[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.]

Clay impressions bearing the well-known Buddhist formula, Ye dharmā hetuprabhavā, etc., are well known and have often been published. The specimens to be described in the present article seem to be partly non-religious—simply the signets of individuals—and partly Hindu (Vaiṣṇava or Śaiva). The last-named class, represented here chiefly by a number of specimens belonging to Mr. L. White King, seems hitherto to have attracted little or no notice.

In my note on the above subject which appeared in the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal for 1895 (Vol. XXVII, pp. 895–898), I brought to notice the existence in Ceylon of several ancient inscriptions in Southern Maurya characters (Brāhmī lipi), which read from right to left. I stated further that “this oft repeated peculiarity of so many inscriptions certainly cannot be merely accidental or due to the ignorance of the inscribers; the more so, because of the important fact that the anomaly is to be met with only in the most ancient inscriptions in the Southern Aśoka character.” I hope before long to obtain ink ‘estampages’ of some of these from the indefatigable Archæological Commissioner in Ceylon, Mr. H. C. P. Bell, to whom should be given the credit of first suggesting a reading of one of them from right to left. Facsimiles will, in due course, be included in the forthcoming “Epigraphia Zeylanica.”

The numerous inscriptions on rocks and stone pillars which purport to have been issued by command of a sovereign named Priyadarśin or Piyadasi, and a few which omit the sovereign's name while using the title specially affected by King Piyadasi, obviously form a distinct class among Indian epigraphical records and belong approximately to one period. The exceptional value and the extreme interest of these inscriptions have always, since their first discovery, been recognized by all students of Indian history and antiquities, and for nearly seventy years the Piyadasi class of inscriptions has been studied and discussed by eminent scholars. Before these invaluable records can be fully and confidently utilized for the elucidation of the dark places of Indian history, two preliminary problems must be definitely solved. These problems are, firstly, Were all the Piyadasi inscriptions issued by one sovereign, or by two or more sovereigns? and secondly, Who was Piyadasi, and what is his place in history?

In my paper entitled “ The Authorship of the Piyadasi Inscriptions” the question of authorship was treated on the assumption that the place of Piyadasi in history was unknown. This mode of treatment was adopted because I desired to examine afresh, and with perfect impartiality, the commonly accepted identification of Piyadasi with Aśoka Maurya. Before I undertook that examination I did not feel absolute certainty that the doubts as to the identification long ago expressed by Professor H. H. Wilson and recently again put forward by Bābū P. C. Mukherjī might not have some basis in fact. The problem of the Aśoka chronology is involved with the question of the identification of Aśoka with Piyadasi, and nearly the whole of the chronology of the history of ancient India depends upon the determination of the date of Asoka. For these reasons I felt compelled, in order to satisfy my own mind, to thoroughly examine the evidence for the identification of Aśoka with Piyadasi, and to see whether or not it is open to any doubt. The result of the examination is that to my mind no doubt is any longer possible respecting either the identity of Aśoka Maurya with Piyadasi, or respecting the approximate dates of the accession both of Aśoka and of his grandfather Candragupta. By “approximate dates” I mean dates with a margin of possible error not exceeding two years.

The history of which this MS. is all that is known to exist, covered in its entirety the period between A.H. 360 and 447. This fragment—which forms the larger portion of its eighth part—commences towards the close of the year 389, and concludes early in the year 393. It is interesting, not merely as the oldest Arabic authority for the period, but more especially as affording a specimen of Oriental history written at first-hand, the facts being either within the writer's own knowledge or told him by contemporaries. A history compiled by these means is almost certain to present a picture of a period truer and more vivid than one derived from abridgments, such as the Kāmil of Ibn al-Aīr, where, all that seemed capable of omission having been discarded, little beyond the dry bones of history remains. But of histories of this type few have survived.

The scholars who have studied hitherto the Greek magical papyri, such as Parthey, Wessely, Dieterich, and others, have either concentrated their attention upon the Greek forms contained in these documents, or have tried to find a connecting link between these books, notably between the weird notions contained therein and Greek and Egyptian parallels. Greek mysteries have been adduced in order to explain some of the curious notions prevailing in these papyri. Egypt had to serve for explaining the origin of some of the mystical names or angels mentioned therein. From time to time allusion has been made to so-called Cabalistic parallels, without any clear proof being furnished as to the dependence of one upon the other. But one branch of literature has been entirely neglected, which ought to have attracted attention in the first place, namely, the apocryphal and pseudo-epigraphic literature, which is the only truly contemporary literature. Similarity in tendency, claim of great antiquity, and open or covert allusions to heavenly mysteries show close affinities of no mean order. The authors in one case would be the very persons to avail themselves of the information furnished by the other. The world in which the writers of the apocryphal literature move has not been very much different from that in which the writers and speculators in this mystical lore, preserved, in the papyri, have lived. And one would have thought that the material offered by the apocryphal literature would have been the first to be utilized for the elucidation of some of the problems connected with these magical papyri.

For more than a century, Indian archæologists have been greatly puzzled about the identity of an ancient city named Tagara. The city is referred to in some of the Indian epigraphic records. Thus, a record of a.d. 997 describes the Śilāhāra prince Aparājita, of the Northern Koṅkaṇ, as Tagara-pura-paramēśvara, or “ supreme lord of the town of Tagara,” giving to him a hereditary title commemorative of the place which his family claimed as its original home. Another Śilāhāra record, of a.d. 1058, similarly applies to Mārasiṁha, of the Karhāḍ branch of the family, the title of Tagara-puravar-ādhīśvara, or “ supreme lord Tagara, a best of towns, an excellent town, a chief town;” and it further describes his grandfather Jatiga II. more specifically, but less accurately, as Tagara-nagara-bhūpālaka, or “ king of the city of Tagara.” And a Western Chalukya record of a.d. 612 specifies Tagara as the residence of the person to whom the grant of a village, registered in that charter, was made. The city is further mentioned, as Tagara, by the Greek geographer Ptolemy, who, writing about the middle of the second century a.d., assigned to it a certain latitude and longitude which have the effect of placing it about eighty-seven miles towards the north-east from another place, mentioned by him as Baithana, which his details would locate about 270 miles on the east-north-east of Barygaza.

The following classified references may prove useful and suggestive to the student of the economic conditions of ancient India. The work accomplished by Professor Zimmer in his Altindisches Leben, which contains, among so much of varied interest, almost all that may be gleaned on the political economy of Vedic times, has not been carried on with respect to the advancing civilization of the succeeding centuries. Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt's important compilation, the Civilization of Ancient India, cannot, from the magnitude of its scope, treat adequately of what the literature of that era lets us see concerning rural economy, organization of industry, and methods of exchange. Dr. Fick's Sociale Gliederung im Nordöstlichen Indien is most valuable and suggestive as far as it goes. But it is compiled from a sociological and not from a specifically economic standpoint. Yet if we consider the ancient records now accessible, contemporary respectively with the age which preceded and with that which saw the rise of Buddhism and Jainism, and with the times of the earlier and succeeding ‘law-books’ —covering, from b.c. 800, let us say, a thousand years,— we may find materials sufficient to justify at all events some initial efforts to gain a coherent outline of economic institutions. I do not pretend that the passages noted are at all exhaustive; I am confident that much valuable material remains embedded both in edited and unedited texts.

There are curious passages, found in two places of Fausboll's Jātaka, 4. 490 and 6. 30, which are full both of interest and of difficulty. At Professor Cowell's suggestion I venture to put together a few remarks which may tend to make these passages clearer.

There is one well-known place in Philo (De profugis, 18, 1, 560) where the ‘powers’ seem for the moment to be limited to six. And this has naturally struck the attention of those who have been looking for coincident similarities between the philonian pieces and the documents which mention the Amesha Spenta of the Zend Avesta. For, as one commentator, Siegfried, has supposed, some of us might consider his treatment of these six cities to be equivalent to the citation of seven (as to which see below), this equalling the number of the ‘immortals’ of the Avesta.

Since effecting the exploration of ancient sites around Khotan and in the Taklamakan, of which a brief preliminary notice was given in the last number of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, I have moved eastward to Keriya and Niya. Certain indications had led me to look for archaeologically interesting remains in the desert north of the shrine of Imām Jafar Sadik, where the Niya River loses itself in the sands. The excavations I have been able to carry on there for the last three weeks have more than justified my expectations.