The history of Central Asia before the days of Jingis Khan is singularly complicated and obscure; and if we are to make our way among its mazes, we can only do so profitably by concentrating our attention on the larger empires which then floúrished, and integrating the scattered facts that have survived to our day about the lesser powers around them. The empire which held this dominant position at the accession of Jingis was that of Kara Khitai, a short-lived, but also an important power, which held sway with more or less authority from the Caspian to the borders of China, and thus formed in some measure a model, upon which the later Mongol Empire was framed, assisting, also, very considerably in its formation, since, when it fell, a large, disciplined and compact territory was added to it. With your permission, I propose to collect together so much of its history as I can meet with, and to clear up some difficulties that attach to it.

On p. 174 of the late Dr. King's History of Sumer and Akkad there is reproduced the design of a cylinder seal of Lugalanda, the patesi of Lagash. In his chronological list in Appendix II to this volume, Dr. King gives the date of Lugalanda as circa 2850 b.c. In the centre of the seal design will be noted a curious geometrical pattern, to which the following reference is made on p. 176:— “Another peculiarity which may here be referred to is the employment on the larger seal, below the inscription, of a sort of arabesque pattern, an ingenious and symmetrical combination of straight lines and curves, the course of which may be followed without once passing along the same line a second time.”

[In the Hunterian MS. the following tractate is ascribed to Ibnu'l ‘Arabī, d. 638 A.H. = 1240 A.D. In one of the Berlin MSS., however, it is called Risālatu'l Balbānīyah, by Muḥammad al Balbānī (Ahlwardt, 3, 250); in another Suyūṭī is given as the author (Ahlwardt, 1, 830). In the British Museum MSS. (Arabic Catalogue, No. DCCCLXXXI, ix, and Supplementary Catalogue, No. 245, x) the author is given as Auḥad al Dīn ‘Abdallah al Balyānī, d. 686 A.H. These MSS. have been used in the Translation. The Librarian of the Royal Library, Berlin, most kindly sent the two mentioned above (as well as a third imperfect one) to the care of the Glasgow University Librarian.]

Magic has exercised the deepest influence upon mankind from remote antiquity unto our own days. It either formed part of the religion of the country, as it was the case in ancient Egypt and Babylon and as it is now in some forms of Buddhism (Tibet), or lived an independent life side by side with the recognized religion. In some instances it was tolerated, or rendered less obnoxious, by a peculiar subdivision into white or beneficial and black or evil magic, or was downright persecuted. Wherever we go, however, and especially if we turn to the popular beliefs that rule the so-called civilized nations, we shall always and everywhere find a complete system of magical formulas and incantations. The belief in the witch and wizard, and their powerful filters and charms, holds still stronger sway upon human imagination than, appears at first sight.

It is the aim of the following paper to present to the readers of this Journal the problem of the origin of Chinese writing as it appears at the opening of the historical period in the ninth century b.c., and to give some account of the new light thrown upon the subject by recent discoveries in North China. It is also my hope to show that there are reasons for endeavouring to stir an interest in this question of origin, and some grounds for defining, as clearly as present conditions allow, the main features of what is already known of the problem, and indicating the lines along which fruitful investigation must advance. Especially valuable it should be to investigators of other primitive systems of writing to have a working knowledge of the rise and progressive changes of a script, probably of very ancient origin, certainly claiming a continuous history of 3,600 years, still in vigorous activity, betraying no signs of impending decay. The facts of such a life-history, properly ascertained and appreciated, might well contribute some illuminating sidelights or useful suggestions on analogous inquirics.

IT is only with the greatest diffidence that I offer the following notes on the document, in a hitherto unknown script, of which a facsimile is appended in the accompanying plate. My remarks may appear premature, and in any case the results obtained are very slight, but it was thought advisable to publish them as a preliminary notice, in the hope that some more competent scholar might be able to help in the decipherment.

The earliest Malay literature extant belongs to a time five hundred years ago, when in spite of having embraced Islam the Malay still cared enough for the Mahabharata and the Ramayana to translate them into a vernacular already full of Arabic loanwords. In addition he borrowed from India folk romances tricked out with motifs and descriptive passages from the two great Hindu epics. For example, in one such romance, the Hikayat Parang Puting, when the fairy lover “burning as if he would set fairyland on fire” is rejected by his mistress, he tosses sleepless until “the cocks crow, the birds of paradise sing in the sky, the parrots chatter in the angsoka trees, parroquets on the boughs of the nagasari and mynahs on the chempaka trees, and a drizzle of rain makes all the flowers bloom”. The Indian genius, like our own, will readily sentimentalize landscape to accord with human moods. But turn to the Malay version of a scene in the garden at Hastinapura that “astonished the moon by its beauty”:—“about midnight was seen a portent of the city's imminent doom. It was utterly still and the moon looked like a lovely woman peeping from behind a door. Gentle rain fell and a light breeze stirred in the distance. There were banks of clouds of all shapes and the birds were restless, flying here and there like a man with two wives.” So far as I know that last simile is a gloss by the observant, cynical Malay. In modern jargon, the Indian is an introvert, the Malay an extravert.

When the various tribes of Mongols and Kalmuks were definitely converted to Lamaism in the sixteenth century it was not unnatural that the Lamaist monks, who formed their only literary class, should have tried to affiliate their famous heroes and their princely families to the old royal stock of Tibet, which had become for them a sacred land. Hence we find the two Mongol chronicles, one known as the “Altan Topchi” and the other generally quoted from the name of its author as Ssanang Setzen, and the Kalmuk legend derived by Pallas from the Tibetan work called the “Bodimer,” all concurring in a pedigree for the Mongol royal race which traces them first to the early Tibetan kings, and through them up to the alleged Indian ruler Olana Ergükdeksen, and through him again up to Sakiamuni Buddha himself. This pedigree was probably the invention of the author of the “Altan Topchi.”