave us the first reliable information regarding these savage and warlike hill tribes. At present they occupy a large and fertile territory extending almost from 29° North latitude to 20° 30′. They number probably about half a million, of which one hundred thousand occupy independent territory, the larger part being under British or Chinese rule.

Nāropā, with Padmasambhava, Mi, la ras pa, and Tsoṅ k'a pa, is one of the most famous Buddhist teachers in Tibet. He may certainly be considered as one of the most conspicuous factors of Tibetan Buddhism, since he was the spiritual father of Marpa, who is acknowledged as the guru of Milaraspa and the founder of the bKa’ rgyud pa sect. This school later split up into several sub-sects, widely spread even now in Tibet, and through Karma Bakshi allied itself with the rÑiṅ ma pas; but its first teacher or ādiguru is said to have been rDo rje ạc'aṅ, or Vajradhara, whose doctrines were secreṭly transmitted to Tilopā, and by this siddha to Nāropā, who was to exercise through his pupil a great spiritual influence all over Tibet.

The verbal form known as the active participle (= AP) is an integral part of the Mehri verbal system, functioning mainly – but not exclusively – as a future tense.1 Yet despite its frequency, recent synopses of the language have given this form very little attention. For example, in the very important sketch of the Modern South Arabian languages by Johnstone (1975), discussion of the AP is limited to less than one sentence (p. 119). In the very useful set of observations by Lonnet (1994a), the AP receives only a little more consideration, about ten lines. In the more recent outline by Simeone-Senelle (1997), the AP also gets about ten lines. All of this is in contrast to the grammar of Jahn (1905), in which the AP (or future, as Jahn calls it) is treated as a basic verbal tense and is included in all paradigm sets.2

Seyf-el-Mulook answered him, May God (whose name be exalted!) make it [thy country] ever to be honoured by thy rule, O King! And the King Faghfoor Shah said, Nought hath brought thee hither save some affair that hath occurred to thee; and whatever thing thou desirest to obtain from my country, I will accomplish it for thee.

Most English readers may not remember the story these lines from Edward Lane's translation relate to, but the sub-Biblical language in which the exotically named characters converse should be enough to site the story of Sayf al-Mulūk in the magically Oriental world of the Thousand and One Nights as it was conceived in the Victorian imagination.

The purpose of this article is to relate a remarkable episode involving Nader Shah's navy and to connect it directly to the wider aims and projects of his regime (notably his ambitions in India), and the central events of his reign. In this way his Persian Gulf policy may emerge not as the oddity it might at first appear, but rather as a consistent element in a coherent larger whole.

The friendship and enmity between Paul Wittek and Fuad Koprulu form one of the most interesting episodes in the development of Turcology. This contribution examines the ebb and flow of that relationship as well as some of the other victims who suffered on the sidelines.

In the spring of 1934, a Chinese mission led by General Huang Musong, then Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Guomindang regime, was dispatched to Lhasa with the official purpose of offering condolences to the late 13th Dalai Lama who died in late 1933. Huang's visit to Tibet undoubtedly was the most politically symbolic event in Sino-Tibetan relations since the collapse of the Qing dynasty. He became the most high-profile of Chinese officials to have entered Lhasa since 1911, when the Chinese Republic was created. Before returning to Nanking, Huang left a representative office, along with a wireless set in Lhasa; these could be actions which the Chinese considered marked their authority in Tibet.

Despite the existence of some general overviews, the institution of the Mongol tribunals has not been studied in a satisfactory way. A great deal of details are unclear and the functioning of the whole legal procedure is shrouded in obscurity. The present paper makes an attempt to elucidate an aspect of the historical development of this Turco-Mongolian institution in Ilkhanid Iran, one of the Chingisid uluses, namely what were the preconditions and prescriptions of being appointed to the rank of a Mongol judge? The focal point will be the three charters of appointment (or yarlik samples) presented by Muḥammad ibn Hindūshāh Nakhchivānī (ca. 679/1280 – after 768/1366), in his Dastūr al-kātib fī tacyīn al-marātib (“Guidelines of the Secretary for Defining the Echelons”), a manual of Ilkhanid and Jalayirid administration, accomplished in the 1360s.

The exhibition of decorative and industrial arts that was held in Jaipur in 1883 under the patronage of Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II (1880–1922) brought together the work of artists and craftsmen from many regions of India, but gave special treatment to the neighbouring states of Rajasthan, and to the pupils of Jaipur's own recently established School of Art. It led to the establishment of a permanent museum of industrial arts in Jaipur, which still exists and continues to hold many of the original exhibits. One of many ambitious exhibitions that followed in the wake of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Jaipur Exhibition was the first such to be held in an Indian state, coinciding with the International Exhibition in Calcutta and preceding the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London of 1886.

We owe to Zoroaster one of the oldest religions of mankind. We cannot call Zoroaster's doctrine a world religion in the strict sense, for it did not spread far beyond the limits of the Iranian world, nor did its followers spread over the world as the Parsis do now and the Manichaeans once did. But many ideas first expressed by Zoroaster or his followers, such as the all-encompassing dualism of good and evil, light and darkness, or the resurrection of the dead in the flesh, or the responsibility of mankind for the fate of this world and the world beyond, have influenced, from the middle of the first millennium BCE on, the spirituality of the near eastern peoples and so also the religions of Judaism, and by way of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, too. This is sufficient to grant the religion of Zoroaster a most important position in the history of human religiosity.

Despite Jebe Noyan's importance to the expansion of Chinggis Khan's empire, the Mongol general remains a shadowy figure. In part this stems from the absence of any biography of Jebe in the Yuan Shi and much uncertainly surrounds when, and in what circumstances, he died. Here the argument is made that the Novgorod First Chronicle provides a description of Jebe's capture and death at the hands of the Kipchaks during the 1223 campaign which culminated with the decisive Battle of the Kalka River. The silence and ambiguity surrounding Jebe's fate in pro-Mongol sources of the thirteenth century can perhaps be explained by a taboo surrounding the disgraceful circumstances of his capture and execution.

The paper explores the implications which this identification holds for how we assess the westward campaign of Jebe and Sübe'etei (1220-1224), often perceived as a reconnaissance mission, and how the Mongol leadership viewed enemies west of the Volga in its aftermath. This, in turn, sheds light on the preparations the Mongols made for their return in force to the region in the 1230s. Finally a theory is offered for why Jebe's identification was not made previously which illustrates the challenges facing researchers of the Mongol Empire.

It is characteristic of Iranian revolts and rebellions that they usually occur when the state is perceived to be weak and unable to enforce its authority. Naser al-Din Shah was an arbitrary ruler like all his predecessors. But, the consequences of arbitrary rulers were not all alike either for themselves or for the country. Much depended on their personalities as well as the circumstances in which they lived. For example, the fall of the Safavid state and its dreadful consequences for Iranian society and economy were largely due to the personality traits of Shah Sultan Hosain which combined extreme promiscuity and intemperance with common superstition, susceptibility to influence, and timidity and indecisiveness at moments of crisis. Otherwise, the state would not have fallen so swiftly and miserably in the face of rebellion by some of the poorest and most backward nomads of the far eastern provinces of the empire.

Islām, notwithstanding its immediate and overwhelming triumph, was unable to eradicate the paganism which had preceded it. In pagan Arabia the jinn and spirit world could be conjured by music, and even in ʻAbbāsid times such famous musicians as Ibrāhīm al-Mauṣilī of Baghdad and Ziryāb of Cordova claimed to derive some of their music from the jinn and even shaiṭān himself. This conceit is understandable. The voice of the jinn was termed ʻazf, and when we know this, we can appreciate the occult significance of the word ʻazīf or miʻzaf for a harp-like instrument. We read in the ʻIqd al-Farīd (tenth century) that David the Prophet played a miʻzaf when he wanted to gather the jinn unto himself. Even to-day the Arabic name for an instrumentalist is ʻazzāf.

That the religious ideas of any epoch tend to flow in the channels dug by the philosophy then prevailing is a commonplace, and it is not surprising, therefore, that in the period between the composition of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad and that of the SK. the various religions which are described in more or less detail in the Upaniṣads and the MBh. are for the most part strongly impregnated with Sāṁkhya doctrines. Not that they accepted the Sāṁkhya scheme wholesale; they accept only so much as is necessary for their purposes and have no hesitation in making modifications or discordant additions of their own. Nevertheless we can discern through the confused welter of systems that the general outlines of the scheme set out by Īśvarakṛṣṇa with its summing up of existence under twenty-five heads were accepted as the standard throughout the period. But how disturbing it would be to all our convictions of historical development if, as has been held, not merely was the outer façade of the Sāṁkhya philosophy maintained intact for all that time, but also there was no change inside. In a lapse of many centuries, during which philosophical speculation was so active and new schools with new ideas and methods were developing, we should expect some change in nomenclature and a great deal of change in the conceptions underlying the apparently unchanging scheme; but there is no general agreement yet about the nature and extent of such changes, if any. Partly, the quality of the evidence is to blame; for we have no exposition of Sāṁkhya teaching which is both certainly authoritative and certainly older than the SK., so that a way is always left open to the retort, when a view other than that contained in the SK.

In South India Cochin is well known for its Jewish settlement, but the rich Muslim heritage of the town has so far remained almost unknown. A reason for this anonymity lies perhaps in that the Muslim community of Cochin – unlike that of Calicut – while highly influential in the commerce of the region, kept a low profile with regard to political affairs, at least from the time of the appearance of the Portuguese. Cochin, situated at 9° 58′ N and 760° 14′ E, occupies the northern part of a long stretch of land, about half a kilometre south of the Island of Vypin (Baypin or Vypeen) and 1.5 km west of the shores of the mainland, now occupied by the modern town of Ernakulam. Between Cochin and Ernakulam is a long expanse of sheltered but navigable water, at the mouth of which is Willingdon Island, housing the modern sea port and the airport.

The purpose of this article is two-fold: firstly, to illustrate by means, particularly, of two examples how far Thomas More based the Second Book of his masterpiece, Utopia, upon Indian, or more strictly, indological sources; and secondly to reintroduce to historians of India Iosephus Indus, “Joseph the Indian.”

On a former occasion I described some of my experiences amongst the sect of the Bábís in Persia, and gave a short sketch of the history of their appearance and development. In the present paper I propose to speak of their literature and doctrine, so far as these are known to me.

The subjoined catalogue describes a collection comprising 368 separate texts mainly in Sanskrit, which were collected by Dr. M. A. Stein and acquired at his expense chiefly at Śrīnagar during his visits to Kashmir between 1888 and 1905. Apart from texts needed by Dr. Stein for his labours, during 1888–99, on his critical edition and annotated translation of Kalhana's Rājataraṅgiṇī, numerous MSS. were purchased by him either to assist the work of fellow-scholars in Europe or on account of their philological or palæographical interest.