bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Grammar of the Language of Lotora, Maewo, New Hebrides, Melanesia
Authors: Ivens †W. G.
Published: January 2010

Maewo is the northernmost island eastwards of the double chain of islands in Melanesia known as the New Hebrides. Dr. R. H. Codrington gives a grammar of Maewo in ML., pp. 408–420. The dialect used by him for the grammar was that of Tanoriki, a place some twelve miles from the north end of the island on the west side. This grammar was founded principally on information supplied by native scholars from that part of Maewo in the Melanesian Mission school at Norfolk Island. Codrington also made use of a small edition, 33 pp., of the Book of Common Prayer in the language. The translation of Psalm 100 in ML., p. 419, is taken from that book.
Notes on Some Sanskrit Manuscripts on Alamkara in the Madras Government Oriental MSS. Library
Authors: Dé Sushil Kumar
Published: January 2010

During the Third Session of the Oriental Conference held in Madras (December, 1924) I had the opportunity of examining cursorily some newly acquired manuscripts on Sanskrit Alamkāraśāstra in the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library. I propose in this paper to note briefly certain pieces of information which I have been able to gather from them, as it was too late to incorporate them in the second volume of my Sanskrit Poetics (to which I refer below as SP.).
Babu Syam Sundar Das's Bhasa Vigyan
Authors: Leeson G. E.
Published: January 2010

Bābū Śyām Sundae Dās, President of the Nāgarī Pracārinī Sabhā, has recently written a book entitled Bhāsā Vigyān (Benares, Sāhitya-Ratn-Mālā, 1920, pp. 6 + v + 388 + xxii). In this work he has collected a large amount of material for his students in the Central Hindu University.

I here give a translation, abridged in places, of certain pages relating to Kharī Bolī in his interesting account of Hindī.
The Dravidian Element in Sinhalese
Authors: Godakumbura C. E.
Published: January 2010

As early as 1821 Rasmus Rask identified Sinhalese as a speech belonging to the same class as Sanskrit, and added that Tamil belonged to quite a different class. Since then the subject has been studied and discussed by various scholars, and it is established beyond doubt that Sinhalese is an Indo-Aryan language. Dravidian languages have, however, had their influence on Sinhalese, chiefly through contact, and Tamil, being the language spoken by a large population in the neighbouring part of India, asserted a wide influence on the vocabulary, grammar, and literature of Sinhalese. Before examining the Dravidian loan-words in Sinhalese and the influence of Dravidian languages on its structure, the amount of the indebtedness of Sinhalese writers to Tamil authors for their subject matter will be examined here.
Italy and the Sanusiya Order in Cyrenaica
Authors: Evans-Pritchard E. E
Published: January 2010

This article describes the manner in which the Italians dealt with the problem of an Islamic society which was bot a religious association and a political organization, the Sanusiya order of Sufis in Cyrenaica; or, rather, it describes their treatment of one of the many facets of this complex problem, the religious endowments of the order. It was a problem which very European power has had to face when it has conquered Muslim lands; the same problem which, in many different forms, the French and British have had to solve in their North African and Near Eastern possessions.
Laesio enormis in Muhammadan Law
Authors: Mansbach Willy
Published: January 2010

Muhammadan Law, like many other legal systems, leaves it entirely to the parties to make their own bargain. They can fix any price they like; there is no rule demanding its fairness or adequacy. Consequently there is also no remedy against a bargain solely on the ground that the one party has suffered a loss by reason of disproportion between his own and the other party's prestations (Arts. 356, 441 Mejelle, Art. 221 O.H.).

Yet inadequacy of price is not without importance in the Laws of Sale and Hire. In its desire to protect minors, Waqfs, and the State Treasury (Bait al-Māl) from unprofitable transactions, Muhammadan Law has made inadequacy of price a ground for relief when the bargain has been made on behalf of such persons or institutions.
Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ and the Assassins
Authors: Lockhart Laurence
Published: January 2010

Persia has on many occasions produced remarkable heresiarchs, several of whom have exercised an influence extending far beyond the boundaries of that country. One of the most notable of these heresiarchs is Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ, the Isma'īlī propagandist and founder and first Grand Master of the Assassins.

Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ was born at Ray, in Northern Persia; the exact date of his birth is unknown, but, as far as can be gathered, it was in A.D. 1052 or A.D. 1053. Though claiming Ḥimyaritic ancestry, Ḥasan was both by birth and upbringing a Persian, and belonged, during his earlier years, to the Shī'a Sect of the Twelve.
Some Problems of Indo-Aryan Philology Forling Lectures for 1929
Authors: Bloch Jules
Published: January 2010

Literary languages of Western Europe are national languages as well; there is no divorce between them and the people; there may be a distance, but no gap between them and the ordinary vernaculars, and their growth and vicissitudes reflect those of the vernaculars. So the historians of the language are able to discover when, where, how they came into existence, and call them to give evidence as to its later destinies. For instance, we know the place where French was born, how it asserted itself against Latin, how it turned out provincial speeches; we can make a fairly good evaluation of the distance between written and spoken French, in the past and now. In India conditions are vastly different; our knowledge of its languages, at least in their most ancient stages, is based only, or nearly so, on literary languages, of which we know neither the local basis, nor the degree of connection with the vernaculars. They do not give expression to the thoughts and feelings of the people; at the most, they give an ideal picture of the culture of a small community.
The Miscellanea of I-shan: A Little-Known, Work of Li Shang-Yin
Authors: Edwards E. D.
Published: January 2010

“Li Shang-Yin (T. I-shan ) A.D. 813–858. A native of Ho-nei in Honan. Graduated as chin shih in 837. Eose to be a Reader in the Han-lin College, and distinguished himself as a poet and a scholar.” (Giles, Biographical Dictionary, 1188.)

“ Li' Shang-yin. A poet and miscellanist.” (Mayers, Chinese Reader's Manual, 364.)

Wang An-shih (Giles, BD., 2134) (A.D. 1021–1086) is reputed to have said that of all the men of the T'ang period the only one capable of fully appreciating the great Tu Fu was this same Li Shang-yin.

Born in A.D. 813, he lived during the reigns of no fewer than six sovereigns of the T'ang Dynasty and died some ten years after the birth of Alfred the Great. According to the T'ang ts'ai tzŭin his early days he called himself Yü-ch'i Tzŭ or Yü-ch'i Shêng . He wrote in a style of his own which later became known as the hsi-k'un style from the fact that Yang I (Giles, BD., 2387) and others of the Sung Dynasty including Liu Yün-shih made a collection of their poems all in the style of Shang-yin and published it under the title Hsi k'un ch'ang ch'ou chi.
Children's Stories from Chinese Turkestan
Authors: Wingate R. O.
Published: January 2010

In olden time there lived a paladin called Ching Timur Vatu, and he had a sister. One day Ching Timur Vatu charged his sister thus, saying, “Oh, my little sister, if a hen should happen to come in, don't say ‘Takh’ (i.e. Shoo) to it, or if a cat should come in, don't say ‘Pash’ to it.” And again he added, “If, in sweeping the room, you come on a grain of maize, give it to the hen, or if you come on a bit of dried apricot, chew it a little and give it to the cat.” And when he had given these instructions he went off to his hunting.
“Rā'inā”
Authors: Künstlinger Von David
Published: January 2010

WÖrter vom Stamme kommen mehreremal im Ḳurān vor. So 20, 56: Speiset und weidet euer Vieh. 28, 23: die Hirten. Die Weide heisst: 79, 31.87, 4. Im Sinne von “ hüten, beobachten” 23, 8.70, 32: und die ihre Verpflichtung einhalten, beobachten. 57, 27: aber (das Wohlgefallen Gottes) beachten sie (die Christen) nicht der richtigen Beachtung gemäss. In 2, 98 wird denjenigen, verboten zu sprechen, dafür sollen sie schaue auf uns, beachte uns, behüte uns gebrauchen. In 4, 48 wiederum wird denen der Vorwurf gemacht, dass sie zu sprechen pflegten; besser wäre für sie (v. 49), wenn sie statt dessen sagen würden. Da die beiden verschiedenen Wörter verwandte Bedeutung haben, in fast synonymem Sinne gebraucht werden können, so ist nicht einzusehen, weshalb Muḥammad den einen Ausdruck zu verwenden befahl, den anderen hingegen, der ihm offenbar missfiel, zu verwenden verbot.
Professor J. Markwart
Authors: Markwart J.
Published: January 2010

The death, in tragic circumstances, of Professor Josef Markwart, of Berlin, on 4th February, ought not to pass unnoticed in this country. For although his name is here unfamiliar to all but a small group of scholars, he occupies, and must always occupy, a place in the forefront of European Orientalists, and it would be difficult to name any past or present scholar with a wider range of learning or a more brilliant critical faculty, whether as philologist, historian, or ethnologist. He was a fine classical scholar; he could read nearly every literary language of Asia, and he had a profound knowledge of African ethnology. Though his total output of published work was comparatively small—amounting only to four or five books and a number of articles in learned journals—it may be said that every sentence he wrote bore the hall-mark of his immense learning and his rare analytical power.
Notes on Chinese Alchemy
Authors: Waley A.
Published: January 2010

Alchemy, on the rare occasions when it has been made the subject of reasonable inquiry, has usually been studied as part of what one may call the pre-history of science. But if, to use a favourite phrase, we are to see in alchemy merely “the cradle of chemistry”, are we not likely, whatever its initial charm, to lose patience with an infancy protracted through some fifteen centuries?

It is certain in any case that another aspect of alchemy—its interest as a branch of cultural history—has hitherto been strangely neglected. Mr. Walter Scott, for example, omits alchemistic writings from his great edition of the Hermetica on the odd ground that they are merely “masses of rubbish”. But if texts are to be dismissed as rubbish because they contain beliefs that we cannot share, I see no reason why the religious and philosophical parts of the Hermetica (and with them many books which to-day enjoy a far wider popularity) should continue to claim attention.
The Idea of Man and Knowledge in the Conception of Persian Mystics
Authors: Bogdanov L.
Published: January 2010

The perplexing enigma of the cosmos and the creation has been from time immemorial a source of fascination for the human mind, and all the peoples of the globe, both those who have passed away and those still in existence, have striven to solve this riddle, either forming themselves into special groups for this purpose, or by mere individual effort. Of these solutions some were distinguished by a greater viability, a greater strength, and a greater ascendency, and are still exercising their sway; whilst others were short-lived and transient, were accepted by few people and, having soon disappeared, constitute now merely dead and cold fragments of human thought. Some of these solutions appealed more to the intellect, others were more felt by the heart.
On W. Schmidt's Munda-Mon-Khmer Comparisons.
Authors: Hevesy W. F. De
Published: January 2010

W. Schmidt has established, as is well known, a new family of human speech, termed by him the “ Austric ” family. It was constituted by joining an “ Austronesian ” and an “ Austroasiatic ” group of languages; the latter term was coined by Schmidt when he found that the Mon-Khmer and some other languages of the East are kindred to the Muṇḍa languages of India.

Schmidt's treatise on the matter was declared by some scholars to be “ masterly ”, whereas others, so Przyluski, advised reserve. As a matter of fact, the existence of an “ Austric” family of languages—the most widely diffused on earth—is actually uncontested.

That the morphology and the grammar of the Muṇḍa and the Mon-Khmer languages are quite different, is admitted by W. Schmidt himself. Thus he based the relationship upon some similarities in phonetics, on the use of infixes in both languages, and on the results he obtained by comparing words.
A Mamluk letter of 877/1473
Authors: Wansbrough John
Published: January 2010

Among the numerous Islamic documents preserved in the Venetian State Archives are a few which come from the chancery of Mamluk Egypt. One of the most interesting of these is a letter from Sultan Qaitbay to the Doge Nicolo Trono, dated 10 Sha'bān 877/10 January 1473, which is to be presented here in its original Arabic together with a contemporary Italian translation found in the enormous diplomatic register known as the Libri Commemoriali.
The beylicate in Ottoman Egypt during the seventeenth century
Authors: Holt P. M.
Published: January 2010

The period of nearly three centuries which lies between Selīm I's overthrow of the Mamluk sultanate in 1517, and Bonaparte's landing at Alexandria in 1798 is one of the most obscure in the history of Muslim Egypt. For the latter part of the period, from the early twelfth/eighteenth century, there are ample materials for the reconstruction of the political history in the famous chronicle by Jabartī. The Ottoman invasion, and the years which immediately succeeded it have also received some attention, thanks to the detailed information provided by the chronicler Ibn Iyās. In contrast, there has been virtually no investigation of the last seventy-five years of the sixteenth century and the whole of the seventeenth.
The Swan Maiden a Folk-Tale of North Eurasian Origin?
Authors: Hatto A. T.
Published: January 2010

The name of ‘Swan Maiden story’ is given to tales of three kinds, of which only one is of direct concern in this inquiry.

I. There are stories of bird-maidens who may appear as a single element, sometimes as birds, sometimes as maidens, according to the laws of their being.

II. There is a story woven from several motifs in which a man forces a bird-maiden to become his wife by stealing her feather-robe while she is bathing, thus preventing her from flying off. The pair have children, and one day the bird-woman recovers her feather-robe and flies away with them. As a sequel, the man may pursue her to the other place to which she has returned.

III. The winning of a bird-maiden by stealing her feather-robe may appear as but one element of a long and intricate story.
Sind nach dem Sankhya-Lehrer Pancasikha die Purasas von Atomgrosse?
Authors: Jacobi Hermann
Published: January 2010

IM Yogabhāṣya zu i, 36 findet sich ein anonymes Zitat, das nach Vācaspatimiśra von Pancasikha stammt: (yatré'dam uktam):, tam aṇumātram ātmānam anuvidyâ'smi'ty evaṃ tāvat saṃprajānīte. “ Garbe hat in seinem Beitrag zum Festgruss an Rudolf von Roth (Stuttgart, 1893) „ Pancaśikha und seine Fragmente“ folgendermassen ubersetzt:,, Wenn er dieses atomgrosse (aṇu-mātra) Selbst erkannt hat, so ist er sich dessen bewusst, was es heisst, Ich bin0027;,‘ und er bemerkt dazu:,, Alle Lehrer von Īśvarakṛṣṇna (s. Kārikā, 10, 11) an erklären den Ātman (i.e. puruṣa) für alldurchdringend, allgegenwārtig, unendlich gross (vibhu, tyāpaka, parama-mahant), und es wird von ihnen geradezu gegen die Theorie, dass die Seele ein Atom sei, polemisiert. Hierin (i.e. in Pancaśikha's Lehre) ist ein ofEenbarer Einfluss der Vedānta-Philosophie auf das Sānkhya zu erkennen.“ Der Ansicht Garbe's stimmt A. B. Keith {The Sāṃkhya System, p. 43) vollkommen bei.
Note sur l'inscription Andhra de China
Authors: Jouveau-Dubreuil G.
Published: January 2010

L'inscription de China est d'une importance extreme pour l'histoire du pays des Andhras et de la dynastie des Śātavāhanas. Cette inscription se trouve au Musée de Madras; mais d'où vient-elle ? —de China.

Je crois que personne n'a eu jusqu'à présent la curiosité de chercher China sur une carte. Ce serait inutile: China n'existe pas.

Au Musée de Madras, on ne possède aucun renseignement, et la pierre est présentée comme venant de China.

Dans Epigraphia Indica, vol. i, page 95, Bühler, éditant cette inscription de Gotamϊputa Siriyaña Satakañi écrivait:—

“The subjoined inscription is incised on a stone, which was originally found on the sea-shore, south of the Krishna river close to the village of China in the Kistna district, and is now deposited in the Madras Museum.”
The Doctrine of the Buddha
Authors: Keith A. Berriedale
Published: January 2010

When we contemplate the extraordinary diversity of doctrine which has developed from the teaching in the sixth century B.C. of the Buddha, it is perhaps the most natural conclusion that it is really impracticable to discover with any precision the doctrine which in fact he expounded. This view, however, is naturally disappointing, and it is easy to sympathize with the energetic efforts of Professor Stcherbatsky in his works on The Central Conception of Buddhism and The Conception of Buddhist Nirvāṇa to ascribe to the founder of the faith a definite system, inspired by an intelligible philsophy, which again can be regarded as arising naturally from the spiritual ferment of his time among the non-brahmanical classes of India. Incidentally we may doubt the restriction of the ferment to these classes and believe that the Brahmans played, as they have normally and regularly done, a leading part of this activity, though we need not claim that their speculations powerfully affected the Buddha. In fact, Professor Stcherbatsky elsewhere admits that in the Buddha's time the Brahmanical community was mentally alert.
Note on a Kharoṣṭhi Akṣara
Authors: Konow Sten
Published: January 2010

In his admirable introduction to the Kharoṣṭhi Inscriptions discovered by Sir Aurel Stein in Chinese Turkestan, Professor Rapson has analysed the various compound letters of the Kharoṣṭhī alphabet in such a way that his results will generally be accepted as final. It will no doubt in future be possible to throw fresh light on some minor details, but it is hardly conceivable that any serious objection will be raised against his deductions.

My object in writing these lines is, in the first place, to join those fellow students who wish to give expression to their sincere admiration of Professor Rapson's scholarship and work, and then to bring together some additional material which, in my opinion, will have to be considered in connection with one small detail dealt with in the said introduction, viz. the interpretation of the sign which has been variously transcribed as tsa and tśa.
Professor Cowell and his Pupils
Authors: Ridding C. M.
Published: January 2010

It is now more than a hundred years since the birth, in 1826, of Edward Byles Cowell, the guru of perhaps the greater number of English Sanskrit scholars. His story is well known. The son of an Ipswich merchant, he was called at 16, by his father's death, to leave school and carry on his father's business. His heart was set on learning. He was already widely read in classics, Statius, Lucian, and Greek romances being added to his school reading, and he was destined, while yet in his 'teens, to publish articles on Rabelais, Longus, and the Persian poets. In 1841, at the age of 15, he had been introduced to Sir W. Jones' works, and in the early morning (called, it was said, by the milkman pulling a string attached to his foot) he had studied in them the Asiaticae Poeseos Commentarii (on Persian and Arabic poetry) and the Persian grammar, working by himself at the extracts from Hafiz and the Shahnamah. Soon, however, help came to him from an old Bombay officer, Major Hockley, whom Professor Cowell cited in 1898, when receiving the gold medal of the Royal Asiatic Society, as a proof of the power which “ enthusiasm and sympathy can always exercise on others, wherever we may be placed ”.
Udānavarga-Uebersetzungen in “ Kucischer Sprache ”
Authors: Sieg Von E. , Siegling W.
Published: January 2010

Die im britischen Besitz befindlichen Handschriftenschätze in Tocharischer Sprache gehören bis auf ganz verschwindende Reste der Mundart B an, die in England nach dem Vorgang von Prof. Sylvain Lévi als „ Kuchean Language ” bezeichnet zu werden pflegt. Den Grundstock bildet die „ Hoernle Collection “, die nach Prof. Hoernle's Tod dem India Office überwiesen wurde. Ihr hatte ursprünglich auch die 42 Blätter umfassende Handschrift medizinischen Inhalts angehört, die unter dem Namen „ Weber MSS. Part ix and Macartney MSS. Set I “ geht, von der Hoernle bereits 1901 im JASB. 70, Part ii, Extra-Nr. 1, Appendix (p. 1–31) einen Transliterations- Versuch gemacht und die er auch in „ Facsimile-Reproduction “, Calcutta, 1902, veröffentlicht hat. Aber von diesen Blättern liegt jetzt die eine Hälfte (Bl. 1–12 und 30–42) in der Bodleyana in Oxford, die andere (Bl. 13–29) im British Museum in London. In der India Office Library befinden sich indessen ausser der Hoernle Collection auch noch die allerdings wenigen Blätter in Kucischer Sprache, die aus den späteren Funden Sir Aurel Stein's stammen.
Two Terms Employed in Kharoṣṭhī Documents from Chinese Turkestan
Authors: Thomas F. W.
Published: January 2010

In the Kharoṣṭhī records from Chinese Turkestan, of which the edition commenced by the Abbé Boyer, Professor Rapson, and Monsieur Senart, has recently been completed with important dissertations and index by Professor Rapson and Mr. P. S. Noble (Kharoṣṭhī Inscriptions, i-iii, Oxford, 1920-9), the vocabulary is composed in the main of recognizably Indian terms or of personal or topographical designations belonging to the locality ; but we can discriminate a relatively small number of words having other traceable origin or obscure signification. To the last mentioned group we mayassign the words mukeṣi and lote (loteya, lode).

These two terms, although they do occur apart, are apt to be found in more or less close conjunction; and the general sphere of their meaning may be ascertained by considering one of the passages where they are associated. We may take document No. 474 (p. 171) of the edition, which, except as regards spacing, majuscules, and some added punctuation, is followed in all respects.
On the Etymology and Interpretation of Certain Words and Phrases in the Aśoka Edicts
Authors: Wickermasinghe M. De Z
Published: January 2010

In the course of my tutorial work on the Palaeography and Epigraphy of India and Ceylon, I have had to read the Aśoka inscriptions with some of my pupils. As a result, I have come across the following words and phrases which to my mind seem to demand an interpretation other than that already supplied by scholars interested in the subject.

(1) Rock Edict III. Girnār. Parisā pi yute ānapayisati gaṇanāyaṁ hetuto ca vyaṁjanato ca.

This sentence, which occurs with dialectic differences in other versions of the third rock edict, has already been discussed by previous writers. I would, nevertheless, translate it thus:—“ The Council (of Mahāmātras) shall also give orders to the yuktas (in respect of these rules) in detail [i.e. item by item] regard being had to (their) raison d'être and to the letter (of the law).”
The Ṛgveda and the Panjab
Authors: Woolner A. C.
Published: January 2010

Speaking of the materials furnished by the Ṛgveda, Dr. A. B. Keith has rightly said that “ conclusions can be drawn only with much caution. It is easy to frame and support by plausible evidence various hypotheses, to which the only effective objection is that other hypotheses are equally legitimate, and that facts are too imperfect to allow of conclusions being drawn ”. (The Cambridge History of India, vol. i, p. 78, 1922.)

That position seems to be sound, but in the same paragraph the writer commits himself to an evident acceptance of the view that “ the bulk at least ” of the hymns of the Rgveda were composed “ south of the modern Ambala ”.

The revelations of Harappa and Mohen-jo-daro and the possibility of finding archæological strata contemporary with the beginning of the Vedic age in the Panjab lend a new interest to evidence of the Veda and it is reasonable to challenge the bases of any prevailing belief with regard to the location of the main settlements of the Vedic Aryans.
To the Zamasp Namak II
Authors: Bailey H. W.
Published: January 2010

The apocalypse proceeds to describe three episodes of rulers who are to appear respectively in .XVarāsān, NēmrōČ, and PatašXvārgar and to be followed by the coming of Pišyōθn, son of Vištāsp. The language touches that of the Bahman Yašt at many points. Religious views are closely interwoven. The “Xvarr of PatašXvārgar” is of interest, as are also the revelation of many mysteries by Mihr Yazd,and Mihr's conflict with Ēšm. The druž Vat-yavakān seems not to be known elsewhere.
Einiges über die Namen und die Freuden des ḳurānischen Paradieses
Authors: KÜnstlinger Von David
Published: January 2010

Der Name für „Garten“ lautet im Arabischen . Er ist wohl aus dem syr. , aram. übernommen. Auch im Hebräischen kommt neben dem gewöhnlich gebrauchten auch , (st. constr. ) vor, welchem genau das arab. entspricht. Im Ḳurān kommt in der allgemeinen Bedeutung „Garten“ in 2, 268 u.s., Dual 18, 31 u.s., PI. 6, 99 u.s. vor. Der Garten, in welchem das erste Menschenpaar seinen Aufenthaltsort hatte, heisst hebr. , Gen. 2, 15; 3, 23. 24. Wenn (ohne ) in diesen Abschnitten gebraucht wird, so wird es immer mit dem Artikel versehen, es ist. „der Garten (Eden)“. übersetzt Onkelos immer .
Notes on the Miscellanea of I-Shan
Authors: Giles Lionel
Published: January 2010

All students of Chinese must be grateful to Miss Edwards for introducing them to this quaint and little-known work of the poet Li Shang-yin (see Bull. S.O.S., vol. v, pp. 757–85). Not only has she given a vigorous and idiomatic rendering of the sayings, but she has also had the courage to include the Chinese text, transcribed from the T‘ang tai ts‘ung shu, a work which is not likely to be in every reader's library. I cannot agree, however, with her remark that “the meaning of the sayings seems clear enough”.
The origins of open and closed e in Proto-Syriac
Authors: Blau J.
Published: January 2010

As is well known, the Eastern (or Nestorian) vocalization of Syriac (henceforth ES) consistently distinguishes between ē and ī, whereas the Western (or Jacobite) tradition (henceforth WS), although having both e and i, also has in many cases (originally long) e coinciding with (originally long) i. The question arises of how it happened that in some cases (originally long) e was preserved, whereas in others it shifted to i. Brockelmann and Birkeland were, no doubt, correct in assuming that in Proto-Syriac (henceforth PS) there existed two long e sounds, ē and ē. In ES vocalization these two sounds were not differentiated, whereas in WS (originally long) ę was preserved, but ē shifted to i. Only the assumption of two different forms of ē in PS can account for the twofold representation of original ē in WS, by both ę and i.
Priyā Dās, author Of the Bhaktirasabodhinī
Authors: Gupta R. D.
Published: January 2010

Priyā Dās was the first commentator on Nābhā Dās's celebrated work, the Bhaktamāla. His commentary entitled Bhaktirasabodhinī is a most valuable exposition of the Bhaktamāla, and later commentaries are mainly based on Priyā Dās's work. It is both surprising and disappointing how little is known about Priyā Dās. Although all the writers on the history of Hindi literature have frequently referred to and quoted from the commentary, only a few sentences, in some cases not more than two or three, are devoted to the author. This paper attempts to throw light on some aspects of his life and his other works, and to remove certain misconceptions.
A case of murder in eighteenth-century Mongolia
Authors: Bawden C. R.
Published: January 2010

In general outline the pattern of government in Outer Mongolia during the Manchu dyasty in not unfamiliar and it is a well-known fact that there was no judiciary as such, the administration of justice being only one of the various duties of local officials at various levels. A certain amount of work has been done on problems of law and justice, but there remain many problems of detail to be both raised and commented upon. Two lines of inquiry are open. On the one hand it is instructive to see how the processes of investigation and trial worked—how an alleged offence came to offical notice, who investigated, how evidence was recorded, what instances a case passed through, and how, and on what legal basis, it was disposed of. Other closely related technical questions concern the form and language of official documents. On the other hand, examination of criminal cases will afford insight into the social status, living conditions, and perhaps the psychology, of the persons concerned. It is in fact largely through the medium of legal and other official documents that we shall glean whatever information there is to be had about the day to day lives of individual persons in Mongolia under the Manchus, since other sources of information—journalism, biography, fiction, letters, memoirs, and so on—are non-existent. Apart from reports of criminal cases, some of which have been dealt with in model fashion by Klaus Sagaster, much information can be found in other types of official document, such as complaints submitted by ordinary people against officials, but in the present article we shall be concerned exclusively with the report of one criminal case dating from the late eighteenth century.
Two letters from the Emperor Yohannes of Ethiopia to Queen Victoria and Lord Granville
Authors: Ullendorff Edward , Demoz Abraham
Published: January 2010

Among the Ethiopic manuscripts in the British Museum, which originate from the Emperor Theodore's Magdala collection, were two copies of the Kebra Nagast ‘Glory of the Kings’, the Ethiopian national saga, catalogued as Orient. 818 and 819 (=Wright, Catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS in the BM, NO. CCXCI). But Orient. 819, written during the reign of the Emperor Iyasu I (1682–1706), was returned to Ethiopia in circumstances which throw a dramatic light on the paramount importance of this work. In August 1872, the Emperor Yohannes of Ethiopia wrote to Queen Victoria and to Earl Granville, the British Foreign Secretary, and requested the return of the Kebra Nagast which had been taken to England by the Napier expedition in 1868.
Negative structures in the syntactic tone-phrasing system of Kongo
Authors: Carter Hazel
Published: January 2010

This article is a sequel to some previously published work, during the preparation of which I was fortunate enough to have the benefit of many discussions with Wilfred Whiteley. While one cannot assume that the results as presented here would meet with his approval, it is certain that the subject stirred his interest; I hope therefore it will not be considered too unlikely a candidate for the honour of inclusion in his memorial volume
Close vowels in Fang
Authors: Kelly J.
Published: January 2010

One of the results of the sometime colonization of Africa was the concentration by linguists of various European countries on the languages of those African territories held under their suzerainty, and the neglect of languages spoken in areas ‘belonging to’ other European countries. Fang, spoken in parts of what are now Gabon and Cameroon, has not enjoyed a great deal of attention from English-speaking linguists and/or Africanists, though it holds considerable interest for both in the idiosyncrasies of the phonetic display relating to its phonological categories and configurations.
Fifteen Swahili songs
Authors: Knappert Jan
Published: January 2010

The following songs are some of those collected by me in Mombasa during the autumn of 1969. I am deeply grateful to the School of Oriental and African Studies for giving me this unique opportunity to study this rich field of Swahili traditional poetry.
Two versions of an Amharic proclamation
Authors: Ullendorff Edward
Published: January 2010

In July 1913 Dejazmatch Tafari (as the Emperor Haile Sellassie I was then styled), governor of the large Harar province of Ethiopia, issued a proclamation which was intended to counteract certain abuses in tax-collecting under which the peasants had been chafing. The text of this proclamation was recently printed in the Emperor's autobiography, but another version of the same proclamation is extant and was published in J. I. Eadie's An Amharic reader, CUP, 1924, 183 ff. Neither His Imperial Majesty nor the late Major Eadie is specific about the provenance of the text in his possession, and the only information vouchsafed by Eadie is a brief reference in the first sentence of the preface to his book that ‘the subject matter of this Reading Book was collected in Addis Abeba in 1913 from literate Amharas’.
The inscriptions at Shīmbār
Authors: Bivar A. D. H. , Shaked S.
Published: January 2010

The existence at Shīmbār in the Zagros Mountains of ancient sculptures and inscriptions was first reported by A. H. (later Sir Henry) Layard, in his classic study, ‘A description of the province of Khuzistan’. The research of succeeding years has made surprisingly few additions to this account of the archaeological sites of the province, which though nowadays less well known than some of Layard's other archaeological work, is none the less remarkably careful and complete. In a travel narrative published many years later, his Early adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia, Layard gives another short account of his journey to Shīmbār, which helps to fill in the details of his visit. Shīmbār is an enclosed valley with high mountain walls, situated about 35 miles north-east of the oilfields centre of Masjid-i Sulaimān, in the province of Khuzistan. The name is said by the Bakhtiāri to be the equivalent in their Luri dialect of the Persian Shῑrῑn Bahār ‘Sweet Spring’. The valley is celebrated amongst the tribes as a resting-place on their spring migration to the upland pastures. Its regular inhabitants are mostly members of the Mauri clan.
A Maqāma on Secretaryship: Al-Qalqashandī's Al-Kawākib Al-Durriyya Fī'l-Manāqib Al-Badriyya
Authors: Bosworth C. E.
Published: January 2010

The maqāma genre has had a place in Arabic literature for nearly a thousand years. With the maqāmāt of Badī' al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī (357–98/969–1007), it appears as a fully developed, independent literary form, although precursors of it have been traced back beyond al-Hamadhānī to the argot and cant of thieves and beggars as displayed, for instance, in the Kitāb al-bukhalā’ of al-Jāḥiẓ and the qaṣīda al-sāsāniyya of Abū Dulaf Mis'ar b. Muhalhil, and possibly back to the model of a lost Kitdb al-arba'īn of the philologist and lexicographer Ibn Duraid. The history of the maqāma in its classical form closes only with the productions in the last century of such writers as the Baghdādī scholar Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Alūsī (1217–70/1802–54) and the Lebanese Christian Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī (1800–71). It is true that in the early decades of our own century, such Egyptian writers as Muḥammad Ibrāhīm al-Muwailḥī and the poet Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm used a very free adaptation of the maqāma form for the entirely novel purpose of social criticism; but with the disappearance to-day of the florid and artificial style of Arabic writing, it is unlikely that anyone will ever resuscitate the classical maqāma and we may safely conclude that it has died out.
The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan
Authors: Yapp M. E.
Published: January 2010

The Anglo-Saddozai government in Afghanistan was overthrown by a series of risings in 1841–2. The first of these risings was that of the eastern Ghilzai tribes, who broke the line of communīcatīons between Kabul and Jalālābād at the end of September and the beginning of October 1841. On 1 November disturbances began in Kabul and these were followed by risings in the Kohistān, in the area of Ghaznī, and, sometime later, at Qandahar. In January 1842 the Kabul garrison withdrew, under treaty, but was entirely destroyed. In March 1842 the garrison at Ghazni surrendered and was destroyed. The garrisons at Jalālābād and Qandahar held out and were reinforced from Peshawar and Quetta respectively. In August and September they advanced and reoccupied Kabul, but soon afterwards the British withdrew altogether from Afghanistan. Between January and August 1842 there was a struggle for power among the various groups in eastern Afghanistan, which ended in the victory of Muḥammad Akbar, son of Dost Muḥammad. Although Akbar and his supporters were forced to fly at the time of the reconquest they were soon able to return, resume power, and prepare for the restoration of Dost Muhammad in May 1843.
Three topographical problems in the southern Zagros
Authors: Hansman John
Published: January 2010

Some years ago while living in Khūzistān in southern Iran, the present writer carried out a number of historical-geographical studies in that province. These investigations included searching for the sites of numerous vanished towns and for other local features now known only from the historical sources. A rapid examination of the principal medieval geographical texts showed that there were three interesting problems of this type relating to the area of Izeh or Mālamīr in northern Khūzistān. The sites in question are the following:

the mausoleum of the Atabegs of the Great Lurs

the whirlpool of Fam al-Bawwāb

the extraordinary bridge called Qanṭāra Khurra Zād.
The Sesquicentenary of the Royal Asiatic Society
Authors: Robinson B. W.
Published: January 2010

Relations between the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Royal Asiatic Society have always, as is naturally right and proper, been both close and cordial. A note on what for the present generation of members is an occasion of great moment in the life of the Society may therefore not be without interest to readers of the Bulletin.
Notes on the transcription of Pahlavi
Authors: MacKenzie D. N.
Published: January 2010

The problem of the transcription of Pahlavi, inherently difficult enough, has for so long been complicated by factors of personal taste and interest that it will probably see many more jubilees. Amid the welter of differing transcriptions to be found, however, one persistent thread is to be observed, namely that of archaism. Bartholomae's endeavour to reproduce the earliest Arsacid pronunciation of Pahlavi, that of the third century B.C., has more or less been followed by such leading scholars as Salemann, Pagliaro, Bailey, and Nyberg, and has had perhaps its most consistent exposition in the Pahlavi index of the last-named's recent Manual.
Geminates after long vowel in Indo-Aryan
Authors: Turner R. L.
Published: January 2010

In the central and eastern inscriptions of Aoka (Kls, Dhauli, and Jaugaḍa, Pillar Edicts and Minor Rock Inscriptions) a long vowel of Sanskrit whenfollowed by a double consonant or a consonant-group is shortened (e.g. tt att) as generally in Pali and Prakrit. But the long vowel is retained in the Girnr inscription and in some of the Pillar Edicts and Minor Rock Inscriptions. In the Girnr forms the consonant following the long vowel still representeda geminate; whether or not it still did so in the other inscriptions atthat date cannot be ascertained. Although the distinction of length is not shownin Kharoṣṭh writing, the long vowel before geminates was certainly maintainedin the language of the Shhbzgaṛh and Mnsehr versions, for the longvowel in this position is still preserved in the North-Western languages: Sindh, Lahnd, Western Panjb, Kshmr (not so demonstrably in other Dardic languages) and some West Pahari dialects.
Notes on the Tale of Bhadra
Authors: Emmerick R. E.
Published: January 2010

This article is a review of V. S. Vorob'ev-Desjatovskij and M. I. Vorob'eva-Desjatovskaja'sSkazanie o Bxadre (novye listy sakskoj rukopisiE).1This recent publication of what is in large part a facsimile volume of Old Khotanese is greatly to be welcomed. We now have at last facsimiles of all the 192 folios (actually 191, see below) in Leningrad that constitute the major part of a Buddhist miscellany written in the oldest type of Khotanese. 173 of the Leningrad folios were seen by E. Leumann and described in detail in 1912.218 of these folios (33640, 34254), together with two (334, 335) from the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, were edited and translated by E. Leumann in 1919.3These formed all the extant part of what on Leumann's calculation was ch. 23 of the surviving portion of the MS, which he had christened E after the signature he allotted to the first folios he saw, 269 and 335 from Calcutta. All the folios known to Leumann were edited and translated by him in 19336 inDas nordarische {sakische) Lehrgedicht des Buddhismus. This included all the 173 Leningrad folios, of which he had taken photographs.Only a few of these were published in facsimile (256v, 257r, 258v, 259r, 303v, 304r, the right halves of 257v, 258r, and the left halves of 259v, 260r) by his son M. Leumann in a private publication, Sakische Handschriftproben, Zrich, 1934. These photographs are excellent, but the folios chosen were particularly favourable for reproduction, and nothing is lost except an insignificant amount of clarity in the facsimiles of the same folios in the present volume.
The dewatau sotapan: a Mon prototype of the 37 nats
Authors: Shorto H. L.
Published: January 2010

In the literature which has grown up around the Burmese tradition of the 37 nats two omissions have been generally conspicuous. Much has been placed on record regarding the cults of individual members of this pantheon; yet what constitutes the corporate cult of the 37 remains obscure. In casting around for a unifying principle, writers on the subject have made much of the secular status of the persons who became nats and the manner of their deaths. It has escaped comment that most of the details recorded belong not so much tomythology as to hagiography, and concern the earthly careers of those who were deified rather than their nature and powers as gods.1
The sons of Jbir and their kin: a clan of Sudanese religious notables
Authors: Holt P. M.
Published: January 2010

Awld Jbir, the sons of Jbir, were eminent religious teachers in the Nilotic Sudan during the later part of the sixteenth century. Apart from their own importance, they and their kinsmen by blood and marriage formed a complex group of religious families. Information concerning numerous members of this clan is provided by the collection of biographies of Sudanese holy men known as the Ṭabaqtof Wad Ḍayfallh, which is the main source used in the present article. Two uncritical editions were published in Cairo in 1930.1
An Inscription of the Reign of Udayaditya
Authors: Barnett L.D.
Published: January 2010

The following inscription is now edited—for the first time, as far as I am aware—from an ink-impression which my friend Pandit Shyama Shankar Har Chaudhuri, M.A., of Jhalrapatan, has kindly sent to me, together with a transcription by Pandit Gopal Lal Vyas, Curator of the Archæological Department of H.H. the Maharaja of Jhalawar's Government. The place where it was found is not stated.
The Importance of Hindustani
Authors: Ali A. Yusuf
Published: January 2010

According to the Arabic proverb “the words of kings are the kings of words”. His Majesty the King in his speech at the opening of the School said, “The ancient literature and the art of India are of unique interest in the history of human endeavour.” He added that we must develop this “intellectual tradition”. One of the finest functions of the School would be to establish, in Lord Curzon's words, “a clearing house for ideas between the East and the West.”
Swahili Poetry
Authors: Werner Alice
Published: January 2010

Swahili stands alone among the Bantu languages in possessing a literature, which originated before the people came in contact with Europeans and has probably been in existence for several centuries. The Arabs, who settled on the east coast of Africa from the seventh century onwards, brought with them their alphabet and their prosody; and their descendants who, intermarrying with the daughters of the land, evolved the Swahili language, have preserved both to this day, though not without modifications. The use of the Arabic alphabet to express Swahili sounds involves considerable difficulties, and though some of these have been surmounted by expedients similar to those adopted in writing Turkish, Persian, Malay, etc., the reading even of an ordinary letter is by no means always a simple matter.
The Caubhikas and the Indian Drama
Authors: Keith A. Berriedale
Published: January 2010

An interesting attempt has been made by Professor H. Lüders to vindicate for the shadow play an important place in the development of the Indian drama. The term denoting the performers of such plays he holds to have been Çaubhika, or, in vernacular form, sobhiya; they explained to the audience the shadow pictures displayed before them, and thus were precursors of the true drama. The example of Java is called into service to meet the obvious criticism that every consideration tells in favour of the view that the shadow play is later than, and based upon, the true drama.
On the Tones of certain Languages of Burma
Authors: Taylor L. F.
Published: January 2010

[MR. L. F. TAYLOR, of the Indian Educational Service, was the official entrusted by the Government of Burma with the preparation of the gramophone records of the languages of that Province, which have lately been presented to the School of Oriental Studies. It was he, also, who prepared the valuable report on the Preparatory Stage or Linguistic Census, for the proposed linguistic survey of Burma. In the course of correspondence on these subjects, I appealed to him for help in the vexed question of the tones peculiar to these forms of speech, and he very kindly undertook a minute inquiry into the subject and forwarded to me the notes which form the body of this paper. As they were too valuable to be consigned to the obscurity of office records, with his permission I have arranged them into the form of an article. So far as I know these notes of Mr. Taylor's are the only attempts at illustrating graphically the tones of several important languages of Further India that have been published. In this connexion, I would also refer the student to Dr. C. N. Bradley's valuable articles on pp. 282 ff. of vol. xxxi (1911) of the Journal of the American Oriental Society and on pp. 39 ff. of vol. xlvi (1915) of the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The first deals with Siamese and the second with two Chinese dialects. In each the wave-lengths of the tones used in these languages as mechanically recorded in the Rousselot apparatus were carefully measured and plotted, forming curves or patterns of pitch which could be shown upon a chart. It is interesting to find that the results thus obtained by Dr. Bradley for Siamese closely agree with those recorded by Mr. Daniel Jones and Mr. Taylor.