The following lists are composed of words and meanings which, occurring in the Harṣa-Carita of Bāṇa, are not quoted, or are instanced only from grammars, dictionaries, and commentaries, in the great St. Petersburg Lexicon and the smaller Lexicon of Böhtlingk. Only a few words not coming under this definition have for special reasons been included; namely, where I was unable in the Kashmir text to verify Böhtlingk's references to Bāṇa's work, where only an inferior work is cited, and where I or the Sanskrit commentator, Çaṅkara, did not adopt the exact rendering given in the two dictionaries. It did not appear on the whole worth while to quote words and meanings simply because their earliest occurrence was in the Harṣa-Carita, or because they illustrated the well-known and extremely close lexical affinity of Bāṇa's works with such books as the Bṛhat-Saṃhitā, Rāja-Taraṅngiṇī, Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara, Vāsavadattā, Daçakumāra-Carita, and also the Kāvya literature in general.

The whole of this subject is so difficult that I must submit the following remarks as purely tentative, and express a hope that others with more accurate knowledge will correct me. It will be well to begin with what appears to be at least tolerably certain facts. (1) The Ṛgveda shows nothing, directly, of any advance of Aryans to Ayodhya or the further kingdoms under the Naipāl Himalaya, nor does the Mahābhārata. But both specify an Aikshwāka settlement on the Indus; and we shall see some early indications, from other sources, of ‘Solar’ tribes beyond Ayodhya, Mithilā, and Vaiśāli, their chief centres. Our evidence for the ‘Solar’ dynasty of Ayodhya is the Rāmāyana, supplemented by the genealogies of the Purāṇas. The Buddhist writings throw some light on the subject also. (2) The kingdom of Ayodhya very early passed away; the more historic kingdoms in that region are connected with Buddhist times and with Śravasti, Kapilavastu, etc. (3) It is certainly the case that there were early sun-worshipping tribes in India, and not only in the Oudh region. We know of sun-worship and serpent-worship in Kāśmīr; we hear of it among the ancient Saurā of Saurāṣṭra and the Bāla (or originators of Valabhipura); the Kāthi (vassals of the Bāla) are still sun - worshippers.

In reviewing lately Mr. Portman's “Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes,” I pointed out that he had used a pamphlet of my own, privately printed in 1883, entitled “A Brief Exposition of a Theory of Universal Grammar,” which was specially designed to meet the very difficulties he had to face in giving a general idea of languages constructed on lines at first sight very different from those on whose structure modern European Grammar is based.

On reference to the Millennial Chronology of the Bundahiś (as corrected and extended in S.B.E., vol. xlvii, Introduction, § 55) it will be seen that the first millennium commenced in b.c. 9630 with the formation of the Fravashis, or primary ideas of the good creations, which remained insensible and motionless for 3,000 years. At the beginning of the fourth millennium (b.c. 6630) the spiritual body of Zarathuśtra was framed together and remained 3,000 years with the Ameśaspentas, while the primeval man and ox existed undisturbed in the world, because the Maleficent spirit was still confounded and powerless. But, at the beginning of the seventh millennium (b.c. 3630) the Maleficent spirit rushed into the creation, destroyed the Primeval ox, and distressed Gayomart, the primeval man, who died thirty years later; but Zarathuśtra was not born till B.C. 660.

In my article on The Sources of Dawlatsháh, which appeared in the January number of the Journal, I have already spoken of the excellent work which I now have the pleasure to present in English dress. For my translation I have used the Tihrán lithographed edition of a.h. 1305, which I have carefully collated throughout with the older of the two British Museum MSS. (Or. 3,507, dated a.h. 1017), and, in all doubtful passages, with the second MS. (Or. 2,955, dated a.h. 1274) also. These MSS. are fully described in Rieu's Persian Supplement, pp. 244–245 and 265, Nos. 390 and 418. It remains only to say a few words concerning the author and the book.