In the spring of 1938 I was able with valuable help from the Royal Air Force and the material support of the Iraq Petroleum Company to carry out a survey of ancient remains along a portion of Rome's Mesopotamian Limes in the extreme north-west of Iraq. These explorations were closely connected with the researches which Père A. Poidebard, S.J., had effected before on the Syrian Limes and recorded in a masterly publication. In the following autumn the survey was resumed by me with the same generous aid and continued until May, 1939, along all routes protected by Roman defences that could be traced from the Tigris and Euphrates into the Syrian desert and thence through Transjordan down to the Gulf of Aqaba.

The Manuscripts.—The only copy of this text that I have seen in Europe is Code Sabéen 16 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Berlin has no copy, and as both Lidzbarski and Nöldeke quote from the Paris MS., it was, apparently, the only copy to which they had access. It, however, has not all the texts which compose the miscellany, as I found when I compared it with the rolls in my possession; for, like most of the longer Mandæan books, the Alf Trisar Šuialia is not a single composition, but a collection of writings or fragments under the title of one of the texts incorporated. I have two copies of the roll, and in both the first part of the text has suffered through much recopying. The outer convolutions of a roll suffer more from wear and tear than the inner, and hence one rarely finds an old MS. roll that does not show traces of dilapidation and repair in the earlier portion. When reed huts catch fire, an accident which often occurs, the outer layers alone become charred, as the fire dies down quickly, and the smouldering roll is easily rescued from the ashes.

There is a once popular Malay romance, the Hikayat Indraputra. It and the Malay recension of the Ramayana are cited in a Malay work of Muslim theology in a.d. 1643 as examples of infidel works suitable for sanitary purposes unless the name of Allah occurred in them. Probably the romance was compiled in fifteenth century Malacca, and to its author, as to so many Malay authors of romance, may be appositely applied Virginia Woolf's delicate analysis of Sidney's Arcadia: “He had no notion when he set out where he was going. Telling stories, he thought, was enough—one could follow another interminably. But where there is no end in view, there is no sense of direction to draw us on. Nor, since it is part of his scheme to keep his characters simply bad and simply good without distinction, can he gain variety from the complexity of character. To supply change and movement he must have recourse to mystification. These changes of dress, these disguises of princes as peasants, of men as women serve instead of psychological subtlety to relieve the stagnancy of people collected together with nothing to talk about. But when the charm of that childish device falls flat, there is no breath left to fill his sails. Who is talking, and to whom, and about what we no longer feel sure.” Nor does even the Malay of to-day care any longer. But to the comparative student of Oriental literature the Hikayat Indraputra, like many other Malay pastiches, has an interest from the varied sources of its interminable tapestry.

Scant attention has been paid to this subject by Western writers, so even an incomplete approach to it may not come amiss. The field being far too wide for any attempt at comprehensiveness within the space of a short article, I have singled out the numerical categories, since they offer a fairly coherent and manageable group.

People disagree about [the propriety of] singing (ghinā). And most of the people of Al-Ḥijāz permit it, whilst most of the people of Al-'Irāq abhor it. And one argument of those who permit it is that it has its origin in poetry, [an art] which the Prophet (May Allāh bless him and give him peace) commended; he incited to it, and urged his Companions to it, and found help in it against the unbelievers. And he said to Ḥassān [ibn Thabit, d. 674], “Pour out [an incitement to] the raid upon the Banū 'Abd Manāf for, by Allāh, your poetry is more potent against them than the falling of arrows in the utter darkness of the late night.” And it [i.e. poetry], is the register (dīwān) of the Arabs, and declares their precepts, and is the witness of their noble actions.

MR. KUO MO-JO, in his essay to establish the original identity of the characters now written tsu and shê, asserts that in early ages men held the male organ to be a manifestation of divine power. Sometimes, he says, they termed this power tsu, and sometimes shê, as in the expression ch'ih shê, to hurry to the shê, that is, to hurry forward bearing the phallic divinity on their shoulders. This custom still exists. A gentleman of Yang Chou (a city in Kiangsu Province) informed Kuo that at mid-Spring, in the second month of Spring, on the shang ssŭ Festival day (i.e. 6th of the Chinese moon), the Yang Chou practice was to make enormous paper models of the male and female emblems, one of each, and for a procession of men and women carrying these on their shoulders, to hurry along to burn them in front of the Shun Yang Temple. This is called ying ch'un, Welcoming the Spring.

Seldom has a work had such world-wide success and been translated into so many languages as the Indian stories and animal fables known as the Panchatantra. In the sixth century of our era they were translated from Sanskrit into Pehlevi. Thence they passed into Arabic; and from the Arabic text, called by Muhammadans the Fables of Bidpai or the Book of Kalila wa Diṁna, were made all those different versions through which these stories were transmitted to the countries of Europe.

The interminable debate between Muslim legists concerning the propriety of “audition (al-samā')”, or more properly “musical audition”, is probably the most interesting of Arabic polemical literature. The subject of the dispute has been dealt with by several writers, and translations from three celebrated Arabic disputants, Ibn Abi'l-Dunyā (d. 894), Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), and his brother Majd al-Dīn (d. 1126), as well as a Persian author Al-Hujwīrī (d. c. 1072) and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides (d. 1204), have been published in English.

The only existing alphabetical list of Bast India directors for the period 1758–1858 was prepared and published in 1885 by Charles Prinsep in his book, The Services of Madras Civilians. Unfortunately it is an extremely inaccurate list, mistakes in the directors' years of service having been made in a great number of cases. Among other errors, Prinsep endowed two of the directors, John Smith Burgess and William Thornton Astell, with dual personalities; the two David Scotts, on the other hand, he treated as one; and although going so far as to invent one director, Joseph Bosanquet, he omitted at least five others—R. Atkinson, A. Campbell, G. Johnstone, R. Jones, L. Peel.

In the series of Phœnician inscriptions from Byblos, ranging in date from the thirteenth to the first centuries b.c., there appear words containing pronominal suffixes in forms not observed elsewhere, and on the basis of these forms deductions have been drawn as to the character of the dialect of Byblos and the history of the pronominal suffixes. Some of the peculiarities are more apparent than real. Thus in Byb. 5, 1.6, exhibits in place of the contracted form in or the secondary metanalytic suffix in the form in which is regular in other Canaanite dialects for the third plural masculine suffix after the dual-plural and other words in -ay or -ē. There are no instances of the 3 pl. attached to a singular noun, nor of the 3 f.s. suffix attached to a singular noun. The two examples of the 3 f.s. suffix to the dual-plural noun cannot be treated as forms peculiar to Byblos, for the 3 f.s. suffix to the dual-plural has not been found elsewhere in Phœnician, and in other Canaanite dialects it has a similar form. Erom the evidence considered below it must be inferred that double indication of the plural occurs in Canaanite feminine nouns from the twelfth century on.

The Periplus Marts Erythræ describes the seaports below Barygaza in the following way according to Schoff's translation: “The market-towns of this region are, in order, after Barygaza: Suppara, and the city of Calliena, which in the time of the elder Saraganus became a lawful market-town; but since it came into the possession of Sandares [an unjustified conjecture for the text's Sandanes] the port is much obstructed, and Greek ships landing there may chance to be taken to Barygaza under guard. Beyond Calliena there are other market-towns of this region; Semylla.…” Suppara is now Sopara on the coast above Bassein, Semylla is Cemūla of two inscriptions, now Chaul, and Calliena is Kalyāṇa. This last, situated at the foot of the two regular ascents of the Western Ghats leading towards Nasik and Poona respectively and with good access to the sea, was the natural outlet for the commerce of the Andhra dominions on the west coast, and the notice, just quoted, shows how its trade was stifled, as the Kṣaharātas extended their rule southwards from Broach. It is unnecessary here to consider who are the kings alluded to in this passage or in the earlier one mentioning Nambanus (a conjecture for the text's Mambarus), but clearly we are dealing with the rivalry of the Western Satraps and the Andhra kings. That the former were successful in their policy towards Kalyāṇa is shown by Ptolemy's omission of the town. The order he gives (taking Renou's text) is Souppara mouth of the River Goaris, Dounga, mouth of the River Bêndas, Semyla.

While in New York City in 1939, I purchased an Armenian MS. with most unusual Mongolian miniatures. The MS., now part of my collection, has been rebound crudely with the remains of an old oriental binding consisting of wooden boards covered with leather. The inside of the binding is lined with brown cotton print covered with a small design. The MS. has 109 leaves, each measuring 10 by 15 inches. Upon examining the text, paper, and script, we find that the present volume is composed of two different Armenian MSS. jumbled together without any consideration of the fact that the text materials are unrelated. Pages 2, 3, 4, 41, 52–70, and 83–96 are fragments of an Haismāvourk (Life of Martyrs) written about 1630, perhaps in New Djulfa (Isfahan, Persia) for the Armenian princemerchant Khodja Nazar, his son Khodja Safraz and their family. Although this part of the volume is very valuable and important, it is not of primary interest to us.

The Ṭāq i Kisrā is the most famous monument of Sasanian architecture, but opinions as to its date and builder differ widely. The traditional name “Arch of Khosrau” might as well refer to the first as to the second Khosrau, and perhaps not even that, as in Arabic Kisrā is used as a general designation for the Sasanian rulers. Mohammedan writers used to regard the façade of the Ṭāq i Kisrā, as one of the wonders of the world, but the historical facts were very soon obscured by legends. Eventually no less than four Sasanian rulers were quoted as its builders: Shapur I (241–273), Shapur II (310–379), Khosrau I Anushirvan (531–579) and Khosrau II Parvez (590–628).

In a previous paper notes have been, given on some points in connection with the Silver Punch-marked Coins of the Older Thin Class in the British Museum. Here further notes are given on the Silver Punch-marked Coins of the Later Thick Class of the Mauryan Period, on the Copper Punchmarked Coins, and on the Tribal Coins: for convenience of reference the paragraphs are numbered in continuation of those of the previous notes.

§ 9. Somavaṁśa II. The successor of King Yayāti was his son Pūru, whose line of descent follows in Mbh, i, 89; H, 31; and B, 12. Even in details the similarity of the narratives is great. But the end is very confused in Mbh (i, 89). Only H (Kirfel, 555), has carried on the line up to Janamejaya (cf. Mbh, i, 90, 85 sqq.; Vi, iv, 20, 12), and even further. The slokas of B (Kirfel, 555, 128, 1 sqq.) are to be found in H, too (184, 3–18; not noticed by Kirfel), and must belong therefore to the original H-B vaṁśa.

Ibn ḥubaish is mentioned by Francisco Codera as a source of Ibn al-'Abbār who deserves attention. Caetani also stresses his importance as a representative of the Medinese tradition which aṭ-Ṭabarī neglected. There is very little about him in the standard books of reference.

The first attempt to treat of Indian music, at least incidentally if not systematically, was made by the Sikshas and the Prātisākyas, though both of them related to its vēdic phase. Of these two works, the latter displaced the former on account of a lucid and simple style, although Nārada Siksha still continues to remain indispensable, because no Prātisākya for Sāma Vēda is available.

My appreciation of Indian sculpture is not that of an art historian but of a living sculptor. I shall not therefore attempt to say anything about historical developments or to compare and criticize the characteristics of different periods, but I shall concentrate instead on trying to show some of the great and timeless qualities of Asiatic sculpture which make it as alive and significant for us to-day as it was to its unknown creators.