It is well known that every letter in the Persian alphabet has a numerical value. These values are perfectly conventional. They are as follows:—

The Manoratha-Pūraṇī, Buddhaghosa's Commentary on the Aṅguttara-Nikāya, embraces a pretty large collection of highly important and interesting legends, which, according to my estimation, amounts to nearly one-third of the whole work. A general idea of it may be gained from two initial words, viz. Etad aggam; for each legend points to some follower of Gotama Buddha, an example, as it were, amongst all of the same kind, whether man or woman, whether member of the Order or still living in the world.

In the Journal Asiatique for 1890, vol. xv, p. 195, the late eminent scholar M. James Darmesteter gave the text and a translation of the inscription, in the vaulted chamber constructed by order of the Emperor Bàbar on a rock near Kandahár, a.d. 1522–27. The inscription is not entirely of the same date as the building. It is in three parts, the first of which only is synchronous with the dome, having been engraved under the orders of Prince Kámrán, then governor of Kandahár. The second, which has been partly defaced, seems to have been executed after Bábar's death by Prince'Askari, to whom Kámrán entrusted the government of Kandahár at the time when, after their father's death, he began those scandalous intrigues against his brother, the long-suffering Humáyún, which ended in the temporary downfall of the dynasty. The third part was written and set up seventy years later by Mir Ma'súm, an official in the service of the Emperor Akbar. M. Darmesteter remarks on this portion of the inscription: “Un commentaire de la liste géographique contiendrait toute l'histoire géographique de l'Hindoustan … Cette liste serait un bon point de départ pour remonter dans la géographie historique du moyen âge et pour descendre jusqu'à nos jours” (p. 223).

In a series of papers which by the favour of the Asiatic Society I have been able to publish in its transactions, I have endeavoured to trace the various revolutions which have taken place among the tribes on the north of China, and I have thought it most convenient in doing so to begin with the latest of these race movements and changes and to gradually work back to earlier times. I should like to continue this work somewhat further, and propose in the following memoir to give an account of the history of an area which has greatly occupied English travellers and students during recent years, and whose history is still very obscure: I mean the great district bounded on the north by the so-called Celestial Mountains, the Tien Shan of the Chinese, and on the south by the Kien Lung Range. This district is generally known as Eastern Turkestan, and I propose to collect in this paper what I can find of the history of its Turkish, as distinguished from its Mongol, masters from the ninth to the sixteenth century.

That Armenian was at one time written in Syriac characters is asserted by writers on Armenian antiquities, of whom one, Indjidjean, whose work appeared at Venice in 1835, says: “We hear that even to this day Armenian books are occasionally found written in Syriac letters; and Simon Assemani, one of the professors at Padua, assured us that he had seen such a MS.” It is unfortunate that Indjidjean gives no further information about this MS., for in no other work that is easily accessible does it seem possible to find out anything about either the method of transliteration or the dialect of Armenian that is so written. It would seem therefore that MSS. of this character are either wholly unknown hitherto in Europe, or, at any rate, concealed; and I am confirmed in that opinion by the fact that, although the last few years have produced a copious literature3 on the origin of the Armenian alphabet, none of the writers who have contributed to it have taken any notice of Syro-Armenian MSS. of this character are either wholly unknown hitherto in Europe, or, at any rate, concealed; and I am confirmed in that opinion by the fact that, although the last few years have produced a copious literature on the origin of the Armenian alphabet, none of the writers who have contributed to it have taken any notice of Syro-Armenian MSS. Since some of these authors argue on a priori grounds that the Armenians must have used the Phoenician alphabet between the time when they employed Cuneiform and the invention of their own alphabet, they could scarcely have neglected the practical light which the Syro-Armenian writing throws on the applicability of the Semitic alphabet to Armenian, had it been known to them.