Although references to the subject of Ismā'īlī doctrine have been frequent enough in the text-books and learned journals, the earliest source quoted in nearly all of them is the Ta'rīkh-i Jahān-Gushā of Juwaynī. By a comparison of that work with the corresponding section of the Jāmi' al-Tawārīkh of Rashīd al-Dīn it is evident that the latter is the source from which Juwaynī drew most of his materials, and that for his compilation he used such sections of it as suited his purposes, omitting and transposing passages as he thought fit. In certain instances his omissions from the text have caused obscurities which the original version of Rashīd al-Dīn does not contain, and quite often the borrowings have been incorporated without any great effort to make them fit snugly into their context. Since the Ta'rīkh-i Jahān-Gushā is fairly well known I shall confine myself here to the work of Rashīd al-Dīn, which seems destined for some time longer to remain in the obscurity of manuscript.

Beames.—A comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India. London, 1872.

Blooh.—When referred to without special qualification refers to La formation de la langue marathe, Paris, 1920. His article, “La nasalité en Indoaryen,” is to be found on p. 61 fl. of the Cinquantenaire de l'École Pratique des Hautes Études.

In 1848 Juynboll published the Arabic text with a Latin translation and elaborate introduction of a Samaritan work, which he called the Samaritan Chronicle. He printed it from a MS. in the Leyden library deposited there by Scaliger; this MS. belonged to the fourteenth century. It was written by two hands, the second part being of a somewhat later date. Juynboll was quite justified in callingit a chronicle, although the largest part of the MS. consists of the book of Joshua. It is a paraphrase of the book of Joshua of the Jewish Bible, containing chiefly the first chapters to which various legendary stories had been added. But the MS. contains much more. It starts with the appointment of Joshua as successor to Moses, in the latter's lifetime, then the history of Bileam, slightly differing from the record in the Bible, then also two different recensions of the death of Moses are given, after which, with a special heading, the book of Joshua begins. At the end of it the history is continued; it is very fragmentary. Within a very brief space the story of the Exile, under Bokht Nasar—the Arabic form for Nebuchadnezzer—is told, and then it is continued in the same brief form down to the time of Baba Rabba—second or third century—the great hero of Samaritan history. The Samaritans considered him as the one who had been able to throw off the yoke of the foreign rulers and to obtain for them a certain amount of political liberty.

LAST winter was the seventh consecutive season of the Herbert Weld (for Oxford) and Field Museum Expedition at Kish, when Mr. Watelin, in charge of the excavations, reached virgin soil 28 feet below plain level, and 61 feet below mound level. At the end of the sixth season (1927–8), Watelin, Mr. Henry Field, and Mr. Eric Schroeder found the series of vaulted brick tombs and four-wheeled chariots, described in Art and Archœology, 1928, November, pp. 155–68. The Neo-Babylonian reconstruction of the temple Ehursagkalamma by Nebuchadnezzar and Nabunidus, whose pavement lies 20 feet below mound level, may be seen in the back ground on the photograph in Illustrated London News, 1930, 8th February, p. 206. Where the deep wide excavations now appear, stood a large mound, when Mr. Mackay and I first attacked this great tal in 1925. This mound marked Z on my plan of Kish, contained above the red stratum or temenos platform (see below) a ruined building from the periods of Sargon of Agade and the first Babylonian dynasty. Outside the wall near the ziggurat we found that year a marble statuette after the style of the one published in Art and Archœology, 1928, November, p. 160, with the cartouche on the right shoulder as figured on p. 602.

Very little, as it is known, remains in Sanskrit of the literary activity of Vasubandhu. If we except some kārikās of the Abhidharma-kośa, we have nothing else than the Viṃśikā and the Triṃśikā, recently edited by Sylvain Lévi. I may add that the Trisvabhāva-kārikā has also been found in Nepal, and copies are with the French Sanskritist and with me. I shall also mention the fragments of the vṛtti upon the Madhyānta-vibhaṅga (or vibhāga) by Maitreya, incorporated in the ṭīkā of Sthiramati, which is being edited by me and Vidhusékhara śāstrī from the Nepalese manuscript. It will, therefore, be of interest to Buddhist scholars and to Indologists in general to see here published another short, but not insignificant, fragment from the pen of the same ācārya, viz. the Pratītya-samutpāda-vyākhyā, a commentary upon the Pratītya-samutpāda-sāūtra referred to in the discussion of this same subject in the Abhidharma-kośa (Bkaḥ-ạgyur, Mdo, xviii, 11).