This splendid vessel of the rectangular i type, dating from about the twelfth century b.c., is in the collection of Dr. N. Wessén, of Stockholm. The design on each of the four sides is dominated by a t'ao-t'ieh mask, the main features being represented by animal forms in low relief on a ground of spirals, “cloud-and-thunder pattern,” executed with wonderful precision.

In a brief article entitled Kaṇaiska in the Journal for 1942, pp. 14–28, was published for the first time a Central Asian text touching Kaniṣka, a repetition of the well-known story of Kaniṣka's stūpa. The fragmentary text began with three lines in the Buddhist Sanskrit of Khotan. These lines were then translated and the story continued in Khotanese. In the text the epithet of Kaṇaiska was pointed out in the form cadrra, that is, a Khotanese spelling of Indian candra. The epithet could be recognized as the equivalent of the epithet *tśiän-d'an (later ṭṣant'an) in Chinese references to Kaniṣka, and implied, as it seems, also in the Tibetan play upon the word zla-ba ‘moon’. The Khotanese and Buddhist Sanskrit cadrra (for candra) seemed to decide the problem in favour of candra- ‘moon’.

The importance of the Mishkāt al-Anwār for a full understanding of the thought of al-Ghazālī was long ago recognized by Goldziher. He impressed this on W. H. T. Gairdner, when, in 1911, he was guiding him into the higher reaches of Islamic studies; and in due course Gairdner produced an article on Al-Ghazālī's Mishkāt al-Anwār and the Ghazālī-Problem and a Translation of the opuscule accompanied by a thought-provoking Introduction. On the whole the problems there raised have not received from subsequent writers the attention which Gairdner's discussion of them merits and their own importance warrants.

To those interested in the translation of the Bible into Chinese it is well known that there is a manuscript of part of the New Testament in Chinese among the Sloane MSS. in the British Museum. But no exact description of this manuscript seems ever to have been published, and even its author's name was unknown till lately.

Since publishing my general theory of cultural differentiation in Greater India I have read M. Stern's important book L'Art du Champa (Paris, 1942). His new chronology provides a firmer basis from which to operate than was hitherto available; so I propose now to make a more detailed analysis from the point of view of testing my conclusions as to what caused the Cham evolution to take the particular direction it did.

The collections of Tradition compiled by Al-Bukhārī and Muslim are considered to be more authoritative than any other. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ says: “Their books are the soundest after the mighty Book of God.” Most Muslims consider Al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ to be the more authoritative of the two, but there have been some who have expressed a preference for Muslim's. Abū 'Alī al-Ḥusain b. 'Alī al-Naisābūrī is quoted as saying: “There is no book under the face of heaven sounder than the book of Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj.” Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ says that if this merely means that Muslim did not imitate Al-Bukhārī in giving statements in his headings unaccompanied by an isnād, there is no harm; but if it means that the book itself is sounder, it is to be refuted. Al-Nawawī remarks that Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ has an advantage over Al-Bukhārī's because he gives all the lines of transmission when he mentions a tradition, whereas Al-Bukhārī repeats traditions in different places, sometimes giving one line of transmission and sometimes another. Al-Dhahabī quotes Ibn 'Uqda to the effect that Al-Bukhārī sometimes makes the mistake of mentioning a man on one occasion by his name and on another by his kunya and imagining that there are two men, whereas Muslim rarely makes an error. But Al-Dhahabī shows that he himself considers Al-Bukhārī to be superior, for after mentioning the words of Abū 'Ali al-Naisābūrī quoted above, he remarks laconically: “Perhaps Al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ had not reached Abū 'Alī.” In addition to Abū 'Alī, some shaikhs of the Maghrib are said to have preferred Muslim; but the general view is that, while the two are of the highest authority, Al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ takes first place.

In February, 1923, I was staying in Lucknow as a member of an official mission from Siam studying Rural Co-operative Credit in Northern India. One morning I was taken by my host on a visit to the Lucknow market, and I brought away with me three “prizes”, the first, a very delicate picture of a Mohammedan Saint, with Koran and rosary, sitting outside a rocky cell, by that famous painter of Shah Jahan's time, Mansūr; the second, a miniature of Nur Jahan, which has since been set in an ivory frame surrounded by sapphires; and the third, a small ivory head, the subject of this note.

A part from a few brief notes of a general nature, the Marsden manuscripts were first described in any detail as a collective whole, by Father H. Hosten, S.J., in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, August, 1910 (New Series, vol. vi, No. 8, pp. 437–461) from material supplied to him by Messrs. Philipps and Beveridge. With the transfer of the most valuable portion of William Marsden's magnificent Library from King's College to the School of Oriental Studies in 1918, the Marsden MSS., both those in the British Museum and those now in the School, formed the topic of two articles in the Bulletin of the S.O.S.—the first by Sir Denison Ross in vol. ii, pp. 513–538 (1923), and the second by Father Hosten, S.J., in vol. iii, pp. 129–150 (1925). A few years later Sir Edward Maclagan, who had already published some documents in extract in the JASB. for 1896, catalogued those dealing with Northern India and Bengal amongst the Letters and Reports which he listed on pp. 369–388 of his standard work, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul (London, 1932).