The original home of the founders of the royal dynasties of the Hittites was the country of Kussar. It was of Kussar and Kussar only that Khattusilis, the ancestor of Subbi-luliuwas, the founder of the second dynasty, was king (KB. iii, p. 30); so, too, was “the lord” Labarnas or Tabarnas, the founder of the first dynasty (c. 1900 b.c.). From his death-bed in the city of Kussar Khattusilis I issued his last testament to his son and successor Mursilis I, and the only territorial title of the unnamed “great king” in whom Dr. Forrer is probably right in seeing Mursilis I is “king of Kussari”. The state records carefully preserved the annals of a still earlier monarch, Anittas “king of Kussara”, who describes in them his conquest of the Hittite-land.

In reconstructing the sound system of old Chinese— the script being ideographic, the old pronunciation cannot simply be read off—we have been able, thanks to rich materials of various kinds, to determine with tolerable certainty, even in detail, the system of what we call Ancient Chinese, the language of the sixth century a.d., embodied in the dictionary Ts'ie yün. When the inquiry turns to older epochs, the materials are much more meagre and unsatisfactory, and at present, at least, it does not seem feasible to reconstruct in detail the language which we may call Archaic Chinese, the language of the Chou dynasty, the language of the classics. But we are not entirely at a loss. Important conclusions can be drawn regarding this stage of Chinese, and that by four different means. Perhaps the most important of all will be a comparative study of the sinitic family of languages; but for such researches time can hardly be said to be ripe as yet. The T'ai languages and the Tibeto-Burman languages will have to be thoroughly investigated and their most ancient forms established by comparative methods, before there is any use of comparing them with Chinese. But the three remaining sources are ready at hand even now, and some examples will be given here to show how they can be used for reaching new and interesting results about the sound system of Archaic Chinese.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is a familiar one in Zoroastrianism from the Avesta and kindred sources. It has long been a puzzle to me, however, to understand why the Pahlavi Books assign the exact number “fifty-seven years” at the end of the last millennium to the events connected with the resurrection of the dead (Phl. rīstāxēz) and the renovation of the world (Phl. frašōkarṯ, Av. frašōkәrәti) by the Saviour or Benefactor (Phl. Sōšyans or Sōšāns, Av. Saošyany) and his assistants, fifteen males and fifteen females. It has therefore seemed worth while to bring together the Pahlavi passages alluding to the fifty-seven years and see if anything can be deduced from them.

In legal terminology kharáj means land tax, and jizya poll tax. It has been proved conclusively, and here it is only needful to mention the fact, that this usage is not primitive, and that both words, kharájin the east and jizya in Egypt, meant tribute. The commonly accepted tradition is that 'Umar I imposed two taxes, land and poll, which were uniform throughout the empire.

MR. GUY LE STRANGE, in his Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphs—which is likely to remain for long the standard work on Baghdad's topography—in discussing the site of the Niẓámíya madrasa, puts it in the southern part of the city, between the Bábu 'l-Azaj quarter and the Bábu 'l-Baṣalíya, now known as the Bábu 'l-Sharqí. The argument for this site rests chiefly—though there are other references which seem to support it—on an ambiguous passage in Yáqút's Mu‘jamu ’l Buldán, dealing with the Tutushí foundations built by Khamartagín, a slave of the Sultan Alp Arslán's younger son Táju'l-Dawla Tutush. These foundations are “a bazaar near the Niẓámíya madrasa, called the ‘Tutushí estate’, a madrasa called ‘Tutushiya’ near it, for members of Hanafite sect, and a hospital, also known as the ‘Tutushí’ in the Bábu 'l Azaj (quarter)”. Equally vague and obscure is another passage in which Yáqút refers to the Niẓámíya madrasa. It comes during his description of the locality of the Qurayya quarter on the west bank of the Tigris, “opposite,” he says, “to the lane leading down to the river from the Niẓámíya madrasa bazaar.”

The Nyāyapraveśa with the commentary of Haribhadra has been published in the Gaekwad's Oriental Series, together with a careful comparative study of the two Tibetan translations by my friend Vidhuśekhara Shāstrī. Both translations presuppose the same original, but the first (T) (Cordier, Catal., vol. iii, p. 435, n. 7) has been translated from the Sanskrit, while the second (T) is a translation from the Chinese of Yuan Chwang (Tib.: T'aṅ Sam Tsaṅ). The title of the work in the Sanskrit text is Nyāyapraveśasūtra: in this the word sūtra seems to be out of place, and it would be better to substitute the Chinese lun, śāstra, which is much more correct, and which is to be found also in the index of the bsTan-ạGyur: Bstan.bcos.rigs.pa.la.ạjug.pa: nyāyapraveśa-śāstra. (Cf. Haribhadra's Vṛtti, p. 9: nyāyapraveśakākhyaśāstram.) According to the Tibetan colophon of T1 the title of the book is given as pramāṇanyāyapraveśaprakaraṇa; but as it often happens in the Tibetan titles, this is probably a later restoration based on the Tibetan itself. If we have recourse to the commentary by Kwei-chi () we should be inclined to interpret the ts'ad ma of the Tibetan not as pramāṇa, but as ts'ad. mai. rig. pa: pramāṇavidyā, hetuvidyā: in fact the Chinese commentator gives us in transcription the Sanskrit title of the book in this way: ; in Sanskrit, hei tu—fei t'o—na ye—po lo fei she—she sa tan lo.

A modern student of Buddhism, unfamiliar with Buddhist art, and accustomed to think of the Buddha only as a human and historical figure, would naturally expect to find the Śākya sage represented in art like any other Buddhist friar, with a shaven (muṇḍa) head; and to suppose that such representations could only have existed as memorials, and not as objects of a cult. As a matter of fact, however, the Buddha is always represented, although not in royal garb, as a deity, with a nimbus, lotus or lion throne, and certain physical peculiarities proper to the conception of a MahāPuruṣa and Cakravartin or King of the World. But crowned and otherwise ornamented Buddhas are not unknown, and again, the earliest Indian type differs in several respects from the established formula of the Gupta and later periods. Thus the Buddha iconography presents a number of difficult problems; and amongst these are those referred to in the title of this paper.

In an article written in 1926 on “Byzantine Musical Instruments in the Ninth Century” I mentioned that one of the earliest extant accounts in Arabic of the musical instruments of the Arabs and their neighbours is contained in an oration delivered by Ibn Khurdādhbih before Al-Mu'tamid (870–93). The narration appears in the Murūj al-dhahab of Al-Mas'ūdī (d. c. 956). Both of these writers were competent, to some extent, to deal with the question in its general aspect, and for that reason the recital has an added interest. Ibn Khurdādhbih had been taught music by the famous Isḥāq al-Mauṣilī (767–850), who was his father's personal friend. By his books, and by other means, some historical details of music and musicians were preserved, and they have been cited by later writers. Some of this information has, however, been challenged more than once by the author of the Kitāb al-aghānī, who censures Ibn Khurdādhbih for his mere conjectures, and for making statements without sufficient authority. Yet it may be presumed that the details given by Al-Mas'ūdī on the authority of Ibn Khurdādhbih may be trusted. The former, who had the highest opinion of the latter, would scarcely have quoted him at such length without reservations had he not approved. Al-Mas'ūdī was a great traveller and observer, and he had himself dealt with the music and musical instruments of the Arabs, Greeks, Byzantines, Syrians, Nabatseans, Indians, Persians, and others in his various works. If Ibn Khurdādhbih had erred, “the Imām of the historians,” as Ibn Khaldūn has called Al-Mas'ūdī, would assuredly have corrected him.

There is yet another man, whose original message to his fellow-men has been woven into the earliest teachings we call Buddhism, but whose name his age and after-ages have let die. Not in the first utterances ascribed to the Sakyan founder of the movement, nor in the last things which he is represented as emphasizing and enjoining as teachings do we find this original message. We do not know when, in the forty and odd years of the founder's mission, this lost voice began to make itself heard in the same area of missionary work. We do not know when, not the teacher but his teaching was taken over as part of the stock of Sāsana logia. What we do find is a fourfold exercise, moulded into a formula of distinctive character, and emerging here and there in discourses. We also find passing allusions in the scriptures to the four heads of the formula, and we find two at least of the four expanded separately and in a different connexion.

Dr. Johns left among his papers a closely written and almost complete manuscript to which he had given no distinctive title. In looking over this manuscript I saw at once that he had copied and joined up K. 2800, Sm. 318, and K. 2655. At any rate, it is obvious that he would have made these joins, if he had been able to return to the British Museum, and would have seen that K. 2655 actually completes the copy of the last edict of Adad-nirari III on the obverse. A discovery of this kind is too important to remain in obscurity, and the discovery surely ought to go to the illustrious scholar who made it. There was only a transcription of the text in the manuscript, and after copying and joining up the three fragments I have given the author's edition with some notes to bring it up-to-date, as the author would undoubtedly have done better than myself. Moreover, Dr. Johns has also given an edition of his own text, K. 3042, in his Assyrian Deeds and Documents, 1077, referring to ancient endowments by Shalmaneser, Tiglathpileser, Adad-nirari III, and Sargon, and confirmed by Sennacherib. This text has also remained unedited for many years. The manuscript, therefore, contained not only a new document of extraordinary importance, but the first edition of an equally important document, and the two texts throw much light upon the history of Assyria from Šamš-Adad III to Sennacherib.

In Cuneiform Texts of the British Museum, vol. xvi, 46, 183–204, occurs, in the body of the text of a long incantation, including a legend of the Fire God, Gibil, and the seven devils, the well-known legend of the plant kiškānû, which is otherwise unknown in medical and magical texts. The bilingual text in six long columns has been admirably pieced together by Dr. R. C. Thompson, who also gave an edition in Devils and Evil Spirits, vol. i, 184–201. It had been previously edited in both editions of iv, Rawlinson, pl. 15, but without several duplicates and joins latterly made by Thompson. The lines concerning the giš-kìn = kiškānu plant occur in the middle of Rev. I. A great many editions of this legend have been made; for the literature on earlier editions, see Dhorme's translation in his Choix de Textes Religieux, 98; Ebeling in Gressmann's Altorientalische Texte zum Alten Testament, 328. All editions suffered from one defect; they were based upon the Accadian text, which is not original and is often an incorrect version of the Sumerian. That the legend is originally of Sumerian origin is clear from the Sumerian tablet from Susa published by Dr. Leon Legrain in Délegation en Perse, xiv, 125, No. 9, and photograph, pi. xi. By comparing the two texts the similarity of phrases and style is at once evident. In contrast to these editions, Mr. C. J. Gadd gave an edition of CT. xvi, 46, in his Sumerian Reading Book, 165, which he correctly based upon the Sumerian text.

1. The use of images in Hindu temples and in Hindu homes is, perhaps, not absolutely universal to-day, as we shall see; but the non-conforming minority, if it still exists, is exceedingly minute. In every part of India temples and images may be seen; and the religious life of all classes of the people depends very largely on their use.

Among the folk instruments of music in North Africa the primitive lute, guitar, or pandore known as the gunbrī or gunībrī stands facile princeps. Look where you will from Egypt to Morocco, from the Mediterranean to the southern confines of the Sūdān, and you will find this instrument in some form or other, although its name may have slight variation.2 It is essentially an instrument of the people, and is but rarely found in the hands of the professional musician of the town orchestra (ribā'a al-āla), who usually confines his attention to the more refined 'ūd (lute), kūītra (mandoline), or ṭtunbūr (pandore) among the stringed instruments whose strings are plucked. All and sundry among the people at large who are impelled to try their hand at music, take up the igunbrī or gurībrī——the noisy youth, the whining beggar, the strolling minstrel, the industrious workman, the respectable merchant, and the faqīr of the religious fraternity (zāwiya)——each thinking himself an adept as a performer.

IN the latest addition to the series of the Kurdisch-Persische Forschungen, Dr. Karl Hadank, of Berlin, has presented Iranian philologists and students of Persian dialects with a work of great interest and importance.

The series was initiated by the late Oskar Mann (ob. 1917) and the present volume, Abt. III, Band I, 1926, as well as its predecessors is based chiefly on the material collected by him. Its main contents are described in the title: Die Mundarten von Khunsâr, Mahallât, Natänz, Nâyin, Sämnân, Sîvänd und Sô-Kohrûd.

The nature and the religious meaning of the construction called a gigunu have long been disputed. Its close association with the ziqqurrat or temple tower has led one scholar to assume the identity of the two as probable, its association with graves has led another to suppose that the ziqqurrat was a gigunu as being the tomb of the god, while yet a third denies that gigunu signifies “place of burial”, and translates simply “sanctuary”.

By the “Nob region” I would for the present purpose indicate generally the stretch of country south of the desert of Chinese Turkestan and lying between “the Śa-cu region” on the east and “the Khotan region” on the west, together with any part of the mountain hinterland to the south. It would thus include, for example, Cer-cen(Calmadana), Charkalik (Nob), and the former Shan-shan kingdom. The documents come mainly from the old fort of Mīrān, which was also, as we have seen, in communication with Śa-cu; there is, indeed, ample evidence of active intercourse between the Tibetan authorities from Khotan as far as Śa-cu and Kva-cu and even further into China proper. In general it is clear that by the routes along the desert edge and otherwise, long journeys, covering many hundreds of miles, were habitual among the populations of the scattered oases and widely separated mountain settlements; in respect of distances they thought in large measures. It is in virtue of apparent importance and frequent mention in the documents that Nob, with its three or four towns, or forts, may be used to symbolize the whole region. The citations may be arranged under the names of the districts or places, which hereafter may acquire a more definite location. The dates are, no doubt, for the most part in the eighth century a.d.

When publishing recently the painted pottery found at al 'Ubaid I had necessarily to refer to that found by the French excavators at Susa and other mounds in that part of Persia. I pointed out that while at al 'Ubaid there were two types of painted pottery, the thick and the thin wares, which were contemporary and were associated with various types of plain and incised ware, and while there was a very definite difference between these wares and those of Susa and Musyan, yet certain analogies and parallels did exist both with the thin wares of Susa I and with the thick wares of Susa II, which have always been regarded as differing from each other very widely in date and in style, and the former of which was not associated with any other type of pottery.

I do not propose on this occasion to initiate a general discussion concerning the authenticity of the plays discovered and edited by the late Mahāmahopādhyāya Gaṇapati Śāstrī and by him attributed to Bhāsa. Hitherto the matter has run rather a normal course, first enthusiastic acceptance, then opposition, then suggestions of a via media. The debate has evoked some treatises which will retain their value even after a consensus is reached. The various questions are, we may assume, familiar to all scholars here, the question of the formal characteristics of the dramas, of their titles, of the Prakrit and the Sanskrit, of imitations in or by other literary works, of references and citations in anthologies and works on poetics, of the history of the stage in the Kerala country.

The tomb-scenes of Egypt of all periods are particularly rich in pictures of various phases of agricultural life: so complete is our material that it is possible to reconstruct every episode of the farmer's year. The newly sown seed was turned into the ground by various methods, sometimes by means of the hoe and human labour, sometimes by means of the plough drawn by oxen, and sometimes, again, it was trodden in by animals. From Herodotus' statement, it might appear that the only method of treading-in corn was by means of swine, but actually this method is very rarely met with. So far as I know, there is no instance of this procedure earlier than the eighteenth dynasty. In two Theban tombs (Nos. 24 and 146), each of which belonged to a different person bearing the name Nebamun, amongst the agricultural scenes, pigs are seen following the sower to tread in the grain. Both these tombs date from the reign of Tuthmosis III.

Among the unfinished papers left by the late Dr. Johns, Mrs. Johns has found one which he was preparing on the dated tablets of the reign of Kandalānu, last Assyrian viceroy of Babylonia, who succeeded Šamaš-šum-ukšn, brother of Ašurbanipal of Assyria. It is certain from a group of tablets from Dilbat, now in the Ašshmolean Museum (Weld Collection), that Kandalānu (Κινηλαδνου) and Ašurbanipal were the same persons; for this group of tablets from the same collection has the following dates: 1924, 487, Belibni, year 2, month Šabat, day 29; 1924, 489, Ašur-nādin-šumi, year 4, month Adar, day 2; 1924, 491, Ašur-aḫi-iddin, year 6, month Tebit, day 27; one in possession of Major A. H. Burn, C.I.E., Delhi, India, Ašur-aḫi-iddin, year 8, month Ab, day 8; 1924, 490, Kan-da-la-nu, year 15, month Kislev, day 9; 1924, 485, Kan-da-la-nu, year 19, month Nisan, day 14; one in possession of R. S. Cooke, Esq., Ministry of Awqaf, Baghdad, Kan-da-la-nu, year 17, month Šabat, day 3; 1924, 482, Kan-da-la-nu, year 15, month Kislev, day 9; 1924, 484, Ašur-bāni-apli, year 23, month Nisan, day 29; 1928,1, excavated at Ḫursagkalamma in 1927 by M. Watelin, but dated at Erech, Ašur-bāni-apli, year 18, month Ululu, day 21.