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.

Two important contemporary authors provide primary sources for the history of Qalāwūn's reign. The first of these, Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʽAbd al-Ẓahir, had been the head of Baybars's chancery, and continued to hold office, possibly until his death in 692/1293. He was, however, overtaken during his lifetime by his son, Fatḥ al-Dīn, whom Qalāwūn appointed to the new post of confidential secretary (kātib al-sirr). Muḥyī al-Dīn was the author of Baybars's official biography, a Rawḍ al-zāhirfisirat al-Malik al-Ẓāhir – indeed one might say that he ghosted the memoirs recounted to him by the sultan. In due course he also produced the official biography of Qalāwūn, Tashrlf al-ayyām wa 'l-'uṣūr fi sīrat al-Malik al-Manṣūr, of which unfortunately only the latter part, beginning with the year 680/1281–82, is now extant. A great deal of the value of this work lies in the state papers it transmits. These include the texts of truces with the Templars, Acre, Lesser Armenia, and the Lady Margaret of Tyre, as well as treaties (also formally truces in Islamic international law) with Aragon and Genoa.

I would like to thank the Royal Asiatic Society warmly for allowing me the privilege of giving today's lecture on Dr Otto Samson. It is both an honour and a responsibility to speak of a person whom one has never known and whom others knew so much better, and I should perhaps explain why I of all people should be standing here today.

“What then was to be looked for in a remote and extensive empire, administered in all its parts by men, who came out boys, without the plenitude of instruction of English youth in learning, morals, or religion; and who were let loose on their arrival amidst native licentiousness, and educated amidst conflicting superstitions?”

This complaint was made in 1805 by Claudius Buchanan, in the first influential evangelical tract on India. It was directed against the way of life of the servants of the East India Company in the second half of the 18th century. If certain assumptions are altered, Buchanan's complaint could be changed into praise: these men were not completely indoctrinated by narrow European, English and Christian values, but arrived with a remarkable openness towards what they found in the East, ready to accept different values and customs and to adopt a new style of life. What they were lacking was not so much education as indoctrination.

Since writing the article in the October number of the Journal for 1910 (pp. 1283 ff.), I have been further examining some of the manuscript treasures which Dr. Stein succeeded in recovering from the immured Temple Library near Tun-huang. In that article I gave extracts from two “bilingual” texts which I discovered among those treasures, and which promised to furnish us with the key to the southern of the two unknown languages of Eastern Turkestan. In the present article I propose to report another discovery, which seems to throw light on some phonetic peculiarities of that language.

Several of the manuscripts from Tunhuang in the invaluable Choix de Documents Tibétains conservés à la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, 1978 and 1979) record cases of civil litigation and administrative or judicial decisions on them in some instances. Fewer deal with criminal matters. Although students of Tibetan have referred to such documents in books and articles, published translations of any of them appear to be rare. In Journal Asiatique, 1955, Mlle Marcelle Lalou, a pioneer in studies of the Tunhuang material, translated Fonds Pelliot Tibétain (Pell. T.) 1089 concerning the appointment of a wide range of officials in the border region. The translation of orders on two short petitions from citizens of Shacu is included in Tsipon Shakabpa's Tibet, a Political History (1967). F. W. Thomas translated the “Law of theft in Chinese Kansu, a IXth–Xth century fragment from Tunhuang”, in Zeitschrift für Verglekhende Rechtswissenschaft, L (1936).

In the April issue, 1934, of this Journal, I edited and translated the first chapter of this work of the great Nāgārjuna, still a fundamental treatise in the monasteries of Tibet. I now publish the remaining portions of the second and fourth chapters, the second being incomplete and the third entirely missing. The fifth and last pariccheda contains chiefly vinaya-rules, and will be published in a subsequent issue, along with the Tibetan text and the English translation of the missing portions.

We have now given the rule of the first stage concerning understanding what is heard and applying it; and also the rule of the second stage concerning the ecstasy which is encountered in the heart; so let us now give what of it oozes to the outside, consisting of cries and weeping and movements and rending of clothes, etc. So we say

As is usual in texts which were composed more as panegyrics than as strict historical records, the epitaph inscription for Wu Liang , who died at the age of 74 in A.D. 151, tells of his virtues and his qualities as a scholar. But in common with a number of famous men of ability and learning of his time, such as Zhang Heng (78–139), Ma Rong (79–166) or Wang Fu (c. 90–165), Wu Liang showed a persistent reluctance to serve in an official capacity, preferring to devote himself to a study of history and philosophy. In all probability he felt, like the others, that in the prevailing political circumstances, it was not possible both to embark on an official career and to retain a measure of personal integrity. Be that as it may, other members of his family evidently felt no such scruples; his nephew Wu Ban , for example, was appointed to be chief clerk at Dunhuang.

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.

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.),—

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.

The extract from the Narrative of his Travels by Ebu ‘Abdu-’llāh Muhammed of Tangier, commonly called Ibnu Baṭūṭa, an English translation of which appears below, relates to his experiences in the province of Sindh, and touches on matters of local history and geography which may interest some readers, and be thought deserving of such elucidation as may be possible. These matters are noticed in the remarks subjoined to the extract, a form of comment which I have thought preferable to the alternative of interrupting the narrative by frequent and copious footnotes.