It is a strange circumstance, yet one immediately observable, that the Parsi community in India, so innovative and so energetically creative in many other respects, has failed to distinguish itself in the sphere of indigenous arts. In the acquisition of tastes and skills in European or hybrid pseudo-Persian architecture, in European-style portraiture, and in Classical music, the Parsis have been diligent, even as they long ago became eloquent masters of the English tongue. What of their arts can properly be called Zoroastrian?

The most exhaustive, if not the best known, source for the history of Shāh Isma'īl the Ṣafavī, is undoubtedly the Ḥabib-us-Siyar of Khwāndamīr. Though this large and important work has been lithographed, both in Ṭihrān and in Bombay, it is but too little known in Europe, where it has generally been regarded as a mere epitome of the Rauzat-uṣ-Ṣafā; whereas, besides being an original source for much valuable biographical and geographical matter, it contains detailed accounts of many little-known dynasties. Khwāndamīr's work is thus in many respects more interesting than the ponderous universal history of his grandfather. Now, there is a work, of which the British Museum possesses one copy, and the Cambridge University Library a second, which is devoted entirely to the biography of Shāh Isma'īl. Neither MS. bears a title nor gives any author's name, and in no part of the work have I been able to find a clue to the author's identity. MS. L bears the title , which is taken from the Epilogue, and in the very last line after we read which, according to Dr. Rieu, is most probably meant for the transcriber and not the author. The work ends with a short account of the accession of Isma'īl's son Ṭahmāsp, and with prayers for the prosperity and long life of the young prince. This would lead one to fix the completion of the history soon after the accession of Ṭahmāsp Mīrzā in a.h. 930. On the other hand, on fol. 277a of MS. L, we are told, in a momentary digression from the main narrative, that Moḥammad Zamān Mīrzā was drowned in the Ganges in the year 947, on the occasion of Humāyūn's retreat from Bengal.

Marco Polo's book — The Travels, The Description of the World, II Milione, or whatever we prefer to call it — is unquestionably the best known of all contemporary sources on that unprecedented historical phenomenon, the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. That is not to say that it is by any means the best source. As history, it cannot compare, for example, with Rashīd al-Dīn's Jāmi' al-tawārīkh, and as a European travel account (if that is what it is), it is not remotely in the same class as Friar William of Rubruck's Itinerarium. Nevertheless, while Friar William may have been completely forgotten and Chinggis Khan remembered only as someone a political reactionary can, by dint of great effort, get himself (or herself, one should hasten to add) to the right of, there are many who know at least something about Marco Polo: perhaps principally the fact that he went to China — as almost everyone has hitherto supposed that he did.

Much has been written about British activities in the Far East, particularly in China, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, especially by American historians. Dr. H. B. Morse's monumental Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China was first in the field and Professor E. H. Pritchard and J. K. Fairbank have been worthy successors. English scholarship on the subject is naturally somewhat older but, possibly for that reason, the work done has not usually been as detailed or thorough: an exception is Michael Greenberg's recent book, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–42. To find general surveys of Anglo-Chinese relations by British writers which extend back into the seventeenth century, it is necessary to turn to the books of A. J. Sargent and J. Bromley Eames. But as far as the seventeenth century is concerned historical research has been scanty. That Greenberg should have regarded a summary of events before the period with which he was immediately concerned as sufficient for his purpose was only natural. Fairbank's introductory chapters are more comprehensive but show greater interest in the attitude of the Chinese to external intruders than in the efforts of the East India Company to intrude. Sargent, as he himself acknowledged, was mainly concerned with the nineteenth century and his attempt to provide a historical background was very superficial. Eames paid considerable attention to early British contacts with China but was prone to errors of fact which make him unreliable.

Tumshuqese is the name proposed by Emmerick, on the analogy of “Khotan: Khotanese”, for the language spoken in the region of Tumshuq, on the northern edge of the Tarim basin in the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region of China. It is closely related to — though in many respects more archaic than — Khotanese, a Middle Iranian language (like Sogdian, Bactrian, Khwarezmian, Middle Persian and Parthian), the language of Khotan, a country and city on the southern border of the Tarim basin (see, e.g. Emmerick, 1979, 1–5).

One may conclude from the lull in publications on the Gāthic Ahuna Vairiia that a satisfactory understanding of the stanza is at hand. This is, however, not the case. The last substantial treatment of the stanza is from Humbach (1991 II) in his 1991 two-volume edition of the Old Avestan texts. Somewhat less extensive is the discussion we find in Kellens’ and Pirart's monumental three-volume edition and study of the Old Avestan texts (1991). In 1975, Insler published a detailed article on the Ahuna Vairiia. The late 1950s saw the appearance of four studies of the stanza by distinguished Avesta scholars: Benveniste, Humbach, Duchesne-Guillemin and Hinz. As for the number of translations there are, it virtually equals the number of scholars in the field. The source of the difficulties is the syntax of the stanza. The disagreements are due for the most part to the scholar's analysis of syntactic units. Thus the variety of translations may be reduced to a few basic types.

When Chinggis Khan died in 1227, his sons inherited different parts of the empire that had been built by their father. Chinggis Khan's second son, Chaghatai (d. c. 1241), became the ruler of the lands of present-day Central Asia, conforming the origin of what became to be known as the Chaghataid Khanate. After the death of its founder, this political entity experienced a long succession crisis that lasted for a decade until a woman, Orghīna Khātūn, took control of the khanate in the name of her son. Although a ruling woman is not an exceptional case in the Mongol empire, she was the first and only woman that ruled over the Chaghataid Khanate, and that did so peacefully and without major upheavals for nine years. Additionally, she did not adopt a passive role but was involved in the running of the khanate, playing her cards in the always-unstable political arena of the Mongol empire. This article looks at the ascension to the throne, the reign and the legacy of this Mongol woman in Mongol Central Asia by contextualising her rule within the history of the region in general and in that of the Mongol empire in particular.

One of the larger, and probably the least well-known collections of oriental manuscripts, printed books and other two-dimensional material in the United Kingdom (and possibly in Europe) is to be found in the library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. The collection includes over 10,000 manuscripts, some 900 written on palm leaves, and others on paper, metal, leather and ivory. There are about 3,000 books printed in oriental scripts, prints, drawings, paintings, and items of photographic material. Over 30 languages are represented in the collection.

The first intimation of any intercourse by embassies between the courts of Dehli and Constantinople occurs in the reign of Suliman the Lawgiver, in the year 1536; when Burhân, the son of Sikandar, the king of Dehli, sought refuge at the Ottoman Porte from the displeasure of Humayun. In Ferdi's excellent history of Sultan Suliman'S reign is the following account of this event:

“Burhan Beg, the son of Sikandar, king of Hindustan, ruined by the “invasions of the Jagataïan armies, fled to the Sublime Porte; where he “was honoured by being allowed to kiss the imperial hand, and was pro-“vided with a daily pension of three hundred aspers.”

Tīmūr (or Tamerlane), the Barlas tribesman whose empire stretched from the Mediterranean to India in the early fifteenth century has been a much studied and much romanticized figure in the history of Central Asia. His displays of macabre and often brutal intimidation of enemies have become almost as legendary as his military prowess. Indeed, Western legend of Tīmūr is as full of spine-tingling grotesquerie as any Gothic novel, and has been embellished far beyond plausibility.

The Pariahs or Parayans (feminine in Tamil Parachi, in Malayalam Parayi) number 63,688, and are more numerous in the South of Travancore, though a few are found in almost every Talook (county). Of the whole, only 192 males, and no females, can read. Their general social condition is very similar to that of the other so-called “slave castes,” though, perhaps, not quite so low.

It is not unlikely that the earliest trace of the Kurds is to be found on a Sumerian clay-tablet, of the third millennium B.C., on which “ the land of Kar-da ” or “ Qar-da ” is mentioned. This “ land of Karda ” adjoined that of the people of Su, who dwelt on the south of Lake Wân, and seems in all probability to have been connected with the Qur-ṭi-e, who lived in the mountains to the west of the same lake, and with whom Tiglath-Pileser I fought; the philological identity of these two names is, however, uncertain, owing to the doubt about the precise value of the palatals and dentals in Sumerian.

The great and increasing importance attaching to the question of Cotton supply renders any remarks which may throw light on the subject, of peculiar interest; the fact that the value of our cotton manufacture now exceeds sixty million pounds sterling annually— consuming therein upwards of four hundred thousand tons of the simple fibre—employing nearly one hundred million pounds sterling of capital—and giving employment directly and indirectly to about four millions of our countrymen, is alone so startling and withal so colossal as almost to defy comprehension. That a fibre so simple, and with us but a century since so little known and appreciated, should now give rise to such wealth and comfort, almost partakes of fiction; and one knows not how sufficiently to praise the ingenuity of Wyatt, Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton, who led the way to raise the manufacture in little more than a century to its present prodigious proportions. But the extension, not to say the sustenance, of this trade, is primarily dependent upon the supply of the raw material: upon this, the one hundred millions of our capital, and the livelihood of near four millions of our countrymen is dependent, a matter so serious and of such magnitude, as to make the question one of the State; the appalling result only contemplated of one year's stoppage of the supply, is sufficient to force a dread of the slender basis upon which the magnificent fabric depends. Our legislators are however now fully alive to its importance, and it is pleasing to mark the attention the matter receives amid the turmoil of our immense governmental affairs.

As an account of the tenures in the Dekkan involves the consideration of certain ancient Hindú offices, I beg to offer some preliminary observations which may possibly assist in throwing light on the former state of the country now called Mahárashtra, and its institutions. The Mahrattas do not pretend to be the aborigines; they have a tradition that they came from the north, and that they are of Rájpút origin.

For nearly nine hundred years Uyğur, the name of a Turkish tribe which played an important part in the history of Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan from the 8th until perhaps the 13th century, and spoke at any rate one of the Turkish dialects which have at one time or another been called Uyğur, has exercised a fatal fascination for those who like to find meanings for Turkish tribal and proper names.

In an article published in this Journal dated April, 1930, I discussed a tombstone which I considered as the most ancient Islamic monument. This was dated A.H. 31 (A.D. 652).

The second season of excavations at Shahr-i Qūmis began in August, and continued until early October, 1971. Work was resumed at mounds IV and VII, cleared in part in 1967, and new excavations were begun at two further sites, V and XIII. The directors are again most grateful for the close co-operation extended to the project by H.E. Mr. Mehrdad Pahlbod, Minister of Culture; by Mr. A. Pourmand, Director General of the Iranian Archaeological Service; and by Dr. T. Naimi, Director of the Service. Mr. B. Babek represented the Service on the excavations. In addition to the directors, those who participated in the excavations were Dr. A. D. H. Bivar, Miss E. Alexander, Mr. R. Biscione, Miss C. Marten, Mr. G. Payne, Mr. M. Roaf, Mrs. M. Sturz, and Mr. and Mrs. S. Swiny. Major support for the project was given by the National Geographic Society and the Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum.

Since the time when the human race first began to speculate about the origin of the universe there have been two cosmological models that have seemed particularly attractive to its imagination. One has been to derive everything in the world from a single primal origin, out of which the cosmos, in all its apparent complexity, evolves. The other has been to view the history of the universe as a battle between two opposing forces which contradict and undermine each other. The two views can be called monism and dualism. They are not the only possibilities. There have been systems that posit three, four or an indefinite number of principles, but most of these have also tended to assume one basic pair of opposites with one or more neutral or intermediate principles beside them; this too can be seen as a form of dualism.

Whether we possess among the numerous Buddhist books preserved in China any text translated from a Pāli original, is a question which has not as yet been quite settled. Several scholars have answered it positively or negatively, but no one until now has brought forward an undeniable fact in support of his opinion. The object of my present note is to decide this point, and to introduce to the Society a text of Pāli origin in Chinese.