As this valley bas never been visited by an European traveller, the little I have to say about it may make it acceptable to the Society. On one occasion I tried to visit it in company with Dr. Hooker, but unsuccessfully, as, after reaching the top of the Chola Pass—14,900 feet—which leads into it from Sikim, we were met by an officer of the Chinese Government at Lassa, with a military escort, who refused us permission to enter the valley. The particulars I have to state may, I believe, be relied on, as during many years I had constant opportunities of communicating with traders and others residing in the valley, in addition to the officials of the Sikim Raja, who annually sojourned in it from May to November. The route from Darjeeling to Choombi was described by me many years ago, as also the route from it to Lassa; but no one has described the valley itself.

Not everyone will agree with the view that the Pilgrimage is Burton's “outstanding contribution to travel literature”. What is beyond dispute is the unique place it occupies among his writings. Conscious of the significant part it played in her husband's life and career, Lady Burton placed it at the head of the Memorial edition of his works. “Although he has been the author of some eighty books and pamphlets”, she wrote, “I think that this original edition of three volumes is the one that his name should live by…” Just over thirty years later, it provided the starting-point for the Royal Asiatic Society's first Burton Memorial Lecture.

The recent discoveries in Nepāl associated with the name of Dr. Fuhrer, Archaeological Surveyor in the employment of the Government of India, may lead at an early date to a revival of interest in the life of the historical Buddha, distinguished generally by the names Gautama and Sakyamuni, and in the district in which he is supposed to have been born.

While reviewing our report on the Excavations at Brahmapuri (Kolhapur) in JRAS., 1954, p. 90, Mr. P. S. Rawson said that “the main excavations, however, yielded little more evidence of Roman contacts”. This is true as far as the published evidence goes.

Mr. ST. H. STEPHAN began to study this monument but died before he had finished the work. He made the following acknowledgments:—

“I have to thank the Director of Antiquities, Cyprus, Mr. A. H. S. Megaw, and Mr. Loizos Philippou, Hon. Curator of the Paphos District Museum for information and kind permission to publish this article. My thanks are also due to Mr. P. Dikaios, Curator of the Cyprus Museum, to Miss A. Paschalidou, Keeper of the photographic records in the Department, and to the Librarian, Mr. D. Daniel.”

The Yogācāra or Vijñānavāda doctrine, which appeared in such Mahāyāna sūtras as the Sandhinirmocana, has already been expounded by such scholars as Maitreyanātha (c. A.D. 270–350) in his voluminous Yogācārabhūmi, Mahāyānasūtrālaṅkāra, Madhyāntavibhāga, etc., and Asariga (c. A.D. 310–90) in his Mahāyānasaṅgraha, Mahāyānābhidharmasamuccaya, etc. The Triṃśikāvijñaptikārikā of Vasubandhu (c. A.D. 320–400) is a systematic and most concise exposition of this doctrine.

I am led to make some remarks on the subject of this paper by a passage in Mr. Cowell's preface to the fourth volume of the late Professor Wilson's translation of the Rigveda, which appears to me unduly to depreciate the services which have already been rendered by those eminent scholars both in Germany and in England who have begun to apply the scientific processes of modern philology to the explanation of this ancient hymn-collection. Mr. Cowell admits (p. vi.),—

Under the above Arabic title there has just appeared in St. Petersburg a Festschrift to Baron Victor Rosen, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his professional activity. It contains articles extending over a wide range of subjects by eleven of his former pupils, who are most of them at present professors or lecturers at the University of St. Petersburg.

This collection of ancient Tibetan documents, of which I have been engaged in preparing an inventory under an arrangement sanctioned by the India Office, contains close on two thousand pieces, none of them probably of a later date than the ninth century A.D., and is certain to shed a flood of new light on Tibetan archæology, history, grammar, culture, religion, and folklore. Most of the documents were found at two sites, viz. Mīrān and Mazārtāgh. Mīrān is situated a few miles south of the westernmost end of the present Lop-nōr marshes, while Mazār-tāgh is a low barren ridge rising in the middle of the Taklamakān desert, on the left bank of the Khotan River. In his Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol. i, pp. 350 seqq., 439 seqq., Sir Aurel Stein has described the remains of the ruined fort which yielded these Tibetan records at the former site. For an account of the excavations which brought to light Tibetan and other documents in abundance from the refuse-layers adjoining the small ruined station on the Mazār-tāgh hill, vol. ii, pp. 417 seqq., may be consulted.

In a review of Professor Louis de la Vallée Poussin's book Le Védisme, p. 472 of this Journal, Mr. A. Berriedale Keith makes the following remark: “He [Poussin] is inclined with Barth and Winternitz not to reject as wrong Jacobi's great chronological argument: we think this is to be much too favourable to it. It cannot survive Whitney, Thibaut, and Oldenberg's onslaught.” As Mr. Keith probably does not stand alone in this opinion, may I be allowed to say a few words on this head?