bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Art. XIII.—The Origin and Early History of Chess
Authors: Macdonell A. A.
Published: March 2011

No game occupies so important a position in the history of the world as that of chess. It is not only at the present day, but has been for many centuries, the most cosmopolitan of pastimes; and though one of the oldest known to civilization, it is yet undoubtedly the most intellectual. Long familiar to all the countries of the East, it has also been played for hundreds of years throughout Europe, whence it has spread to the New World, and wherever else European culture has found a footing. A map indicating the diffusion of chess over the habitable globe would therefore show hardly any blanks. Probably no other pastime of any kind can claim so many periodicals devoted exclusively to its discussion; certainly no other has given rise to so extensive a literature. The influence of chess may be traced in the poetry of the Middle Ages, in the idioms of most modern European languages, in the science of arithmetic, and even in the art of heraldry. An investigation as to its origin, development, and early diffusion therefore forms a not unimportant chapter in the history of civilization.
Art. III—Notes on Persian MSS. in Indian Libraries
Authors: Beveridge H.
Published: March 2011

I. The Mullā Fīrūz Library, Bombay.—This owes its existence to the liberality and public spirit of Mullā Fīrūz b. Kawus, a Parsi ecclesiastic and a friend of Jonathan Duncan, for whom he wrote the poem called the Georgenāma. The library is open to the public, but it seems to be little known to the citizens. It is situated in the native part of the town, in a lane off the Kalka Devi Road, and is near the Roman Catholic Cathedral. There is a printed catalogue (Bombay, 1873) by E. Rehatsek, a Hungarian scholar, who lived for many years in Bombay, and who died there in December, 1891.
Man-istisu, in the Temple of Sara
Authors: Pinches Theophilus G.
Published: March 2011

Though of no great importance in itself, one of the tablets of the Harding Smith collection, numbered W.H.S. 122, is nevertheless worthy of notice, owing to the frequent mention made of a personage, to whom gifts were apparently made, named Man-ištisu. As this name only differs from that of the now well-known king of Ki, Man-ištusu, by the substitution of i for u in the third syllable, the identity of the two spellings seems certain, and it is possible that they are forms of the name of one and the same ruler. His capital, Kiš, is now represented by the mounds of Oheimer, about 20 miles east of the ruins of Babylon. Peters describes the site as consisting of a reddish hill, with many elevations to the west and north.
Babylonian Ritual and Sacrificial Offerings
Authors: Pinches Theophilus G.
Published: March 2011

Among the more interesting tablets of the Berens collection of Babylonian tablets is one of more than usual interest, in that it gives directions as to the offerings to be made to the principal deities of the land.
A Passage in the Mesha Inscription, and the Early Form of the Israelitish Divine Name
Authors: Cowley A.
Published: March 2011

Line 18 of the Moabite Stone is frequently quoted as the only early instance of the use of the divine name outside Israel. The sentence runs as follows: By comparison with 1.12 the lacuna was filled by , which Mr.Clermont-Ganneau long-ago rejected. In 1. 12 is singular, its meaning is obscure, and it is used with the verb or , which is also obscure. Here the verb is and would be plural. The two passages are therefore clearly not parallel and the reading is not convincing. Hence it has been proposed more recently to read “the instruments of J.”, a very weak phrase. As a matter of fact I believe that the passage in to be understood in quite a different way, and I suggest the reading “and I took from thence what should be for myself (i.e. my own share, as king)”. In order to see if the original would admit of such a reading, I made a careful examination of the stone in the Louvre in April, 1914, when Mr. René Dussaud most kindly put all the material at my disposal. At the end of 1. 17 nothing is left on the stone after . The squeeze supplies , after which there is a stroke | which may belong to an aleph (usually printed as certain), and with a little good will I thought I could see a trace of its head. The lines are not all of equal length. There would be room for , or, if the line is long, . At the beginning of 1.18 is clear. The verb“to be” does not occur elsewhere in the inscription, so that we do not know its form in the dialect of Moab. But in Isaiah 164(“the burden of Moab”)it has been suggested that is used in imitation of Moabite speech. If so, the verb was written with a .
Linguistic Affinities of Syrian Arabic
Authors: Driver G. R.
Published: March 2011

The dialect of the Arabic language which is spoken at the present day in Syria and Palestine has preserved many forms which bear a close relationship with the ancient languages which were formerly current in those countries. The origin of these peculiarities, which deviate from the canons of classical Arabic and which for the most part do not occur in Egyptian Arabic, is chiefly to be sought in Syriac, though many forms show the influence of Hebrew and Samaritan. Many of these resemblances, of course, are of an intangible kind, depending merely on the pronunciation of the vowels; in several cases, however, there is a definite change in the consonants, in which a return to some earlier dialect is seen.
Gujarati Phonology
Authors: Turner R. L.
Published: March 2011

1. In India, perhaps as much as in any linguistic area, we are faced with an extensive mixture of dialects from the earliest times. The conditions have seldom been such as make for the evolution of a number of sharply differentiated languages. Constant invasions, the movements of great armies, the attraction of vast crowds of pilgrims from distant parts to centres of religious worship, the far wanderings of innumerable ascetics, the influence on illiterate peoples of travelling bards, the absence in the great plains of the north at least of pronounced natural boundaries, the continual interplay of kingdom with kingdom, a district being now in this political area now in that—these conditions have all made for widespread borrowings in language, the extension of common linguistic changes over large areas and the formation of common mixed languages, of which modern Hindōstānī, spoken and understood in varying degree over the whole of northern and central India, is an excellent example.
Four Sanskrit Plays
Authors: Thomas F. W.
Published: March 2011

Professor Konow in his work on the Indian Drama (Grundrissder Indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, ii, 2 D, 1920) gives an account of the Sanskrit bhāna as follows:

“ A popular origin belongs to the bhāna also. The subject matter is due to the author's invention; the vrtti is predominantly the bhāratī, the kaisikī, at any rate, being excluded, and of the ‘junctions ’ (sandhi) only the first (mukha) and the last (nirvahana) appear. The leading interests (rasa) are the heroic (vīra) and the erotic (śrngāra), which are evoked by the description of heroisms and fortune in love. The whole is enacted by a single actor, who appears as a rake (vita), and indeed as the rake-in-chief of the city. He describes partly his own experiences, partly those of others, employing ākāsabhāsitas, voices in the air (ākāse), that is, he pretends to see and hear others act and speak and asks ‘what do you say ?', himself then repeating the imagined answer. He accompanies this with the appropriate gestures. It is clear that the bhāna is a development from the pantomime or mimetic dance, and so it is intelligible that the Iāsyāngais employed.”
Faraḥ-nāma of Shaikhī
Authors: Martinovitch Nicholas N.
Published: March 2011

Turning over the sheets of some of my old books I found a very complicated question in the field of Ottoman poetry which I wish to discuss below.

The late Russian orientalist, V. D. Smirnov, in the second edition of his Turkish Chrestomathy, published a number of extracts from a Turkish (Ottoman) poem mathnawi entitled . In the preface he makes the following explanatory note concerning this poem (the square brackets are mine): “the extracts (pp. 433–437) are from , Budapest manuscript No. 24, dated 928/1522. And in the title of the codex we read, and in the text the author, many times mentioning himself, names himself (f. 13v., 120r., 210r.), (f. 107v.); thus it is certain that this work, written in 829/1425 is by Moḥammad ban Ṣāliḥ Bījān (+1449), the author of the famous Turkish religious poem . But neither in the European catalogues, nor in [the book of] Ḥājjī Khalīfa is there mentioned such a work with the name of Yāzījī Oghlī. The last [Ḥājjī Khalīfa] remarks quite vaguely that is a Turkish work in verses, belonging to Shaikh Zāda, who wrote it in the reign of the Sultan Yildirim (Ḥ.Kh. iv, 412, No. 9007). The poem of Ibn Khaṭīb is extremely interesting because of its archaic language and orthography, as well as because the religious-didactic thoughts of the author, which are contained in it, in the spirit and style of the Mawlawi works, like, for instance, of 'Āshiq, but, perhaps, with a little greater fanatical Moslem passion and enmity towards non-Moslems, especially Christians (for example, f. 128r., 209a–210).”
The Ta'rīkh al-islām of adh-Dhahabī
Authors: de Somogyi Joseph
Published: March 2011

In Arabic literature there is hardly any separation between works on political history and historical biography. This is due to the two sources from which historical traditions are derived: the sīra-literature dealing with the life of the prophet Muḥammad and the rather legendary traditions on the tribal warfare of the jāhiliyya known as ayyām al-'arab. It was on this double basis that Arabic historiography had gradually been built up. On the one hand, parallel to the sīra-literature, there developed the so-called ṭabaqāt-literature containing biographies first on the companions of Muḥammad ('ilm ar-rijāl), then on all sorts of illustrious men arranged into classes (ṭabaqāt) according to the year of their death. The Kitāb aṭ-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr of Ibn Sa'd az-Zuhrī (died in 230/845) was the first standard work of this kind of literature, which flourished especially in the post-classical period of Arabic literature in the increasing quantity of ṭabaqāt-works on rulers, theologians, jurisconsults, and poets.
Art. IV.—Report read in July, 1840, at the Literary Institution of the Séchelles Islands
Authors: Bernard Pierre
Published: March 2011

Lodoïcea Sechellarum, of Labillardière and Commerson; Lodoïcea inermis, of Persoon; Cocos Maldivica, of Gmelin; Borassus macrocarpus, of Sonnerat, vulgarly called “Rondier des Séchelles,” the Sea Cocoa-nut of the Maldives or Séchelles: a genus of monocotyledonous plants, of the family of Palms, belonging to the class Diœcia monadelphia, of the sexual system of Linnæus.
Art. XVI—Experiments on the Dhak Gond, a natural Exudation of the Butea Frondosa
Authors: Solly E.
Published: March 2011

This substance, which although it differs in some particulars from the Kino which is found in the shops, yet as it agrees in its most important properties with what has so long been described under that name, it is most convenient to call it Butea Kino.
Art. XXIX.—A Letter to Richard Clarke, Esq., &c., &c., &c., Honorary Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, on a MS. of the Jámi al Tawáríkh of Rashíd al Dín, preserved in the Library of the Honourable East India Company
Authors: Morley William H.
Published: March 2011

In the year 1838 I had the good fortune to discover, amongst the MSS. preserved in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, a volume containing portions of the Jámi al Tawárikh, previously supposed to have been lost; and in the following year I had the honour of laying before the Society an account of my discovery, which was subsequently printed in their Journal. After I had written this account, and whilst it was passing through the press, Professor Forbes found another and more considerable portion of the same work in the collection of MSS, of the late Colonel Baillie, which was, singularly enough, written by the same hand, and evidently had formed part of the identical volume that I had previously met with. Professor Forbes gave a description of the MS. of Colonel Baillie in the same volume of the Journal. These fragments were in the Arabic language, and were translations from the original Persian work.
Art. VII.—Remarks on the present state of Buddhism in China
Authors: Gutzlaff C. , Sykes W. H.
Published: March 2011

[The following paper upon the present state of Buddhism in China, by the late Dr. Gutzlaff, was drawn up at my request, and was received by me scarcely a fortnight before the intelligence of his death arrived. He appears to picture the practice of Buddhism as it now meets the eye in China, rather than as inculcated in the precepts of its founder; and in consequence both clergy and laity testify to the corruptions which have gradually disfigured its primitive character. Dr. Gutzlaff's very strong language with respect to the ignorance, selfish habits, chicanery, mendacity, mendicancy, and idleness of the priesthood (mendicancy and contemplation, however, being ordinances of Buddhism), contrasted with his conflicting statements that the priesthood is generally despised yet popular, may have been influenced by his religious enthusiasm, which, although he had ceased to labour as a missionary, manifested itself to the last in his connexion with the Chinese Christian Union. Dr. GutzlafT does not give much that is new with respect to Buddhism, but the paper is interesting as a resumé, and affords corroborative evidence to the writings of others. His account of the Páli works in Chinese characters discourages us from the expectation of learning much from them; but in case a few of them conld be transcribed according to the sounds into some known character, they would become legible to a good Páli scholar. But he says there are a few works in a character originally used for writing Páli, and they may be considered faithful transcripts of the earliest writings of Buddhism.
Art. 1.—On the Language of the so-called Kāfirs of the Indian Caucasus
Authors: Trumpp Ernest
Published: March 2011

For the subject of the following Essay, I am indebted to the kindness of Colonel Herbert Edwardes, C.B., late Commissioner of Peshawar. When I was stationed at Peshawar (1859), I heard that Major Lumsden, at Mardān (in the country of the Yusufzies), was trying to collect a corps of Kāfirs, and that he had already succeeded in getting three men of this remarkable race. I lost, therefore, no time in soliciting Colonel Edwardes to beg Major Lumsden to send these Kafirs to Peshawar for a few days, in order that I might have an opportunity to examine them personally. Colonel Edwardes kindly responded to my request, and, in a few days after, I had the pleasure to see the representatives of a race, which has excited so much curiosity in travellers and Oriental scholars.
Art. VII.—Assyrian Texts Translated
Authors: Talbot H. F.
Published: March 2011

This very important inscription is written on a cylinder in the British Museum, generally known as Taylor's Cylinder, from the name of its former possessor. For many years it was supposed to be lost, which would have been a great misfortune to archaeological science, since the only copy which had been made of it was a rubbing, or impression on paper, in the possession of Sir II. Rawlinson, which had become partly illegible from time. It was, however, at last discovered to be in private hands in London, and was purchased by the British Museum.
Art. XIII.—On the Vedic Conception of the Earth.—Atharva Veda, xii.1.
Authors: Bruce Charles
Published: March 2011

The following paper contains a translation of a Hymn to the Earth, from the Atharva-Veda, followed by some remarks on the structure of the original composition, whichthe translator conceivesto be made up of verses (in different metres) drawn from different quarters and thrown together by the compiler. The translator then proceeds to explain the conception of the earth which the hymn exhibits, and to compare therewith some representations of ancient Greek writers on the same subject.
Art. VIII.—On the Treatment of the Nexus in the Neo-Âryan Languages of India
Authors: Beames John
Published: March 2011

In the following remarks the term “nexus” is employed to denote a conjunction of two or more consonants in one word without the intervention of a vowel, as kt, dhy, rn, etc.

I divide the neo-Âryan languages of India into two classes. The Prâkrits and Pâli are called the “languages of the first period;” Hindî, Bengâlî, Ûriyâ, Panjâbî, Marâṭhî, Sindhî, Gujarâtî, are the “languages of the second period.”
Art. V.—Contribution to the Study of the Jewish-Arabic Dialect of the Maghreb
Authors: Hirschfeld Hartwig
Published: March 2011

In the 18th vol. of the Zeihchrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft the late Prof. Fleischer published a specimen of the Jewish Arabic Literature in the Maghreb. Considering the fearful state of oppression in which the Jews of this country live, we have, of course, not to deal with great productions, yet these pieces offer a certain philological interest and give, although the external form seems rather neglected, another proof for the assertion of the Freiherr V. Maltzan (Z. d. M. Gesell. vol. xxvii. pp. 232 ff.) that Arabic in Maghreb comes nearer to that in the Arabic mother country than the Egyptian dialect.
Art. VI.—Pāṇini, Poet and Grammarian: With some Remarks on the Age of Sanskrit Classical Poetry
Authors: Peterson
Published: March 2011

In the course of a first reading of Vallabhadeva's Subhā-shitāvali I came upon the following verses ascribed by Vallabhadeva to “Pāṇini.”
The Temple of the Oxus
Authors: Litvinskiy B. A. , Pichikiyan I. R.
Published: March 2011

The archeological discoveries made on the territory of Bactria – one of the largest states formed in antiquity, which united in a single historical and cultural region the lands of the modern Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, together with Afghanistan – can be divided into three stages.

The first episode to create a world sensation opened with the chance find in 1877 of the Oxus Treasure, which contained 200 Achaemenid gold and silver objects of high artistic quality, and some 1,500 coins. Then in 1963 came the discovery of the Graeco-Bactrian town of Ay Khanum in northern Afghanistan. Though this excavation is not yet complete, the French archeological mission has succeeded in defining the structural principles, the planning solutions, the relics of written culture, and the Greek way of life of the ancient city. That is to say, the essential of what is accessible to archeology and historical research. Some parallels to the Ay Khanum discoveries were yielded by excavations at Saksanokhur in south Tajikistan, where a palace-temple complex was uncovered. Finally came the third stage: the operations of the Soviet-Afghan expedition of 1979 that brough to light in the north of Afghanistan, near Shibarghan, at Tilla Tepe “the Golden Mound”, masterpieces of ancient jewellery of the 1st century B.C. to the 1st A.D., comprising 20,000 golden ornaments.
Prajāpati andprāyaścitta
Authors: Gonda J.
Published: March 2011

As already observed by one of my predecessors, the ordinary or most usual, and probably also oldest or originalkṛcchra, penance or rite of atonement or expiation (prāyaścitta), consisting in bodily mortifications, was in course of time given another name, viz.prājāpatya. The close relation to the creator god Prajāpati suggested by this name was explained by a reference to the Indian tradition according to which this god had as the first “produced his sindestroying secret”, which came to be the model for thousands of other purificatory rites (BDh4, 8, 5). However, a thorough investigation of the relevant Vedic texts sheds new light upon atonement and expiation as objects of Prajāpati's concern.
Art. V.—Contributions to a Knowledge of the Vedic Theogony and Mythology
Authors: Muir J.
Published: March 2011

In the fourth volume of my Sanskrit Texts I have collected the principal passages of the Vedic Hymns which refer to the origin of the universe, and to the characters of the gods Hiraṇyagarbha, Viṣvakarman, Vishṇu, Rudra, and the goddess Ambikâ; and have compared the representations there given of these deities with the later stories and speculations on the same subjects which are to be found in the Brâahmaṇas, and in the mythological poems of a more modern date. In the course of these researches, I have also introduced occasional notices of some of the other Vedic deities, such as Aditi, Indra, Varuṇa, etc.
Art. XII.—On the Jyotisha Observation of the Place of the Colures, and the Date derivable from it
Authors: Whitney William D.
Published: March 2011

Colebrooke, in his celebrated essay “On the Vedas, or Sacred Writings of the Hindus” (As. Researches, vol. viii.; Misc. Essays, vol. i.), was the first to direct general attention to the now familiarly known passage of the Jyotisha relative to the position of the solstices in the Hindu lunar zodiac, and to derive from it a date for use in determining the doubtful chronology of the earliest period of literary productiveness in India. His conclusion is expressed as follows: “Hence it is clear, that Dhanishṣhâ and Aslesha are the constellations meant; and that, when this Hindu calendar was regulated, the solstitial points were reckoned to be at the beginning of the one, and in the middle of the other: and such was the situation of those cardinal points in the fourteenth century before the Christian era” (Misc. Essays, vol. i., pp. 109–110). He had a little before (ibid., p. 106) declared that he “inclined to think, that the ceremonies called yajña, and the prayers to be recited at those ceremonies [namely, the prayers constituting the sanhitâs of the three older Vedas], are as old as the calendar.”
Art. XIV.—Brief Notes on the Age and Authenticity of the Works of Âryabhaṭa, Varâhamihira, Brahmagupta, Bhaṭṭotpala, and Bhâskarâchârya
Authors: Dâjî Bhâu
Published: March 2011

The name of this celebrated astronomer is written either Âryabhaṭa or Âryabhaṭṭa, but generally with one ṭ only. In an old manuscript of the Brahma Sphuṭa Siddhânta of Brahmagupta, copied in Samvat 1678, or A.D. 1621, the name occurs about thirty-three times, and is invariably written Âryabhata; and a double ṭ cannot be introduced without violating the Âryâ metre.
Art. XIV.—The Rock-Cut Caves and Statues of Bamian
Authors: Talbot M. G. , Maitland P. J. , Simpson W.
Published: March 2011

The letter which is about to be read, not having been prepared for submission to the Society, may require a few introductory explanations.

Bámíán, a site of considerable fame in the travels and expeditions of the last sixty or seventy years, stands at a height of some 8500 feet, in a valley of the region occupied by Hazára tribes, on the chief road between Kabul and Turkestan, and almost close to the northern base of that part of the Indian Caucasus which is known, from one of its prominent peaks, as Koh-i-bábá.
Art. XVIII.—The Arrangement of the Hymns of the Adi Granth
Authors: Pincott Frederic
Published: March 2011

Exactly two years ago it was my good fortune to lay before this Society my discovery of the system on which the hymns of the Rig-Veda were arranged,—a discovery of the highest interest to the student of the Vedas, not only by throwing unexpected light on ancient philosophical theology; but by giving back to the world the Liturgy of the ancient Brahmans,—all knowledge of the true character of which had been lost, even in India itself, for about 3000 years. Again I appear before you in the character of Veda-Vyasa, in order to lay before you the system on which the hymns of the Adi Granth are arranged.
Art. XIX.—Ancient Sculptures in China
Authors: Douglas R. K.
Published: March 2011

Hitherto China has yielded few sculptured figures which can be regarded as of importance by students of comparative archæology. More than usual interest therefore attaches to a set of engravings collected in a Chinese work entitled Shih Soh (1806), in which are represented a series of sculptures which stand on the walls of the sacrificial temple of the Wu family in the neighbourhood of the district city of Kia-seang in the province of Shan-tung. These works of art were executed in A.D. 147, at the cost of the two sons of Wu Liang, whose sacrificial temple they were intended permanently to adorn.
Art. VIII.—Notes on the ancient City of Balabhipura
Authors: Nicholson B. A. R.
Published: March 2011

In travelling through the eastern part of the province of Kattiawar, and in that division of it called Goheilwar (See Fig. A), after having traversed an extensive, perfectly level, and for the most part a desert plain, in a course from the north-west to the south-east, I found myself suddenly passing through a jungly tract of country, the vegetation of which, with the exception of gramina, was entirely composed of pílu bushes or trees, as they are named in the north-west of India—the ark, of the Arabs (Salvadora Persica of Linnæus). The surface of the country, through which my route had previously lain, was dotted here and there with a solitary tree of the Acacia Arabica, and consisted of a very deep alluvial soil, as evinced by the banks of several nalas and small river-courses, many of these containing a good volume of water; but from the almost complete level on which they run, all are very sluggish in their movements. Most of these streams, and also of the soil, are impregnated with salt, which in some parts covers the surface of the earth with an efflorescence like that of a strong hoar-frost. These streams all run to the eastward, to empty themselves into the gulf of Cambay; but, long ere reaching it, most of them are lost in the soft sandy soil in the vicinity of that arm of the sea.
Art. X.—An Account of the Paper Currency and Banking System of Fuhchowfoo
Authors: Parkes H.
Published: March 2011

Among the various wonderful inventions, marking the astonishing advances which the Chinese had so early made towards civilization, is that of Paper-Money, which dates as far back as the year 119 before our era. The cause that led to its introduction was the low state of the finances of the Government, who, after various other experiments, issued at last regular paper assignats, which, from the ponderous nature of the rude coin then in use, and the security that the warranty of government afforded, soon obtained extensive circulation. The government who had thus introduced this new currency, made it an object of much legislation; and various were the schemes that were started and remoulded, in the hope of permanently establishing its use. But the numerous intestine wars, and the repeated subversion of dynasties that followed, tended seriously to detract from the credit of the government; and thus, owing to its bad faith, and the excessive issues, a complete failure of the system was the result, after a lapse of five centuries having been spent in unsuccessful attempts to establish it. Government paper-money seems to have disappeared in the early part of the late Ming dynasty; and the Manchus, on their accession, never attempted to revive its use. To Klaproth we are indebted for very elaborate researches on this interesting and oft-discussed subject.
Art. XII.—An Account of the Religion of the Khonds in Orissa
Authors: Macpherson S. Chartres
Published: March 2011

When the people which spread the Brahminical religion and institutions from the valley of the Ganges, extended them, by migration and conquest, over the Indian peninsula, large portions of the primitive population remained unsubdued and unconverted where physical circumstances specially favoured their resistance to force and to the pressure of moral influences; and, accordingly, numerous remnants of them are now seen, scattered widely under the most various aspects, and often under highly interesting relations to the dominant people.
Art. III.—Legends chiefly from the Śatapatha Brāhmana
Authors: Muir J.
Published: March 2011

The Brāhmanas may be generally described as occupying an intermediate position, both as regards chronology, character, language, and mythology, between the Vedic hymns, and the Indian epic poems and Purānas. They are liturgical works, connected with the different Sanhitās, or collections of hymns, and having it for their object to explain the application of those hymns to the different parts of the Brahmanical ritual, as practised at the period when they were compiled. In these works we encounter a great many legends of greater or less extent, which are introduced with the view of showing the occasion on which some particular hymn was first uttered, or of accounting for the origin, and enforcing the efficacy, of some particular ceremony, or for some other such purpose. Many of these stories have their germ in some brief notice or allusion in the hymns of the Rig Veda, while they occur in a greatly developed form in the epic poems and Purānas. The shape in which these legends occur in the Brāhmanas is thus an intermediate one between that in which they appear in the hymns, and that which they subsequently assume in mythological works of a later date. Of this description is the story of Śunahśepha in the Aitareya Brāhmana, which appeared about the same time in the 1st and 2nd vols. of Weber's “Indische Studien”, in the German translation of Professor R. Roth, and in the Journal of this Society, vol. xiii., pp. 96 ff., translated into English by the late Professor Wilson, and which has subsequently been given by Professor Max Müller, in his “History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature”, pp. 408 ff. In this story the author of the Brāhmana quotes various hymns from the first Mandala of the Rig Veda, which he considers to have been uttered by Śunahśepha, at the time when he was in danger of being immolated. The legend was, at a later period, introduced into the Rāmāyana, Book i., sections 61, 62.
Art. XV.—Customs and Superstitions connected with the Cultivation of Rice in the Southern Province of Ceylon
Authors: Le Mesurier C. J. R.
Published: March 2011

There are few Oriental races more superstitious than the Sinhalese of Ceylon. Omens, charms, divinations, etc., are as much sought after by them as by any other Indian people, and no undertaking of any importance is commenced without a previous consultation with the Neket Kórayá, the astrologer of the village. He is supposed to be acquainted with the temper, habits and movements of the planet gods, and to be able to prescribe of Ferings for their propitiation; while the Kapurála or Giganarála, the minister of the gods, the Kattadiya or devil charmer, and the Yakkadura or devil dancer, are scarcely less important personages when it becomes necessary to perform the ceremonies prescribed by the astrologer.
Art. XVII.—Beginnings of Writing in and around Tibet
Authors: de Lacouperie Terrien
Published: March 2011

Man writes, as he speaks, by a special aptness of his nature. As a consequence he has used all sorts of methods and devices which are now in practice, more or less, for the transmission of thought by images, symbols, or arbitrary signs. Rude systems of writing are found everywhere in use, survival or tradition. Many more have totally disapppeared in course of time, superseded by some preferable system, either more advanced or better fitted to the surrounding circumstances. It is not a necessity of nature that these low means of communication should always be pictorial. Conventional marks used alone or in connection with figures play quite as great a part as images among these embryonic writings. And combinations of material and conventional symbols are frequently met.
Art. X—The Geographical Distribution of the Modern Túrki Languages
Authors: Morrison M. A.
Published: March 2011

The task to which I address myself in this paper is the geographical distribution of the Túrki languages. But before doing so it might be well to glance at the whole Ugro-Altaïc family, in order to determine the position of the Túrki Branch in this great division of the languages of the human race.

Broadly speaking, but with sufficient accuracy, the Ugro-Altaïc languages are spoken over a region extending through more than 100 degrees of longitude, from the shores of the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China and the plateau of Tibet, and through 35 degrees of latitude, from the frozen steppes of Samoyéd and Yakút to the plains of Northern Persia and the head-waters of the Indus.
Art. XIII.—Observations on the various Texts and Translations of the so-called “Song of Meysūn”; an Inquiry into Meysūn's claim to its Authorship; and an Appendix on Arabic Transliteration and Pronunciation
Authors: Redhouse J. W.
Published: March 2011

Dr. Carlyle's book, “Specimens of Arabic Poetry,” may be somewhat scarce, and Captain, now Sir R., Burton's “Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah” gives only an English version, without the Arabic text, of the little piece of poetry attributed to Meysūn, the mother of the second Damascus Caliph of the house of ‘Umeyya, Yezīd son of Mu'āwiya son of’ Ebū-Sufyān Ṣakhr son of Ḥarb, etc.
Art. I.—The Coinage of the Early or Imperial Gupta Dynasty of Northern India
Authors: Smith Vincent Arthur
Published: March 2011

My paper entitled ‘A Classified and Detailed Catalogue of the Gold Coins of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty of Northern India, with an Introductory Essay,’ written in 1883, and published in 1884 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, gave a full account of the Gupta gold coinage, so far as it was then known. At that time it was not in my power to extend my investigations to the silver and copper coinage, and subsequent criticism and study showed that my discussion of the gold coins was in some respects defective, and erroneous. An interval of rest from official work has now given me an opportunity of resuming my numismatic studies, and of completing and bringing up to date my examination of the Gupta coinage.
Art. II.—Indian Names for English Tongues
Authors: Sinclair W. F.
Published: March 2011

A glance at the List of Members of this Society shows a number of Oriental names from every country between the Danube and the Pacific, which is, in itself, a matter for congratulation. A second will suggest a doubt as to the proper style in which to address one or two of their owners; and a detailed examination is enough, like Colonel Bowie's tooth-pick, “to give a timid man the colic.” The fact is, that we have not yet acquired a system by which we can index these names so as to know at a glance the proper written or spoken address of an Oriental.
The Wanetsi connexion: Part I
Authors: Elfenbein J. H.
Published: March 2011

“Grubbing into the Pashto dialects of Baluchistan would not be labour lost”. So runs a dictum from Sir Denys Bray's 1911 Baluchistan census report, quoted in LSI, X, 112. Sir Denys was certainly right, and it is a pity that work since then has been so limited and so tardy. The first serious grubbing was done by Morgenstierne only in 1929, when amongst much else he “discovered” Wanetsi, a speech which had been characterized by Sir Denys as “jarring gibberish” in the Report. (It is indeed unfortunate that the short extract of the Prodigal Son story supplied to Sir George Grierson for the LSI (loc. cit.) by Bray (below, p. 63) is indeed partly gibberish.) Wanetsi is in fact a difficult language of which to obtain authentic specimens, on account of the fact that its speakers themselves regard it as only “corrupted Pashto”, and are forever “correcting” themselves when speaking to an outsider.
Unhinging Śiva from the Indus civilization
Authors: Srinivasan Doris
Published: March 2011

When books on Hinduism begin with a discussion of the Indus Valley civilization, one of the main postulates to illustrate the influence of the Indus upon Hinduism is that Śiva originates from this prehistoric civilization. The postulate is based on three types of objects found in the Mature Harappan context (c. 2500–1900 B.C.) which strongly evoke the personality of the great Hindu god. These objects are phallic emblems and baetyls, seals, and some sculptures. As to the first, conical shaped objects of stone, shell, faience, paste or clay were found in the Indus cities and an outpost, and these emblems are found to bear considerable resemblance to the later conventionalized Śivz-lingas. So too the Indus ring stones are likened to the later yonī-rings, objects representing the female organ and located at places holy to the Goddess (her pīṭhas). Regarding the second, a seal from Mohenjo-daro portraying a central figure with ithyphallic and tricephalic features, seated in yogic fashion and surrounded by four animals is identified as a proto-Śiva figure whose paśupati nature is already recognized. This famous seal, Mohenjo-daro seal No. 420, incorporates the most extensive range of symbols shared by a set of Indus seals, which are, on that account, all thought to exhibit proto-Śaivite symbolism. Lastly, two sculptures are suggestive evidence that the Indus region visualized something akin to the aspects that later comprise Śiva's nature. As such, a small, broken stone sculpture from Harappa is conjectured, when its missing limbs are reconstructed by modern scholarship, to assume a dancer's pose; in consequence the piece is understood as evocative of a Śiva Natarāja.
The Chakma tribe of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the 18th Century
Authors: Serajuddin A. M.
Published: March 2011

There has been much debate about the origin of the Chakma tribe of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Muslim names of the Chakma chiefs of the 18th century have added to it. According to the Chakmas their ancestors were kshatriyas of north Indian origin, who invaded Arakan towards the end of the 14th century, settled there and intermarried with the local people. But there is no credible evidence to corroborate this story and all the modern writers on the subject consider it to be a myth. Hutchinson points out that the Indian kshatriya link was forged during Kalindi Rani's time in the 19th century when Hindu influence was at its highest in her court and the worship of Śiva and Kali crept into their ritual. The Chakmas are not the only Arakanese tribe to claim descent from the ancient warrior class of north India. The accepted idea amongst the Maghs is that their ancestors were kshatriya princes of Magadha. The Burmese are undoubtedly a Mongolian race; yet their traditions hark back to India and not to China. “Their chronicles read as if they were descended from Buddha's clansmen and lived in Upper India”.
The last two letters of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia (April 11 and 12 1868)
Authors: Appleyard David , Pankhurst Richard
Published: March 2011

The last two letters of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, which were among the most important he ever wrote, have long been a subject of speculation. They were dictated at his mountain fortress of Mäqdäla (Magdala) on April 11 and 12 1868, and despatched to Sir Robert Napier, leader of a British expeditionary force, immediately prior to its capture of the citadel and the Emperor's dramatic suicide on April 13.
The Bargi Invasion of Bengal
Authors: Samaddar J. N.
Published: March 2011

Like the invasion of the Danes in England, the incursions of the Bargi in Bengal, were characterized by murder and rapine and every species of atrocity. There is, however, a good deal of difference between the two, for we have nothing comparable to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle to record the latter, and in the matter of other materials, we are sadly lacking. The Nagpur Marhattas have left no historical records. Consequently there are no Marhatta sources. Neither are there any letters in Marathi, at least to my knowledge, on the subject, as these raids were undertaken by the now defunct house of Nagpur. Mr. Hill in his Bengal in 1756–7, has given us a brief summary of the English Factory Records of Fort William, and the old records of the East India Company might, if thoroughly searched, yield good material. The time, however, demanded for this is beyond our power to afford. Besides the above and occasional references here and there, there are, of course, three ether books which can be profitably consulted for the purpose—Salimulla's Tarikh-i-Bangla, Riyazu-s-salatin, and the Seir Mutaherin. This practically exhausts our list of authorities for studying the subject, so far as they are available to the general student.
Random zeros on complex manifolds: conditional expectations
Authors: Shiffman Bernard , Zelditch Steve , Zhong Qi
Published: March 2011

We study the conditional distribution of zeros of a Gaussian system of random polynomials (and more generally, holomorphic sections), given that the polynomials or sections vanish at a point p (or a fixed finite set of points). The conditional distribution is analogous to the pair correlation function of zeros but we show that it has quite a different small distance behaviour. In particular, the conditional distribution does not exhibit repulsion of zeros in dimension 1. To prove this, we give universal scaling asymptotics for around p. The key tool is the conditional Szegő kernel and its scaling asymptotics.
State, Power, Anarchism
Authors: Krasner Stephen D.
Published: March 2011

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.By James C. Scott. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 464p. $35.00.

The book under discussion is James C. Scott's latest contribution to the study of agrarian politics, culture, and society, and to the ways that marginalized communities evade or resist projects of state authority. The book offers a synoptic history of Upland Southeast Asia, a 2.5 million–kilometer region of hill country spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and China. It offers a kind of “area study.” It also builds on Scott's earlier work on “hidden transcripts” of subaltern groups and on “seeing like a state.” The book raises many important theoretical questions about research methods and social inquiry, the relationship between political science and anthropology, the nature of states, and of modernity more generally. The book is also deeply relevant to problems of “state-building” and “failed states” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. As Scott writes, “The huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness. This is the history of those who got away, and state-making cannot be understood apart from it. This is also what makes it an anarchist history” (p. x).

In this symposium, I have invited a number of prominent political and social scientists to comment on the book, its historical narrative, and its broader theoretical implications for thinking about power, state failure, state-building, and foreign policy. How does the book shed light on the limits of states and the modes of resistance to state authority? Are there limits, theoretical and normative, to this “anarchist” understanding of governance and the “art of being governed”?

—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor
State, Power, Anarchism
Authors: Greenhouse Carol J.
Published: March 2011

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.By James C. Scott. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 464p. $35.00.

The book under discussion is James C. Scott's latest contribution to the study of agrarian politics, culture, and society, and to the ways that marginalized communities evade or resist projects of state authority. The book offers a synoptic history of Upland Southeast Asia, a 2.5 million–kilometer region of hill country spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and China. It offers a kind of “area study.” It also builds on Scott's earlier work on “hidden transcripts” of subaltern groups and on “seeing like a state.” The book raises many important theoretical questions about research methods and social inquiry, the relationship between political science and anthropology, the nature of states, and of modernity more generally. The book is also deeply relevant to problems of “state-building” and “failed states” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. As Scott writes, “The huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness. This is the history of those who got away, and state-making cannot be understood apart from it. This is also what makes it an anarchist history” (p. x).

In this symposium, I have invited a number of prominent political and social scientists to comment on the book, its historical narrative, and its broader theoretical implications for thinking about power, state failure, state-building, and foreign policy. How does the book shed light on the limits of states and the modes of resistance to state authority? Are there limits, theoretical and normative, to this “anarchist” understanding of governance and the “art of being governed”?

—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor
State, Power, Anarchism
Authors: Manicas Peter
Published: March 2011

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. By James C. Scott. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 464p. $35.00.

The book under discussion is James C. Scott's latest contribution to the study of agrarian politics, culture, and society, and to the ways that marginalized communities evade or resist projects of state authority. The book offers a synoptic history of Upland Southeast Asia, a 2.5 million–kilometer region of hill country spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and China. It offers a kind of “area study.” It also builds on Scott's earlier work on “hidden transcripts” of subaltern groups and on “seeing like a state.” The book raises many important theoretical questions about research methods and social inquiry, the relationship between political science and anthropology, the nature of states, and of modernity more generally. The book is also deeply relevant to problems of “state-building” and “failed states” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. As Scott writes, “The huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness. This is the history of those who got away, and state-making cannot be understood apart from it. This is also what makes it an anarchist history” (p. x).

In this symposium, I have invited a number of prominent political and social scientists to comment on the book, its historical narrative, and its broader theoretical implications for thinking about power, state failure, state-building, and foreign policy. How does the book shed light on the limits of states and the modes of resistance to state authority? Are there limits, theoretical and normative, to this “anarchist” understanding of governance and the “art of being governed”?

—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor