The importance of the Soma-plant in Vedic religion has never been underestimated. Among the rituals of the Yajurvedic texts, the soma-sacrifices are among the most elaborate and important, and are described in minute detail in the Brāhmaṇas and Śrauta-sūtras. These later texts nevertheless continue a direct tradition from the Ṛgveda, which can be seen to reflect an earlier stage in the development of the ritual, doubtless of a less rigidly formalized and probably less elaborate nature. Even so, the Ṛgveda is, so to speak, permeated by Soma. Understandably, therefore, from the early days of Vedic studies in the West, many scholars have speculated on the botanical identity of the plant in question. Numerous candidates have been nominated, the most frequently favoured being species of the genera Ephedra, Sarcostemma, Periploca, and latterly Cannabis, and even Rheum. Not a single one of these conjectures has gained general assent, and the opinion is widely held that the problem is insoluble.

That the Khotanese version of Ravigupta's Siddhasāra was made from the Tibetan translation extant in the Tanjur has been known since H. W. Bailey's convincing demonstration in BSOAS, X, 3, 1940, 599–605. But it is clear that the situation is more complicated than would at first appear. There are very numerous instances where the Khotanese version shows a correct understanding of the original Sanskrit while the Tibetan translation is in error. In fact the translation is at times so good that one wonders why the translator ever let himself be led astray by the Tibetan. There can be little doubt that the translator of the Khotanese knew Sanskrit far better than he knew Tibetan. Nevertheless, the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the Khotanese rendering was based on a combination of the Sanskrit original with the Tibetan version.

The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta, son of Durgagupta, is known in three main versions, the original Sanskrit, the Tibetan, and the Khotanese. Each is important for certain reasons. The Sanskrit text is important mainly because of its date. Although the extant MSS are late—they have been assigned to A.D. 1374 and 1443 respectively —the original must be earlier than A.D. 1000, after which date we have no Khotanese. It is likely to be considerably earlier, but we have no evidence at present to enable us to fix the date with precision. If the Jinamitra who, with Ādityavarman and Candra, translated the Tibetan version is the same as the Jinamitra who took part in the compilation of the Mahāvyutpatti in the first quarter of the ninth century, the date of the composition of the Sanskrit text must precede A.D. 800. The occasional line is identical with one in Suśruta or in Caraka, but in a land of floating traditions this may not amount to much. In the colophon, preserved imperfectly in one of the two Sanskrit MSS and given in full in Tibetan, Ravigupta acknowledges only two sources by name: Dhanvantari and Ātreya, the two sages who are usually held to have been involved in the transmission of medical knowledge from on high. This too is unhelpful.

Hayashi Kenzō has presented evidence of close links between the notation-signs of the Tun-huang musical MS, Pelliot No. 3808 (henceforth P), and those for biwaand shōin current Tōgaku part-books. In addition to this relationship, however, there are also extensive parallels in technical terms, not hitherto examined. In many instances, these same terms appear in the brief musical text preserved in early Yüan printings of the Shih-lin kuang-chi(henceforth SLKC), reproduced in facsimile in Pian. The Tōgaku part-books evidently reflect Chinese and indeed T'ang idiom.

At the beginning of the thirteenth adhyāya of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa occurs a story which narrates how the metre Gāyatrī brought from heaven soma for gods and sages. Having gone to heaven, she frightened the guardians of soma, picked it up in her feet and mouth, and started to return. At this point, one of the guardians of soma, Kṛśānu by name, shot an arrow at her which cut off the nail of her left foot. From that nail arose a porcupine (śalyakaḥ), and the fat (vaśam) that flowed became a barren cow (vaśā). The Brāhmaṇa text (as read by Keith, following Aufrecht) then goes on to say: atha yaḥ śalyo yad anīkam āsīt sa sarpo nirdaṁśy abhavat sahasaḥ svajo yāni parṇāni te manthāvalā yāni snāvāni te gaṇḍūpadā yat tejanaṃ so 'ndhāhiḥ so sā tatheṣur abhavat. Keith (Ṛgveda Brāhmaṇas (HOS, XXV), Cambridge, Mass., 1920) translates the passage as follows: ‘The socket and the point became a serpent, not biting; from its swiftness (came) the viper; the feathers became flying foxes, the sinews earthworms, the shaft the blind snake. Thus became the arrow’.

The Kirgiz original of the Smert' Kukotay-khana i ego pominki (= K), long thought to have survived only in Ch. Valikhanov's celebrated translation, was discovered in Leningrad in 1964 by Valikhanov's distinguished editor-in-chief, Professor Alkey Margulan of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences. He announced his discovery in the August (No. 8) issue of his Academy's ‘Herald’ (Khabarši/Vestnik) of 1965 and printed in adapted Cyrillic transliteration excerpts from the text totalling 885 (out of over 3,000) lines, together with a 13-page introduction in Kazakh dealing chiefly with the biographical background of Valikhanov's recording of the text.

In a recent article in BSOAS the writer called attention to the existence of a very detailed passage on mahōrasop entertainments in a Thai manuscript of part of the tale of Suthon and Manōrā in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. That passage is incomplete because it occurs at the end of one of the folding books in which the version was written down. The Royal Asiatic Society library possesses only the first book, but the writer has since found that the National Library of Thailand, Bangkok, has a set of six books containing a complete version of the tale and therefore a continuation of the mahōrasop passage found in the Royal Asiatic Society manuscript.

The problem whether or not West Malaysia passed through a distinctive Bronze Age has been the subject of a good deal of discussion since the second World War, and is again raised by the remarkable discoveries in 1964 of four bronze ‘Dông-so'n’ (Heger Type I) drums, two at Kampong Sungai Lang in the Kuala Langat District of Selangor, and two at Batu Burok near Kuala Trengganu on Malaya's east coast. With these and the remains of two other Heger Type I drums found in 1926 at Batu Pasir Garam on the Tembeling River, Pahang, and at Bukit Kuda, north-east of Klang, Selangor, in 1944, West Malaysia can now boast more ‘Dông-so'n’ drums than Sumatra, but not so many as Java where more than a dozen drums or fragments of drums have been found.