In the following paper I propose to myself to write a monograph upon the Avars, from the time they are first mentioned by Western historians to their final disappearance from history. The detail, and I hope the completeness, with which I have ventured to treat the subject, which are alone of value in ethnographic studies now-a-days, are especially valuable in the case of the Avars, whose place in history was so marked and yet so enigmatic, and who caused such potent changes in the ethnographic map of Europe.

My object in the present essay on the Bábís is twofold. Firstly, I desire to bring to the notice of those who are interested in the history of thought generally, and Oriental thought in particular, the results of my investigations into the doctrines, history, and circumstances of a religious body which appears to me to constitute one of the most remarkable phenomena of the present century.

My paper entitled ‘A Classified and Detailed Catalogue of the Gold Coins of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty of Northern India, with an Introductory Essay,’ written in 1883, and published in 1884 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, gave a full account of the Gupta gold coinage, so far as it was then known. At that time it was not in my power to extend my investigations to the silver and copper coinage, and subsequent criticism and study showed that my discussion of the gold coins was in some respects defective, and erroneous. An interval of rest from official work has now given me an opportunity of resuming my numismatic studies, and of completing and bringing up to date my examination of the Gupta coinage.

In a paper printed in the Journal of this Society in July, 1888, I adduced reasons for believing that there existed adequate evidence to prove the truth of the following statements with regard to the early history of Northern India, (1) That Northern India was peopled by Kolarian and Dravidian tribes long before the Aryans came into the country. (2) Of the two races who preceded the Aryans, the Kolarians were the first immigrants. (3) The Dravidians, when they assumed the government of countries originally peopled by Kolarian tribes, retained the village communities established by their predecessors, but reformed the village system. They made each separate village, and each province formed by a union of villages, more dependent on the central authority than they were under the Kolarian form of government. (4) Under the Dravidian rule, all public offices, beginning with the headships of villages, were filled by nominees appointed by the State instead of being elective as among the Kolarians. (5) The Dravidians set apart lands appropriated to the public service in every village, required the tenants to cultivate these public lands, and store their produce in the royal and provincial granaries; this being the form in which the earliest taxes were paid. (6) They also in the Dravidian villages made every man and woman bear his or her share in contributing to the efficiency of the government, but this process was not followed out in the same completeness in Kolarian villages, where the people were not so ready as the Dravidian races to submit to the same strict discipline, to which the Dravidians had been accustomed long before they entered India.

In two previous papers written in the Journal of this Society I have adduced reasons for believing that the earliest Indian civilization was originated by the Dravidian immigrant races who formed stable governments in the countries previously ruled under the more loosely organized system of the Kolarian tribes, and who founded and maintained a flourishing internal and foreign trade. In my latest paper I brought forward arguments, based chiefly on the early religious history of India, to prove that there were at least two Dravidian immigrations into Northern India before the Aryans entered the country, or at least before the arrival of that section of the Aryan race who founded the Brahmanical religion. The first Dravidian immigrants were the Accadian moon and snake worshippers, called in India Haihayas, or Sombunsi, the sons of the moon or Lunar Rajputs, and the second were the Semite-Accad trading and warrior tribes, called Sukas Sans, sons of Ikshvaku, or Solar Rajputs. These latter immigrants worshipped the snake as their predecessors had done, but regarded the snake sun-god Vasuki, or Vishnu, as their parent and as the true symbol of the creative energy of nature, instead of the moon, which had occupied a similar position in the theology of their Accadian predecessors.

A glance at the List of Members of this Society shows a number of Oriental names from every country between the Danube and the Pacific, which is, in itself, a matter for congratulation. A second will suggest a doubt as to the proper style in which to address one or two of their owners; and a detailed examination is enough, like Colonel Bowie's tooth-pick, “to give a timid man the colic.” The fact is, that we have not yet acquired a system by which we can index these names so as to know at a glance the proper written or spoken address of an Oriental.

Before reporting the history of the Kirais in detail, so far as we can recover it, I will shortly dissect the story of Prester John. That a Christian king ruled over an Eastern people, remote from the centre of Christian life and isolated from the world, was a story that was very widely spread in early times; and inasmuch as more than one community answered to this description in distant parts of the world, it was natural that this king should be identified with the rulers of very different races. He was generally known as Presbyter Johannes or Prester John, and most travellers who went far afield in early times claimed to have discovered him.

In compiling the following vocabulary of 'Omanee words, the principal aim has been to give only such words as exhibit the dialectical peculiarities mentioned in the preceding Part, and not to furnish a complete list of words in common use in O'mán. Technical words, or words employed in agriculture, trade, arts, manufactures, etc., have been intentionally omitted, as they would be beyond the scope and extent of the present paper. Most of the words, it will be seen, are of Arabic origin, and the dialectical sense, wherever it differs from the original, is either metaphorical or an extension of the sense conveyed by the original root.

Whether the division and classification of linguistic affinities will always remain such as are propounded at the present day, or whether in due course and as a result of further research, this arrangement will have to make way for other conclusions, is not the question intended to be discussed here. The object of this paper is merely an attempt to bring together some historical, geographical, and literary databased upon more recent investigations, referring chiefly to one single linguistic branch, namely, the Ugor division of the Ural-Altaic family of languages,- to point out the habitat and numbers belonging to the various tribes classified under that head, and to bring down, as far as possible to our own day, the history of linguistic researches in that special field of study.

§ 1. Introductory. 2. It appears under several forms. 3. Testimony of the old Chinese documents. 4. They give an f approximate rendering of onesingle form. 5. Three of the j transcriptions indicate a medial r.6. The Persian, Uigur, i Mongol, and Marco Polo confirm the same fact. 7. The! original name was Djurtchen or Djurtchi. 8. In Chinese I Niutehen becomes Niutchi, because of a tabooed charaster. 9. Niutehen is an imitation of a K'itan peculiarity of pronunciation. 10. Similar phonetic change in the K'itan language and several ancient Chinese dialects. 11. Phonetic change L=N is most frequent. 12. The forms Niutchen or Niutehi are corrupted, and must be discarded. 13. Remarks on the successive Chinese processes of rendering R in foreign names. 14. Causes of the differences of finals -en and -i. 15. Djurtehen is the sole genuine and best form.

On a former occasion I described some of my experiences amongst the sect of the Bábís in Persia, and gave a short sketch of the history of their appearance and development. In the present paper I propose to speak of their literature and doctrine, so far as these are known to me.

The remarkable Pallava inscription edĭted by Professor G. Bühler in the first number of the “Epigraphia Indica” very appropriately inaugurates that new publication, not only because it is the earliest copper-plate muniment which has hitherto been discovered in India, presuming the argument for its date in this present paper is sound, but more especially because its contemporaneous evidence stamps the rule of the Pallavas in Southern India at that early time with historical certainty. Moreover, it supplies authentic materials for an outline sketch of the condition of the Pallava region of the Dakhaṇ at this period of its ancient history, and its political, religious, and social institutions, and of its intellectual and literary advancement.

The dialectical variations of a language principally consist of deviations from the standard rules of Grammar and accent, and in the adoption of certain words in preference to others. In this latter respect Arabic is particularly remarkable, as owing to the copiousness of its vocabulary, its dialects are so strongly marked as to render the speech of an uneducated inhabitant of one province sometimes almost unintelligible to an equally uneducated inhabitant of another province. In the case of educated Arabs, however, although the colloquial language may be affected by the dialectical influence, still, in writing, the established rules of grammar are generally observed, and words with universally accepted meaning are only nsed. It follows, therefore, that the state of education of a province must influence to a considerable extent the degree of departure from standard rules in the dialect of that province.