Our oldest authority, the Mahā-parinibbāna Suttanta, which can be dated approximately in the fifth century b.c.,1 states that after the cremation of the Buddha's body at Kusinārā, the fragments that remained were divided into eight portions. These eight portions were allotted as follows:—

1. To Ajātasattu, king of Magadha.

2. To the Licchavis of Vesālī.

3. To the Sakyas of Kapilavastu.

4. To the Bulis of Allakappa.

5. To the Koliyas of Rāmagāma.

6. To the brahmin of Veṭhadīpa.

7. To the Mallas of Pāvā.

8. To the Mallas of Kusinārā.

Amongst the Persian manuscripts belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society is one, now numbered 180 (not described in Morley's Catalogue), which contains a very interesting monograph on the city of Iṣfahán. As these local histories are often of very great importance in supplementing the large general histories, with the contents of which we are gradually becoming acquainted, I was desirous of reading it through, which, thanks to the laudable generosity of our Society in lending its manuscripts to private individuals, I was enabled to do. Of the notes which I made during its perusal this article is the outcome.

The book I have chosen for my present paper is a sort of Jātaka or Avadāna entitled the “ Hien-yü-Ching,” which Mr. Nanjio has restored into Sanskrit as “ Damamūkasūtra” , or “ Tales of the Wise Man and the Fool.” It will at once remind one of the Tibetan work “ mDsans-blun ” (generally called Dsan-lun), that is, “Der Weise und der Thor,” published by I. J. Schmidt, and afterwards by Schiefner, for this is a popular work and is read by almost every student of Tibetan. The Chinese version was by Hui-hsio , Wei-teh , and others, written during their stay in Karakhodjo, a.d. 445 . There are, however, two texts both assigned to the same translators, one coming down through the Korean Buddhists and the other through the Chinese. It is said in the earliest catalogue in existence (a.d. 520) that the original text was obtained by the translators in Khoten (Kustana, ) and translated by them in the Temple Tien-an-shi, Karakhodjo . As to the Tibetan text we were first informed of its existence by Csoma de Cörösi in the “ Asiatic Researches,” vol. xx, 1836, and seven years later we were furnished with the text by the Russian savants mentioned above.

It is well known that between the Vedic period, and that described in the epic poems, great modifications occurred in the religion and social customs of the Indian people. Since the Epic period, further changes have taken place; so that the orthodox Hinduism, of the present day, differs much from that represented in the Mahābhārata. Religious vicissitudes have also occurred outside the Brahmanic pale. The Buddhist religion has become extinguished in India. Vast numbers of the people, too, have been converted—many of them forcibly—to the faith of Islām. Notwithstanding all this, however, many of the old deities still live. The Nāga rajas are worshipped as demigods; the sun, the cedar, and the serpent are held sacred; and Indra and his Devas have still their worshippers and their temples, as they had in the days described in the Mahābharāta.

The three great administrators of Kumaon were Mr. Traill (1815–1835), Mr. Batten (1848–1856), and Captain (afterwards Major-General Sir Henry) Ramsay, all of whom are remembered with affection by their whilom subjects. There were numerous short settlements of Kumaon, the first being in 1815–16, the second in 1817, and the third (for three years) in 1818. The fifth settlement (for five years) took place in 1823, and was subsequently extended for another five. In 1831 the Board of Revenue at Allahabad obtained jurisdiction over revenue matters in Kumaon. About the year 1837 proposals were made for a settlement of twenty years, which the landholders appear to have been unwilling to accept on account of its length. It was ultimately carried out in 1842–6 (ninth settlement).

The numerous inscriptions on rocks and stone pillars which purport to have been issued by command of a sovereign named Priyadarśin or Piyadasi, and a few which omit the sovereign's name while using the title specially affected by King Piyadasi, obviously form a distinct class among Indian epigraphical records and belong approximately to one period. The exceptional value and the extreme interest of these inscriptions have always, since their first discovery, been recognized by all students of Indian history and antiquities, and for nearly seventy years the Piyadasi class of inscriptions has been studied and discussed by eminent scholars. Before these invaluable records can be fully and confidently utilized for the elucidation of the dark places of Indian history, two preliminary problems must be definitely solved. These problems are, firstly, Were all the Piyadasi inscriptions issued by one sovereign, or by two or more sovereigns? and secondly, Who was Piyadasi, and what is his place in history?

The history of which this MS. is all that is known to exist, covered in its entirety the period between A.H. 360 and 447. This fragment—which forms the larger portion of its eighth part—commences towards the close of the year 389, and concludes early in the year 393. It is interesting, not merely as the oldest Arabic authority for the period, but more especially as affording a specimen of Oriental history written at first-hand, the facts being either within the writer's own knowledge or told him by contemporaries. A history compiled by these means is almost certain to present a picture of a period truer and more vivid than one derived from abridgments, such as the Kāmil of Ibn al-Aīr, where, all that seemed capable of omission having been discarded, little beyond the dry bones of history remains. But of histories of this type few have survived.

For more than a century, Indian archæologists have been greatly puzzled about the identity of an ancient city named Tagara. The city is referred to in some of the Indian epigraphic records. Thus, a record of a.d. 997 describes the Śilāhāra prince Aparājita, of the Northern Koṅkaṇ, as Tagara-pura-paramēśvara, or “ supreme lord of the town of Tagara,” giving to him a hereditary title commemorative of the place which his family claimed as its original home. Another Śilāhāra record, of a.d. 1058, similarly applies to Mārasiṁha, of the Karhāḍ branch of the family, the title of Tagara-puravar-ādhīśvara, or “ supreme lord Tagara, a best of towns, an excellent town, a chief town;” and it further describes his grandfather Jatiga II. more specifically, but less accurately, as Tagara-nagara-bhūpālaka, or “ king of the city of Tagara.” And a Western Chalukya record of a.d. 612 specifies Tagara as the residence of the person to whom the grant of a village, registered in that charter, was made. The city is further mentioned, as Tagara, by the Greek geographer Ptolemy, who, writing about the middle of the second century a.d., assigned to it a certain latitude and longitude which have the effect of placing it about eighty-seven miles towards the north-east from another place, mentioned by him as Baithana, which his details would locate about 270 miles on the east-north-east of Barygaza.

There is one well-known place in Philo (De profugis, 18, 1, 560) where the ‘powers’ seem for the moment to be limited to six. And this has naturally struck the attention of those who have been looking for coincident similarities between the philonian pieces and the documents which mention the Amesha Spenta of the Zend Avesta. For, as one commentator, Siegfried, has supposed, some of us might consider his treatment of these six cities to be equivalent to the citation of seven (as to which see below), this equalling the number of the ‘immortals’ of the Avesta.

Since effecting the exploration of ancient sites around Khotan and in the Taklamakan, of which a brief preliminary notice was given in the last number of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, I have moved eastward to Keriya and Niya. Certain indications had led me to look for archaeologically interesting remains in the desert north of the shrine of Imām Jafar Sadik, where the Niya River loses itself in the sands. The excavations I have been able to carry on there for the last three weeks have more than justified my expectations.