A fresh look at the 1888 Sikkim Expedition using both Chinese and English language sources yields very different conclusions from that of previous research on the subject. During the course of policymaking, the British Foreign Office and the British Government of India did not collaborate to devise a plan to invade Tibet; conversely, their aims differed and clashed frequently. During the years leading to war, the largest newspapers in British India gave plenty of coverage to the benefits of trade with Tibet, thus influencing British foreign policy and contributing indirectly to the outbreak of war. The Tibetan army was soundly defeated in the war, while the British troops suffered only light casualties. Although the Tibetan elites remained committed to the war, the lower classes of Tibetan society quickly grew weary of it. During the war, the British made much use of local spies and enjoyed an advantage in intelligence gathering, which contributed greatly to their victory. Finally, although the war was initially fought over trade issues, the demarcation of the Tibetan-Sikkim border replaced trade issues as the main point of contention during the subsequent peace negotiations. During the negotiations, Sheng Tai, the newly appointed Amban of Tibet, tried his best to defend China's interests.

Most students of Middle Eastern history in the West will probably recognize the title of this paper as an allusion to Bernard Lewis's well-known article “Ottoman observers of Ottoman decline”. The allusion is meant to be more than a mere play on words, however, for Professor Lewis's discussion of the reactions of Ottoman statesmen to the crises that rocked their society in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries contains much that is relevant to an understanding of Chinese reactions to similar crises in the Ming (1368–1644) empire at about the same time. Indeed, whether or not one accepts the still controversial notion that there was a “general crisis” in seventeenth-century world economic and political history, it has become increasingly clear in recent years that during the period from approximately 1550 to 1680, a revolution in world monetary history, sharp fluctuations in the levels of international and domestic trade, dramatic increases in governmental expenditure, significant changes in the growth rates and geographical distribution of population, deteriorating climatic conditions, and outbreaks of epidemic disease affected many economies, including those of the Ming, Ottoman, and Spanish empires, in ways that rulers, officials, clerics, and political commentators from London to Edo found deeply disturbing.

It is perhaps difficult to exaggerate the importance from the point of view of the literary history of India of the Bṛhaddevatā attributed to Śaunaka. That this has not hitherto received full recognition is due in part to the fact that it has been held, for example even by Dr. E. Sieg, that the Bṛhaddevatā is later in date than the Mahābhārata. This is, however, certainly not the case, as Professor A. A. Macdonell has shown conclusively in his edition of the former work. About 300 ślokas of the work are devoted to legends, and this must, it seems, be regarded as a conclusive proof that at the date of its composition there existed in Sanskrit an ākhyāna or itihāsa literature. Now the date of the Bṛhaddevatā is fixed by Professor Macdonell, on grounds which appear to me unassailable, at about 400 b.c., perhaps earlier. It follows, therefore, that a Sanskrit itihāsa literature can be proved to have existed in the fifth century b.c.

Iraq in the tenth and eleventh centuries witnessed a flowering of Shiite cultural production with lasting effects on the Islamic sciences such as law, hadith, theology, and Qur'anic commentary. The works of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), and al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) not only broke significant new ground in Shiite intellectual history and defended Shiite doctrinal positions against opponents, but also set parameters for production in these fields that would remain in effect, grosso modo, until modern times. During the same period, Shiite authors made substantial contributions to fields not directly related to Shiite religious doctrine, playing a crucial role in elaborating and preserving Islamic heritage in general. Al-Masʿūdī's (d. 345/956) famous history Murūj al-dhahab and Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī's (d. 356/967) collection of songs, poetry, and associated lore, Kitāb al-Aghānī, are prominent examples of Shiite authors' contributions to general Arabo-Islamic cultural production. Arguably yet more important is the Fihrist, composed in Baghdad in 377-378 ah/987-988 ce by Ibn al-Nadīm, an Imāmī Shiite bookseller. This work, a comprehensive catalogue of Arabic book titles, is widely recognised as one of the most important sources for the history of all learned disciplines recorded in Arabic in the course of the first four Islamic centuries. As a consequence, the present understanding of entire swaths of Islamic intellectual history, including the rise and development of Muʿtazilī theology and the translation of the Greek sciences into Arabic, is heavily indebted to a Shiite author.

The following notes upon the Vegetable Productions of the island of Ceylon have been thrown together in the hope that, although devoid of any originality, they may be deemed worthy the honour of a reading by this Society. The writer has been led to draw up this paper chiefly from the many inquiries made of him, as the Commissioner for Ceylon at the Great Exhibition, in reference to the produce of that colony. It would appear that whilst the larger articles of coffee and cinnamon are well enough known as staples of the Ceylon trade, but few have any knowledge of the less prominent produce of the island, more especially of those articles which are cultivated for local nse only, or for export to the neighbouring Indian states.

In the present essay, it is my intention to treat of the heretical systems of Jina and Buddha, as proposed in the first essay of this series on the philosophy of the Hindus; and to notice certain other Indian sects, which, like them, exhibit some analogy to the Sánc'hyas, or followers of Capila or of Patanjali.

In 1839 the British Government committed itself to an undertaking which practically amounted to the conquest, military occupation, and civil administration of a remote mountain land, inhabited by a savage and warlike race, animated by the strongest feelings of nationality. Yet it was all but wholly unprovided with the means of acquiring or imparting a knowledge of the difficult and peculiar language in which that nationality found its strongest expression and support. Such knowledge, indeed, was not absolutely indispensable for the purposes of official or social intercourse and correspondence. The requirements of current business were sufficiently met by the employment of Persian, generally known among the educated classes of Afghans, and strictly vernacular with that large population of Afghanistan which is Persian in its origin and Shiah by religion. But the inner life and distinctive character of the Afghans remained a sealed book for want of a knowledge of Pushtu. A vocabulary inserted at the end of Mounstuart Elphinstone's travels, a translation of the New Testament into Pushtu, and a brief grammatical sketch and vocabulary by Major Leach, constituted at that time the whole of the materials accessible to the English or Anglo-Indian student desirous of making himself acquainted with this language. These were scanty in amount, of little use for practical purposes, and of not much intrinsic value. The translation of the Testament was executed with haste and carelessness; and, though every allowance must be made for the zeal of the translators and the difficulties of a little-known, and, to them, uncultivated language, with the literature of which they were evidently unacquainted, such an error as the often-quoted rendering of “Judge not, that ye be not judged”, by words meaning “Do not practice equity, lest equity be practised towards yoū”, was more than mere inaccuracy in Pushtu, as it indicates fundamental ignorance of the real meaning of insāf, a word universal and of quite common and vernacular use in every language spoken by Mahometans. Leach's grammatical sketch goes a very little way in facilitating the student's progress, being slight, imperfect, and not always accurate or consistent in rendering Afghan sounds into Roman letters; but his dialogues are original, animated, and apparently idiomatic. An ode of Rahman, subjoined to his sketch, is so disfigured with bad misprints that it is of no use to any one who is not proficient enough to restore the text by means of the translation at the side: in other words, it is useless to a learner. As this work bears the official countersign of Mr. Torrens, certifying it to be a “true copy”, the responsibility of these misprints must be borne at least as much by the censor as by the author. The late Dr. Leyden appears at one time to have turned his attention to Pushtu, and to have succeeded in adding some knowledge of that language to his other great and varied accomplishments. A memoir by him on the Roshenian sect, in the 11th volume of the Asiatic Researches, contains some extracts from the Makhzan i Pushtu, the earliest extant work in the language, and the main authority for his subject. This, however, was not philology, and he added nothing to our knowledge of the language. A gallant and distinguished officer, Lieutenant Loveday, whose barbarous murder, at the instigation of the dispossessed Khan of Khelat, caused a deep and painful sensation in England at the time, is understood to have contemplated a systematic study of Pushtu, with a view to publishing the result; a project which was abruptly stopped by his untimely death.

The writer of this paper is fully sensible how difficult it is to discover that which is studiously concealed, under the sanction of oaths, curses, and the (supposed,) impending vengeance of the gods; and how liable one is, even after the utmost care, to be mistaken in tracing the progress of any set of principles and schemes, which the fortunes or lives of the parties who have adopted them are concerned to hide, to varnish, to distort, and to misrepresent. He therefore offers the following remarks, not as the result of firm and unhesitating conviction, but as having a good deal of probability to support them, and as containing the substance of the best information procurable in his situation. He begs then to say a few words on the name, objects, government, initiatory ceremonies, secret signs, and seal of the said association, and to conclude with a few miscellaneous remarks.

In January, 1862, Mr. A. A. Roberts, of the Bengal Civil Service, presented to the Society two copper plates inscribed with Bactrian Pali characters, said to have been found at Hussun Abdal, near Rawal Pindee, in the Punjab. These plates were submitted to the examination of Mr. Norris, and that gentleman at once picked out the names of Takhaśila nagara (Taxila) and Śákyamuni, proving the inscription to be one of more than ordinary importance. Having made a transcript of the document, he wrote a few notes upon it which were read at one of the Society's meetings, and he then suggested that the plates should be sent to me. The interest I had taken in these Bactrian inscriptions from the time of our joint labours on the Kapur di Giri edicts was well known to him, and was sufficient to ensure a careful if unsuccessful consideration of the newly-discovered inscription. In this recommendation the Society acquiesced and placed the plates at my disposal for examination and report. I now propose to state the results of my investigation.

The controversy between White and Black Jews at Cochin still aroused bitter passion and partisanship a generation ago; now it belongs to history. Today fewer than fifty Jews and Jewesses remain in Kerala, scattered between Cochin itself and Mattancherry, Ernakulam and Parur. The rest of this historic and influential community have emigrated from India, most of them to Israel. It may, then, be not inopportune to offer a fresh analysis of this celebrated affair. In its principal features it was, I hope to establish, peculiar to India. Nowhere else could hereditary distinctions between the two sections of a single Jewish community have been rigidly maintained for centuries, including tabus on intermarriage and on free association on religious and social occasions. Now the old antipathies between White and Black have abated, as their protagonists are divorced from India. The sources and progress of the dispute may be analysed withour rancour.

In the Ultra-Indian peninsula different layers of nationalities may be distinguished, being successive arrivalsfrom different quarters. In most cases it is difficult to determine with exactitude the time of their respective settlements; but, as a general rule, the later conquerors have driven the former possessors of the soil into the hills, appropriating to themselves the more fertile lands on the banks of the rivers; and it may be readily assumed that the inhabitants we now find in the valleys of the Menam and Irawaddi are the most recent immigrants. History shows this to be the case. Whenever, in the course of events, the empires stretching along the great rivers became weakened by luxury or broken up by internal dissensions, the rude and warlike tribes of the surrounding mountains, watchful of the growing weakness of their former masters, and the decay of their defences, have burst from their forests and made slaves of the populations of the towns. This phenomenon, not unknown in other parts of the world, has been frequently repeated in the histories of Assam and Burmah, of Siam and of Kambodia; and it is by keeping before our eyes these continual revolutions that we may collect the disjecta membra of arts and sciences from the different quarters to which they have been scattered, and arrange them under one comprehensive aspect, where each of them occupies its natural position.

The main interest of the world's history centres so indisputably in the doings of the Aryan and Semitic races, that even those whose attention has been chiefly devoted to other areas of human development cannot but concur in the judgment which assigns to the object of their studies a secondary place. At the same time, the second place, and even the third, has a claim to some hearing; and if we grant (as we are bound to do) the second place to China as the intellectual, and to some extent the political leader of Eastern Asia, the third place will perhaps be allowed to belong to Japan. Pending the settlement of the disputed Accadian question, Japanese literature takes us back many centuries further than the oldest documents of the Mongols, Mantchus, Turks, Finns, or any other nation of the Altaic stock; and, as the Archaic Japanese language may, on account of its superior antiquity, lay claim to the title of the Sanskrit of the Altaic tongues, so, also, is it to be presumed that the early Japanese civilization and religion present us with the most original features of Altaic thought and life.

During my residence in North Hampshire, in the years 1819–20, I was led to pay considerable attention to a race of vagrant men, who, roaming about the high roads and lanes in the vicinity of Waltham, Overton, and Whitchurch, appear almost to be out of the protection of the law (whether in this or any other country), and are known throughout the world under the varied names—

In this article I do not propose to attempt any general classification of the dialects spoken in different parts of Persia; for, in the present state of our knowledge, and with the materials yet available, such attempt would, perhaps, be premature; and, in any case, the task is one which I am not competent to undertake. Neither do I deem it necessary to enlarge upon the importance of the philological results which a fuller study of these dialects may be expected to yield. My present intention is merely to make known a collection of poems, of various dates and authorship, composed in different dialects of the Persian language, and contained in a small manuscript which came into my possession about four years ago.

By “Gaurian” are meant what Mr. Beames, in his comparative grammar, has called the “Modern Aryan Languages of India,” but, as this last is too long a title for frequent use, and as the name, Gaurian, given by Professor Hoernle, has been adopted by Dr. Caldwell, I may venture to make use of it also. These languages, in order to make their origin, may also sometimes be termed the Neo-Sanskrit languages, as the Romance are spoken of for the same purpose as the Neo Latin or Novo-Latin Languages.