From medieval times until today ideas of heredity through lineage and of merit through slave status have jostled for pre-eminence as explanations for transitions of Mamluk royal authority. This article contributes to this debate through an analysis of events in late 1341 marking the transition from the reign of one of the sultanate's most successful rulers, al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn, to that of his sons. This is achieved by focusing on the whereabouts of one of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad's most powerful agents, Qūṣūn al-Sāqī al-Nāṣirī, and on how this amir monopolized power in Egypt and Syria in such a way that his accession to the sultanate seemed inevitable. The article then demonstrates how things went wrong for Qūṣūn and how his failed attempt to obtain the sultanate triggered a Qalāwūnid dynastic succession practice that was to remain dominant for many decades.

The term tathāgata has been the subject of much discussion, butthe latest treatment leaves even the etymology undecided. The conclusion reached by the Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionaryis “ derivation uncertain ”. The question of the meaning is also left almost as vague, for what is there said is that Mrs. Rhys Davids, quoting Lord Chalmers, suggests “ he who has won through to the truth ”.

This document (No. 661 in Kharosṣṭhī inscriptions transcribed and edited by A. M. Boyer, E. J. Rapson, and É. Senart [and P. S. Noble]) has been the subject of special study by Professor Konow (Acta Orientalia, ii, pp. 124–7; x, pp. 77–80; xiv, pp. 233–240), and by Professor Noble (Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, VI, pp. 445–455), not to mention the subsequent discussion by Dr. Burrow of the word hinajha and his translation. The historical and linguistic importance which has been given to the document may excuse a further study of its problems. In order to make an auspicious commencement of these notes we may welcome the opportunity of acknowledging the advance made in the interpretation by Professor Konow's latest discussion, in Acta Orientalia, xiv, pp. 231 sqq. He shows that on the basis of the Saka-Khotanī forms the prima facie surprising royal name Vijita-Siṃha may be interpreted as practically equivalent to the Vijaya-Siṃha of the Khotan Chronicle. In Sanskrit-Prākrit also vijita could in certain circumstances have the same meaning as vijaya “victory” (as well as also that of “dominions”), so that a hearer or reader need not have been misled into understanding “Vanquished Lion”. We may accordingly forgo the reading Avijita-Siṃha or the idea of a guasi-approbrious name on the lines of Raṇa-bhīta, etc.: to understand the name as a bahu-vrīhi “one who has vanquished (s.c. surpasses) the lion” would be inappropriate, since the Vijaya/Vijita is a recurrent, dynastic, element in the names. Possibly, however, we may not even yet have completely solved the problem the (elsewhere also instanced) form Vijita, to which we may recur infra.

It has always been said of Mehri that it has no dual forms of the verb. Thus Bittner, in what seems to be the most recent statement on the subject, says, discussing Śḥeri dual forms, that they ‘umso interessanter sind, als das Mehri im Bereiche des Zeitwortes keinen Dual besitzt’. It had, however, been suggested tentatively by Leslau, and later more positively by Wagner, that Ḥarsūsi (Ḥarsi) had dual forms of the verb.

In 1933, in a brief remark on the expression hun-t'o‘leather bag’, Peter A. Boodberg identified it as a Kitan word and proposed to explain it through the Mongol °huquta, huyuta (modern Mongol uyula, pronounced ūta) ‘bag, sack’. Boodberg referred to Pelliot's article of 1925 on the Mongol °h- lost in the modern language; but Pelliot in his paper does not even mention hun-t'o. Professor Boodberg's note remained largely unnoticed, due no doubt to its brevity, comprising as it did not more than a few lines in a longer article which appeared in a publication distributed in rather restricted circles.

It is well known that some goddesses are worshipped in both the Buddhist and Hindu Tantric traditions. A form of the Buddhist Vajrayoginī, accompanied by Vajravarṇanī and Vajravairocanī, is the prototype of the Hindu Chinnamastā accompanied by Ḍākinī and Varṅinī. Forms of Ekajaṭā and Mañjughoṣa were adopted from the Buddhist pantheon into the Hindu and worshipped by the same name. Usually it is not easy to trace how and when these adaptations took place. In the case of Mahācīnakrama-Tārā, a special form of Tārā, it has long been suspected that the goddess was imported from the Buddhist Tantric pantheon into the Hindu pantheon. In this paper I demonstrate, on the basis of clear textual evidence, how the goddess's description in a Buddhist sādhana was incorporated into the Hindu Phetkāriṅītantra, which was then quoted as an authoritative source regarding the goddess by later Hindu Tantras. I further examine representations of the goddess in art, and provide a new edition and translation of two sādhanas of Mahācīnakrama-Tārā.

Wolfram eberhard's recent A History of China has attracted great interest. Reviewers have praised it for its readability and broad sweep and for the way in which it goes beyond a mere chronicle of political and cultural events and tries to penetrate to underlying causes. At the same time they have noted many errors of detail and have expressed surprise and incredulity at the many new generalizations presented with an air of established finality. It was, of course, impossible for Eberhard to present detailed evidence or argumentation in support of his views in a brief general history. The subsequent publication of Das Toba-Reich Nordchinas and Conquerors and Rulers has enabled us to form a better judgment of the value of at least a part of his work.

A Cylindrical brass box then belonging to the collection of Mme Delort de Gléon (and now in the Louvre, Inv. No. 7438) was shown at the Exhibition of Muslim Art held in Paris in 1903. It was briefly described in the catalogue and the Arabic inscriptions which decorate it were published by M. Sobernheim. But, to the best of my knowledge, no illustrations of this box have so far been reproduced.

Of the poems of boasting ascribed to Hassan b. Thabit, 16 are found on investigation to be by later Ansarls and reflect the inferior status to which the Ansar in general were reduced after the battle of al-Harra and the sack of Madina in the year A.H. 63, as well as, occasionally, the tribal rivalries which prevailed during the Umayyad period.

The quantity of Oriental, and particularly Indian curiosities brought to the British Isles in two centuries of imperial rule has till very recently exceeded the interest of the educated British public in them. Many have lain unregarded for long periods in the attics and basements of the descendants of those who originally brought them back. Hence amid a mass of worthless or commonplace objects there are still pieces of historical or stylistic interest, in private ownership as well as in our great public collections, which have not yet attracted scholarly interest.

To the north-east of the Solomon Islands lies a ring of coral islands surrounding a lagoon about 100 miles in circumference. The nearest land is the northern tip of the island of Ysabel, which is some 200 miles to the south-west. This group of islands has been variously called Ongtong Java, Lord Howe's Group, Leueneuwa, Leua Niua, and Lua Niua. The three latter are more or less unsatisfactory attempts at writing the native name of the largest island, Luaniua. There is no native name for the whole atoll and it is not only misleading but also wrong to use Luaniua for the purpose. Lord Howe has already given his name to three other Pacific Islands, so that it seems best to take the name which Tasman gave and call the atoll Ongtong Java.

These islands are populated by natives with undoubted Polynesian affinities. In physical type they show a resemblance to the Samoans and their language is a Polynesian dialect, but in other respects the culture shows some marked differences from those of the central Pacific. The social organization is closely parallelled by that of Sikiana, in the south, and by that of the Tasman Islands, the Mortlocks and Fead Island (Nuguria) to the north. This organization is not characterized by rank, which is so important in Polynesia.

The definitions of the term ‘ālam (world) given by Muslim scholars from the tenth century onwards are as varied as the discussions on the world's shape, the aim of its existence and its reality (or irreality). Most theologians would agree that ‘ālam is ‘all that is not God’, or ‘all that exists, other than God’, thereby implying that the world is simply ‘all that is created’.

The bibliography of the literature of Tibet is beset with extraordinary difficulties. The access to the literary treasures of this country is not easy and our knowledge in this domain is therefore exceedingly limited. If we exclude the two great Collections of Translations (the Kanjur and the Tanjur) which are tolerably well known from the bibliographical standpoint, we must confess that the great ocean of the original Tibetan literature, the literature of Tibet proper, remains almost entirely unknown.

The recently edited fragments of the Sīra of Wahb b. Munabbih are probably the earliest extant document of sīra-literature. R. G. Khoury painstakingly performed the laborious task of deciphering the extremely difficult text of the papyrus, and has prepared a careful edition of it. There remain, however, some misreadings which may lead to an erroneous understanding of the text. These are corrected in the present paper.

In the Dark Ages there was a break in the ruling dynasty of Ethiopia, and the kingdom fell into the hands of a line called Zāguē, of Agaw origin from Beguenā. (Bugnā), which made its capital at Roha in Lāstā. There is much that is obscure about the events that led to the Zaguē usurpation; the orthodox Ethiopian view, as expressed in the Be'ela nagaśtāt, was that God was angry with the House of David (the dynasty which they believe to be descended from Menilek son of Solomon and the ‘Queen of Sheba’) and gave the kingdom to the Zāguē. According to a document at Dabra Libānos in Šimezana, 2 a woman called Terde'a Gabaz transferred the kingdom to the Zāguē after the reign of Ḥezba Nañ, ‘and they reigned for 133 years, 700 years from the bringing of the Faith to Ethiopia’ (= A.D. 1033). This suggests that Terde'a Gabaz was the daughter of Ḥezba Nañ and married the first Zāguē king, thereby establishing him on the throne. These Zāguē, being Agaw, are referred to in the Chronicles as ‘not Israelites’, as in the Paris Chronicle, f. 2: ‘Anbasa Wedem begot Delna'ād, from whom the throne was taken3 and given to others who were not Israelites’. The end of the Zāguē line came in 1268, when ‘Takla Hāymānot restored the kingdom to Yekuno Amlāk’ (Paris Chron., f. 3), a descendant of the last king before the Zāguē. That there was a break and a restoration cannot be doubted, but the manner of the restoration is not clear and the evidence is conflicting, as well as of late date.