Sohgaura is a village on the right (western) bank of the Rāptī, about fourteen miles south-south-east from Gōrakhpūr, situated in a locality which presents various indications that there was a large settlement there in ancient times. It is shewn as ‘Soghowra’ in the Indian Atlas sheet No. 102 (1880), in lat. 26° 32′, long. 83° 30—a small thing measuring about 2½″ by 1⅞″— was discovered there, in digging the foundations for a house, some thirty-three years ago. Mr. Hoey secured it in 1893, and presented it to the Asiatic Society of Bengal; and we are greatly indebted to him for rescuing this relic of antiquity and ensuring the preservation of it. The standard of the Brahml characters of the inscription refers it to at any rate an early date in the Maurya period, B.C. 320 to about 180; and the method of spelling presented in it, along with the use of those characters and the general style of the record, would justify our placing it even before that time.

Nine years ago, in the J.R.A.S. for January, 1898, pp. 61–94, I published an article entitled Some Notes on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurúfi Sect. The materials for that article were chiefly derived from a manuscript of the Jávidán-i-Kabír (Ee. 1. 27) in the Cambridge University Library, and two manuscripts (Anciens Fonds Persan, 24, and Supplément Persan, 107) in the Bibliothèque Rationale at Paris, of which the former contained (1) the Istiwá-náma of the Amír Ghiyáthu'd-Dín Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-Ḥusayní, of Astarábád, composed shortly after A.H. 828 ( = A.D. 1425), (2) an allegorical mathnawi poem, and (3) a glossary of the dialect words used in the Jávidán-i-Kabir; while the latter contained another Huriifi treatise which appeared to be that entitled the MaḤabbat-náma. Thanks to information contributed by the late Mr. E. J. W. Gribb, I was also able to prove that the sect, which appears not to have taken root in Persia, the land of its birth, spread into Turkey, where it caused some commotion at several different periods, and suffered several fierce persecutions, amongst the victims of which (in A.H. 820 = A.D. 1417–18) was the bilingual poet Nesími, whose Díwán is not uncommon in manuscript, and was printed at the Akhtar Press in Constantinople in A.H. 1298 ( = A.D. 1881).

With aša (as the ritual sanctity) I will offer this, zaoθra having the Haoma with it, and the flesh with it, and the haδānaēpatā, (also) lifted up with (ritual) sanctity (aša). (2) To thee, 0 Ahurian One of Ahura, will I offer it, (3) for the propitiation of Auharmazd (Ahura Mazda), the radiant, the glorious, and of the Amešaspends, the August Immortals, and of Sraoša, the Holy, and of Aūharmazds Fire, the lofty Chief who is of Aša, the sacred Law, etc.; see S.B.E. xxxi at Y. VII, 5–13; see also Y. XXII, XXVII, 24–27.

Khusrau was the eldest son of Jahangīr, and was born at Lahore on August 4th, 1587. His mother was the daughter of Rajah Bhagwān Dās. Her original name does not seem to be known, but after birth Jahangīr, or, as he then was, Prince Selīm, gave her the name of Shāh Begam. She poisoned herself with opium on May 6th, 1605, on account, her husband says, of the bad behaviour of and of one of her brothers. But there was madness in the family, and her father once tried to kill himself.

There are three interesting points connected with First, was he blinded by his father? Secondly, was he murdered by his half-brother, Shāh Jahān? Thirdly, what is the date of his death?

In many parts of the world there exist social relations between a man and his mother's brother which are in many ways closer than those between the man and his own father. Often these are associated with the condition of society best known as mother-right, in which the child belongs to the social division of his mother and her brother, to whom may fall the chief or sole direction of the life of the child. In other cases a similar close relation is found between maternal uncle and nephew when descent is no longer counted in the female line, and there is definite evidence1 that in some cases this relation is a survival of a previously existing condition of matrilineal descent.