On Suśruta's great textbook on General Medicine (Āyurveda Saṁhitā) we possess at present only one complete commentary. This is Ḍallana's Nibandha Saṁgraha. It was printed by Jīvānanda Vidyāsāgara in Calcutta in 1891, and in the following pages the references are to that edition. Ḍallana's date is somewhere between 1060 and 1260 a.d. The earlier year, as Dr. Cordier has pointed out (Journal Asiatique, 1901, Note Bibliogṛaphique, p. 10), is the date of Cakrapāṇidatta, whom Ḍallana quotes (p. 1245), while he himself is cited by Hemādri at the latter date. Cakrapāṇidatta is known to have written a commentary on Suśruta's textbook, which bears the name of Bhānumatī; but only a small portion of it has survived, viz. that on the first Section, or Sūtra Sthāna. There is a manuscript of this Section in the India Office Library, No. 908 (Cat., No. 2647, p. 928). Nearly the whole of it, also, has been printed in Calcutta by Kavirāj Gangā Prasāda Sen in his edition of “ Suśruta's Saṁhitā with Commentaries ” (cited hereafter).

The nucleus of the present article was meant in the first instance to be added as a note to a chronological list of definitions of the terms ‘Ṣúfí’ and ‘Taṣawwuf’ chiefly compiled from the Risála of Qushayrí (Cairo, 1287 a.h.), the Tadhkiratu'l-Awliyá of Farídu'ddín ‘Aṭṭár (cited as T.A.), and the Nafaḥátu'l-Uns of Jámí (Calcutta, 1859). These works contain about a hundred definitions of ‘Ṣúfí’ and ‘Taṣawwuf,’ none of which exceeds a few lines in length. I thought that it might be interesting, and possibly instructive, to arrange the most important in their chronological sequence, so far as that can be determined, since only in this way are they capable of throwing any light upon the historical development of Ṣúfiism. The result, however, was somewhat meagre. Taken as a whole, those brief sentences which often represent merely a single aspect of the thing defined, a characteristic point of view, or perhaps a momentarily dominant mood, do undoubtedly exhibit the gradual progress of mystical thought in Islam from the beginning of the third to the end of the fourth century after the Hijra, but the evidence which they supply is limited to a vague outline. Accordingly, I resolved to undertake a chronological examination of the doctrine taught by the authors of these definitions and by other distinguished Ṣúfís, and I have here set down the conclusions to which I have come. I do not claim to have exhausted all the available material.

The late Mr. Edward Thomas made an examination of the revenues of the Moghal Empire, and, among other things, gave tables for Aurangzeb's revenues for the years 1654–5, 1663–4 (?), 1697, and 1707. But he omitted to notice the statistics given in the Mirātu-l-‘Aālam, and which relate, apparently, to the year 1078 a.h. or 1668 a.d. They are very full, and appear to have been carefully compiled. The author, whether he was Batāwar ān or, as is more likely, Muhammad Baqā, was in Aurangzeb's service and had good opportunities of acquiring information. The paragraphs have been translated by Sir Henry Elliot, and appear in his History, vol. vii, pp. 162 et seq., but his manuscript was probably not perfect, and the translation is not quite correct. Lately I have been reading the paragraphs in the copy of the Mirāt belonging to our Society and described by Mr. Morley, and I have also consulted the MSS. in the British Museum. The account begins in what the writer calls the Third Numāyi of the Seventh Ārāyish, and at p. 252b of the R.A.S. copy. First, the length and breadth of the empire are given both in royal (bādāhī) kos and in ordinary (rasmī) kos, that is, kos commonly used in most parts of India; the writer stating that the royal kos is one of 5,000 cubits (ẕarā’) of the dimension of 42 finger-breadths, and that 2 such kos are equal to 3½ ordinary kos.

Durgā is a mighty Paurāṇic goddess; and of all the forms of Śiva's wife or Śakti she is the most popular and greatly honoured in the province of Bengal. It is in the province of Bengal only that her Pūjā (worship) is celebrated with great pomp and idol-exhibition. By ‘Pūjā’ the Anglo-Indian means now the Durgā-Pūjā festival of Bengal, during which all Government offices remain closed for one month. A new clay image of the goddess is made for the occasion, and it is enthroned on the sixth day of the light fortnight of the month Āśvina. She is worshipped during the three days next following, and is then immersed in water on the Daśamī day. These are all very widely known facts, but I mention them with a distinct purpose in view, as will be shown later on.

In the Jewish Quarterly Review for April, 1905, Dr. Hirschfeld published a poem discovered by him in the Cambridge Genizah Collection, attributed to Samau’al, and in Hebrew characters. This Samau’al is naturally identified by him with the Jewish hero of Taimā, whose name is commemorated in an Arabic proverb, and to whom certain poems preserved in the Aṣma‘iyyāt and the Ḥamāsah are ascribed. An account of him was given by Nöldeke in his Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alten Araber, 1864, pp. 57–64. Verses would naturally be ascribed to such a person, as it is the habit of the Arabs to attribute at least a few to almost every famous man; thus they can recite to us the ode in which Adam bewailed Abel. Samau’al being a person on the confines of myth and history, the supposition that any verses ascribed to him were really by him is extremely hazardous.

“In the beginning was the Word” is a truth the sublimity of which grows upon us the more we ponder it. And, indeed, the common consciousness of mankind has ascribed to the Logos the supreme act of Creation. Alike in India, China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, the world is said to exist as the audible thought of the Deity. Moreover, the creative power of the divine Voice is intimately associated with the possession of the sacred Name.

That the collection of textile fabrics at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, is not generally so well known as it deserves to be, is doubtless due largely to the unfavourable conditions under which, owing to want of space, it has now to be exhibited. It is satisfactory to think that this will before long be remedied, for the collection is a remarkably good one. Taken all round, it is probably not surpassed by any other of the kind.

In the seventh pillar-edict of Aśōka, inscribed on the so-called Delhi-Siwālik column, there is a passage which runs as follows: see IA, 13. 310, text lines 2, 3, and facsimile; and EI, 2. 270, text:—

Dēvānaṁpiyē Piyadasi lājā hēvaṁ āhā magēsu pi mē nigōhāni lōpāpitāni chhāy-ōpagāni hōsaṁti pasu-munisānaṁ aṁbāvaḍikyā lōpāpitā aḍhakōsikyāni pi mē udupānāni khānāpāpitāni niṁisiḍhiyā cha kālāpitā āpānāni mē bahukāni tata-tata kālāpitāni paṭībhōgāyē pasu-munisānaṁ.

The religion of Buddha was introduced into Java as early as the beginning of the fifth century a.d. Fāh-Hiān, who resided in that country from a.d. 412 to 414, says that it then existed, though only in embryo—it was not much known—“ various forms of error and Brahmanism are flourishing.” The well-known inscription at Menangkābu in Sumatra, which is dated in a.d. 656, relates that a Buddhist sovereign, whose name is pure Sanskṛit, “ Mahārājādhirāja Ādityadharma,” had previously to that date erected in Java a great seven-storied vihāra. So it may be assumed that, during the 250 years following the date of Fāh-Hiān, Buddhism, i.e. the Buddhism then prevalent in India and greatly altered from its original form, had firmly established itself as the religion of the Javanese. This seven-storied vihāra is generally supposed to be Boro-Būdūr; and certainly the architecturẹ of that great monument appears to be of that age, the general scheme of the four great terraces being very similar to that of the early Pallava-Choḷa temples about and in Kāñchī, as well as of the great Rath at Mahāvalipura in Southern India, which was carved out of the rock at the beginning of the seventh century. But in the opinion of the late Dr. Brandes, of the Archæological Survey of Java, the period of the building lies between Śaka 700 and 850 (a.d. 778–928).

In the R.A.S. Journal (January), 1906, p. 220, 1. 21, the Chinese characters for Mo-la-p'o should have been