[Having noticed, on a visit to the Museum, a Jain statue with a clearly written inscription on its base, I asked the curator of the Museum, Mr. Quick, about it. He expressed himself very glad to give me a photograph of it in order that the inscription might be deciphered. And Professor Kielhorn, to whom the photograph was sent, has been good enough to send us the following note. The reproduction of the figure is from a block kindly lent to the Society by P. J. Horniman, Esq., M.P.

Mr. R. Quick informs me that Mr. Horniman purchased the statue in London in the year 1895.—RH. D.]

The precise meaning of this familiar title of the Buddha is still unsettled. As the word tathāgata is not used either in. the Upanishads or (so far as I am aware) in older Sanskrit writings, there exists no available evidence earlier than the Pāli Pitakas; and there its use is so common as to merit special investigation. Before submitting my own interpretation to the judgment of scholars, I propose to state the views already advanced by others, including the great scholar Buddhaghosa, and next to examine Pitaka passages in which the title tathāgata occurs.

No game occupies so important a position in the history of the world as that of chess. It is not only at the present day, but has been for many centuries, the most cosmopolitan of pastimes; and though one of the oldest known to civilization, it is yet undoubtedly the most intellectual. Long familiar to all the countries of the East, it has also been played for hundreds of years throughout Europe, whence it has spread to the New World, and wherever else European culture has found a footing. A map indicating the diffusion of chess over the habitable globe would therefore show hardly any blanks. Probably no other pastime of any kind can claim so many periodicals devoted exclusively to its discussion; certainly no other has given rise to so extensive a literature. The influence of chess may be traced in the poetry of the Middle Ages, in the idioms of most modern European languages, in the science of arithmetic, and even in the art of heraldry. An investigation as to its origin, development, and early diffusion therefore forms a not unimportant chapter in the history of civilization.

In the article on “The Iron Pillar of Delhi” I noticed that another iron pillar exists at Dhār in Central India, but observed that no detailed description of that pillar was known to me.

I now find that a description of this very remarkable monument has been printed—I can hardly say published—in a report by the indefatigable Dr. Führer.

At the last Congress of Orientalists in Paris I read a paper on the Mahābhārata MSS. in the Royal Asiatic Society, which represent the South Indian recension of the great Hindu epic. As it will take some time before this paper, with extracts from the MSS., will be printed, it may be useful to give here a brief summary of the results to which a closer examination of at least two of these MSS. has led.