In his article in BSOAS, xv, 1953, pp. 588–597, Professor E. G. Pulleyblank has made a number of statements which, in my opinion, need explanation and correction. This is not the place to discuss wider problems of Chinese gentry society in detail; this will be done on another occasion. I limit my notes, therefore, to a few interesting points.

The following few pages, dedicated to Dr. L. D. Barnett in memory of many A kindnesses, may call up for a brief moment the forgotten princes, the acaryas, Buddhist teachers, who in the tenth century on their way between Khotan and China were plundered and distracted by the Turks who met them on their way. They are religious teachers and have no enemies, said their guides to the Turks. The short text forms part of the Buddhist legacy of India to Central Asia. The Stein MS. Ch 00269 contains, after some incomplete phrases in lines 0–8, the drafts of three letters: 9–23 concern a certain Prabhākaravardhana; 24–108 and 108–120, here edited and translated, give the letter of the messengers, written in Sacū (1. 84), and the letter of the seven princes. Lines 75–80 were quoted in BSOS 8. 883 (twelve years ago) for their importance for the Tokharian problem. The companion piece to this MS. is P 2741 at the Bibliotheque Nationale, of which an edition has been given in this same volume XII of the BSOAS. Both were prepared for the press as long ago as 1942, but it has not been possible hitherto to publish them.

Muʿtazilite exegetical tradition has been defined primarily by reference to the theological dimensions of the tafsīr works authored by the Muʿtazila. This article is an attempt to go beyond this focus by exploring the significance of an exegete's affiliation to the tradition that is implicit in his selection of interpretations and his references to authorities. Focusing on the tafsīr of the tenth-century Muʿtazilite scholar ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Rummānī, the article analyses al-Rummānī's references to his three Muʿtazilite predecessors: Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī, Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī and Ibn al-Ikhshīd. The content of these references indicates that, for al-Rummānī, the authority of these Muʿtazilite scholars extended beyond their views on the theological implications of the Quranic verses. The context suggests that the scholars were part of a distinct exegetical tradition that allowed for certain differences of opinion.

The Geniza fragment T-S AS 161.50 contains three poems, all in Judaeo-Arabic, attributed to the Egyptian Sufi poet Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Abū ʿAbd Allāh, known as Ibn al-Kīzānī (d. 562/1167). None of the texts are present in his published dīwān. In the Egyptian section of his anthology Kharīdat al-qaṣr, Saladin's secretary ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī (d. 597/1201) testifies to the interest of Saladin in Ibn al-Kīzānī. We are thus in a unique position to evaluate the readership of this poet; while his followers called Kīzāniyya were already known, his popularity evidently extended not only across confessional lines to be read in a Jewish milieu, but also reached elite levels, despite his (according to ʿImād al-Dīn) “heterodox” beliefs. These new texts accordingly throw light on inter-religious and unorthodox currents normally not understood to have been promoted by Saladin and his avowedly Sunni successors.

The geographical statements of Mubarakshah Ghuri (Ta'rikh, pp. 4–6) are taken from Alberuni, precisely from his book al-Qānūn al-Mas'ūdi (cf. the MS. of the Library of Veliettin-Efendi, in the Bayazid Mosque, Constantinople, No. 2277, fol. 145b–153b). The following words and phrases of Mubarakshah are to be read in Alberuni:.

A jhate (i.e. azate) may be connected with the Avestan dzdta noble of noble birth Cf. also ztchin the Sogdian letters free-born (Reichelt, Sogd. Handschriftenreste, ii, p. 3)Although the documents do not furnish enough material for defining with certainty the meaning of the word, this explanation suits all the passages where it occurs. It is used mosj; frequently as an introductory term in giving lists of witnesses, e.g. 593 tatra saclii ajhade jamna cojhbo Dhamena Sugi Kuleya There the witnesses are people of high rank (or free-born), the cojhbo Dhamena, Sugi, Kuleya, etc. Similarly in 507, 588. It is worth while noticing that khula putre is used in a similar formula in 415, though not in exactly the same position, tatra sacJii janati sramamna Parvati livira Buddha rachida, vasu Kolfisa, khula putre Lfatga There witnesses know this the monk Parvati, the scribe Buddharachida, the vasu Kolpisa, and Lpatga, son of a good family.

Nous n'apprendrons à personne que les chapitres XXII–XXIII du tome I de la Cambridge History of India abondent en faits nnouveaux et en convaincantes suggestions. M. le Prof. E. J. Eapson a notamment tiré un admirable parti des monnaies sur lesquelles il a été le premier à lire les noms des deux villes de Kāpiśī et de Pushkāravatī. Non content d'y reconnaître les devatā des deux vieilles capitales du Kapiśa et du Gandhāra, il a su deviner des allusions locales sous les emblèmes qu'elles portent.

If one examines the vocabulary of almost any Mon-Khmer language, and turns to words with an initial labial semivowel—or those derived from roots with such an initial—one is immediately struck by the number of words with meanings of the order of ‘round, circular’, ‘to go round’, ‘to put round, coil, wrap round’, ‘enclosure’, ‘to turn round, return’, and the like. Thus, consulting three relatively modest lexica, we can cite from (modern) Mon in the Western branch of the family wèn, wèn wòk ‘ to be crooked, deformed’; ω⋯αη ‘compound, enclosure’; ω⋯αη ‘to shun, avoid’; ω⋯η ‘loop, bend; to be bent round, to go round’; wòt ‘to wring out’; wòa ‘whirlpool’; with tsh ‘all around’. The Eastern Mon-Khmer language Sre, spoken around Jiring (Di-linh) 100 miles north-east of Sàigòn, has wac ‘eddy’; wal bong ‘halo round sun or moon’; wang (waang) ‘pound for animals’; war ‘to coil round, wrap round’; waar ‘to bend back’; weet ‘to turn round’; wil ‘circle’; wöl ‘again; to turn’; wör ‘to stir’. In Northern Mon-Khmer, Palaung has υαη ‘compound’; υƏr ‘to stir’; υεh ‘to avoid, shun’; νeη to come back, go back’; υi? ‘to bend’; υir ‘again, to recur’; (υrƏr) ‘to avoid, shun’; υiƏt ‘to give back, return’. (The Palaung voiced fricative υ corresponds functionally in syllable-initial position to the semivowel in the other languages.)