The gilšu is found in both sexes and on both sides of the body. It is followed in the text series by qinnātu (GU.DU.MEŠ) “the buttocks”. This specific anatomical term appears to refer quite clearly to the upper part of the lower limb. Further evidence may be provided by the description of carrying children straddling the hip region, a form of transporting infants which is still widely practised among the more primitive peoples of Africa and Asia at the present time. As it is an obvious landmark, easily recognizable on the surface of the body; it may perhaps be the palpable mass formed by the protrusion of the greater trochanter of the femur. However, this is still open to question.

Among the examples of sgraffiato pottery from the excavations at Takht-i Sulaymān in Iran shown by Dr. Rudolf Schnyder during the oral presentation of his paper “Medieval incised and carved wares from North West Iran”—read to the Percival David Foundation's Fourth Colloquy on Art and Archaeology in Asia, but not included amongst the published illustrations—was a specimen bearing a short Arabic inscription. I am grateful to Dr. Schnyder for allowing me to publish here, in developed form, my contribution to the subsequent discussion, and to him and the Musée National Suisse for providing the photograph reproduced in Plate I.

In his Gurū Nānak and the Sikh religion (Oxford, 1968), Dr. W. H. McLeod quoted verbatim (pp. 131–2) a note which, at his invitation, I had sent to him regarding an inscription at Baghdad. This inscription, discovered by some Sikh soldiers after the entry of British and Indian troops into the city in March 1917, is now set in the wall inside the reputed (and much restored) tomb of Buhlūl, itself adjacent to the tombs of Sitt Zubayda (the wife of Hārūn al-Rashīd) and of “Yūsha' Nabī”, between the modern airport and the railway station Baghdad West. Ever since its discovery, Sikh scholars have regarded it as recording a visit to Baghdad by Gurū Nānak (1469–1539) in 927 A.H. (= A.D. 1520–1), as the figures beneath the text were first read, or in 917/1511–12.

As a leading Ṣūfī shaykh of his age al-Nābulusī's prime purpose in all his travels was to seek mystical experience and gain baraka by contact with the righteous, both living and dead. Consequently, his riḥlas emphasize encounters with spiritual dignitaries and ecstatics and his many ziyārāt to holy tombs and other shrines. These works thus provide a valuable source of information on religious personalities of his day and on Muslim sanctuaries.

In this paper it is proposed to evaluate the Indian literary data up to the early centuries A.D. as a source for a history of iron in India. The issues to be considered are: the beginning of the use of iron in agriculture, the terms used to denote iron, and the metallurgical details, if any.

The association of Alexander the Great with the Mongols begins with the identification of the latter with the peoples of Gog and Magog. The evolution of this legend, which has its origin in the Book of Genesis, is curious in the extreme. In Genesis Magog is mentioned as one of the sons of Japhet, his name occurring between those of Gomer and Madai. Since Madai is clearly intended as the eponym of the Medes and Gomer has been located in Cappadocia and Phrygia it has been plausibly suggested that Magog at this stage corresponded to the territory in between, i.e. the region immediately south of the Caucasus in Eastern and Northern Armenia. In Ezekiel we hear for the first time of Gog “of the land of Magog”, who will come from his place out of the uttermost parts of the north, he and many peoples with him, “all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.” It will be seen that the “land of Magog” can no longer be located south of the Caucasus, and indeed Ezekiel's prophecy of the invasion of Gog has been interpreted as an echo of the invasions of the Cimmerians, who came southwards from the steppes through the Darial pass towards the end of the eighth century B.C.; or more probably of the invasion of the Scythians which took place in the following century by way of Darband. Finally we are told in Revelation that “when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea”.

Controversy continues over the position of the paribhāṣās in the textual order of the Āpastamba Śrautasūtra. The paribhāṣās occupy the first four kaṇḍikās of the 24th Praśna in the printed text edited by R. Garbe. They are regarded by Garbe as a later addition and by Narasimhachar as the initial portion of the Śrautasūtra. This paper examines the validity of their views. From a reassessment of their data combined with further grounds the present author concludes that the position in which the paribhāṣās now appear in the printed text is the original one.

There are two passages in the Soma hymns of maṇḍala IX which deserve special attention. Both of them are concerned with Agni, who in this book is a rare and insignificant occurrence: in 9,5,11 he is, in a final line, said to witness, together with Vāyu, Bṛhaspati, Sūrya and Indra, a Soma ceremony; in 22, 2 and 88, 5 he figures in similes; in 96, 5 Soma is described as the father of Heaven, Earth, Agni, Sūrya, Indra and Viṣṇu. The more interesting are the two Agni passages in the last sūktas of the first part of this maṇḍala, viz. the triplet 9, 66, 19–21 and the six stanzas 9, 67, 22–27.

Of the ten incarnations of Viṣṇu which he is believed in classical Hinduism to have undergone for the welfare of the human beings on earth, the sixth is that of Paraśurāma, a Brahmanic hero whose characteristic feature was the axe (paraśu) with which he is reported to have slain innumerable Kṣatriya warriors in 21 combats. We may perhaps recall here the most important events of the legend as it occurs in the Mahābhārata (III.116, XII.49.27–60, cf. also XIII.153) and in the Purāṇas: Harivaṃśa (I.33), Vāyu (Adhy.94), Matsya (Adhy.43), Viṣṇu (IV.11.9–20), Bhāgavata (IX.15, 16), Mārkaṇḍeya (Adhy.17), Brahmāḍḍa (III.26–47, very extensive!), and Viṣṇudharmottara (I.Adhy.25–7 ff.):

Śaśāṅka, who flourished in eastern India, was one of the most important rulers in the post-Gupta epoch. He was a rival and opponent of the Maukharis of Kānyakubja, Rājyavardhana and Harṣavardhana of Thāneśvara, and Bhāskaravarman of Kāmarūpa. Śaśāṅka is known from a large number of sources and among these coins are very important. Śaśāṅka is generally known to have issued coins made of gold only. In course of our recent exploration in the deltaic regions of West Bengal, we have, however, come across two examples of the hitherto unnoticed silver coins of Śaśāṅka. These coins were discovered along with the two other coins made of gold, and of these one belongs to Śaśāṅka and the other to a class of coin with the legend Śrī the obverse.

In view of the lengthy descriptions of tattooing from many other regions in Southeast Asia, it is odd that the Chao Phraya basin receives but little attention. The custom is usually not mentioned, or is given a passing reference as one rather old-fashioned habit to which modern observers need pay little regard. Accounts of central Thai tattooing which cover more than a single paragraph are rare. Moreover, this is in marked contrast to the extensive local literature on closely related subjects such as magical diagrams, protective spells, amulets and astrology.