The Ahoms are a tribe of the Tai branch of the Indo-Chinese. They conquered Assam early in the thirteenth century a.d., and held it, as the ruling nation, for many centuries. Their language, which is now extinct, was an old form of the Tai language from which Siamese and Shan have sprung. It is now known by tradition to a few priests of the old Ahom religion. It had a considerable literature (including several valuable historical works), manuscripts of which are still extant. Some years ago the Assamese Government deputed a native official, Babu Golap Chandra Baruā, to learn the language and translate such documents as were of value and had survived. He is, I believe, the only person who knows both Ahom and English. Through his assistance I was enabled to publish a short grammar of Ahom (with selections and a vocabulary) in vol. lvi of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Since then I have received from him a short Ahom kōṣa, or dictionary, and also the text and translation of the cosmogony printed below.

From several centuries before the Christian era a double stream of traders and adventurers began to flow into Indo-China from, respectively, Northern and Southern India, reaching the upper parts of the peninsula by land through Burmā and its southern coasts by sea, and founding there settlements and commercial stations. Brahmanism and, later on, Buddhism (third century b.c.), with most other achievements of Indian culture, followed in the wake of these pioneers; and thus it is to ancient India that Indo-China owes her early civilization. By the dawn of the Christian era, as I have elsewhere demonstrated, Buddhism had already gained a firm foothold on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula near the head of the Gulf of Siām, whence it advanced and soon spread all over the country of the Më-Nam Delta. On the other hand, Brahmanism had established itself in Central and Northern Siām, where Swankhalôk and Sukhôthai formed its principal foci. It is not till about four centuries later that we begin to hear of Nagara Śrī Dharmarāja (Dharmanagara), or Ligor, as the chief centre of both Buddhism and Brahmanism on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula; and to find both faiths—but more especially Buddhism—firmly established in the territory of P‘hraḥ Prathom in the present Nakhōn C‘hai Śrī province, in the Më-Nam Delta.

Although the city of Kauśāmbī is frequently mentioned in the Pāli and Hindu classics, few data are given therein from which its position can be accurately determined. We shall see as we proceed that the details given in these books, when read in conjunction with what we learn from Yuan Chwang, enable us to fix with tolerable accuracy, but not with absolute certainty as yet, the probable position of this famous city.

There is a mountain-ridge on the old route to Kamīr viâ Bhimbar and Bahrāmgala which bears the name of Hastīvanj. It is near the ‘Alīābād Serai, but is on the other, or right, bank of the Pīr Pantsāl stream, and is marked on Dr. Stein's map of Kamīr. See also his Rājataranginī, book i, pp. 44–5, and vol. ii, pp. 394–5. Dr. Stein visited the spot and identified it as the place where King Mihrakul, who lived in the first part of the sixth century, is said to have had a hundred elephants thrown over the cliffs. The circumstance is mentioned in the Āīn Akbarī, Jarrett, ii, 382, but both there and at p. 347 id. the place is called in the Persian text Hastī Watar or Vatar. The name Hastīvanj occurs apparently for the first time in Ḥaidar Malik's history of Kamīr, which was written during Jahāngīr's reign and about 1621. After that it occurs in a note to the oldest MS. of the Rājataranginī, written apparently about 1680, and in Narayan Kūl's history, which was written about 1710. Ḥaidar Malik mentions the place in his account of Mihrakul near the beginning of his book. He there describes the incident, and says that the place has since been called Hastīvanj , because hastī means elephant (fīl) in the Hindī (qu. Sanskrit) tongue, and vanj in the same language means ‘going’ (raftan). Narayan Kūl's explanation is similar, and is probably copied from Ḥaidar.

The Baghdad of the “Arabian Nights” has ever been associated with the “goodly time and golden prime of good Haroun Alraschid,” and his name, like that of his contemporary Charlemagne, has attracted and annexed many a tale belonging to other periods. That this is true of one of the Baghdad tales is shown by its appearing as an actual occurrence in the “Munṭaẓam” of Ibn al-Jauzi at a date some 120 years later than the death of al-Raīd. The time was no longer ‘goodly,’ and the Caliphate was past its prime. Muqtadir, during whose reign it had declined apace, had died a violent death in 321 a.h., and his mother, aab, did not long survive him. His filial affection, which throughout his reign had allowed her an extent of influence prejudicial to his rule, continued unabated to its close, and his chief concern on starting for his fatal march against Mūnis was for what might be in store for her in the event of his perishing. According to the story of a female astrologer, his fears were prophetic in their accuracy. aab, though suffering from a mortal complaint and prostrated by her son's death, was called upon by his brother and successor, Qāhir, to disclose her hidden wealth. She disclaimed possessing more than a moderate sum, saying that any money of hers would have been used to save her son.

Zartūšt asked of Aūharmazd thus: O Aūharmazd, Spirit (good) and bountiful, Creator of the bodily worlds, holy, …. [this (is: hanā=aē for aēγ, that is to say, the meaning is this), that it is Aūharmazd (who is) the holy Creator, not merely ‘ the bodily worlds’ which are holy; the rest is for (ordinary) praise. Some (text) says (i.e. reads) ‘ dātār, aharūv′’ (so putting the aharūv′' of the text in unmistakeable position as applying to Aūharmazd)].

The existence of an ancient Indian colony in Armenia is well known to Armenian scholars, but Indianists have paid little attention to it. We owe our knowledge of it to Zenob, a Syrian, and a native of Glak (Klag), which Mr. Ellis suggests may be the Armenian equivalent of Kerak. Zenob became an ecclesiastic in an unknown town of Cappadocia called Nystra, and was the companion of St. Gregory the Illuminator on an idol-smashing tour through Armenia, about the year 304 a.d. By St. Gregory's command he wrote an account of this expedition to his Cappadocian brethren, and in it he gives a lively account of the Illuminator's little war with the Indian idolaters of Tarôn (Darôn). Zenob's history, composed originally in Syriac, has come down to us in an Armenian version, which has suffered from revision. It has been twice translated into French, and part of it into English. Zenob's work has the charm and freshness of a contemporary narrative, and throws a good deal of light on the early history of monachism and the worship of relics. He was well acquainted with the Indians he mentions, as he was for twenty years Abbot of the Convent of the Nine Springs, founded by St. Gregory on the site of the Indian temple. The convent beacme one of the most famous in Armenia, and was popularly known from the time of Zenob as the convent of Glak.

In 1885 Professor Heinrich Thorbecke, then of Heidelberg, published the first part of his edition of the collection of selected ancient Arabic poems (, or , or ), made, at the instance of the Caliph al-Manṣūr, for the instruction of his son, afterwards the Caliph al-Mahdī, by Abu-l-‘Abbās al-Mufaḍḍal, of the tribe of Ḍabbah (died 168). This collection, more generally known as the Mufaḍḍalīyāt, consisted, according to the Kitāb al-Fihrist (p. 68), of 128 poems, of which the published portion contains 42. In January 1890, Professor Thorbecke died, and the edition has not been carried further.