39. en = incantation. Br. 10857 = šiptu. Georg. en-a = tongue, word; Laz. nen-a = tongue, word; Min. nin-a = tongue, word; Sv. nin = tongue, word.

The earliest account of the Śāradā alphabet with which I am acquainted is that contained in Leech's “Grammar of the Cashmeeree Language” in the JASB., vol. xiii, pp. 399 ff., 1844. Leech gives the forms only of the vowels and of the simple consonants, and does not deal with the combinations of consonants with vowels or with conjunct consonants. As the subject is one of some interest, I here give complete tables, showing not only the simple vowels and consonants, but also al; possible combinations of these, as they occur in this alphabet. The characters have all been written for me by my friend Mahāmahōpādhyāya Paṇḍit Mukunda Rāma Śāstrī of Śrīnagar, and may therefore be accepted with the fullest confidence. Two plates illustrating the alphabet were published by Burkhard in his edition of the Kaśmīr Śakuntalā (Vienna, 1884), but I think it will be found that the following tables are much more complete.

The following notes are based on material which I collected in Kerman during the months June to October, 1914. The spare time at my command was less than I could have desired, and a Benjamin's portion of it was devoted to the more interesting and less exploited Bakhtiari dialect, while the local Kermani dialect provided a further distraction. In these circumstances my researches were not exhaustive, but I think they will be found to have done something towards rendering our knowledge more exact.

1. The following article is primarily an attempt to explain the equations, Sanskrit mārjāraḥ = Gujrāti mājār = Marāṭhī mājar; Sanskrit śmaśānáḥ = Gujrāti masāṇ = Marāṭhī masaṇ; Sanskrit palāśáḥ = Marāṭhī palas; Sanskrit upasthnam = Marāṭhī vaṭhāṇ.

The Kyauksè district is at once the smallest and the richest in Upper Burma. Two rivers, the Zawgyi and the Panlaung, enter it from the mountains in the Shan States to the east, and from them spring a number of canal systems. These existed long before the British annexed the country, and tradition ascribes them to the great king Nawyӑta (Anuruddha), who reigned from 1044 to 1077 a.d.

While preparing a descriptive register of the manuscript fragments recovered by Sir Aurel Stein from the sand-buried ruins of Khadalik in the course of his second tour of exploration in Eastern Turkestan, I have recently discovered a portion of the Sanskrit version of the Sutta Nipāta. It is contained in fragments of five consecutive folios. According to Fausböll, in the reasoned statement in the Introduction to his Translation of the Sutta Nipāta (in SBE., vol. x), certain portions of that work, including the Aṭṭhavagga, are “very old”, containing as they do “some remnants of Primitive Buddhism” (loc. cit., p. xi). It is just the Aṭṭhavagga which happens to be preserved in the fragments, and it is this fact which imparts a particular interest to the discovery.

The Rashaḥāt is a Persian MS. dealing with the Naqshbandī Khwājās of Central Asia, and specially with the Samārkand saint Naṣīru-d-dīn 'Ubaid Ullah, commonly known by the epithets ḥaẓrat Īshān and Khwāja Aḥrār. The work is to some extent an introduction to Mr. Shaw's paper on the Khwājās which Mr. Ney Elias published in a Supplement to the JASB. for 1897. That paper treats of a much later period in the history of the Khwājās than does the Rashaḥāt, but they agree in tracing their descent from Imām J'afir Ṣādiq and from Ḥusain the grandson of Muḥammad.

In the new volume of the Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler der königlichen Museen zu Berlin (Heft xii, 1915) Dr. Otto Schroeder has published a revised copy (No. 202) of what is known as the Second Arzawa Tablet found at Tel el-Amarna and now in Berlin. As I was the first to point out many years ago (Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, xi, 1889), the text of the tablet, like that of the First Tablet addressed to the king of Arzawa, is in the Hittite language. The revised copy of the Second Tablet is a great improvement on what has been previously at our disposal, and with the help of the Hittite Vocabularies (for which see JRAS. October, 1914) and various other tablets from Boghaz Keui, it is now possible to present a translation of it. The tablet contains a letter from a Hittite named Labbaya who was employed in escorting the caravans from Khalirabbat or Eastern Cappadocia to Canaan, and who with his two sons was accused of intriguing with the enemies of the Pharaoh and even occupying Canaanitish cities. We hear a good deal about him in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, which includes two letters from him in Semitic Babylonian, rebutting the accusations that had been brought against him and protesting his fidelity to the Egyptian Government.

The Ḥisba jurisdiction, which is the subject of the twentieth and concluding chapter of Māwardi's work, is akin to those dealing with the Ḳaḍi and with the Maẓālim tribunal; these have been discussed in the Journal (1910, p. 761, and 1911, p. 635). In the following pages an attempt is made to give, in an abridged form, the substance of the Ḥisba chapter (ed. Enger, Bonn, 1853, pp. 404–31), to be followed by some observations on the working of the rules there laid down, and on their effect in practice.

On the reliefs of the Gandhāra School, in all scenes where Gautama is shown, and thus in constant association with him, there appears a figure which has been the subject of much discussion. He is called Vajrapāṇi by reason of the thunderbolt which he either grasps by its middle, or supports on the palm of his hand. This thunderbolt is the exact copy of the weapon which Indra, or Sakka, holds; but in these sculptures it is not so much a weapon, to my mind, as it is a symbol of divine authority, which is a matter of importance for the interpretation of the figure.

In the course of my registering and describing the collection of manuscripts of Sir Aurel Stein's second expedition in Eastern Turkestan, I have come across two sets of fragments which appear to me to preserve portions of an early recension of the Saddharma-puṇḍarīka; earlier, that is to say, than the ordinary recension published by Professor Kern in the .Bibliotheca Buddhica, x. They were discovered by Sir A. Stein in September, 1906, in the sand-buried ruins of Khadalik, as described by him in his Ruins of Desert Kathay, vol. i, pp. 239 ff.

The three texts deciphered below appear on a vajra, the property of Mr. G. D. Sofoulis of Shanghai, a photograph of which has been lent to the Egyptian and Oriental Society of Manchester by Mr. F. Evans.

According to the description received the vajra is 37 inches long and from 1¾ to 2 inches wide. It weighs about 5 lb. The blade is made of steel, which is 28½ inches long and is pointed and sharpened on both sides. The inscriptions and the handle are made of pure Chinese or Indian gold and with twenty-four pieces of red and blue stones (corals and others), some of which are lost.

With this Part we attack the series of the Normal Numerals, together with those characters which have been singled out, as homophones of more elaborate structure, to serve as Accountants' or Bankers' alternative forms, less liable to fraudulent alteration.

For some time I have felt constrained to set forth what I know about the Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers, because I have had special opportunities of studying their life. The present article is divided into two parts: (1) Yezidi books under the light of criticism; (2) outstanding features of the sect. The final portion of the narrative deals with some newly discovered documents.

9. Duḥ-(-ś-)-śastiḥ (-r asmākaṃ) śravāṅsi mṛdnāt svaḥ (saḥ, sa) jīvātoḥ, (tasya) śāsanaiḥ(-s), sva-śaṅsanaiḥ, kratum;

(b) apa mama *iṣṭim (?) 2 *iṣṭi-(?)-(-dravṇaḥ-(-o-)-vedatām)(apa-)yaṃtā((-ā-)asti(-y), āsīt, kila,(-ā-) asmākaṃ. draviṇaḥ(-o) vedam apayayāma), bhrājasvatīṃ (?) satyām *iṣṭim ((?) aiśya*-raivatya-vedatāṃ) vasoḥ(-or) mánasaḥ(-a), (kila (-ar-) ṛtāvanaḥ (-no vasumanasvataḥ(-s))),

(c) téna (-o-) ukténa manyoḥ, (-or) ātmanaḥ(-s) mama tubhyaṃ, súmedhaḥ, (-a) ṛtāya ca, yuṣmabhyaṃ, yuvābhyāṃ (?), garhe.

This official designation, belonging to Seleucid and Ptolemaic times, is not a quantity that we should expect to see expressed in Indian letters; but to find it a second time is more than surprising, and it may be termed significant, more especially as both occurrences belong to the limited range of Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions.

In recurring, briefly, to the consideration of this expression we may take with us the fact that in the Sārnāth inscription the verb vivāsāy- has been shown to bear the meaning “cause to dwell away”, to dwell, that is, in a place which is anāvāsa, “not a residence,” in the particular case “not a residence of a community of monks”.

The general injunction in the Ḳurān to “eschew evil and do good” was held sufficiently definite to be the basis of a jurisdiction distinct both from that of the Ḳaḍi and of the police (shurṭa). Māwardi contrasts its powers with those of the Ḳaḍi's court and of the Maẓālim tribunal; but it may be that in practice the distinction was of small account, for I have found no trace of the Muḥtasib's authority ever being called in question, nor indeed much definite trace of its exercise. The wide and minute range of its duties should have made it an important factor in commercial life, but perhaps in this, as in other fields, Māwardi's work includes theory unsupported by much practice.

One of the subjects beloved of Chinese artists is a venerable figure in an attitude of profound reverie shown as part of a wild and romantic scene of forest, crag, and torrent. Sometimes below his rocky hermitage there stretches a plain with far-off shadowy outlines of ordinary mortal habitations, of which the faint remoteness suggests the gulf separating him from mundane cares and vanities. Looking at such a one, instinct tells us that he feels, to use the words of Shelley, “as if his nature were resolved into the surrounding universe, or as if the surrounding universe were resolved into his being.” He belongs to a strange race, variously named by Western writers Fairies, Immortals, Genii, Rishi. And here may it be remarked in parenthesis that neither “fairy” nor “immortal” is a term that exactly fits them; nor, indeed, does Arabic jinn or Sanskrit ṛishi. They are a race peculiarly Chinese and apart. Hence it would seem most appropriate to call them by their native name hsien, now commonly written , a pictogram representing perfectly the essence of their cult—the primitive contact of man with Nature typified by the mountains. Hsien, therefore, they will be termed in these pages.

No incident in Akbar's life is better known or more universally accepted than the supposed refusal of “the spirited boy” to strike with his sword the captive and wounded Hēmū after the second battle of Pānīpat in November, 1556.

This is the anecdote as told by Elphinstone, partly after Ferishta (Firishta):—

“Bairām was desirous that Akbar should give him the first wound, and thus, by imbruing his sword in the blood of so distinguished an infidel, should establish his right to the envied title of ‘Ghāzī’ or ‘Champion of the Faith’; but the spirited boy refused to strike a wounded enemy, and Bairām, irritated by his scruples, himself cut off the captive's head at a blow.”