bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Date of the Ṭāq i Kisrā
Authors: Kurz Otto
Published: March 2011

The Ṭāq i Kisrā is the most famous monument of Sasanian architecture, but opinions as to its date and builder differ widely. The traditional name “Arch of Khosrau” might as well refer to the first as to the second Khosrau, and perhaps not even that, as in Arabic Kisrā is used as a general designation for the Sasanian rulers. Mohammedan writers used to regard the façade of the Ṭāq i Kisrā, as one of the wonders of the world, but the historical facts were very soon obscured by legends. Eventually no less than four Sasanian rulers were quoted as its builders: Shapur I (241–273), Shapur II (310–379), Khosrau I Anushirvan (531–579) and Khosrau II Parvez (590–628).
An Armenian MS. with Unique Mongolian Miniatures
Authors: Kurdian H.
Published: March 2011

While in New York City in 1939, I purchased an Armenian MS. with most unusual Mongolian miniatures. The MS., now part of my collection, has been rebound crudely with the remains of an old oriental binding consisting of wooden boards covered with leather. The inside of the binding is lined with brown cotton print covered with a small design. The MS. has 109 leaves, each measuring 10 by 15 inches. Upon examining the text, paper, and script, we find that the present volume is composed of two different Armenian MSS. jumbled together without any consideration of the fact that the text materials are unrelated. Pages 2, 3, 4, 41, 52–70, and 83–96 are fragments of an Haismāvourk (Life of Martyrs) written about 1630, perhaps in New Djulfa (Isfahan, Persia) for the Armenian princemerchant Khodja Nazar, his son Khodja Safraz and their family. Although this part of the volume is very valuable and important, it is not of primary interest to us.
Kaṇaiska
Authors: Bailey H. W.
Published: March 2011

Among the Khotanese manuscripts from Tun-huang now in the Pelliot Collection at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, a fragment of a legend of Kaniṣka has been found. I transliterated these manuscripts during December, 1938, and January, 1939. In the roll numbered P 2787 there are 194 lines of Khotanese text. Lines 1–153 treat eloquently of the character and activities of the king of Khotan, called in line 50 śī kū śrrī vījītta sagrrāma and in line 82 śai-kū miḍā jasta śrrī vīśa'  grrāma 'the noble lord, gracious god, Śrī Viśa' Sangrāma'. A second text in lines 154–194 contains the fragmentary legend of Kaṇaiska. and Aśagauṣa his kalyāṇamitra. The first three lines are written in the now familiar Gostanian Sanskrit, the Sanskrit of Khotan. These lines are then translated, with some variants, into Khotanese in which language the text continues.
Non-Muslim Subjects of the Muslim State
Authors: Tritton A. S.
Published: March 2011

The law books tell how the state should treat its subjects who were not of the Muslim faith, the dhimmis; it does not follow that the laws were observed.
The Dhunnunids of Toledo
Authors: Dunlop D. M.
Published: March 2011

When the Umayyad Caliphate in Spain succumbed to internal faction and weakness, the country was split up into independent kingdoms, ruled by the men who for one reason or another were able to take control. In the confused history of these “Party Kings” the Abbadids of Seville played a spectacular role. Their history is known from the admirable writings of Dozy, as is also the history of other families of this period. But the Banū dhī'n-Nūn or Dhunnunids are comparatively unknown. The article by Seybold in the Encyclopædia of Islam is very short, and the references are confined to Maqqarī. There is enough, however, in various writers to give here some account of the family through a dozen generations on the scale which their importance merits. More precise information is likely to be contained in unedited manuscripts, notably the Dhakhīrah of Ibn Bassām, and also in printed books which were not to hand. It is hoped that what may be found elsewhere will add to the present sketch, rather than correct it.
Sunlight and Moonshine
Authors: Hopkins L. C.
Published: March 2011

It seems difficult and sometimes futile to try to pursue in this year 1942 the essentially peaceful studies in ancient Chinese writing that have appeared for many years in the JRAS.
Magical Terms in the Old Testament
Authors: Guillaume Alfred
Published: March 2011

The following study of some Hebrew words of magical import is a sequel to my Prophecy and Divination. Its purpose is to supply philological evidence for the existence of sorcery and magic in Israel.
Art. III.—The Indian Travels of Apollonius of Tyana
Authors: Priaulx Osmond De Beauvoir
Published: March 2011

Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius Tyanensis, has given an account of that philosopher's visit to India; and as he professes to have drawn his materials from the note-book of Damis, Apollonius's fellow traveller and friend, as indeed he professes to have edited that note-book much as Hawkesworth edited the journals of Cook, we may fairly assume that he has given an original and authentic account of India, and the only one that has come down to us from the olden world in a complete state. Again, as Apollonius was the only Greek who up to this time had visited India for other purposes than those of war, negotiation, or commerce; as he visited it to make himself acquainted with its rites, discipline, and doctrines; and as he travelled unincumbered by a retinue, and was welcomed by its kings, and was, with Damis, for four months the guest of its Brahmans; he, and Damis with him, had every opportunity of familiar intercourse with all classes of its population, and of thus acquiring much and accurate information on matters beyond the reach of ordinary travellers. Philostratus's account, then, is full of promise; and I propose to give a condensed translation of it, and afterwards to examine into its authority and value.
Art. IX.—Translation of a Burmese Version of the Niti Kyan, a Code of Ethics in Pali
Authors: Fowle E.
Published: March 2011

The work that I am about to read is called the Niti Kyan, signifying ”a sacred writing.” It is a short code of ethics compiled from selections from various authors, and is one of several that I have translated from the Burmese language, which are themselves translations from the Pali. The present work is taught in the Burmese monasteries to the daily scholars and resident novices. The necessity of learning and the advantages of education are impressed upon the youthful population from an early age, and the consequences of ignorance are contrasted at the same time. It may perhaps be interesting to notice briefly the system of education adopted in Burmah; this is so simple in its practical application that I can explain it in a few words. The clergy receive no pay, and are not connected with the State, but entirely supported by voluntary contributions of food and other necessaries, a small quantity from each meal being set apart for the priests; but this custom is so general, and the portion so freely contributed, that there is generally a surplus of food at the monasteries, sufficient to feed the poor. In return, the poongyees, or priests, educate the whole of the male population without charge or fee of any description, their vocation precluding them from touching money.
Art. X.—Notes on the Ruins of Wallabhipura
Authors: Forbes A. K.
Published: March 2011

On the western shore of the Gulf of Cambay, a few miles to the north of Bhaonagar, among a range of granite hills which, lying in a country level as an immense unruffled lake, appear like a cluster of islands floating on the waters, nestles the little township of Chamardi. Overhanging this village on the eastern side is a rugged peak dedicated to Màtà Kodiar, at almost the pinnacle of which a huge boulder of granite, bearing at a distance some resemblance to a kneeling human form, is worshipped by the rude villager as the image of that potent goddess. To the summit of this hill it is proposed to conduct the reader, who may he inclined to contemplate the prospect which thence meets the eye of the observer.
Art. XI— On the Date and Personality of Priyadarsi
Authors: Latham R. G.
Published: March 2011

The present paper will fall into two divisions; the first of which deals with the name and date of Priyadarsi as they appear in the Edicts, whilst the second, will take notice of the doctrines introduced ab extra; by which is meant the hypotheses connected with the names Asoka and Chandragupta. The reasons for this separation are cogent. In the first place the degrees of confidence with which the author expresses himself are different. In the one series of questions he is, to a great extent (though not altogether) in the position of the biblical historian, who, although he be ignorant of Greek and Hebrew, has, nevertheless, a sufficient store of facts in the standard translation of the Old and New Testaments to put him, for nine points out often, on an approximate level with the professed scholar. The Edicts themselves are not only accessible to the general reader through the translations of Prinsep and Wilson, but the data that bear immediately and decidedly upon them are accessible also. So far as they lie in the coinage of the Bactrian Kings they are to be found in the pages of the Ariana Antiqua and the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Art. XIV.—On the Indian Embassy to Augustus
Authors: Priaulx Osmond De Beauvoir
Published: March 2011

Nicolaus Dicolaus, in a fragment preserved by Strabo, relates “that at Antioch Epidaphne, he fell in with three Indian ambassadors, then on their way to the court of Augustus. They were, as their letter showed, the survivors of a larger embassy, but to the others the length of the journey principally had proved fatal. Their letter was written on parchment (διØθɛρα) and in the name of Porus, and in Greek. It set forth that Porus, though Lord over 600 600 kings, much valued the friendship of, and was ready to open his ‘dominions to, Caesar, and to assist him on all just and lawful occasions. The presents they brought with them were in the charge of eight well-anointed slaves, naked all but their girdles, and consisted of a youth whose arms had been amputated at the shoulders in childhood, a sort of Hermes, some large vipers, a snake ten cubits long, a river tortoise of four cubits, and a partridge somewhat larger than a vulture. With the ambassadors was that Indian, who burned himself at Athens, not to escape from present ills, but because hitherto successful in every thing he had undertaken; he now feared, lest any longer life should bring him misery and disappointment, and so smiling, naked and perfumed, lie leaped into the burning pile. On bis tomb was placed this inscription:—
The Babylonian and Persian Sacaea
Authors: Langdon S.
Published: March 2011

According to Strabo, xi, 8, 4, the Sakai, a Sythian tribe, built a temple to the Persian deities Anaitis, Omanus, and Onadatus, and celebrated yearly the festival τ⋯ Σάκαια, which the people who inhabited Zêla celebrated even in his own day. The passage affords evidence for the celebration of a festival at Zêla in Pontus as late as the beginning of our era. For some reason Zêla, far removed from the old home of these Persian deities, had long been the seat of these Persian cults, from which fact alone it had any importance at all. Anaitis, or the old Persian Anâhita, “the undefiled,” was a river goddess, and probably identical with the Elamitic goddess Nahunti. This old Iranian deity, Anâhita, was also a goddess of love and beauty, the Venus or Artemis of Persian religion, and consequently an identification with the Babylonian Ishtar, “queen of heaven,” was at once made, as soon as the cults of Babylonia became known to the Persians in the sixth century, and perhaps even earlier. But Strabo, who obviously believed that this Persian festival was connected with the Sacae or Sythians both historically and philologically, gives another explanation of its origin. Cyrus, he says, was defeated by the Sacae and devised this ruse to overcome them. He hastily retreated, leaving behind his camp and all his equipment.
Art. XIII.—On a Passage in an ancient Inscription at Sanchi near Bhilsa, proving the Proprietary Right in the Soil to be in the Subject and not in the Prince
Authors: Sykes W. H.
Published: March 2011

In a paper of mine published in the 4th and 6th numbers of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, on Land Tenures in Dakhun (Deccan), I endeavoured to prove, and I believe successfully, from the authority of the Mahratta princes themselves, that the proprietary right in the soil in Dakhun was vested in the subject, and not in the prince, and I expressed my belief that such was the case all over India, and had been so from antiquity. It was therefore with no ordinary gratification, that I found a confirmation of my opinion in an inscription on the colonnade of a Buddhist tope or chaitya, at Sanchi, near Bhilsa in Bhopal, recorded in the 6th volume of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, p. 456., and the translation of which, from the ancient Deva Nagari character, we owe to the indefatigable zeal, the singular ingenuity, and the varied knowledge of the lamented Mr. James Prinsep.
Art. XIV.—Notes on the Religious, Moral, and Political State of India before the Mahomedan Invasion, chiefly founded on the Travels of the Chinese Buddhist Priest Fa Hian in India, A.D. 399, and on the Commentaries of Messrs. Remusat, Klaproth, Burnouf and Landresse
Authors: Lieut.-Colonel  , Sykes W. H.
Published: March 2011

Our Sanskrit scholars have sought, in the depths of Brahmanical literature, for the means of illustrating the political, the religious, the moral, and social condition of that ancient people, over whose minds it has hitherto been believed, that Brahmans exercised from the earliest times unbounded sway. The inquirers sought for facts and they found fables; they looked for historic lights, and they found poetic coruscations, which served only to render the darkness in which truth was enveloped more impenetrable. An Orientalist, Mr. Wathen, has said, that on the Mussulman conquest of India the Brahmans destroyed all previous historical documents; they seem, nevertheless, to have carefully preserved, or invented, or adapted, such compositions in Sanskrit, as attested their own religious supremacy or establisbed their cosmogony; and which have fettered the minds of Indians, as well as foreigners, to an unreserved admission of such pretensions as in their arrogance, caprice, or selfishness, they chose to advance.
Curious Omissions in Pali Canonical Lists
Authors: Davids C. A. F. Rhys
Published: March 2011

Indologists have at this time of day come to know how prominent is the part played by numbered categories in the Pali Canon. The whole of the Fourth Nikāya, the Anguttara, is composed of such. The two last Suttantas of the First Nikāya: the “Sangīti” and the “Das-uttara”, are composed of such. Five Suttas of the Second Collection: “Bahuvedaniya, Chabbisodhana, Bahudhātuka, Mahācattarīsaka, Pañcattaya,” have numerical title and treatment. The Third Nikāya alone, the Saṃyutta, has not conformed to this method. In the case of the Anguttara- and Dĩgha-Nikayas the subjects are not only grouped under numbers, they are taken in arithmetical progression: the Ones, Twos, Threes, etc. (That the Anguttara progression should cease at the Elevens, as though it were a cricketing chronicle, has not yet been inquired into, if I may except myself (in my re-written Home University Library Buddhism, 1934).) The lists are apparently out to exclude nothing which will have been of doctrinal importance to the compilers, whenever and wherever that compilation took place.
Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm and Shauqi
Authors: Arberry A. J.
Published: March 2011

In the summer of 1933, within the short space of two months, Egypt, and with her the whole Islamic world, was twice plunged into deep mourning, by the deaths of two men who, widely divergent in circumstances and character though they were, were in their generation the greatest and the most universally esteemed of Arabic poets. In their own country they had won titles which well indicate the appreciation, even the affection which they enjoyed: Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm was called the “Poet of the Nile”, but Shauqī was called the “Prince of Poets”.
Two South-Arabian Inscriptions: Some Suggestions
Authors: Beeston A. F. L.
Published: March 2011

The following is an attempt at a rendering of the Minæan inscription found on the side of a sarcophagus now in the Cairo Museum, which is dealt with in the Répertoire d'Epigraphie Sémitique, tome vi, 3427, based on the assumption that K. Conti-Kossini in his Chrestomathia is correct in identifying the first word of the inscription with the Ethiopic , “loculus sepulchralis.”
A Literary Device Common to Homer and the East
Authors: Winstedt R. O.
Published: March 2011

There is a once popular Malay romance, the Hikayat Indraputra. It and the Malay recension of the Ramayana are cited in a Malay work of Muslim theology in a.d. 1643 as examples of infidel works suitable for sanitary purposes unless the name of Allah occurred in them. Probably the romance was compiled in fifteenth century Malacca, and to its author, as to so many Malay authors of romance, may be appositely applied Virginia Woolf's delicate analysis of Sidney's Arcadia: “He had no notion when he set out where he was going. Telling stories, he thought, was enough—one could follow another interminably. But where there is no end in view, there is no sense of direction to draw us on. Nor, since it is part of his scheme to keep his characters simply bad and simply good without distinction, can he gain variety from the complexity of character. To supply change and movement he must have recourse to mystification. These changes of dress, these disguises of princes as peasants, of men as women serve instead of psychological subtlety to relieve the stagnancy of people collected together with nothing to talk about. But when the charm of that childish device falls flat, there is no breath left to fill his sails. Who is talking, and to whom, and about what we no longer feel sure.” Nor does even the Malay of to-day care any longer. But to the comparative student of Oriental literature the Hikayat Indraputra, like many other Malay pastiches, has an interest from the varied sources of its interminable tapestry.
Symbols of Parentage in Archaic Chinese Part II
Authors: Hopkins L. C.
Published: March 2011

MR. KUO MO-JO, in his essay to establish the original identity of the characters now written tsu and shê, asserts that in early ages men held the male organ to be a manifestation of divine power. Sometimes, he says, they termed this power tsu, and sometimes shê, as in the expression ch'ih shê, to hurry to the shê, that is, to hurry forward bearing the phallic divinity on their shoulders. This custom still exists. A gentleman of Yang Chou (a city in Kiangsu Province) informed Kuo that at mid-Spring, in the second month of Spring, on the shang ssŭ Festival day (i.e. 6th of the Chinese moon), the Yang Chou practice was to make enormous paper models of the male and female emblems, one of each, and for a procession of men and women carrying these on their shoulders, to hurry along to burn them in front of the Shun Yang Temple. This is called ying ch'un, Welcoming the Spring.
Two Notes on Ptolemy's Geography of India
Authors: Johnston E. H.
Published: March 2011

The Periplus Marts Erythræ describes the seaports below Barygaza in the following way according to Schoff's translation: “The market-towns of this region are, in order, after Barygaza: Suppara, and the city of Calliena, which in the time of the elder Saraganus became a lawful market-town; but since it came into the possession of Sandares [an unjustified conjecture for the text's Sandanes] the port is much obstructed, and Greek ships landing there may chance to be taken to Barygaza under guard. Beyond Calliena there are other market-towns of this region; Semylla.…” Suppara is now Sopara on the coast above Bassein, Semylla is Cemūla of two inscriptions, now Chaul, and Calliena is Kalyāṇa. This last, situated at the foot of the two regular ascents of the Western Ghats leading towards Nasik and Poona respectively and with good access to the sea, was the natural outlet for the commerce of the Andhra dominions on the west coast, and the notice, just quoted, shows how its trade was stifled, as the Kṣaharātas extended their rule southwards from Broach. It is unnecessary here to consider who are the kings alluded to in this passage or in the earlier one mentioning Nambanus (a conjecture for the text's Mambarus), but clearly we are dealing with the rivalry of the Western Satraps and the Andhra kings. That the former were successful in their policy towards Kalyāṇa is shown by Ptolemy's omission of the town. The order he gives (taking Renou's text) is Souppara mouth of the River Goaris, Dounga, mouth of the River Bêndas, Semyla.
Caucasica
Authors: Bailey H. W.
Published: March 2011

Knowledge of scholarly literature produced in recent years in Georgia is all too little disseminated in England. I was delighted to receive a copy of vol. xiii of the Bulletin of the Marr Institute of Languages, History, and Material Culture, published by the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR (Sahartvelos SSR Mecnierebata Ak'ademia), Tiflis, 1942. This volume contains “A Bilingual Inscription from Armazi near Mcheta in Georgia,” by Professor George Tseretheli, written in Georgian with an almost complete English translation, and with three excellent photographs. The bilingual inscription is in Greek (10 lines) and Aramaic (11 lines), and is one of two inscriptions found at Armazi, 22 km. from Tiflis, in 1940 in excavations under the direction of the late I. Javakhishvili. A report of this discovery was made at the Session of the Scientific Council of the Institute in 1940, and at the first Conference of the Georgian Academy of Sciences on the 1st March, 1941. The Greek inscription was published by S. Qaukhchishvili (Qauχčlišvili) and A. Shanidze in 1941. Professor Tseretheli has analysed the Aramaic inscription, its script, language, and historical significance, and offered a translation. The script which he proposes to call Armazian Aramaic, a new variety of this alphabet; is of great importance for the history of writing in Georgia.
Masterpieces of Oriental Art
Authors: Gordine Dora
Published: March 2011

Unless the past can be correlated with the present, it is dead and the present suffers from want of a tradition. Hence the need for the critic to define in the language of his age the value of bygone art for his generation. The Society therefore is fortunate when a contemporary artist of distinction has consented to select and comment on a series of Oriental masterpieces to be reproduced in this Journal.
The Common Classical Sources of Buddhist and Christian Narrative Art
Authors: Buchthal H.
Published: March 2011

The Greco-Buddhist sculpture of Gandhara has for a long time been of singular attraction for students of Indian art. These sculptures of greyish-blue schist found in such quantities in the inaccessible valleys of the Indo-Afghan frontier, have from the outset been noted for their classical affinities, and many were brought to Europe by art-loving dilettanti. The particular qualities distinguishing them from all other Indian sculpture were duly extolled; they came to be recognized as the earliest examples of new ideas which changed the whole development of Indian art and propagated Western influence throughout the Buddhist world. But the rôle so enthusiastically assigned to them has not remained unchallenged. A younger generation, more eager to discover the truly national qualities of the arts of Asia, maintained that the only reason for this admiration was that on account of their Greek affinities the Gandhara sculptures were less strange to Europeans than Asiatic art proper. They considered Greco-Buddhist sculpture a weak and provincial offshoot of Western art, without much influence in the East, and for the most part of a quality which could not compete with the broad current of the Indian tradition. Even those iconographical innovations with which the sculptors of Gandhara had generally been credited, such as the creation of the Buddha image, were attributed by these scholars to other and more “national” schools. To this day no satisfactory solution of the problem has come forward.
Magical Terms in the Old Testament
Authors: Guillaume A.
Published: March 2011

I am not clear as to what Professor Driver's exact position is. On the last page of his criticism of my paper on this subject, he says that “the majority of additional passages [in the O.T.] in which witchcraft is suspected are almost, if not quite, all susceptible of alternative explanations”; while on p. 6 he is good enough to say that some of my suggestions “seem eminently convincing”. As they all had to do with magical terms I cannot reconcile his statements.
An Undescribed Malay Version of the Ramayana
Authors: Winstedt R. O.
Published: March 2011

There are several recensions of the Hikayat Seri Rama or Malay Ramayana. There are three folk-versions: Seri Rama of Sumatran origin, edited with an outline in English by W. E. Maxwell (JRAS. Straits Branch, 17, 1886); Hikayat Maharaja Ravana, by H. Overbeck (JRAS. Malayan Branch, xi, pt. ii, 1933); and a Patani version, of which an outline was given by me in the Royal Batavian Society's Feestbundel, Batavia, 1929. Of literary recensions the best known are Archbishop Laud's text in the Bodleian, ed. W. G. Shellabear (JRAS. Straits Branch, 71, 1915, with outline, ibid., 70, 1917) = Sh. in this article, and that printed by Roorda van Eysinga (Amsterdam, 1843) = Ro. in this article. The last two have been compared by A. Zeiseniss in his Die Rāma-Sage bei den Malaien (Hamburg, 1928), which has a fairly complete bibliography except for the folk-tale versions. But beyond a few lines in van der Tuuk's catalogue (reprinted in Essays on Indochina, 2nd series, vol. ii) nothing has been written of Raffles Malay MS. 22 in the Library of this Society, which for various reasons is of unique interest. Throughout my description I retain the Malay forms for Sanskrit words.
The Jewish “Blessing of Virginity”
Authors: Farmer Henry George
Published: March 2011

In October, 1933, I contributed a lengthy article to this Journal entitled “Maimonides on Listening to Music” in which I gave a translation of the Responsum 129 from his Pe'er ha-dor (Lemberg, 1849), in so far as it touched upon listening to music. The latter portion of this responsum dealt with another point, a custom, the “Blessing of Virginity”, which took place at the house of a bridegroom. It might have been intended as a religious ceremony (so far as the Seven Benedictions are concerned, although they should have waited until after the actual wedding), but I have been unable to trace the provenance of the custom. Here is the request together with the response of Maimonides:—

Request: “Please instruct us about the so-called ‘Blessing of Virginity’ which runs ‘[Blessed art thou] who in Eden didst plant the Nut-tree’. For [there is a custom for] a company consisting of the wedding party of the bride and bridegroom and their friends to assemble in the bridegroom's house, [when] a celebrant takes a wine-cup, pronounces the customary Benediction over wine, and the Benediction over spices, and then he pronounces this so-called, i.e. new-fangled Benediction— ‘Blessed art thou.…’ And note that this new-fangled Benediction fixed by our Rabbis in the Talmud also contains the Divine Name, i.e. ‘Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who…Blessed art Thou 0 Lord…’. Please tell us whether the recital of the Benediction is merely a custom or actually orthodox and obligatory.
An Early Siamese Passport
Authors: le May Reginald
Published: March 2011

Dr. barnett recently sent me an old Siamese document in the Library of the School of Oriental Studies. It is written on a sheet of paper 11¾ in. by 13 in., and its accession-number is 12889. It forms part of the Marsden Collection.
The Seal of Solomon
Authors: Dawkins J. McG.
Published: March 2011

Among the sharpest contrasts between East and West has been their different approach to the problems of physical science. The West, aiming low, concentrated on the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, conceivably attainable ends, and arrived at modern science. The East aimed higher at the grand source of power, from which all the rest would follow, and it arrived practically nowhere. This power was sought in knowledge of the Seal of the Great Name, the seal containing the Ineffable Name of God, which was believed to have given Solomon his power over the Djinn, the birds and the winds.
The Saurāshtrans of South India
Authors: Randle H. N.
Published: March 2011

Some three years ago chance brought to light in the India Office Library a little book with an English title on the cover: First catechism of Sourashtra grammar. By T. M. Rama Rou. Madras, 1905. It challenged inquiry because the script was quite unfamiliar. With it was another little book in the same script and by the same author—Saurāṣṭra-bōdhini (1906)—which fortunately gave the alphabet, in the usual order, and lists of the complex combinations of all the vowels with all the consonants, so that the script could be read. The language is listed as Paṭṅūlī, but is not described, in the Linguistic Survey of India. The author of the two books had, however, provided the necessary clue to understanding in his grammar, the opening sections of which happen to be bilingual, quoting and translating the rules of Sanskrit grammarians. For the rest, since it was usually possible to anticipate what the writer must say, for example in denning grammatical terms, and since after all the book itself gave an account of the inflectional system of the language, it remained only to arrive at the meaning of words, so far as it was not obvious from analogues in other modern Indo-Aryan languages; and (a more difficult task) to grasp the part played in the language by certain striking forms of expression which have no Indo-Aryan parallels.—To learn a modern language by methods appropriate to the interpretation of lost languages of the past is of course a procedure difficult to defend, when it would be so simple, and so much better, to learn it from the lips of the speakers in India. But the better course was not open to me, and I was not willing to postpone indefinitely an investigation which promised to be interesting from other points besides the linguistic.
The Shaman or Chinese Wu: His inspired dancing and versatile character
Authors: Hopkins L. C.
Published: March 2011

The Shaman or Wizard of the proto-historic Orient, his vocation, his reputation, his strange psychosis, his claim to thaumaturgic powers, and his place in the social structure of his community, are not all these written in the chronicles of the. Works of de Groot and Shirokogaroff ?
Old Malay Legal Digests and Malay Customary Law
Authors: Winstedt R. O.
Published: March 2011

Digests of law collected from all the races of the Malay archipelago fill many printed volumes. In the Malay peninsula they are of three main types. There are digests and tribal sayings that embody the mild indigenous matriarchal law of agricultural clans, the 'adat perpateh or Law of Prime Ministers, found among the Minangkabaus of Sumatra and their colonists in Negri Sembilan. There are digests of patriarchal law deterrent to criminals, the 'adat Temenggong or Law of the Minister for War and Police, evolved for the mixed population of ports, law introduced largely from India along with commerce by traders and adventurers, at first Hindu and later Muslim. (This second type of law may be further divided into general digests of constitutional criminal and civil; law, full of relics of indigenous custom and borrowings from the period of Hindu influence but modelled on text-books of Muslim canon law and containing many of its provisions; secondly, digests of port rules adopted by countries like Acheh and Kedah from regulations of the kind India knew from the days of Chandra Gupta to the time of the Great Moguls; and, thirdly, digests of maritime law compiled, it is said, for Bugis trading vessels.) The last of the main types requires no comment, being Malay translations of orthodox Muslim works of the school of Shafi'i, especially treatises on the law of marriage, divorce, and the legitimacy of children, the only branch of Muslim canon law that Malays have adopted practically unchanged.
Tables of Reference to Tibetan Dictionaries
Authors: Walsh E. H. C.
Published: March 2011

THE great difficulty of the Tibetan language is the spelling. This may appear strange in a monosyllabic language, but is due to there being five Prefixes (sngön-jug), ga, da, ba, ma, ha, and four Head-Letters (Go Yig), ra, la, sa, which also precede the principal letter, and one subscribed letter, wa, which follows it, which are none of them sounded; and also that certain combinations of letters are pronounced differently to their spelling, namely the principal letters pa and ba followed by ya are pronounced as cha; most of the principal letters when followed by raare pronounced as ṭa or ḍa; and za followed by la is pronounced as ḍa.
Masterpieces of Oriental Art. 5
Authors: Gordine Dora
Published: March 2011

A chinese mason will give preternatural length to the arms of a Kuan-yin so as to include the pedestal in the proportions of the design. And this eye for composition has made coiffure and coronet such integral parts of these two heads that without them the faces would lose half their distinction.
An Old Arakanese Love Poem
Authors: Collis Maurice
Published: March 2011

Readers of my The Land of the Great Image will remember how the Portuguese friar, Brother Manrique, came in 1630 over the rainy mountains to Mahāmuni in Arakan, the most celebrated Buddhist shrine at that time in Further India. The King of Arakan, Thiri-thu-dhamma, was visiting the shrine, having travelled by house-boat from his capital, Mrauk-u, the Monkey's Egg, which lay on the Eiver of Jems some 40 miles distant. The friar was received in audience at the foot of the sacred hill, Sirigutta, upon the top of which stood the Mahāmuni, one of the portrait images of the Buddha supposed to have been cast in his lifetime, another being located in Tavatimsa, a paradisal region inhabited by the displaced Hindu gods, who, having been converted to the truth, desired to possess in their territory an image of the Blessed One to worship.
Three new inscriptions from Hadhramaut
Authors: Philby H. St. J. B.
Published: March 2011

The three inscriptions shown in Plates X and XI were copied by Mr. Harold Ingrams in the course of a journey from Bir 'Ali (? the ancient Cana or Kana) on the south coast of Arabia to Shabwa and Al 'Abr during the last ten days of April, 1939. At an early stage of that journey he passed through the great wall of Wadi Bana, in whose gateway stands the celebrated record known as the “Obne inscription” (R.E.S. 2687) and first discovered by Adolph von Wrede in 1843. Beyond this point Mr. Ingrams noted or collected a number of graffiti, pictures, and “inscribed stones”, none of which are at present available for examination. But it was not till he reached the pass of 'Aqaba Futura (3,500 feet above sea-level and about a week's journey from the wall) at the head of Wadi 'Anna, flowing westward across the plateau to Shabwa and eventually into Wadi Hadhramaut, that he found his first considerable inscription, No. 1 (Plate X). The second inscription, No. 2 (Plate XI), was found on the final pass, 'Aqabat 'Aqaiba (2,750 feet), leading down from the plateau to the Shabwa plain, while the third of this group, No. 3 (Plate XI), was found near the desert well of Al 'Abr, 56 miles north of Shabwa.
Japanese-Korean wars in A.D. 391–407 and their chronology
Authors: Szcześniak B.
Published: March 2011

Japan's gradual interest in Korea and the expansion on this peninsula goes back to the third century A.D. The establishment of the Japanese sphere of influence in Korea, and the domination of Mimana in Southern Korea, were dictated by economic, cultural, and military reasons of Ancient Japan, or the Yamato country. This in the middle of the fourth century A.D. became the strongest and most powerful of many clan (uji) rivals in the central Sovereign, Tennō in the Japanese archipelago.
The Cult of Kohobā or the Three Sons of Sītā
Authors: Godakumbura C. E.
Published: March 2011

There exists in some parts of Ceylon an occult ceremony called the Kohobā Yakkama, which according to tradition was introduced into the island by the three sons of Sita: Malaya, Kit-Śrī, and Sadalidu, among whom Malaya, the flower-born prince, took the leading part. This is the story connected with the first ceremony of its kind.
Buddhism in Ceylon
Authors: Crosby Josiah
Published: March 2011

I Feel bound to record my grateful sense of obligation to those Sinhalese Buddhists, whether belonging to the Holy Order or laymen, who have helped me in the preparation of these the following notes. Their courtesy was unfailing and their readiness to impart information inexhaustible. As for the humbler and less educated Buddhists of Ceylon, it is impossible not to be touched by their simple devotion and by the vivid manner in which their religion enters into their life.
Masterpieces of Oriental Art. 9: Some Indian sculpture at the Royal Academy
Authors: Gordine Dora
Published: March 2011

The average quality of the sculpture at the Exhibition of the Art of India and Pakistan at the Royal Academy, London, is remarkably high. Naturally there is a bigger percentage of first-class pieces in bronze than in stone, because so much of the best stone sculpture is fixed in temples or carved on rock. The great Siva could not be moved from Elephanta nor a River Goddess from Ellora nor the Descent of the Ganges from the rock-face at Mamallapuram.
Indian Influences on Western Culture
Authors: Rawlinson H. G.
Published: March 2011

Indian influence upon European literature goes back to the earliest times. The learned German scholar, Dr. Gerland, traces to Indian sources a number of the episodes in the Odyssey; the story of Circe, for instance, appears also in Somadeva's Kathā Sarit Sāgara, where a Yakshinī, or female demon, changes men into beasts by playing to them on her magic flute. The Sirens are the Indian Rākshasīs, and the Cyclops are Rākshasas. India is the home of fables, especially of beast and fairy stories, and these found their way to the West by a variety of channels. Some were carried by traders, others by wandering tribes like the gypsies, whose Indian origin is now generally accepted. Others again reached the West by way of Baghdad and Alexandria. Thus the story of the Judgment of Solomon occurs also in the Mahoshadha Jātaka, where it is attributed to the Buddha in one of his previous incarnations; doubtless it found its way from India to Palestine along with the ivory, apes, and peacocks which Hiram, King of Tyre, brought from Ophir to Jerusalem by way of Ezion Geber. If we identify Ophir with Sopara on the west coast of India, near Bombay, this becomes still more probable, for Sopara or Śurpāraka was a well-known port in Buddhist times, and the capital of Aparānta, mentioned by Aśoka in his list of Buddhist countries.
Direct Sailing Between the Persian Gulf and China in Pre-Islamic Times
Authors: Hourani G. F.
Published: March 2011

In the sixth, century a.d. Chinese and Persian merchants used to meet regularly in Ceylon for the exchange of their products: this is clear from Cosmas Indicopleustes, xi, 336, and Procopius, Persian Wars, i, 20, 9–13. In addition to this the existence of direct sea-commerce between the Sassanid Empire and China has often been asserted as an established fact, e.g. by J. T. Reinaud, Relations des voyages faits far les Arabes, etc. (Paris, 1845), p. xxxv; H. Yule, Marco Polo (London, 1903), p. 83; L. Caetani, Annali dell'Islam (Milan, 1905–1926), ii, 2, 12 A.H., sect. 133, note 1; iii, 16 A.H., sect. 328; E. H. Warmington, The commerce between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 138, 358, note 146; and others. But this assertion rests on slender evidence and requires discussion. I shall endeavour to set down all the passages which might be adduced and to assess the value of each one.
A Cryptic Message and a New Solution
Authors: Hopkins L. C.
Published: March 2011

This defiant little inscription of three words has held its secret through twenty centuries. On the Bone relics of the Honan Find it is not uncommon, but in the inscribed Bronzes, even the oldest, it is not met. Brief and perhaps paltry as it may seem, it has not failed to engage the attention of Chinese spécialists without any very convincing conclusion. But on one point Chinese critics do concur. These small three-word entries are no part of the main scription of the oracular sentence. They stand isolated in place, and have no syntactic connection with the latter. Perhaps they were archivests' memoranda, or, as I suggest, the craftsman's directions to his finisher. They have none of the importance of the sentences, and their only interest now is that they have proved inscrutable. I, too, have joined in the quest and have, indeed, excogitated a conclusion acceptable to other students!
Some Sino-European Xylographic Works, 1662–1718
Authors: Boxer C. R.
Published: March 2011

This article is an attempt, in the nature of things tentative only, to carry a stage further the identification and location of the principal Sino-European works printed in China during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, as recorded by Henri Cordier in his L'Imprimerie Sino-Européene en Chine (Paris, 1901) and by Paul Pelliot in T'oung Pao (vol. xxiii, pp. 356–360) (Leiden, 1924). Considerations of space have obliged me to confine myself to a discussion of some ten of the most interesting of these, that is those which have the whole or the greatest part of the text printed in a European language. I therefore omit all those which have thetitle-page in Latin and the text in Chinese characters.
Masterpieces of Oriental Art. 10: Milkmaids in the Groves of Brindāban;
Authors: Gray Basil
Published: March 2011

One of the most beautiful and interesting paintings at the Royal Academy Exhibition of Indian Art (No. 472) was lent by the Asutosh University Museum, Calcutta. Two subjects, painted on both sides of a single sheet in reverse directions, represent the Milkmaids of Brindaban awaiting Krishna by the River Jumna on a moonlit night. The one not shown at the Exhibition is reproduced by Mr. D. P. Ghosh in the Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art (vol. ix, 1941, p. 112): the other is reproduced here (PL I).
Culture Change in Greater India
Authors: Wales H. G. Quaritch
Published: March 2011

“Comment, transplantée au Cambodge, à Java, et dans les autres pays, l'esthétique indienne a-t-elle donné naissance à l'art khmèr, à l'art javanais et aux autres arts hindous d'Extrême Orient ? C'est là, un des problèmes les plus délicats qui s'offre aux archéologues.” In those challenging words, on the last page of his recent valuable work of synthesis, M. Coedès indicates with his usual acumen a main goal of future Greater Indian research. It presents a formidable task indeed, calling for inquiry into the whole problem of culture change in Greater India.
Kirghiz Proverbs from the Sphere of Family Life
Authors: Benzing J.
Published: March 2011

The people living in the Turkestan steppe region and usually known as “Kirghiz” call themselves “Kazakh”, and they are by customs and dialect different from their Turco-Tatar relatives who lead a half-nomadic life in the Tien Shan and in the Pamir Alay Mountains of Central Asia and who, though recorded in Western literature as “Buruts” or “Karakirghiz“, are the real Kirghiz. As they are one of the earliest known Turco-Tatar tribes, both the language and history of this little people merit some attention, all the more because since the foundationof the Kirghiz Socialist Soviet Republic (in 1924) the language has become aliterary one and, together with social and economic life, has developed a good deal.
Hebrew Studies
Authors: Driver G. R.
Published: March 2011

The purpose of this article is to collect a number of examples of two or three Hebrew constructions which seem hitherto to have been incorrectly explained or missed and to see if a satisfactory explanation can be found of any or all of them.
Masterpieces of Oriental Art. 12: Chinese Bronze Sacrificial Vessel, Fang I.
Authors: Hansford S. Howard
Published: March 2011

This splendid vessel of the rectangular i type, dating from about the twelfth century b.c., is in the collection of Dr. N. Wessén, of Stockholm. The design on each of the four sides is dominated by a t'ao-t'ieh mask, the main features being represented by animal forms in low relief on a ground of spirals, “cloud-and-thunder pattern,” executed with wonderful precision.
Candra and Caṇḍa
Authors: Bailey H. W.
Published: March 2011

In a brief article entitled Kaṇaiska in the Journal for 1942, pp. 14–28, was published for the first time a Central Asian text touching Kaniṣka, a repetition of the well-known story of Kaniṣka's stūpa. The fragmentary text began with three lines in the Buddhist Sanskrit of Khotan. These lines were then translated and the story continued in Khotanese. In the text the epithet of Kaṇaiska was pointed out in the form cadrra, that is, a Khotanese spelling of Indian candra. The epithet could be recognized as the equivalent of the epithet *tśiän-d'an (later ṭṣant'an) in Chinese references to Kaniṣka, and implied, as it seems, also in the Tibetan play upon the word zla-ba ‘moon’. The Khotanese and Buddhist Sanskrit cadrra (for candra) seemed to decide the problem in favour of candra- ‘moon’.
The Transmission of Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ
Authors: Robson James
Published: March 2011

The collections of Tradition compiled by Al-Bukhārī and Muslim are considered to be more authoritative than any other. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ says: “Their books are the soundest after the mighty Book of God.” Most Muslims consider Al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ to be the more authoritative of the two, but there have been some who have expressed a preference for Muslim's. Abū 'Alī al-Ḥusain b. 'Alī al-Naisābūrī is quoted as saying: “There is no book under the face of heaven sounder than the book of Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj.” Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ says that if this merely means that Muslim did not imitate Al-Bukhārī in giving statements in his headings unaccompanied by an isnād, there is no harm; but if it means that the book itself is sounder, it is to be refuted. Al-Nawawī remarks that Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ has an advantage over Al-Bukhārī's because he gives all the lines of transmission when he mentions a tradition, whereas Al-Bukhārī repeats traditions in different places, sometimes giving one line of transmission and sometimes another. Al-Dhahabī quotes Ibn 'Uqda to the effect that Al-Bukhārī sometimes makes the mistake of mentioning a man on one occasion by his name and on another by his kunya and imagining that there are two men, whereas Muslim rarely makes an error. But Al-Dhahabī shows that he himself considers Al-Bukhārī to be superior, for after mentioning the words of Abū 'Ali al-Naisābūrī quoted above, he remarks laconically: “Perhaps Al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ had not reached Abū 'Alī.” In addition to Abū 'Alī, some shaikhs of the Maghrib are said to have preferred Muslim; but the general view is that, while the two are of the highest authority, Al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ takes first place.
Concerning Chinese Furniture
Authors: Yetts W. Perceval
Published: March 2011

This neglected subject received a notable contribution lately from Professor Gustav Ecke in Peking. His Chinese Domestic Furniture is, I believe, the first attempt at an organized treatise (9). Existing literature was scanty. From Chinese sources there were sundry entries in encyclopædias, and chance allusions and woodcuts to be found in unexpected places. Specialized Western publications comprised only three portfolios of plates (3, 8, and 27), and several magazine articles (10, 11, 13, and 28), not counting the somewhat fanciful descriptions by eighteenth-century writers, such as Chambers, Chippendale, and the Halfpennys (4, 6, and 15). Last year a book by George N. Kates appeared, which covers much the same ground as Ecke's pioneer work, but is designed more for the general reader (22).