[Fakhru'd-Dín Fatḥu'lláh], the brother of the author of this work (may his life be long!), has composed some fine odes. The following is written in imitation of Awḥadí:—

Our oldest authority, the Mahā-parinibbāna Suttanta, which can be dated approximately in the fifth century b.c.,1 states that after the cremation of the Buddha's body at Kusinārā, the fragments that remained were divided into eight portions. These eight portions were allotted as follows:—

1. To Ajātasattu, king of Magadha.

2. To the Licchavis of Vesālī.

3. To the Sakyas of Kapilavastu.

4. To the Bulis of Allakappa.

5. To the Koliyas of Rāmagāma.

6. To the brahmin of Veṭhadīpa.

7. To the Mallas of Pāvā.

8. To the Mallas of Kusinārā.

Mr. Golénischeff has just published in the Transactions of the Russian Imperial Society of Oriental Archæology (vol. xiii) a new Vannic inscription of considerable interest and importance. As my memoir on the Vannic Inscriptions is not likely to be continued after the publication of the rich materials collected by Drs. Belck and Lehmann during their exploration of Armenia and Kurdistan, I will deal with this inscription separately, and provisionally number it LXXXVI in continuation of my former notation. The stone on which the inscription is engraved was found in the church of St. Gregory, four versts east of the monastery of Eshmiadzin, and is 2·70 metres high, 63 cent, broad, and 36 cent, thick. It will be seen that it is a record of Ruśas, the son of Argistis, whose existence, first asserted by Dr. Belck, but doubted by myself (J.R.A.S., Oct., 1894, pp. 705, 706), is thus certified.

“ Whosoever is harmonically composed delights in harmony; which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaim against all Church-Musick. For my own part, not only from my obedience but my particular Genius, I do embrace it: for even that vulgar and Tavern-Musick, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion and a profound contemplation of the First Composer.” This is the confession of Sir Thomas Browne, and in that confession races the farthest apart join. The influence of music on the soul, the emotions it stirs, the fears and hopes it excites, all peoples, all climates, all ages have known. The negro at his camp-meeting, the darwīsh at his dhikr, are here kin with the English scholar and physician. For him it may not have been such a cataleptic ecstasy as befalls the negro or the darwīsh, but the cause was one and the essential nature. All religions have drawn strength and exaltation from this which lies at the root of all religion; it has ever kindled and fed the flame of devotion. The one could picture it to himself as “ a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of God” ; the other can but ignorantly feel it working on his heart and soul, and sweeping him far from all the bonds of mind and thought. The unknown opens before him and clothes itself with his fancy.

This chapter is described as being in praise of Iṣfahán, and of the excellence of its inhabitants, their obedience to constituted authority, and their talents, and as showing that the schemes of all such as have intended ill to them, or endeavoured to do them injury, have recoiled on their own heads.

One of the most important and significant of the epoch making discoveries of the nineteenth century in ancient Egypt is that of a stele found by Flinders Petrie, containing a hymn of victory of King Merneptah. This victory was one obtained in the fifth year of his reign over the Libyans.

The history of this little-known work is remarkable. No manuscript of it has yet been discovered, and on the continent of India the only traces of its existence consist in the facts that a few of its verses are quoted in two Sanskrit anthologies, the Çārṅgadharapaddhati and the Subhāṣitāvalī, and in the Aucityavicāracarcā of Kṣemendra, and that the author is coupled with Kālidāsa in a memorial verse of Rājaçekhara—

Jānakīharaṇaṃ kartuṃ Raghuvaṃçe sthite sati

kaviḥ Kumāradāsaç ca Rāvaṇaç ca yadi kṣamaḥ.

Amongst the Persian manuscripts belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society is one, now numbered 180 (not described in Morley's Catalogue), which contains a very interesting monograph on the city of Iṣfahán. As these local histories are often of very great importance in supplementing the large general histories, with the contents of which we are gradually becoming acquainted, I was desirous of reading it through, which, thanks to the laudable generosity of our Society in lending its manuscripts to private individuals, I was enabled to do. Of the notes which I made during its perusal this article is the outcome.

Know that the first step in Hearing is understanding what is heard, and applying it to an idea which occurs to the hearer. Then this understanding has as fruit ecstasy, and ecstasy moving of the members. Let there be a consideration, then, of these three stages.

The book I have chosen for my present paper is a sort of Jātaka or Avadāna entitled the “ Hien-yü-Ching,” which Mr. Nanjio has restored into Sanskrit as “ Damamūkasūtra” , or “ Tales of the Wise Man and the Fool.” It will at once remind one of the Tibetan work “ mDsans-blun ” (generally called Dsan-lun), that is, “Der Weise und der Thor,” published by I. J. Schmidt, and afterwards by Schiefner, for this is a popular work and is read by almost every student of Tibetan. The Chinese version was by Hui-hsio , Wei-teh , and others, written during their stay in Karakhodjo, a.d. 445 . There are, however, two texts both assigned to the same translators, one coming down through the Korean Buddhists and the other through the Chinese. It is said in the earliest catalogue in existence (a.d. 520) that the original text was obtained by the translators in Khoten (Kustana, ) and translated by them in the Temple Tien-an-shi, Karakhodjo . As to the Tibetan text we were first informed of its existence by Csoma de Cörösi in the “ Asiatic Researches,” vol. xx, 1836, and seven years later we were furnished with the text by the Russian savants mentioned above.

In a later number of this Journal I hope to give a summary account of the Cosmography known as the Nuzhat -al-Ḳulūb or “Heart's Delight” by Ḥamd-Allah Mustawfi, more especially indeed of the geographical part of that compilation, and this will serve as a supplement to the paper recently given us by Mr. E. G. Browne on the historical work written by this same Persian author, called the Tārīkh-i-Guzīdah. My summary, however, not being as yet quite ready for printing, I take this occasion to publish some preliminary notes on the vexed question of the older capitals of Kirmān, with a brief reference to the other chief cities of the province, since the account written by Ḥamd-Allah appears likely to prove useful in understanding the description of Kirmān given in the Travels of Marco Polo.

I. The Mullā Fīrūz Library, Bombay.—This owes its existence to the liberality and public spirit of Mullā Fīrūz b. Kawus, a Parsi ecclesiastic and a friend of Jonathan Duncan, for whom he wrote the poem called the Georgenāma. The library is open to the public, but it seems to be little known to the citizens. It is situated in the native part of the town, in a lane off the Kalka Devi Road, and is near the Roman Catholic Cathedral. There is a printed catalogue (Bombay, 1873) by E. Rehatsek, a Hungarian scholar, who lived for many years in Bombay, and who died there in December, 1891.

A notice of alaf b. Aḥmad is contained in Ṣafadi's Wāfi bil-Wafayāt (Paris, 2, 064, 22a). The pedigree does not differ from that given by ahabi, but some further information is given about alaf, and on the authority of Yāqūt — presumably, therefore, from his Mu‘jam al-Udabā. We are told that Khalaf was at one time a rationalist in doctrine, when he became notorious for his persecution of members of the contrary sect. And Yaḥya b. ‘Ammāra, who was in Sijistān at the time, had to make his way to Harāt in the disguise of a woman.

It is well known that between the Vedic period, and that described in the epic poems, great modifications occurred in the religion and social customs of the Indian people. Since the Epic period, further changes have taken place; so that the orthodox Hinduism, of the present day, differs much from that represented in the Mahābhārata. Religious vicissitudes have also occurred outside the Brahmanic pale. The Buddhist religion has become extinguished in India. Vast numbers of the people, too, have been converted—many of them forcibly—to the faith of Islām. Notwithstanding all this, however, many of the old deities still live. The Nāga rajas are worshipped as demigods; the sun, the cedar, and the serpent are held sacred; and Indra and his Devas have still their worshippers and their temples, as they had in the days described in the Mahābharāta.

The impressions of inscriptions represented, on very greatly reduced scales, in the accompanying collotype plate by Mr. W. Griggs were sent for publication to Dr. M. A. Stein by Captain A. H. McMahon, Major Deane's successor on the Malakand and Political Agent for Swat, Dir, and Chitral. It was Dr. Stein's intention to publish them in continuation of the series of inscriptions in unknown characters sent to him by Major Deane, and described by him in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1898, p. 1). The preparations for his tour to Khotan did not, however, allow him the leisure to carry this design into effect, and the impressions were forwarded to me with the request that I would superintend their publication during his absence.

This book, the work of the Mahāthera Ānanda, is all but unknown in Europe, and though copies exist in Ceylon they have never, I believe, been published. A Sinhalese MS. in the possession of Mr. Easton, of Opawa, Christchurch, N.Z., was recently shown to me by the possessor, to whose courtesy I am indebted for permission to publish the following excerpts, to which I add a few doubtful conjectures.

The manuscript consists of 827 folios with two detached leaves. The paper on which it is written measures 10 in. by 7 ½ in., and is generally creamy white and thick. A few sheets are coloured brown, and there are a few sheets of very thin paper.

There are many closely related dialects spoken in Rājputānā. No less than fifteen variations of the local speech have been counted in the Jaipur State alone. Omitting minor local variations, I have a list of sixteen real dialects spoken over the area in which Rājasthānī is a vernacular. An examination of them shows that they fall into four main groups, which may be called Mēwātī, Mālwī, Jaipurī, and Mārwārī. These may be considered as the four main dialects of the Rājasthānī language. I propose in this note to show the principal grammatical forms of these four, and to show their connection with the border languages, Western Hindī and Gujarātī. It may be taken as a general statement that Rājasthānī is a language intermediate between these two, and partaking of the characteristics of both. On the whole it is nearer Gujarātī than Western Hindī.

The three great administrators of Kumaon were Mr. Traill (1815–1835), Mr. Batten (1848–1856), and Captain (afterwards Major-General Sir Henry) Ramsay, all of whom are remembered with affection by their whilom subjects. There were numerous short settlements of Kumaon, the first being in 1815–16, the second in 1817, and the third (for three years) in 1818. The fifth settlement (for five years) took place in 1823, and was subsequently extended for another five. In 1831 the Board of Revenue at Allahabad obtained jurisdiction over revenue matters in Kumaon. About the year 1837 proposals were made for a settlement of twenty years, which the landholders appear to have been unwilling to accept on account of its length. It was ultimately carried out in 1842–6 (ninth settlement).

Ever since an accidental discovery, some thirty-five years ago, at Yōtkan, a village of the Borazān tract, disclosed remains of the ancient capital of Khotan, the layers of its débris, deeply buried under alluvial soil, have been regularly mined and washed for ‘treasure’ by the villagers. The great mass of the highly interesting finds of ancient art pottery, engraved stones, and early Khotan coins with Kharoṣṭhī-Chinese legends, which have recently been so thoroughly examined in Dr. Hoernle's report on the “British Collection of Central-Asian Antiquities,” has come from this site. The detailed examination of the great excavations made in the course of the treasure - seeking operations furnished interesting evidence as to the way in which those remains are embedded in layers of decomposed rubbish, evidently the accumulations of centuries. It also showed conclusively that the layer of earth (loess), from 9 to 20 feet deep at various points, which covers these ‘culture-strata,’ is due solely to silt deposit, the necessary result of intensive irrigation, and not to any great flood or similar catastrophe such as has been assumed by some earlier visitors of the site.