No one who takes the trouble to investigate the various Mythological systems of the Heathen world, can fail to be struck with the very remarkable similarity which exists between them. To account for this similarity is an interesting, and, at first sight, a difficult undertaking.

One of the enduring open questions in ancient Indian history is the identity of the king who identifies himself on the reverse of his gold coins as prakāśāditya. Most authors have assumed that he was a Gupta king. This paper reviews the various proposals on the identity of Prakāśāditya, arguing why we can be quite sure, as suggested by Robert Göbl, that he was in fact a Hun king and not a Gupta. Then, by presenting a near-complete reading of the obverse legend, it is shown that it is virtually certain that he was in fact the Hun king Toramāṇa, as Göbl had speculated. Implications of this finding are then considered.

Khuddaka Páṭha, or “Lesser Readings,” is one of the books of the Buddhist Scriptures. It is the first of the fifteen divisions of Khuddaka Nikáya, and immediately precedes Dhammapada, The text which I have adopted is that of a manuscript written and collated for me by a Singhalese priest of great learning. I have compared with it the Burmese manuscript belonging to the collection presented by Sir A. Phayre to the India Office Library. This, however, I found to contain numerous clerical and other errors, and it failed to supply me with a single corrected reading.

The present article undertakes a comprehensive study of ancient Chinese anecdotal and dialogic sources on Chunyu Kun, who is presented in a variety of roles such as trickster, sophist, envoy, jester, procurer of talent for his ruler, and erudite at the so-called Jixia academy which was allegedly established in the pre-imperial state of Qi. The article outlines how certain motifs and topics were reused and, in the process, reshaped by the narrative tradition and Chunyu Kun came to serve as a stock figure in different types of discourse.

The general rules for the development of cerebral -ṣ- in Sanskrit account for its appearance after k, r, ṛ, i, and u, and in this case the statements of historical phonology correspond to the elementary rules of Sanskrit grammar. There exist, however, a certain number of words in which cerebral -ṣ- appears after an a-vowel (a or ā), which remain to be accounted for. A certain number of these are taken care of by Fortunatov's law (e.g. pāṣāṇa- “stone”: Germ. Fels) but they form a minority of the group. Certain other such words (e.g. jálāṣa- “refreshing”, mṣa- “bean”) I have dealt with in an article to be published elsewhere. The two words which appear in the title of this article differ from the other words in question inasmuch as the -ṣ- is the first member of a consonant group, and its explanation is dependent on this fact.

Al-Kindī's Treatise On the Definitions and Descriptions of Things (Fī Ḥudūd al-Ashyā' wa-Rusūmihā) has come down to us in the great Istanbul manuscript of his collected writings (Aya Sofiya 4832), and has been published on the basis of that unique manuscript by M. A. Abū Rīdā (Rasā'il al-Kindī al-Falsafiyya, vol. i, Cairo, 1950, pp. 163 ff.). In a manuscript of the British Museum which contains a great number of important philosophical texts, Add. 7473 (Cureton's Catalogue, no. 426), written about the year 640/1242, there are some extracts from it. They are preceded (fols. 175r–178r) by al-Kindī's well-known treatise on the astrological calculation of the Islamic empire, published from this very manuscript by O. Loth. The colophon of that text reads as follows: “The treatise is finished, with the praise of God and His help and assistance. I have transcribed it from a copy dated the middle of Rabī' I, 531 [Nov.–Dec., 1136]. This colophon is followed by the extracts, which are headed by a note reading as follows: “The following paragraphs were found in the copy which I used as my model, and so I transcribe them.” What follows are definitions from al-Kindī's treatise. As it is superfluous to reproduce that part of the extracts which exists also in the Istanbul manuscript, I propose to employ a simplified method of comparison: I give the headings of the British Museum extracts, without adding anything where the British Museum version corresponds exactly to the text of the Istanbul manuscript; but I note all divergences. Readers interested in the details will peruse these pages with the printed edition before them.

SINCE, during the last few years, Si-Hia texts with transliterations into Tibetan character have been brought to light, it seems that a new aspect may be put upon the morphology of this language.

Previously the texts studied provided us only with transcriptions into Chinese characters, and it is on their evidence that reconstructions of Si-Hia words were first based. Writing in 1916 with this class of material before him, Laufer consequently stated that “consonantal prefixes can be pointed out only in four cases: k-ṅü or k-ṅu(‘five’), k-ṅum (‘heaven‘), r-ni (‘ear’), and possibly m-ru, m-lu (‘worm’)”.

The new inscription of Aśoka from Kandahar, published by Émile Benveniste and André Dupont-Sommer, forms, together with the one stemming from Pul-i Darunteh (Lamghān) published by W. B. Henning, a special class of Aśoka inscriptions. Both these inscriptions are bilingual, but they do not belong to the common type of bilingual documents, in which the text of each language is separately inscribed on a different part of the stone's surface. Here the two languages are mixed, each short section in one language is followed by one in the other language. The two languages involved, both written in Aramaic characters, are Aramaic and Middle Indian (Prākrit).

The notices of Ibn Salama are short. Al-Nawawī (d. 1277) and Ibn Khallikān (d. 1282) make reference to him only in the biography of his son, Abū '1-Ṭaiyib, who died in 920.

Ibn Salama was a grammarian of the Kūfan school. He studied under his father, Salama ibn 'Āṣim, a friend of Al-Farrā' (d. 822) and teacher of Tha'lab (d. 904); but Yāqūt says that he departed from his father's views. The Fihrist, followed by Ibn Khallikān, says that he met Ibn al-A'rābi (d. 846) and other learned men. Yāqūt says that he studied under Ibn al-A'rābī, Tha'lab, Ibn al-Sikkīt (d. 860), and others.

All the epigraphic material dealt with in this note was recorded in and about the oasis of Najran, situated in the Wadi of the same name at the point where it begins to leave the mountains and to splay out into the great south desert of Arabia. The oasis lies at an altitude of 4,500 feet above sea-level between rugged granite and basalt walls surmounted by a frieze of reddish, rather friable, sandstone averaging 300 feet in thickness with peaks rising out of it to a further height of about 200 feet. The highest points are about 2,000 feet above the valley or 6,500 feet above sea-level. This layer of sandstone overlies the igneous rock of the foundations over a considerable area—westward to near the summit of the main mountain range, northwards right up into Najd, and southwards far into the Yaman. It has obviously played an important part in human history by providing relatively easy trade and invasion routes through an otherwise forbidding tract of granite mountains.

These notes, supplementary to the necessarily brief review of Mevrouw van Lohuizen-De-Leeuw's meritorious work, do not at all seek to revive the exhaustive discussions of 1913 or to scrutinize any subsequent contributions of fact or opinion. The aim is simply to signalize the authoress's main propositions and to record a few such provisional comments as seem relevant. In view of some tendency towards a “general opinion” a new objectively elaborated interpretation has a claim to careful consideration: and it seemed permissible to include, on a reviewer's part, one or two partly novel observations. While awaiting some new evidence of a “knock-out” kind, scholars may give attention to any serious reasonings.

Al-Manār was an Arabic and reformist journal founded by Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā in Cairo in 1898, and its primary objectives were to examine the decadence of Muslim political institutions, underline the danger of European colonialism in the Muslim world, and promote the idea that Islam was compatible with modernity and reason. The present article attempts to examine the intellectual influence of al-Manār among the Ḥadhramī elite in the Malay-Indonesian world, and critically assess its role as the mouthpiece for the propagation of ‘Abduh's doctrines and accomplishment of his reforms. It first addresses the mission of al-Manār as a reformist journal that worked towards the promotion of social, religious and economic reforms in the Muslim world. It secondly examines the religio-cultural background of the Ḥadhramī elite who were influenced by the reformist mission of al-Manār and subscribed to its ultimate goal. The study finally highlights the impact of al-Manār on the religio-political and social structure of the Ḥadhramī diaspora in the Malay-Indonesian world, and discusses how this impact resulted in the establishment of a revivalist movement that rejected the conservative attitude of blind imitation (taqlīd ) of the four schools of Islamic law, and denounced the Sufi practices that were not in harmony with the fundamentals of Islam. Special attention will also be paid to the role of the Ḥadhramī organisations, schools and press that contributed to the propagation of al-Manār's reformist mission and its dissemination at the grass roots level of the Ḥadhramī community.

A few years ago Professor Balog, in the introduction to his book Coinage of the Mamlūk sultans of Egypt and Syria, suggested, on the basis of the numismatic evidence, a number of modifications to the principles of Mamlūk heraldry proposed earlier by Mayer in his book Saracenic heraldry, particularly with regard to the use of composite blazons by the sultans, and their design. Balog's main conclusions may be briefly summarized as follows:

(a) The Mamlūk sultans engraved their coats-of-arms on many of their coins. (b) Besides simple charges true composite blazons occur on fulūs, showing that not only the nobility but the sultans also had composite blazons. (c) All simple charges occurring on issues of one and the same sultan are parts of his composite blazon. (d) Coins sometimes confirm the evidence for a sultan's blazon provided by other objects, and sometimes contradict it; in the latter case, the coin evidence should prevail, (e) Coins, in that they can be definitely attributed and the ownership of the blazons they carry can be proved without question, confirm Mayer's theory that the Mamlūk blazon was hereditary.

During a year in Ḥaḍramawt I was able to collect a number of legal documents which contain valuable material for a study of the social structure of the country. Amongst these are two groups of deeds relating to the Ḥawṭahs of al-Ḥāwī and Thibī, typical examples of the sacred enclaves of this part of Arabia. Another set of documents defines the rights of the townsmen of the Sūḳ quarter of Tarim, with some references to the ceremonies connected with hunting the ibex, and I have various other documents relating to tribal cases, a house-sale deed, etc.

The four epochs into which, the political history of ancient Northern India is naturally divided are marked by four imperial dynasties — (I) the Maurya, (II) the Kusana or Kushān, (III) the Gupta, and (IV) the Rājpūt line of Harṣavardhana. The date of the Maurya, the earliest of the four dynasties, was practically determined more than a century ago by Sir William Jones, and we know that Candra Gupta Maurya, the first emperor of India, and grandfather of Aśoka, ascended the throne in or about the year b.c. 321.

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.

This article examines the usage and sense of hātąm ‘of beings’ and the adjective haiθiia- ‘true’, both from the present participle haṇt- ‘being’, in the Old Avestan texts. It argues that the first is a rhetorical figure that enhances the stature of its complement and does not denote any particular kind of being whether divine or mortal. haiθiia- consistently appears in contexts that may be legitimately described as eschatological. Most often it qualifies a certain type of activity that leads to or constitutes a ‘splendid’ state of existence. What truly is, the article concludes, refers to existence beyond mortal life.

The Samarāṅganasūtradhāra is an encyclopedic work, attributed by tradition to King Bhoja of the Paramāra dynasty. It collects a vast number of subjects under the general heading of vāstu, a term that refers to a dwelling or dwelling place and, by inclusion, comes to treat the many activities connected with dwellings and construction sites. Although probably incomplete in the available manuscripts, the size of the Samarāṅganasūtradhāra remains impressive: including the ‘interpolated section’ it runs for almost 7,500 Sanskrit verses. The various portions resemble, in turn, a Purāṇa, a treatise on architecture, a disquisition into dramaturgic detail and much more. Bhoja's work can be classified as belonging to the ‘northern’ Vāstu tradition; the text presents itself as such, by tracing its own origin to the divine architect Viśvakarman rather than Maya, as a southern text would do. Nevertheless, the Samarāṅganasūtradhāra contains an extensive treatment of southern temple types.

Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s recently discovered Recognizing God (Maʿrifat-i Khudāy taʿālā) is one of the only texts known to have survived from the early Alamūt period of Ismaili Muslim history. This article analyses the work in the context of the “new Invitation” (daʿwat-i jadīd) to the Ismaili faith that al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153) tells us was inaugurated by the Fāṭimid Imam al-Mustanṣir billāh (d. 487/1094) and championed by Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518/1124). The text emphasises that the ultimate purpose of human existence is to know God, and that the path to this knowledge is through the Imam of the Time. The concepts of the ‘true teacher’ (muʿallim-i ṣādiq) and ‘sage’ (ḥakīm) are examined and the literary culture fostered at the Ismaili fortresses, particularly Girdkūh, is explored. Significantly, the article draws attention to the position of Sanāʾī Ghaznawī (d. circa 525/1131) in Persian Ismaili literature and to the very early development of pious, devotional and homiletic poetry as well as the “mathnawī metre” in Ismaili environments, which may have helped set the stage for some of the most significant poetic achievements of mystical Islam: the writings of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. circa 618/1221) and Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273).