In 1896 A. Querry published in the Mémoires de la Société de linguistique de Paris (vol. ix, pp. 110–24), a short note on the dialect spoken in Nain. His materials were collected by some of his Persian friends at Tehran where they chanced to meet a Naini on his visit to the capital. Since that time nothing has appeared in the press to add to our information concerning the linguistics in that corner of Persia.

The following translations are from the texts in my Assyrian Medical Texts for sick men suffering from diseases brought about by the “hand of a ghost”.

The Gurjara Pratīhāras have long been recognised as the leading royal house of northern India during the ninth and tenth centuries. A considerable number of copper plate and stone inscriptions have survived from Pratīhāra times and these have provided the requisite data for a reconstruction of the dynasty's political and social history. Following conventions established in the Gupta period if not before, the copper-plates of the Pratīhāras record grants of villages or land, while stone inscriptions typically recount the building of temples and the provision of gifts to enshrined divinities. A large number of temples from the Pratīhāra age have been preserved; some of these buildings have enjoyed the recent scholarly attention of the team working on the Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture as well as the Temple Survey of the Archaeological Survey of India. In contrast, palatial architecture is virtually unknown. This is neither surprising nor unusual, there being little left of such buildings in any part of India from before the fourteenth century. This is due to the wide use of perishable building materials, notably wood, brick and stucco. In the case of the Pratīhāra rulers there is also the fact that their capital city of Kannauj (anc. Kānyakubja) has been completely destroyed. That the Pratīhāras were responsible for some building at Kannauj is indicated by the inscription, dated Harṣa year 276 (A.D. 882–3), from the shrine of Garībnāth at Pehowa. This inscription records, among many other things, that a temple of Viṣṇu Garuḍāsana was built by the Brāhmaṇa Bhūvaka on the banks of the river Gaṅgā in Bhojapura near Kānyakubja.

It is a matter of great importance that Bhāmaha's work on Rhetoric has been discovered, and we are now able to judge of his position among Sanskrit authors. A careful and critical study of the work will amply repay the trouble of the reader ; but from a cursory reading I have been able to gather the following particulars of the author and his work, which I trust may be of general interest to the Sanskritists of the present day.

This curious and, I believe, unique relic of antiquity is in the form of an ordinary Indian lotah, and measures as follows: Total height, 6¼ in.; diameter, 5½ in.; ditto at neck, 2 in.; with a projecting circular lip of ½ in. It is apparently wrought in some fine alloy of brass, copper, and spelter (?), the brass prevailing, and has resisted corrosion in a very remarkable manner; for the date which I would, from external evidence, assign it is between 200 and 300 A.D. It has evidently been treated with the greatest care; for we do not find upon it any signs of the constant polishing with sand and ashes which the lotahs of the natives undergo when in constant use, and which in a few years wears them quite thin.

The object published in these pages for the first time is of major interest for the history of Iranian metalwork. This eagle in the round is the largest animal bronze of the Sassanian period known to this day. It is of the highest quality and in comparatively good condition in spite of the accident which caused its two wings to be broken at some unknown time. I should therefore like to express my warmest thanks to Dr. von Manteuffel, Director of the Sculpture Department at the Berlin Dahlem Museum, and to Dr. Ursula Schlegel for generously giving me permission to publish this outstanding work of art. My gratitude goes also to Dr. Viktor Elbern, who very kindly encouraged me in this publication.

Tamil literature, particularly the earliest writing, is notoriously difficult to date. The body of factors influencing a decision in the matter is complex, and the degree of parochialism of the writer is not always the least important. Age is often assumed to be a synonym of quality, and it therefore appears desirable to push the beginnings as far back in time as possible if quality is to be proved. Without such efforts, however, an objective observer can safely say that Tamil contains literary works of a high standard dating from a period much further back in time than any other Indian language apart from Sanskrit. How far back is another question.

It is only in the ninth and tenth books of the Rig Veda that there is any very distinct and prominent reference made to a future life. It is true that the Ṛbhus, on account of their artistic skill, are said to have been promised, and to have attained, immortality and divine honours (i. 161, 2; iv. 35, 3, 7, 8); but this is a special case of deification, and does not prove that ordinary mortals were considered to survive after the termination of their earthly existence. There are, however, a few other passages which may be understood as intimating a belief in a future state of blessedness. Thus (i. 91, 1) it is said, that “by the guidance of Soma the sage ancestors of the worshippers had obtained treasures among the gods;” and again, in v. 18, “Soma, becoming abundant to (produce) immortality, place for us excellent food in the sky.”

ʿAbdallāh ibn Sabaʾ is a figure generally regarded as Islam's first heretic by Sunnī scholars and also vilified by Shīʿī scholars. In this article an anonymous, esoteric work known as Umm al-Kitāb is examined as it contains an exceptional narrative that adopts a strikingly sympathetic approach to Ibn Sabaʾ. It is also argued that the work's unique take on the Ibn Sabaʾ legend sheds considerable light on the date and elusive provenance of this early Shīʿī text.

The burning of candles and incense is common in religious ceremonies worldwide. Analysis of incense smoke has shown the presence of particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, aldehydes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are hazardous to health. Long-term exposure to smoke formed during combustion can cause airway dysfunction, allergic reactions and dermatological effects and is a risk factor implicated in the development of other serious diseases. In this paper the effect of these studies are reviewed and simple precautions suggested to avoid toxic effects of incense smoke.

The extensive documentary evidence collected and analysed in the previous studies in this issue suggest a preliminary conclusion that can be summarised as follows: from the collapse of the Han dynasty to the glorious days of the Tang dynasty, the peoples living in the Western Regions along the Silk Road used multiple co-existing forms of money – grain, cloth and coins – with one of these three items becoming predominant according to changes in political and/or economic circumstances. However, this multicurrency system did not outlive the political, economic and fiscal upheavals that shook the Tang empire from the mid-eighth century onwards. As far as the materials from Turfan and Dunhuang are concerned, the latest evidence for this monetary system is provided by a manuscript found at Dunhuang (P 3348 V°), already quoted in Arakawa Masaharu's article, which permits us to see how such a complex monetary system worked in real life once the silk shipped by the Tang government arrived in the Western Regions. In particular, a subsidiary account (P 3348 V°2 B) inscribed in this accounting report reveals how a local official called Li Jingyu 李景玉, who was vice-commissioner in the army stationed in that region, received his salary for the first semester of the year 745 ce.

George Mak's article ‘Laissez-faire or Active Intervention? The Nature of the British and Foreign Bible Society's Patronage of the Translation of the Chinese Union Versions' p.171 paragraph 2; ‘On the eve of the Shanghai Conference 1890, in addition to Morrison's version, which had long been out of circulation by that time, the Delegates' Version was the only Chinese translation of the entire Bible.