As a leading Ṣūfī shaykh of his age al-Nābulusī's prime purpose in all his travels was to seek mystical experience and gain baraka by contact with the righteous, both living and dead. Consequently, his riḥlas emphasize encounters with spiritual dignitaries and ecstatics and his many ziyārāt to holy tombs and other shrines. These works thus provide a valuable source of information on religious personalities of his day and on Muslim sanctuaries.

The association of Alexander the Great with the Mongols begins with the identification of the latter with the peoples of Gog and Magog. The evolution of this legend, which has its origin in the Book of Genesis, is curious in the extreme. In Genesis Magog is mentioned as one of the sons of Japhet, his name occurring between those of Gomer and Madai. Since Madai is clearly intended as the eponym of the Medes and Gomer has been located in Cappadocia and Phrygia it has been plausibly suggested that Magog at this stage corresponded to the territory in between, i.e. the region immediately south of the Caucasus in Eastern and Northern Armenia. In Ezekiel we hear for the first time of Gog “of the land of Magog”, who will come from his place out of the uttermost parts of the north, he and many peoples with him, “all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.” It will be seen that the “land of Magog” can no longer be located south of the Caucasus, and indeed Ezekiel's prophecy of the invasion of Gog has been interpreted as an echo of the invasions of the Cimmerians, who came southwards from the steppes through the Darial pass towards the end of the eighth century B.C.; or more probably of the invasion of the Scythians which took place in the following century by way of Darband. Finally we are told in Revelation that “when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea”.

There are two passages in the Soma hymns of maṇḍala IX which deserve special attention. Both of them are concerned with Agni, who in this book is a rare and insignificant occurrence: in 9,5,11 he is, in a final line, said to witness, together with Vāyu, Bṛhaspati, Sūrya and Indra, a Soma ceremony; in 22, 2 and 88, 5 he figures in similes; in 96, 5 Soma is described as the father of Heaven, Earth, Agni, Sūrya, Indra and Viṣṇu. The more interesting are the two Agni passages in the last sūktas of the first part of this maṇḍala, viz. the triplet 9, 66, 19–21 and the six stanzas 9, 67, 22–27.

Śaśāṅka, who flourished in eastern India, was one of the most important rulers in the post-Gupta epoch. He was a rival and opponent of the Maukharis of Kānyakubja, Rājyavardhana and Harṣavardhana of Thāneśvara, and Bhāskaravarman of Kāmarūpa. Śaśāṅka is known from a large number of sources and among these coins are very important. Śaśāṅka is generally known to have issued coins made of gold only. In course of our recent exploration in the deltaic regions of West Bengal, we have, however, come across two examples of the hitherto unnoticed silver coins of Śaśāṅka. These coins were discovered along with the two other coins made of gold, and of these one belongs to Śaśāṅka and the other to a class of coin with the legend Śrī the obverse.

In view of the lengthy descriptions of tattooing from many other regions in Southeast Asia, it is odd that the Chao Phraya basin receives but little attention. The custom is usually not mentioned, or is given a passing reference as one rather old-fashioned habit to which modern observers need pay little regard. Accounts of central Thai tattooing which cover more than a single paragraph are rare. Moreover, this is in marked contrast to the extensive local literature on closely related subjects such as magical diagrams, protective spells, amulets and astrology.