1. M.I. viii, 90 (wood, c. 16 × 1·5–2cm., complete; hole for string at r.; 1.1 of cursive dbu-can script).

Every student of Vedic literature is confronted by vast details of an uncommonly complicated ritual. This ritual engrossed the major part of the religious life of a householder. Every small act promised him riches in cattle and progeny, long life and bliss in the next world. On the other hand, the slightest negligence had to be assiduously atoned for, otherwise it would lead him into misery. Thus it is that even the ropes, the brooms, and their numbers have been carefully recorded, the materials of which they were made, their size, and their functions prescribed with the same thoroughness as the crushing of the soma-juice or the coronation of the king.

The Ratnāvalī by Nāgārjuna was well known from the numerous quotations scattered in the Mahāyāna literature in India as well as in Tibet, but no manuscript of it was up to now available. Fortunately, Nepal, which has yielded so many treasures of ancient Indian literature, has recently rendered back to light a large fragment of this work, the importance of which cannot be overlooked by scholars. Nāgārjuna was certainly one of the greatest thinkers ever born in India, and whatever was written by him deserves our greatest attention. His thought has permeated, as it were, not only the Abhidharma of Mahāyāna, but also the mystical experiences of the Tantric systems. Therefore we must welcome anything written by him, because it will help our understanding of Buddhist, and therefore of Indian, mind.

In spite of the hoary belief in the conservatism of the Chinese we find that exotic music and instruments of music found favour in “Far Cathay” from quite an early period, long before the Mughal régime. Thanks to the researches of M. Maurice Courant and others, we are able to appreciate with considerable definiteness the influence of the Middle East on the Far East in these matters. On the other hand, the Rev. A. C. Moule is of opinion that “the musical systems of Persia and Arabia seem to have had but little effect on Chinese music, and the use of only a few instruments can at all probably be traced to the great intercourse which existed between those countries and China in the middle ages”.

CT. xiv, 17, 1–2, and 15,1–2, and Matouš, Lex. Taf., No. 88, 2, 46–7, give the equivalences takKALAG.GA, tak(alu)KA. ŠAL.LA, and aban ki-su-si as all equal to taksû.