The morphology of the Japanese language has been explored most thoroughly within the confines of the language itself, as can be seen from the Nihon Bunpōron, one of the admirable publications of Professor T. Yamada's, and Mr. G. B. Sansom's excellent treatise, An Historical Grammar of Japanese. There are,nevertheless, various difficulties to be overcome, and many problems to be solved, if the ancient Japanese literature is to be better understood.Some of these obstacles have recently been pointed out by Professor J. L. Pierson in his scholarly work The ManyôŚû, in which the author has submitted many a plausible theory based on materials offered by the Japanese language alone.

These records were made in 1920 to the dictation of a well-known professional story-teller, Bāqir ‘Alī, who belonged to Delhi.

A phonetic transcript which has been published is of great value for the study of Urdu sounds. I made the original transcript of both records and had two proofs printed. Professor Daniel Jones, Professor of Phonetics in the University of London, who has to take responsibility for the publication of all transcripts in this series, went over my second proof, made some alterations, and prepared the final proof, which was ultimately printed. He is, therefore, responsible for the transcripts in their present form. I have, however, my proofs before me. The differences between his final print and my proofs are slight, and this article gives our joint views. Where there is any necessity for distinguishing them they are marked with the initials J. for his views and B. for mine.

The two letters with which this article is concerned were written in the name of Sultan Abu Hayat of Ternate. when he was about 7 years old, and are of peculiar interest as being, perhaps, the oldest Malay letters extant. The first, which is catalogued under the reference Gavetas 15–16–38 in the Lisbon archives known as Torre do Tombo, appears to have been written between 27th April and 8th November, 1521. The second, preserved in the same archive under the reference Gavetas 15-15-7, was probably written early in the following year. These conclusions are based on what is known from other sources about the history of the Moluccas in this period, combined with the internal evidence of the letters themselves. Unfortunately their style betrays the fact that they were not writtenby a Malay, but by some scribe (or, as seems more likely, two scribes)probably indigenous to Ternate and certainly very imperfectly acquainted with the Malay language.

L’origine des chiffres que nous appelons “ arabes ” parce qu’ils ont été introduits en Europe par les Arabes, et de la notation arithmétique basée sur leur valeur de position avec I’emploi du symbole zéro, a donné lieu à des recherches qui ont abouti à des résultats opposés: certains auteurs ont affirmé l’origine indienne du système, tandis que d’autres ont voulu y voir une invention occidentale.

Parmi ces derniers, M. G. R. Kaye s'est fait remarquer par son hostilité contre la thèse de l’origine indienne. Il s'exprime ainsi dans son article “ Notes on Indian Mathematics: Arithmetical Notation ” (JASB., 1907, p. 487):

M.Paul pelliot a récemment publié dans le T'oung-pao (t. XXII, mai 1923, pp. 9–125), un articlé intitule: “La théorie des quatre fils du Ciel,’ où ont été réunis les informations de source chinoise et quelques textes arabes sur ce sujet. La présente note n'est qu'une addition a, son article.

1) Le plus ancien texte chinois qui fasse allusion aux grands rois du monde est le K'ang che wai kouo tchouan, “ Relation des pays etrangers par M. K'ang.” Ce K'ang, plus exactement K'ang T'ai, fut envoyé, avec Tchou Ying, en ambassade par la cour de Chine, dans l'Océan Indien, vers 245–50 de notre ère. “ D'après la Relation des pays étrangers, dit un extrait de ce texte, aujourd'hui perdu, on dit dans les pays étrangers que sous le ciel il y a trois abondances: l'abondance des hommes en Chine, l'abondance des joyaux au Ta-ts'in (Orient méditerranéen), l'abondance des chevaux chez les Yue-tche.”1

Banārsī dās of Jaunpūr belonged to the Jain community and was born in 1586. The following charming extracts are taken from his most famous work, Arddh Kathānak, an autobiography completed in 1641.

His wonderful power of word painting is exemplified in these passages. The first describes the commotion in Jaunpūr when the news of Akbar's death was received in 1605. We feel the spell of the description, and tremble with the frightened populace. This picture should be compared with Zaṭallī's account of the turmoil after the death of Aurangzeb. (See below.)

The second tells of the Black Death, bubonic plague, in Agra during 1616, the first time the city was visited by that pestilence. Anyone who has been in India during a plague epidemic will realize the force of his words, the rats dying, the spread of the disease among the people, the glandular swellings, the sudden deaths, the mortality among the physicians, the despair and flight of the townsfolk afraid even to partake of food.

Persia is as a whole less liable than Europe, but more than most Asiatic countries, to catastrophic earthquakes, but the references thereto in printed literature are few and peculiarly difficult to discover as few, if any, indexes to books on Persia so much as mention the word.

Watson (p. 190) remarks that earthquakes are “ very frequent in most parts of Persia ”. Allemagne (i. 3) classes them, with plagues and famines, as Acts of God to which the country is specially liable.

Khurasan.—Hamdallah Mustawfi refers to a cypress at the village of Kishmar near Turshiz (100 miles south of Nishapur): “ such was its power that earthquakes which frequently devastated all the surrounding districts never did any harm in Kishmar.’ This was in A.H. 247 (A.D. 861).

Nassiri Khusrau (A.D. 1340) states that Nishapur was completely destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Abaqa Khan (A.D. 1267). Wajid ud Din Zangi Fariwandi rebuilt it in A.H. 669 (A.D. 1270). A similar catastrophe overwhelmed the town in A.H. 808 (A.D. 1405), when most of the inhabitants were buried in the ruins.

In their Notes d'Etymologie Taï, published in 1926 in the Journal of the Siam Society, vol. xx, pt. i, MM. J. Burnay and G. Coedès have compared the various Taï words meaning “a hundred”. Ahom pāk, Shan pāk1, Khamti pāk1, White Taï pdk1, Thô pāk1, Nùng pāh1, Dioi pā1—all go back to a form *pāk, which is very close to the sixth century Chinese (pak).

In his article on The Nārāyaṇīya and the Bhāgavatas published in the Indian Antiquary, September, 1908, Grierson put forward a somewhat remarkable hypothesis (pp. 253–4) of the solar origin of Bhāgavatism. The view does not appear to have attracted much notice from scholars competent to pronounce an opinion on the subject; but it has neither been directly approved nor directly discredited.Since the theory has been repeated by Grierson in his article on Bhakti-mārga in Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics ii, p. 540, where he practically reproduces his previous statements and arguments, a few remarks on the question may be offered.

In the Bahman Yašt, ii, 49, there is an interesting list of geographical names. The readings of two MSS. of the Pahlavi Text as well as the Pāzand version (unhappily Pāzand far inferior to that of the Mēnōkē χrat) are available, the Pahlavi in the facsimile of K 20 (fol. 135 recto, 1. 4 et seq.) published by the University of Copenhagen, 1931, and the edition of Dastūr Nosherwān Kaikobād Ādarbād, The Pahlvi Zand i Vôhûman Yasht, 1899, a copy of a MS. dated 554 A.Y., and the Pāzand in Antia, Pazend Texts, p. 339 seq. Translations of ii, 49, have been attempted by West, SBE., v, p. 209, by Dastūr Nosherwān in his edition, and also by Markwart in Caucasica, vi, 1, 54, and in A Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of Eranshahr, p. 69, an edition of the šahrīhā i Ērān. But as finality in the translation of Pahlavi texts is hard to attain, yet another attempt is here offered. The text is as follows:—

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.

The present article is an analysis of the monumental work of the Belgian archæologist and savant, M. Franz Cumont, which embodies the results of excavations made by him on the site of the ancient Macedonian colony of Doura-Eropos. As it was impossible to give a mere resumé of this work without leaving out some of the important points and erudite suggestions which are scattered in the text and valuable foot-notes, I thought it best to give as clear and as complete an idea as possible of this once important and flourishing Macedonian colony situated in the heart of the Syrian desert. Further, speaking from the purely Iranian standpoint, the excavations atDoura-Eropos have furnished new documents pertaining to the Parthian civilization, which had penetrated into Parapotamia with its Parthian conquest, and which had left its traces not only in the costume of priest and soldiers, but also in fine arts—in sculptures and paintings, in ceramics and jewellery, as can be amply proved by the results of the excavations of 1928 and 1929.

The perplexing enigma of the cosmos and the creation has been from time immemorial a source of fascination for the human mind, and all the peoples of the globe, both those who have passed away and those still in existence, have striven to solve this riddle, either forming themselves into special groups for this purpose, or by mere individual effort. Of these solutions some were distinguished by a greater viability, a greater strength, and a greater ascendency, and are still exercising their sway; whilst others were short-lived and transient, were accepted by few people and, having soon disappeared, constitute now merely dead and cold fragments of human thought. Some of these solutions appealed more to the intellect, others were more felt by the heart.

According to Manu the samskāras, or Hindu initiation rites, are twelve in number, but by other early Indian writers the list is variously estimated as from ten to sixteen or even more. In the Siamese Brahmanical books the number laid down is ten, and these rites are known as “ the ten auspicious ceremonies ” (bidhī daśamaṅgala), but there are in addition some ceremonies in connection with conception and birth which would bring the number up to sixteen or more. The latter remain in force, but of “ the ten auspicious ceremonies ” most are obsolete and the only ones that are still in general favour are the shaving of the first hair of the newborn, the giving of the first name to the child, and the tonsure; while the ceremony which we are about to consider has been performed up to modern times, but for princes and princesses of the highest rank only. With the exception of the tonsure, which was made the subject of a scholarly monograph by the late Colonel Gerini,2 none of these ceremonies has ever been seriously studied by European scholars. This is perhaps in the main due to the difficulty of obtaining information on account of their private or domestic nature and the fact that there is little mention of them in Siamese literature. But since the river-bathing ceremony of , like their tonsure, is of a semi-public and very spectacular nature, some interesting official records of it have been preserved.

The correct affiliation of the Dardic languages is a subject regarding which different opinions have been expressed. Some scholars have described them as Eranian languages that have borrowed freely from Indo-Aryan. Others (and probably the most numerous) maintain that they are Indo-Aryan languages that have borrowed from Eranian, and a third (of which I am an unworthy member) suggests that they are neither of these, but that they are descended from a group of Aryan dialects intermediate between those that developed into Eranian and those that developed into Indo-Aryan languages. The latest opinion is that expressed by Professor Morgenstierne, who divides the Dardic languages into two groups.

Modern Gujrātī has three phonemes in the group of voiced cerebrals: viz. the unaspirated stop ḍ, the unaspirated tapped ṛ, and the aspirated stop ḍh, there being no corresponding aspirated tapped in the standard language. In Gujrātī script ḍ and ṛ are written with the same symbol, while ḍh has a different symbol.

According to the description in the Land of the Lamas, the Tibetan salutation consists in sticking out the tongue, pulling the right ear, and rubbing the left hip, while making a slight bow at the same time. Nothing quite so picturesque is to be found in India, a but the etiquette of salutation is nevertheless not without interest. Moreover, the subject is treated gravely by the native law-makers and deserves more attention than it has hitherto received. The matter too is not unsuitable for a volume dedicated to the salutation of one who is lokaprap016B;jita, and to whom, in common with many, I extend herewith the greeting:

bala1E43; tavā'yuś ca cirāya vardhatām.

But because of the limitation of space I shall confine myself to epic data and give but an outline of approved ceremonial.

In one of the recently published volumes of the Broadway Travellers Series (Don Juan of Persia; a Shi'ah Catholic, 1560—1604, translated and edited with an introduction by G. Le Strange) is an interesting account of Georgia and of some of the events of the Turko- Persian War which endured between the years 1578 and 1587. The Persian account throws much light on the state of Georgia at the end of the sixteenth century, and it serves as a valuable supplement to von Hammer Purgstall's history of the war, based mainly on Turkish sources, and published as books 38 and 40 of his Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman (in Vol. viii of the French edition).

Neither the historian of Turkey nor the editor of Don Juan appear to have made use of the material from Georgian sources which is available for this period, namely the provincial histories of Kartli, Samtzkhé, Kakheti and Imereti collated by Prince Wakhusht of Kartli during the eighteenth century, and published by Brosset in his Histoire de la Géorgie, 2ième partie, 1iere livraison, Spb. 1856.

Marau Sound lies at the south-east end of the island called Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. There is no native name for the Sound as a whole, and it received its present name owing to the fact that the island which lies at the eastern entrance to the Sound is called Marau, i.e. Island. Other islands in the Sound are named Peura, Sinamairuka (Sinamailuka), Tawaihi, Marapa. The last-named island, Marapa (Malapa), is the “ home of the dead ” for the peoples of the South-East Solomons. The local native name for the hill districts above the Sound is Kera. The name which was given both to the Sound, and to the coastal districts of the mainland near, by the first white visitors in modern days, Bishops G. A. Selwyn and J. C. Patteson, is Gera, which is the name used of the Sound by the people of San Cristoval. The people of the Sound are immigrants from Wairokai, Waisisi, Wairoha, and Uhu on the west coast of Big Mala, and their language is closely allied to that of Oroha, Little Mala, and Areare, the language spoken at Wairokai, etc. It is probable that the first migration from Mala to the Sound settled at Marau, the island at the eastern entrance. There is a ghost called Huu ni nima connected with Marau Island, who is said to have led the migration. War and fighting are said to have been the reasons which led to the migration. The present Mala people were already occupying the islands in the Sound at the time of the visit of the Spanish explorers in 1568, as is shown by the fact that they acted as guides and took the Spaniards to the neighbourhood of Wairokai and Waisisi.

The Kwara ‘Ae language is spoken by a hill people who live in the neighbourhood of the mountain called Ala Saa, North-West Alite Mountain, on North Mala, Solomon Islands. The present grammar has been compiled from a translation of the Gospel according to St. Matthew (1930), the translator being Mr. N. C. Deck, of the South Sea Evangelical Mission on North Mala, and the publishers the British and Foreign Bible Society. Use has been made also of a booklet of 32 pp. entitled “Kwara ‘Ae Questions”, and notes kindly supplied by Mr. Deck have been used in the compilation of this grammar.