At the beginning of June, 1803, a new phase opened in the relations of the British Company and the Marathas. It was symbolized by two events; the march northwards from Poona on 4th June of the detachment of East India Company troops commanded by Arthur Wellesley and the assembly near Malkapur on the 5th or 6th June of the armies of Daulat Eao Sindhia and the Raja of Berar. Since what was at stake, in diplomatic terms, was the contest of the British Company and Sindhia for overlordship of the Peshwa, it was appropriate that in military terms this should be expressed by the confrontation, not far from the capital city of the Maratha people, of the Company's army and what could be formed of an army of the Maratha Confederacy.

In my paper on Tibetan Seals in the last number of this Journal (JRAS., 1915, p. 1) I regret that, owing to there not being time for a second revision of the proof, on account of my being in India, there are certain misprints, which I correct below.

For 'abar in line 6 of the inscription of the seal on p. 7, read hbar.

For the top word of the third column of the seal on p. 8, read.

For the second word in the same column, read

For the bottom word in the sixth column of the above seal, read

Many scholars in the last 150 years have applied themselves to problems posed in dating the rock reliefs of the Sasanian kings. Steady progress has been made and we have now reached a stage when most, but not all, sculptures can be assigned, with reasonable certainty, to the various kings. However, the closer dating and the identification of the context of the reliefs are still hotly disputed. This paper, written in honour of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who has long been interested in Iranian studies, attempts to examine the stylistic development of the sculptures of Bahrām II (a.d. 276–93) in the hope that this will at least establish the order in which he commissioned the reliefs during his reign of seventeen years. It has been a surprising feature of earlier studies of the sculpture of specific Sasanian kings that little or no attempt has been made to ascertain developments in style during the course of a reign. The author has already attempted this for the sculpture of Ardashīr and Shāhpūr; the same methods are here applied to the reliefs of Bahrām II. Only after such an examination can there be any hope of solving the many outstanding problems of dating and identification.

Professor Edgerton has offered us in his recent work on Buddhist Sanskrit (a monument to almost twenty years' labour) a material of delightful richness. It required both courage to undertake such a work and great persistence to carry it through. No doubt each reader will at first look eagerly to see how the cruces which have long baffled him have been resolved here; then to see how much new matter is offered in the elucidation of texts where he has himself after long searching been able to gather up some small amount of the widely scattered evidence. He may even venture to estimate how much of the harvest has been garnered and how much still remains to be brought in.

The origin and earlier history of the Chinese coinage have been discussed in several European works, of which the most important are, in order of date, Dr. W. Vissering's “On Chinese Currency,” Leiden, 1877; Professor S. M. Georgievsky's “Drevneishia moneti Kitaichev” (The Ancient Chinese Coins), 1889; and M. Terrien de Lacouperie's “Catalogue of Chinese Coins,” printed by order of the Trustees of the British Museum, 1892.

It will not have escaped the notice of anyone reading the Aśokan inscriptions that the emperor's attitude towards the killing of animals, including human beings, was not entirely consistent. In RE I(B) we read hiddā no kichi jive ālabhitu pajohitaviye (in the version at K), “Here no living being must be killed and sacrificed.” In RE III(D) we find pānānaṃ anālaṃbhe sādhu, “Abstention from killing animals is meritorious.” In RE IV(C) we read vaḍhite … anālaṃbhe pānānaṃ avihisā bhūtānaṃ, “There are now promoted … abstention from killing animals, abstention from hurting living beings.” In RE XI(C) pānānaṃ anālaṃbhe occurs again. PE V contains a long list of animals which Aśoka had made inviolable (avadhiyāni) and not to be killed (no haṃtaviyāni). In PE VII(NN) we read dhaṃmavaḍhi vaḍhitā avihiṃsāye bhūtānaṃ anālaṃbhāye pānānaṃ, “The progress of morality has been promoted (because it leads) to abstention from hurting living beings (and) to abstention from killing animals.” With specific regard to men, Aśoka expresses his regret about the number of persons killed in, or as a consequence of, the war in Kaliṅga (RE XIII(E)), and states his hope that the forest dwellers will repent so that they may not be killed (avatrapeyu na ca haṃñeyasu, in the reading of Sh at RE XIII(N)). It appears, however, from PE IV that men could be sentenced to death in Aśoka's empire.

Yü of Hsia “was styled Wênming.” Yü's father was Kun, whose father was the Emperor Ch'uanbsü, whose father was Ch'angyi, whose father was Huangti; so Yü was Huangti's great - great - grandson, and Ch‘uanhsü’s grandson. Yü's great-grandfather Ch'angyi and his father Kun were both unable to sit on the Imperial throne, being simply officials. In the time of the Emperor Yao “the deluge assailed the heavens, and in its vast expanse encompassed the mountains, and overtopped the hills, so that the common people were troubled about it. Yao sought for one capable of controlling the waters. All the officials and presidents of the four mountains said, ‘Kun might do it.’ Yao said, ‘Kun is a man who disobeys orders, and ruins his companions. He will not do.’ The president of the four mountains said,” Among his equals there is no one so worthy as Kun; I wish your Majesty would “try him.” Upon which Yao, giving heed to the president of the four mountains, employed Kun to control the waters “for nine years,” but the waters did not abate, “and the work was unaccomplished.” Then the Emperor Yao sought a man in his stead, and secured Shun. Shun being employed in the public service was associated with the Son of Heaven in the administration.

Though personally unknown to you, I am aware, from many of your articles in different publications, of the great interest which you take in the subject of Buddhistical antiquities. I believe, therefore, that what I am about to communicate will be my best apology for the liberty I now take in addressing you. I have read your last Essay on the Social, Moral, and Political State of Ancient India several times over with the greatest interest, and I have traced Fa Hian's route upon the map with unfortunately more zeal than success. Some points, however, I have been able to clear up, which have escaped the researches of all the critics, including Wilson and yourself. It is regarding these that I now venture to address you. I will begin with the kingdom of Seng-kia-chi, or in English spelling Seng-kia-shi.

In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1930 Professor Langdon illustrates (Pl. IX, Fig. 4) a curious pottery stand found at Hursagkalamma, Kish. This, he states, is only found below the flood stratum down to waterlevel, i.e. prior to 3,200 B.C., according to his dating; and it may possibly be the niḳnaḳḳu of Babylonian ritual which was in common use, according to the texts, right down to the Persian Period. During my work at Kish I found a similar stand—now in the Field Museum, Chicago—in the same area of the site. These stands which average 2½ feet in height are shaped rather like an hour-glass, and are open throughout at the topand base. Moreover, they are ornamented with triangular incisions which sometimes pierce the side entirely, sometimes only partially so.

A. Linin's article (“K voprosam formalnogo izucheniya poezii turetskikh narodov” in the Izvestiya Vostochnogo Fakulteta Azerbaidžanskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, t. i, Baku, 1926, pp. 139–201), criticizing the work of T. Kowalski (Ze studjów nad formą poezji ludów turechich, 1922) on Turkish popular prosody, deals with some new details connected in one way or another with prosody. Among them the author draws attention on p. 180 to the soft pronunciation of the Turkish r, at the same time he refers to analogous results in one of the previous treatises of Messrs. Kowalski and Bergsträsser (ibid.). This fact is so interesting that it can be examined without reference to its influence upon the character of the rhymes and can properly be made the subject of a separate article.

No one has done more over recent years to promote the study of the genre of Chinese literature known as pien-wen in the English-speaking world than Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania. Since the discovery of this type of T'ang popular tale among the Tun-huang manuscripts which were recovered at the start of this century, a considerable body of scholarship has been produced to explain its origins and affiliations. The results of all this academic effort are now surveyed in three volumes by Mair: one a selection of translations, one a survey of comparable phenomena outside China, and one (dealt with here) addressed to the main problems raised by the Chinese materials.