bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mamluk-Frankish diplomatic relations in the reign of Qalāwūn (678–89/1279–90)
Authors: Holt P. M.
Published: March 2011

Two important contemporary authors provide primary sources for the history of Qalāwūn's reign. The first of these, Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʽAbd al-Ẓahir, had been the head of Baybars's chancery, and continued to hold office, possibly until his death in 692/1293. He was, however, overtaken during his lifetime by his son, Fatḥ al-Dīn, whom Qalāwūn appointed to the new post of confidential secretary (kātib al-sirr). Muḥyī al-Dīn was the author of Baybars's official biography, a Rawḍ al-zāhirfisirat al-Malik al-Ẓāhir – indeed one might say that he ghosted the memoirs recounted to him by the sultan. In due course he also produced the official biography of Qalāwūn, Tashrlf al-ayyām wa 'l-'uṣūr fi sīrat al-Malik al-Manṣūr, of which unfortunately only the latter part, beginning with the year 680/1281–82, is now extant. A great deal of the value of this work lies in the state papers it transmits. These include the texts of truces with the Templars, Acre, Lesser Armenia, and the Lady Margaret of Tyre, as well as treaties (also formally truces in Islamic international law) with Aragon and Genoa.
A Tibetan's Odyssey: a review article
Authors: Ruegg D. Seyfort
Published: March 2011

It has often been asserted that Tibetan society and culture were (in recent times at least) unadaptable, unchanging and set in an outworn mould. This kind of assertion has been made both by those who employ it to prop up a claim to superiority and overlordship over the Tibetans and by poorly informed writers with scanty knowledge of the people, language and history of Tibet and hence of what they are purporting to write about. This book assembles much evidence to show that Tibetans, their society and their culture were by no means as unchanging as some have either chosen to maintain or have been led to believe.
A Sumerian Hymn to Ishtar (Innini) and the Deified Ishme-Dagan
Authors: Langdon S.
Published: March 2011

Ishme-Dagan, fourth king of the Isin dynasty, reigned twenty years (2237–18), but concerning the history of his reign little is known. He appears in all known references to him as “the god Ishme-Dagan”, in accordance with the prevalent custom of emperor-worship in the periods of the third dynasty of Ur and the succeeding dynasties of Isin and Ellasar. Although all the fifteen kings of Isin and the fourteen kings of Ellasar have Semitic names, and both dynasties are certainly Semitic, their religion was Sumerian; the deification and worship of kings are characteristic of Sumerian religion, and fundamentally opposed to Semitic religious conceptions.
An Old Imperial “Sanad” relating to Rāisinā or New Delhi
Authors: Nath Reu Sāhityāchārya Pt. Bisheshwar
Published: March 2011

This “Sanad” had been issued in favour of Mahārājā Bijaysingh of Mārwār by the Mughal Emperor Shāh 'Ālam II of Delhi on the 9th Jumāda-ul-ākhir of the 17th year of his reign.

Emperor Shāh 'Ālam II, whose original name was 'Ālīgauhar, was son of Emperor 'Ālamgīr II.
Varuṇa, god of the sea and the sky
Authors: Przyluski Jean
Published: March 2011

In a previous article I have connected Sanskrit and Pali bharu “sea” and Pali maru “desert”, “sand-desert”, and have shown that these words were probably borrowed by Indo-Aryan from one or several non-Aryan languages. Malay baroh denotes “low-lying country”, “sea-shore”, “sea”. The dialects of the Malay Peninsula have baruh “plain”, “flatland”, baruk, barok “shore”, and bâruh “sea”. Sometimes the initial is reduced. In Bahnar âr denotes “marsh”, “swampy district”, or “low-lying damp terrain near to watercourses”. Annamite has preserved the initial, but the final liquid has become i: *bar > bai “coast”, “shore”, “strand”.
Mathara and Paramartha
Authors: Suryanarayanan S. S.
Published: March 2011

It has been suggested by Dr. Belvalkar that the original commentary on the Sāṁkhya Kārikā, which was translated by Paramārtha into Chinese, was none other than the Māṭhara-Vṛtti and that such differences as there are between the two are not different in kind from the variations between different recensions, such as the Chinese and the Japanese. He cites several instances of agreement between the Chinese commentary and the Māṭhara-Vṛtti, one of the most notable of these being the initial story of how Kapila came to impart the teaching to Āsuri. A closer examination of the two commentaries would, however, seem to reveal certain doctrinal differences of some importance, variations such as seem not to be susceptible of being explained away on the basis of differences of version. These differences throw considerable doubt on the possibility of the Māṭhara-Vṛtti having been the original translated by Paramārtha. It is the object of this paper to set out the results of a fairly full analysis made by the present writer. While no positive conclusion is possible, it would appear that Professor Keith's suggestion of both commentaries having drawn from some common original is, perhaps, the most plausible view.
The Dragon Terrestrial and the Dragon Celestial: Part II. Ch'ên, the Dragon Celestial
Authors: Hopkins L. C.
Published: March 2011

The formula “Ch'ên is of the Dragon kind”, , ch'ên shu lung, applies to one of the , or Twelve Affinities, according to which each of the Cycle of Twelve Branches has an affinity to one of Twelve Animals. When this Cycle of Twelve Beasts was first known to the Chinese may be uncertain, but pure chance can hardly be responsible for the association in the list of ch'ên with lung, which must, at least, be the expression of a long tradition of affinity. That “Ch'ên is of the Dragon kind”, then, is the text on which this paper is based, and the implications of which are further developed.
An Old Moorish Lute Tutor
Authors: Farmer Henhy George
Published: March 2011

The following are the texts of the four Maghribī MSS. the translations of which appeared in April, 1931. Further, a few mistakes crept into my last article. On page 354, line 14, the last letter under should obviously have been Ḥ and not J, whilst the doubtful word given in the footnote 2 ought to have been . Finally, I regret that a line was omitted from verse 23, on page 364.
Two Hymns of the Catuḥ-stava of Nāgārjuna
Authors: Tucci Giuseppe
Published: March 2011

The two hymns here edited are respectively the first and p the last of the four stavasattributed to Nāgārjuna, and generally known and quoted under the comprehensive name Catuḥ-stava or Catu-stava; the other two stotras, missing in our manuscript, are the Lolātīta-stava and the Citta-vajrastava. As to their authorship, there is but little doubt; the style itself is the same as that of the kārikās of the Mūlamādhyamika-kārikās. Moreover, Candrakīrti in his Prasannapadā quotes from the Catuḥ-stava, attributing one of them, viz. the Lokātīta-stava to the Master, ācārya-pādāḥ (p. 413).
The Beginnings of Marāṭhi Literature
Authors: Macnicol Nicol
Published: March 2011

It is usually taken for granted that Marāṭhī literature begins with Mukund Rāj, Jñāneśvar and Nāmdev. These are likely to continue to hold their position as the real inaugurators of the intellectual awakening in Mahārāshṭrā which broke away from Sanscrit and made use of the vernaculars as the literary medium. The recent research which has revealed the fact that these outstanding personalities were not alone in this new departure, has yet to be fully investigated, and the value of the earlier literature which has emerged has to be determined. That the Mānbhāū sect with which this newly discovered literature is associated had a very long and curious history has been known for a good many years, and Sir Eamkrishna Bhandarkar and others had become interested in it, but it is to the late Mr. Vinayak Lakshman Bhave that we owe the discovery that this sect were the guardians from the twelfth century at least of what he calls “an unknown chamber in the palace of Marāṭhī literature”. Of the 500 hitherto unknown authors whose names, he tells us, he has catalogued, and whose works number five or six thousand it is not likely that many will take high literary rank. But to the followers of the Mānbhāū sect who wrote or translated these Gitās and Bhāgavatas so long ago, and who carried the Marāṭhī tongue and their books in old Marāṭhī to Peshawar and beyond, so that to-day in these far-off Maṭhs one can talk to their inmates in that language—to them Mahārāshṭrā owes a real debt. The members of this remarkable sect did more, it would appear, than anyone has hitherto dreamed of to shape the language for literary expression and to make it the channel to its followers of the ancient Sanscrit lore.
The Uṣas Hymns of the Ṛgveda
Authors: Macdonell A. A.
Published: March 2011

[It was well known to his friends that the late Professor A. A. Macdonell had long contemplated the making of a complete English translation of the Ṛgveda. Indeed, he would sometimes point out that a great deal of his work, the edition of the Bṛhaddevatā, the Vedic Mythology, the Vedic Grammar, and the Vedic Index, could be regarded as necessary preliminaries to that undertaking. This was the task he hoped to complete in some five years or so on retiring from the Boden Chair. Unhappily his strength failed him too soon for this to be possible.
An Old Moorish Lute Tutor
Authors: Farmer Henry George
Published: March 2011

Jules Rouanet, the well-known writer on the music of the Maghrib, lamented not long ago that none of the mediaeval treatises of the Western Arabian musical system had survived. This he said, was all the more regrettable because to-day not a solitary practitioner in the Maghrib had the slightest acquaintance with musical theory. The ṭubū' or modes were confused in the various parts of the country. The ṭab' known in Algiers as mazmūm is called dīl in Tlemcen, whilst the mazmūm of Tlemcen is the dīl or māya of Algiers.
Spirits and Demons in Arabia
Authors: Tritton A. S.
Published: March 2011

The Arabs believed in the existence of beings to which they gave commonly the generic name “djinn”. For convenience we may call them spirits. Muḥammad carried these ideas over into Islam where theologians developed and systematized them. These Muslim ideas are of no interest to the student of folk-lore unless it can be shown that they contain older material.
Field Notes on the Arabic Literature of the Western Sudan
Authors: Kensdale W. E. N.
Published: March 2011

In a previous article in this journal the writer gave an account of the forming in the Library of the University College, Ibadan, of a collection of manuscripts representative of the indigenous Arabic literature of the Western Sudan, and from this collection and other sources compiled a list of the Arabic writings of Shehu Usumanu ḍan Fodio, the Reformer, founder of the Fulani empire. From the same sources it has been possible to list by title most of the Arabic writings of Usumanu's brother, Waziri Abdullahi ḍan Fodio.
Skt. Lubh ‘To Disturb’
Authors: Burrow T.
Published: March 2011

Homonymy in verbal roots in Sanskrit is a recognized phenomenon. Well-known examples of this are found in such cases as the following: ūh- ‘to remove’, ūh2 ‘to consider’; kṛt-1 ‘to cut’, Kṛt-2 ‘to spin’; gā-1 ‘to go’, gā-2 ‘to sing’; ci-1 ‘to gather’, ci-2 ‘to observe’; dhā-1 ‘to place’, dhā-2 ‘to suck’; bhuj-1 ‘to bend’, bhuj-2 ‘to enjoy’; vṛ-1 ‘to cover’, vṛ-2 ‘to choose’. In the case of vas- we find three homonymous roots (vas-1 ‘to shine’, vas-2 ‘to clothe’, vas-3 ‘to dwell’), and in the case of dā- no less than four (dā-1 ‘to give’, dā-2 ‘to divide’, dā-3 ‘to bind’, dā-4 ‘to clear’). In such cases the various meanings are so distinct from each other that the separation into two or more roots is done without any difficulty, and there is no doubt that we have here different roots, although they are identical in form. In practice, of course, the homonymy is considerably restricted by variation in inflection and derivation (vásati, váste, uccháti, etc.).
The Ongin Inscription
Authors: Clauson Gerard
Published: March 2011

The Ongin inscription was discovered in 1891, the year I was born, in Outer Mongolia on the Manet mountains, near a tributary of the River Ongin, from which it takes its name, at a point a little north-east of 46° N., 102° E., that is about 100 miles south of the two great “Orkhon Inscriptions” and some 250 miles west-southwest of the inscription of Toñukuk.
The Tālavanas: Another key to the Age of a Part of the Mahābhārata
Authors: Derrett J. Duncan M.
Published: March 2011

Professor Edgerton exclaimed in 1944: “I have been so fortunate as to discover one datum of prime importance for its bearing on the date of this ‘original’ text of the Mbh…. In 2.28.49 occurs, in my opinion as a certain part of the original, the name of the city of Rome … It justifies the inference that our text cannot have been composed at any time before this city name came to the ears of the Indians. This means surely not before the first century b.c., and very likely not until a century or two later.” Upon the soundness of this inference it will suffice here to observe that the textual material upon which it is based leaves something to be desired. But when my attention was drawn for the first time to this passage of the Mahābhārata by Sir Walter Gurner's article in a recent issue of this Journal it at once struck me that, whatever may be the value of the reference to the Yavanas, the passage betrays the date of that portion of the epic by a reference of a much more concrete character.
Tibet in Anglo-Chinese Relations: 1767–1842
Authors: Lamb Alistair
Published: March 2011

The Macartney Embassy failed to bring about a significant improvement in Anglo-Chinese relations; the correspondence of 1795–1796 was equally fruitless. The reasons for this failure lay rather in the nature of the Chinese conception of foreign relations than in any misunderstandings about the British role in the Himalayan crisis of 1788–1792. The Chinese Emperor could have no relations with foreign powers on terms of equality; to the Chinese foreign ambassadors were bearers of tribute, coming to Peking to recognize the supremacy of the Son of Heaven. On such terms no properly accredited embassy from the King of England to the Emperor of China could have had any result other than that achieved by Macartney. Only a mission of the type envisaged by Bogle and Hastings, opportunist and flexible, ready to sacrifice dignity to commercial advantage, stood any chance of success. Tibet and the Himalayas played little part in the failure of the first British Ambassador to China. But the reason why this should be so was not fully understood by the British at that time. The memory of a causal connection between the crisis of the Tibeto-Nepalese War and Lord Macartney's failure remained, and it was to affect subsequent British policy.
The Panākaḍuva Copper-Plates
Authors: Godakumbura C. E.
Published: March 2011

In his reply to my Review of the Epigraphia Zeylanica, volume v, part 1, Dr. S. Paranavitana has given further support to my suggestion that the “Panākaḍuva Copper-plate Charter” is a forgery by some close descendant of the supposed recipient of the grant. (See JRAS., 1956, pts. 3, 4, pp. 237–240; 1957, pts. 3, 4, pp. 213–14.)
The Acquisition and Rise of Bombay
Authors: Cadell Patrick
Published: March 2011

When the Island of Bombay was included as an item in the dowry of the Portuguese Princess Catherine on her marriage to King Charles II, Lord Clarendon, who as Lord High Chancellor had a principal share in the negotiation for the marriage, is alleged to have referred to “the Island of Bombay with the towns and castles thereon, which are within a little distance from Brazil”. This assertion may fit in with the belief that has been sometimes expressed that Great Britain acquired her Empire in a fit of absence of mind. It can, however, have no foundation in fact. There was a great deal of give and take in the Contract for the marriage. Portugal received a body of English troops to protect her from the attacks of the Dutch; England relinquished any claim upon Ceylon, an undertaking faithfully observed, though it did not prevent the Dutch from ousting the Portuguese from that Island. For this assistance England received an adequate return. Portugal resigned her claim to Tangier, and gave up her holding in Bombay. The value of the harbour of Bombay had already been recognized by the Directors of the East India Company in London, and by its factors at Surat. It is absurd to suppose that Clarendon was not fully informed of the situation and the value of this important item in the bargain. Apart from any other source of information he had before him the letter discussed below from an impartial observer.
The Karma-pa Sect. A Historical Note
Authors: Richardson H. E.
Published: March 2011

The Karma-pa sect, an important offshoot of the bKa'-rgyud-pa, derives from dPal Chos-gyi-grags-pa, generally known as Dus-gsummkhyen-pa, who was born in A.D. 1110 at Dre-śod in East Tibet. He was, by some accounts, the first Lama to originate a continuous line of reincarnations lasting to the present day—a claim which is contested by the Lamas of 'Bri-khuṅ. At the age of 30 Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa became the principal disciple of sGam-po-pa, himself the chief disciple of rJe-btsun Mid-la (Mi-la-ras-pa), and so entered the direct doctrinal succession from Mar-pa, the founder of the bKa'-rgyud-pa sect. A pious explanation of the name Karma-pa is that an assembly of gods (lha) and Dakini bestowed on Dus-gsummkhyen-pa, in his sixteenth year, knowledge of the past, present, and future—together with a magical black mitre woven from the hair of a million mKha'-'gro-ma (angels or fairies). That story is found in vol Pa of the Chos-'byuṅ of dPa'-bo gTsug-lag; but however early the name Karma-pa came into existence its perpetuation was probably due to the association of Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa with the monastery of Karma gDan-sa, or Lho Karma'i sGar, which he founded in 1147 to the east of the Nom-chu, somewhere between Ri-bo-che and sDe-dge. A few years before his death in 1193 he returned to Central Tibet and in 1189 he founded mTshur-phu in the sTod-lun valley some 50 miles west of Lhasa.
Some Aspects of the History of Modern Hindi Nahîn “No”, “Not”
Authors: Schwarzschild L. A.
Published: March 2011

In an examination of word-phrases A. Meillet stated long ago: “Des mots comme oui, non représentent le plus haut degré d'abstraction que puisse atteindre ainsi une réponse consistant en un seul mot.” As has been repeatedly pointed out, the classical Indo-European languages did not have any exact equivalent of this abstract method of expression. The majority of the modern languages on the other hand have arrived at these convenient “special expletive interjections”. Hindi nahîn, like the cognate Marathi nâhĩ, Gujerati nahi(m), etc. typifies this development of most modern Indo-European languages both syntactically and formally: it is used as an equivalent of “no” (though it may serve also as negative adverb), and it represents an enlargement of the old Indo-European negative particle, Sanskrit na. This formal and syntactic transformation of Sanskrit na into modern nahîn has been variously explained. The standard theories involve the addition to the negative particle of some part of a substantive verb, a development by no means isolated in the Indo-European languages. They may be summarized as follows:—

I. Theories in which parts of the verb as- “to be” are added.

(a) Kellogg stated: “The common negative nahîn, Braj nâhi has arisen from the combination of the negative na with the 3rd singular âhi of the substantive verb.

(b) S. K. Chatterji thinks that *asati based on Sanskrit asti may have been added to na.

(c) Dwijendranath Basu believes that only a derivation from na + âsit can account for the Bengali forms. Similar explanations were given also by Sen and others.
Some Problems of the Treatment of Urdu Metre
Authors: Russell R.
Published: March 2011

One of the major difficulties which face the English student when he comes to read Urdu poetry is that he cannot understand its metre. Even worse, he will find no short account of Urdu metre—either in English or in Urdu—which will help him very far. And finally, if he goes to Urdu speakers for assistance he will find that nearly all of them will frankly admit their ignorance of the subject and their inability to help him. Urdu poets of established reputation are, in general, no exception in this respect.
Ak Beshim—Suyab
Authors: Clauson Gerard
Published: March 2011

An Oriental Congress at Moscow seemed to provide a very suitable occasion on which to call the attention of Western scholars to some recent important discoveries by Soviet archæologists, and at the same time to suggest to Soviet scholars a new interpretation of some of their finds.
Qāsim Efendi
Authors: Meredith-Owens G. M.
Published: March 2011

A few lines are devoted to this author and his only work, the Javāhiru'l-akhbār, in 'Othmānli Mü'ellifleri (i, p. 145) where his full name appears as Qāsim b. Shaikh İlyās b. İdrīs el-Antākī. He is stated to have been one of the descendants of ‘Abdu’l-Qādir Gīlānī, to have settled at İnegöl and to have died in 941/1534–5. Bursah Meḥxmed Ṭāhir saw at İnegöl the metrical composition (manẓūme) written in 901/1496–7 by Qāsim Efendi entitled Javāhiru'l-akhbār. This, he says, is divided into thirty-two bāb and is an ethical and Ṣūfī work. The note on Qāsim concludes with some mention of the Shaikhs who succeeded him but the dervish order to which they belonged is not stated.
A Mewasa Stone Inscription of the Time of the Kṣatrapas of Western India
Authors: Mukerjee Bratindra Nath
Published: March 2011

A stone inscription was discovered in 1898 at Mewasa, a village in Cutch, by Diwan Bahadur Ranchodbhai Udayaram of Bombay. The epigraph was noticed by V. G. Trivedi and D. B. Diskalkar in the Annual Report of Watson Museum of Antiquities, Rajkot, 1923–24, pp. 4, 12–13. Diskalkar's reading and interpretations of the text were also published in the Proceedings of the Fifth Indian Oriental Conference, vol. i, p, 1928, pp. 565 ff. But his interpretations leave room for improvement, and as the record has so far failed to draw sufficient attention of scholars, I venture to make some observations based on Diskalkar's reading of the text.
The Trade of the English East India Company in Cambodia, 1651–1656
Authors: Bassett D. K.
Published: March 2011

Cambodia was a kingdom in which the English East India Company took only a limited and spasmodic interest in the seventeenth century so that little attention has been devoted to its activities there. References to the Company's Cambodian settlement in the 1650s have usually been erroneous or misleading. Dr. John Anderson made the first serious mistake when he wrote of an English factory in Cambodia between 1654 and 1659, and later English writers, particularly E. W. Hutchinson, have followed him. Dutch historians also have been affected: H. P. N. Muller, in his preface to De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos, cites Anderson as his authority for stating that in 1656 the Dutch Company bought the English factory established two years previously. As we shall see, servants of the English Company were sent to Cambodia from the presidency at Bantam in 1651 and withdrawn by order of the directors in 1656; the Englishmen in Cambodia after that date were private traders using the Company's name for their own ends. The episode now to be recounted was therefore an isolated incident with no long-term consequences, but with some intrinsic interest.
Above the Ceiling of the Outer Ambulatory in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem
Authors: Kessler Christel
Published: March 2011

In his fundamental study of the Dome of the Rock Professor K. A. C. Creswell discusses the date of the ceilings, and in connection with this he draws attention to some interesting facts discovered in 1873 by Dr. Thomas Chaplin: “There is a very old carved wooden cornice still running round the building in the space between the ceiling and roof of the outer corridor on the inner wall of the latter, just above the ceiling.” And further: the roof of this outer ambulatory was found to have Kufic inscriptions on one beam and on “6 or 8 more rafters” in the name of the ‘Abbāsid Khalif al-Muqtadir bi'llāh (295–320 H./908–32 a.d.).
A Study of Some Features of the Imperative in Middle Indo-Aryan
Authors: Schwarzschild L. A.
Published: March 2011

The imperative occupies A unique position in the conjugation system. In its real function it implies the presence of a speaker issuing a command to one or more listeners, or making an order referring to a third person or persons. This means that the conjugation tends to be defective. Because of its immediate association with the speaker the imperative is generally linked with the present tense, but through its meaning it is also associated with the future tense. The uncertainty of whether a command will be carried out links the imperative with the subjunctive, while the idea of volition brings it close to the optative. These special features and varying associations make the history of the imperative extremely complex in Middle Indo-Aryan as in other languages. An attempt is made here to study two aspects of this history: the use of the subject pronoun with the imperative, and the distribution of the forms of the second person singular of the imperative. Other features of the imperative, in particular its relation to the passive, will be discussed later.
The Old Arabian Melodic Modes
Authors: Farmer Henry George
Published: March 2011

Naghm (pi. Anghām) and Naghmah (pi. Naghamāt) mean “Vocal melody”, both being derived from the Arabic “To speak, hum, or sing in a low pleasant tone”. Such were the classical meanings of those terms, in distinction from LAḤN (pi. ALḤĀN), which stood for “melody” whether in the vocal or instrumental art. Thus, one of the earliest Arabic books on music—the Kitāb al-naghm (Book of vocal melody)—by Yūnus al-Kātib (d. c. 765), became the source book on this subject. Then came Isḥāq al-Mauṣilī (d. 791) who wrote the Kitāb al-naghm wa'l-īqā' (Book of melody and rhythm). Yet the famous Kitāb al-aghānī of Al-Iṣfahānī (d. 967) introduces each song under the title of saut, although that is only done so as to indicate the singing (taghannī) of a poem. Later, the term naghm came to be used in a modal sense, equating with the Sanscrit rāga and jātī, and the Persian āvāz. We know of the naghm in the modal sense as early as Al-Kindī (d. c. 874), one of them (called ṭarā'iq) being known as Iṣfahān. In the Mafātiḥ al-'ulūm of Abū 'Abdallāh al-Khwārizmī (d. c. 1000), these modes (dasātīn) were attributed to the famous Bārbad of the court of Khusrau Parviz the Sāsānī ruler. Al-Mas'ūdī (d. c. 957) names one of these modes as mihrbānī (cf. mihrgānī) among the ancient Persian modes, whilst Ibn Zaila (d. 1048) mentions a mode (ḍarb) called nāqūsi, which is the 26th of the Sī laḥn of Khusrau va Shīrīn of Nīzāmī of Ganja (1203).
Ad Judaeo-persica II Hafniensia
Authors: MacKenzie D. N.
Published: March 2011

In Ada Orientalia, XXIX, 1–2 (1965), 49–60, J. P. Asmussen has published an excellent photograph, a transliteration, and an annotated glossary (with generous references to Professor W. B. Henning's way-making treatment of the text) of the Jewish-Persian Law Report from Ahwāz, but no consecutive translation.
The Nobility under Akbar and the Development of his Religious Policy, 1560–80
Authors: Khan Iqtidar Alam
Published: March 2011

The significant changes that were introduced in the organization of Mughal government and the accompanying shifts in Akbar's administrative and religious policies during the period 1560–80 have remained for long a favourite subject of study for a number of modern historians. The existing interpretation of these changes seems largely to run parallel to Abul Fazl's line of argument which seeks to explain the growth of institutions and policies in terms of the unfolding of Akbar' personality. Abul Fazl often tries to ignore, or brush aside as the outcome of “evil advice”, all those measures or decisions which appeared to him inconsistent with Akbar's policy during the last 25 years of his reign. The impression created by Abul Fazl is reinforced by a similar tendency in Badauni, who, from an opposite point of view, quite frequently mixes up his comments on some of Akbar's enlightened measures of the later period with the events of the earlier phase when there was hardly any ground for him to find fault with Akbar from a doctrinal angle. Under the influence of these interpretations modern historians also tend to disregard facts that are inconsistent with Abul Fazl's theory of Akbar's gradual “unveiling” of himself as “the superman”, through the introduction, one after another, of his policies based on the principles of Sulh-i Kul and universal kingship.
The Republic of the Nāyas
Authors: Sharma J. P.
Published: March 2011

If it were not for the birth of Mahāvīra amongst the Nāya-Khattiyas of Kuṇḍapura, we should probably never have heard of this people. It is mainly in connexion with the last Tīsrthaṅkara of the Jainas and the doctrine of severe asceticism which he expounded that we find a few references to the Nāyas and some scanty allusions to their political institutions in the sacred books of the Jainas, the Pāli Canon, the commentaries on these texts, and some later epigraphic records. No study of their political institutions has yet been undertaken, but the scattered data collected from these sources do present a fairly cohesive whole; though some points remain vague owing to the dearth of material.
Ayudhyā and the Rearward Part of the World
Authors: Wolters O. W.
Published: March 2011

The Thai kingdom of Ayudhyā endured several periods of crisis during its long history from 1350 to 1767, but the crisis which will concern us here happened in 1592. During that year the king, Nareśvara, was well aware that he lived in a hostile world of unusually wide dimensions. His behaviour will be discussed as a basis for a brief consideration of Ayudhyā's attitude towards the world, a subject of more than diplomatic interest.
Bubu'tu and Birdu Lesions in Akkadian Texts
Authors: Adamson P. B.
Published: March 2011

It has always been difficult to make a diagnosis in retrospect from the sparse facts that are provided in the written records from antiquity, especially those from ancient Mesopotamia. To add to our troubles, the semantic range of meaning of individual words may permit diverse interpretations in any given sentence, and the context in which they occur then becomes important. Only too often the text may be damaged or incomplete; very rarely does a scribe give full medical details about diagnosis, although it is common to find detailed instructions concerning therapy. One of the reasons for this deficiency is that the Babylonian scribes tended to state first the problem and then the solution in their scientific texts, the intermediate steps being reached by a process apparently well known to themselves (but not to us), or by oral transmission.
The Eastern Auxiliaries of the Magyars
Authors: Macartney C. A.
Published: March 2011

There is no recognized English term for the peoples with which this paper deals. The Hungarians themselves call them the “keleti segédnépek”, the Germans, the “östliche Hilfsvölker”. The adjective “eastern” excludes the German or Serb “auxiliaries” who sometimes figure in Hungarian history; but the Magyars did not apply the term just to any people who happened to have entered Hungary via its eastern frontier. They never ranked a Russian, nor, indeed, any Slav immigrant as an auxiliary, nor a Vlach, nor a Jew. They reserved the term for peoples of the same sort of mores and social structure, military organization, and at least apparently kindred ethnic origin as the Magyars themselves, what may be called, roughly, nomadic or quasi-nomadic steppe peoples. They drew a fairly clear distinction between such peoples and others, treating the former at least as near-equals and easily admitting them to full equality. After this had happened, the auxiliaries usually assimilated very easily with the Magyars, so that their later history is often difficult to trace. They played, however, a considerable part—larger than is often recognized—in the national history, and indeed formed a larger component than is usually recognized of the so-called Magyar people themselves; even of the invaders who crossed the Carpathians, under Magyar leadership, at the end of the 9th century a.d.
Sanskrit Śáṣpa- and Bāṣpa-
Authors: Burrow T.
Published: March 2011

The general rules for the development of cerebral -ṣ- in Sanskrit account for its appearance after k, r, ṛ, i, and u, and in this case the statements of historical phonology correspond to the elementary rules of Sanskrit grammar. There exist, however, a certain number of words in which cerebral -ṣ- appears after an a-vowel (a or ā), which remain to be accounted for. A certain number of these are taken care of by Fortunatov's law (e.g. pāṣāṇa- “stone”: Germ. Fels) but they form a minority of the group. Certain other such words (e.g. jálāṣa- “refreshing”, mā́ṣa- “bean”) I have dealt with in an article to be published elsewhere. The two words which appear in the title of this article differ from the other words in question inasmuch as the -ṣ- is the first member of a consonant group, and its explanation is dependent on this fact.
Notes on the New Aśoka Inscription from Kandahar
Authors: Shaked Shaul
Published: March 2011

The new inscription of Aśoka from Kandahar, published by Émile Benveniste and André Dupont-Sommer, forms, together with the one stemming from Pul-i Darunteh (Lamghān) published by W. B. Henning, a special class of Aśoka inscriptions. Both these inscriptions are bilingual, but they do not belong to the common type of bilingual documents, in which the text of each language is separately inscribed on a different part of the stone's surface. Here the two languages are mixed, each short section in one language is followed by one in the other language. The two languages involved, both written in Aramaic characters, are Aramaic and Middle Indian (Prākrit).
The First Parthian Ostracon from Iran
Authors: Bivar A. D. H.
Published: March 2011

The ostracon from the Qūmis excavation (Pl. I) bears inked characters in the Parthian script, and is palaeographically comparable with the numerous ostraca from the excavations at Nisā in Soviet Turkmenistan. Many of these bear dates reckoned according to the Arsacid Era of 247 b.c., typical figures being a.e. 194 (52 b.c.), a.e. 216 (30 b.c.), and so on. The Qūmis ostracon is thus likely also to belong to the 1st century b.c. The transliteration table for this script has been prepared by Diakonov and Starkova. Entirely diagnostic of Parthian, as against other derivatives of the Aramaic script, is the sloping left and bowed right leg of the letter pē, seen twice in the fourth line of the fragment.
A piece of scale armour from Shaikhān Dherī, Chārsada (shaikhān dherī studies, 1)
Authors: Allchin F. R.
Published: March 2011

Among the many notable finds of the first season of the ill-starred collaboration of Cambridge and Peshawar Universities in excavations at Shaikhān Dherī, Chārsada, in the autumn of 1963, those in the house or shrine D were outstanding. Here in one of the symmetrical and well oriented insulae of the city was discovered a small building constructed of brick and diaper masonry, probably in early Kushān times, and destroyed around the time of Vāsudeva. The destruction was a result of fire and there was every sign that the building had been hastily stripped of its more valuable contents, if not actually looted, before the final collapse of the roof. In the main and largest room, of some 22 by 18 feet, beneath the fallen ceiling, were a remarkable collection of objects, scattered in disarray and including two seated Buddha figures, a standing Bodhisattva, a seated Hariiti, and a small figure of a four-armed city goddess, all being typical examples of the Gandhāran style and in Gandhāran schist; carved stone relic caskets and stūpas, one inscribed in Kharoṣṭhī; a remarkable relic casket of a fine schist, carved in the form of a cruciform building with four vaulted arms and a central circular opening rabbeted to take a now missing lid which was almost certainly in the form of a dome, the ends of the vaults being carved with miniature reliefs of scenes from the life of the Buddha; and a small broken sculpture in Mathurā sandstone of a seated Buddha in the style of the celebrated Mathurā Katrā Keśava Deva figure. It is a matter of great concern and regret that the proper publication of all this important material has been so long delayed, and that it has not been possible for this extremely productive and important excavation to proceed.
The sculptures of Bahrām II
Authors: Herrmann Georgina
Published: March 2011

Many scholars in the last 150 years have applied themselves to problems posed in dating the rock reliefs of the Sasanian kings. Steady progress has been made and we have now reached a stage when most, but not all, sculptures can be assigned, with reasonable certainty, to the various kings. However, the closer dating and the identification of the context of the reliefs are still hotly disputed. This paper, written in honour of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who has long been interested in Iranian studies, attempts to examine the stylistic development of the sculptures of Bahrām II (a.d. 276–93) in the hope that this will at least establish the order in which he commissioned the reliefs during his reign of seventeen years. It has been a surprising feature of earlier studies of the sculpture of specific Sasanian kings that little or no attempt has been made to ascertain developments in style during the course of a reign. The author has already attempted this for the sculpture of Ardashīr and Shāhpūr; the same methods are here applied to the reliefs of Bahrām II. Only after such an examination can there be any hope of solving the many outstanding problems of dating and identification.
The English East India Company and Society in the Maritime Provinces of Ceylon 1796–1802
Authors: Wickremeratne U. C.
Published: March 2011

The importance of this period which marks the beginning of British rule in Ceylon is that its study furnishes an opportunity to observe the formation of incipient relationships between the government and the governed and to analyse their nature. The relationships entered into were with social groups and not with individuals. The social groups were not treated equally. The rule of law was not the basis of this government. The overriding desire of the government was to adapt its rule to the ideas and institutions of the indigenous society or, to be more accurate, the indigenous societies. In this process the caste system with its discrimination between caste and its strictures applied to the low castes was upheld and maintained by the government with all the resources at its command.
General Avitabile and the Vaishnava Establishment at Dhyanpur
Authors: Goswamy B. N.
Published: March 2011

There appears, on the face of it, little that could connect a Neapolitan soldier with a religious establishment in a small village in the Gurdaspur district of the Punjab in India. The connexion appears even more unlikely when that Neapolitan soldier happens to be General Paolo di Avitabile, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, of the Order of Merit of San Ferdinand of Naples, of the Durrani order of Afghanistan, Grand Cordon of the Lion and the Sun and of the Two Lions and Crown of Persia, of the Auspicious Order of the Punjab; and the religious establishment, the Vaishnava gaddī of Dhyanpur on which sat generations of mahants of a retiring disposition. But the connexion is none the less firm, as will be seen in the four documents presented in this article, and becomes easier of comprehension when one knows that General Avitabile was a military adventurer who rose in 1829 to the position of Governor of Wazīrābād in the Punjab under Mahārāja Ranjīt Singh, an area where the gaddī of Dhyanpur held some lands, free of revenue, from the local authority. The position becomes even more intelligible in the light of the fact that the Dhyanpur gaddī was of wide celebrity and had consistently received homage as much from the local population as from the Mahārāja.
An Examination of some Plant-Names and Identities in India
Authors: Marr John R.
Published: March 2011

Isaac Burkill, the scholar whose birth-centenary we are commemorating, has excellently surveyed the history of botanical activities in India. His Chapters on the history of botany in India originally appeared as separate articles in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society from December 1953 onwards. More recently, the Botanical Survey of India responded to a general wish by publishing these articles in book form, revised by Burkill himself, his revision being completed in the 93rd year of his long and fruitful life.
An Unknown Arabic Poem on Joseph and his Brethren
Authors: Ebied R. Y. , Young M. J. L.
Published: March 2011

The purpose of this paper is to draw the attention of scholars to the existence of a hitherto unknown Arabic poem concerned with the subject of Joseph and his brethren, which was discovered in 1972 in an uncatalogued manuscript in the possession of the Department of Semitic Studies of the University of Leeds.
Excavations at Shahr-I Qūmis, 1971
Authors: Hansman John , Stronach David
Published: March 2011

The second season of excavations at Shahr-i Qūmis began in August, and continued until early October, 1971. Work was resumed at mounds IV and VII, cleared in part in 1967, and new excavations were begun at two further sites, V and XIII. The directors are again most grateful for the close co-operation extended to the project by H.E. Mr. Mehrdad Pahlbod, Minister of Culture; by Mr. A. Pourmand, Director General of the Iranian Archaeological Service; and by Dr. T. Naimi, Director of the Service. Mr. B. Babek represented the Service on the excavations. In addition to the directors, those who participated in the excavations were Dr. A. D. H. Bivar, Miss E. Alexander, Mr. R. Biscione, Miss C. Marten, Mr. G. Payne, Mr. M. Roaf, Mrs. M. Sturz, and Mr. and Mrs. S. Swiny. Major support for the project was given by the National Geographic Society and the Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum.
A Propos Sanskrit Mālākanda
Authors: Emmerick R. E.
Published: March 2011

In 1970 I was privileged to hear in the rooms of the Linnaean Society the Burkill Memorial Lecture delivered by J. R. Marr. His discursive but interesting paper “An examination of some plant-names and identities in India” has now appeared in JRAS, 1972, 40–56. On the last page of that paper the Sanskrit word mālākanda is discussed, and its properties are described in a Sanskrit verse quoted from a “Malayāḷam ‘herbal’”, which apparently was published in Trivandrum in 1950. Marr provides a translation of the verse. I was, on reading it, immediately struck by the odd property attributed to mālākanda of “destroying perfumed garlands”, not at all the sort of property one normally finds in Indian medical sources.
Anatomical and Pathological terms in Akkadian: Part I
Authors: Adamson P. B.
Published: March 2011

Although numerous Akkadian words and phrases referring to the anatomy of the human body have been discussed previously, many gaps still remain in our knowledge of this subject. A few of these still unidentified Akkadian words are discussed in this article, and tentative interpretations are supplied for them.
Hieroglyphic Hittite: Some New Readings and their Consequences
Authors: Hawkins J. D. , Morpurgo-Davies A.
Published: March 2011

This paper is concerned with the phonetic values of four important Hieroglyphic signs: ↑ (HH, Nos. 376, 377) and (HH, Nos. 209, 210). To ↑ and the values i and a were ascribed long before the discovery of the Karatepe bilingual in 1948. On the other hand the differentiation of the second sign of each pair, viz. and , by the double stroke has never been fully explained. Conventionally the signs were transcribed as ī and ā, and this transcription has now become canonical, though there is no reason to believe that the distinction between, e.g., ↑ and is one of length.
Tasks, Methods and Results in the Study of the Indus Script
Authors: Parpola Asko
Published: March 2011

The Indus script is at present known from about 3,000 inscriptions with an average length of only five signs. The longest continuous text (1400) comprises only 17 characters divided over three lines. There are no bilingual inscriptions. Also, direct historical data relating to the Indus civilization are extremely scanty, being limited to the scarce references in cuneiform texts of the 3rd and early 2nd millennia B.C. to trade and other contacts with Meluḫḫha, the most distant country known to the Mesopotamians of those times, whose identity with the Indus civilization at the period in question is now widely accepted. More texts in the Indus script are, and will be, forthcoming from recent and imminent excavations, and perhaps the excavations that are under way in ancient Lagaš will bring to light the long-expected bilingual, possibly in the form of a cuneiform document mentioning Meluḫḫan proper names and bearing the impression of an Indus seal. In the absence of such a clue, the prospects of ever understanding the Indus script have generally been considered rather meagre. This pessimistic attitude has long been obstructing progress in the study of the Indus script. The very first point I should like to make is, that despite the scantiness of the material, it is indeed possible to promote our knowledge in many ways, and that important results are sure to come from more work by more people. One of our greatest needs at the moment is an increase of interest in the Indus script, and the coordination of scholarly efforts.
L'Inscription Sabéenne Chrétienne Istanbul 7608 BIS
Authors: Ryckmans Par Jacques
Published: March 2011

L'intérêt historique considérable du texte Istanbul 7608 bis, publié avec une photographie par G. Ryckmans en 1946, a été souligné par les nombreux commentateurs qui ont étudié cette inscription, gravée au champlevé comme presque tous les textes monumentaux de l'époque récente. Sur la photographie publiée par G. Ryckmans, l'eclairage vient d'en bas. Dans les textes en relief de ce genre, l'œil ne perçoit correctement la sensation du relief que sous un éclairage venu d'en haut, comme dans la nature, de sorte que l'impression exacte du relief n'est généralement obtenue qu'en retournant le texte tête en bas, ce qui rend la lecture malaisée. Les planches jointes au présent article répondent au besoin impérieux de photographies correctement éclairées.
The spread of rabies into Europe and the probable origin of this disease in antiquity
Authors: Adamson P. B.
Published: March 2011

An outbreak of rabies among silver foxes in Poland in 1939 has led to widespread dissemination of the disease in animals throughout most of the countries of Europe, and has stimulated intensive study of the rabies virus.