Nearly six years ago, G. E. Driver published a paper in the Journal of Biblical Literature, in which he examined some of the arguments dealing with the Aramaic of the Book of Daniel, which had been presented by Charles Boutflower in his work In and Around the Booh of Daniel. Three years later, in the course of an examination of the relation of Biblical Aramaic to other early Aramaic dialects, I took the opportunity of replying to a number of inaccurate or misleading statements and untenable hypotheses on the subject of the Aramaic of Daniel which appeared in the writings of certam defenders of the traditional date and place of origin of that book, including Boutflower. A rejoinder has now appeared from Boutflower's pen, dealing with a limited area of the field, in the form of a brief monograph, published under the title, Dadda-'idri, or The Aramaic of the Booh of Daniel. In this little book Boutflower replies to Driver and myself, and presents what he feels to be new light on the subject. A superficial reading might leave the impression that there was some ground for his theory, but a little examination reveals such omissions and assumptions and such misuse of evidence as to vitiate the argument. Indeed, the real issue is that of the validity of the evidence we possess, for fundamentally Boutflower seeks to set aside the evidence that has survived in favour of the evidence he assumes to have perished.

Tarikh-i-Muhammad Arif Qandahari is often cited as an authority in many extant works of Mughal history. Sir Henry Elliot, however, failed to secure even a fragment of the work and had to content himself with a note based on the citations in other histories. Nor did his editor Professor Dowson succeed any better. Thus the History of India as told by her own historians (vol. vi) contains a very brief note on the very sketchy information available at the time.

It is inevitable that efforts should constantly be made to arrive at results regarding the origin of the gods who appear in developed form in the Vedic literature and the A vesta. It is true that for many purposes inquiries of this kind are unimportant. It matters comparatively little for the understanding of the religion of a people to be able to trace its evolution, for what is essential is to know what views the worshippers of a defined period had of their gods, and these may be very different from the opinions to which they should logically have advanced. But it is always possible that a new theory of origins may cast some light on features of religion which remain obscure, and the many divine epithets of the Veda which are still unexplained encourage efforts at further elucidation. It is therefore not unsatisfactory that Professor Rudolph Otto should have worked in detail at his effort to clear up the picture of the Vedic pantheon by endeavouring to apply to it the speculations on the origin of religion which have attracted of late years considerable attention in their attractive presentation in Das Heilige and Das Gefühl des Überweltlichen.

At the end of their edition of K's Brhatkathā-mañjarī (Kāvyamālā 69) Śivadatta and Parab print an appendix of 78 ślokas, which purports to be the twenty-fourth story of the Vetālapañcavimśati. It was not found in their MSS. but was supplied to them by T. S. KuppūsvāmĪ from a Tanjore MS. Speyer in his “Studies about the Kathāsaritsāgara” (Verh. d. K. Ak. v. Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afd. Lett., N.R. viii, 5, p. 14, n. 1) says that he has “a strong presumption that this portion does not belong to the work of K”. That such is the case can be proved conclusively.

In 1930 the joint archæological expedition of Oxford University and the Field Museum, Chicago, examined the extensive ruins now known as Abu Sudaira, three miles south-east of the central mound at Kish. Mr. Reitlinger excavated this site at his own expense. A large city was discovered, which, although it contained no traces of Accadian culture, is of interest as being in the style of the Īlkhānī rulers of Persia and Mesopotamia. This attribution is entirely confirmed by the coins found on the site, which have been placed in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. They number altogether 100 (and some fragments), of which two are silver and the rest copper. Unfortunately they are in a bad state of preservation, and only about a third can be ascribed to definite rulers with some certainty. The earliest is (1) a small copper coin of the Khalīfas (wt. 32 grains, ·75″), but neither the mint nor the date can be read. Next in order is (2) a copper coin which Mr. Thorburn, who has examined part of the find, suggests may be a coin of the Seljūq ruler Kaiqubad (a.h. 616–634) (wt. 33 grains, ·85″), and the attribution, though not certain, is approximately correct so far as period is concerned.

The language specimen here reproduced was brought in to me while in the Darjeeling neighbourhood in 1931, having been taken down in the recently revived Limbu alphabet by an educated Limbu, by name Iman Singha Chemjong, direct from the dictation of the speaker himself. Though pressure of work on other languages of the “pronominalized” group prevented my seeing the actual speaker, who Was off in another part of the hills, there is no difficulty in placing the dialect with its nearest relatives in the Linguistic Survey. It is, without doubt, a form of Rungchhēnbūng, and a near relative of Wāling. To the former the Linguistic Survey was able to devote, through lack of material, only some two pages, to the latter, for the same reason about a page and a half, no specimen being available in either case. I, therefore, give what follows as a small supplement to our knowledge of this little-known form of speech.

Von Soden, Die Akkadischen Synonymenlisten, 1, iii, 7, has lùgal-nu-giš-šar = šá-an-da-na-ku, after lùnu-giššar = nu-ka-ri-bu “gardener”. VAT. 9558 Rev. i, 23 has (ša-an-dan) = šá-an-da-na-ku, after nu-giš-šar = nukaribu. Meissner, Beiträge, i, 85, n. 77 is to be corrected. This is not šandabakku “librarian”. šá-an-da-na-ak kirî ṣi-ḫa-ti “The gardener of the garden of desires”, Ebeling, KAR. 158, p. 274, 35. So correct JRAS. 1921, 188, 35; Ebeling, Berliner Beiträge, i, 3, p. 24, 35. The early form is GAL-NI (sa-an-ta-na) = sandanaku, RA. 21, 178, ii, 15; earliest occurrence Dél-Per. 14, 121, No. 88, ii, 1, where Legrain fixed the meaning. GAL-NI, CT. 10, 49, 12247, 5–6; RA. 21, 24, No. 26, 5; YOS. i, 12, iii, 4 (early text); ZA. 29, 79; VS. 16, 85, 8–12; 118, 6; Reissner, TU. 12, iv, 6; other references, p. 10. See Dossin, RA. 21, 182. Strass, Warka, 48, 10. GAL-KAK only in late texts, YOS. vi, 10, 11; i, 45, ii, 27; JRAS. 1917, 724, 20; Strass, Nbk. 22, 12; 72, 14; Sidney Smith, Senecherib, 1. 54. KAK is, therefore, an error for NI. [See also Landsberger, ZA. 41, 189.]

In all ages there have been puritans who have looked upon “wine, woman, and song” as things to be avoided. In the East especially, and it was in the East that the phrase was born, the proscription of this trinity of joys was a question of serious moment. It was the cry of the old Hebrew prophets, and it was echoed by the early Christian fathers, as well as by the purists of Islām. To some extent, one can appreciate why wine and woman came to be proscribed, but that song was included is not so easily understood. Yet, when one sees how music is capable of affecting the peoples of the East, coupled with the fact that music with them has invariably been found as a concomitant with wine and woman, it will be more readily appreciated how listening to music came to be looked upon, as Burton said, as being unworthy of, if not unlawful for, those who trod the path of righteousness.

Consider the following passages from vocabularies:—

(1) CT. xiv, 3, K. 4325, iv–vi, 11. 18–25: ib. 5, K. 4368, iv–vi, 11. 8–16; and for col, iv, presumably 81–7–27, 147 (Meissner, Suppt., pl. 27):—

(2) CT. xiv, 14, K. 4396, 11. 10–13, dup. ib., S. 995, rev. 4–7:—