Among the languages of the Austronesian stock, formerly called the Malayo-Polynesian family, several are entitled to the name of literary languages, languages with a literature of their own in refined prose and poetry.

Among the many peculiarities of Egypt, not the least notable is her instinct for rejecting the foreign influences which her position at the gates of three continents renders exceptionally numerous. This power to repudiate what is alien seems to belong to the very genius of the land. It is, perhaps, a sign of the sufficiency and adequacy of Egypt for herself; an indication that within herself she finds what she needs for her existence and for her development, and that the outer world and its gifts are not required. Her ancient history is an eloquent witness of her own peculiar power; a power to achieve, to develop, and to realize the highest that is in her, only under conditions of comparative isolation, or under such conditions of contact as leave her full freedom of choice; and her less ancient, as well as her modern, history no less eloquently testify to the deadening effects of contact with the outer world.

It is now possible for me to supplement my Arabic text of Ali Baba by printing in full the only other original version so far known. I shall add some further information which I have gathered on the identity of the scribe of the Bodleian MS. and various notes on the text of that version. Besides the criticisms of Professor Torrey, printed in this Journal for 1911 (pp. 221 ff.), I have had the advantage of privately communicated suggestions from Professor Goldziher, Artin Pasha, and Joseph Gabriel, Esq., a native of Ḥaṣbaya in the Lebanon, but now for many years in business in Manchester. His communications have been of especial interest.

The title of this paper suggests a definite answer to a definite question. I do not think that such an answer can be given except in very general terms. The mystics of Islam, like all other mystics, recognize that the object of their search cannot be apprehended by knowledge, much less described by words. The goal is ineffable: all that can be done is to describe the journey from beginning to end. This is no easy task, and would assuredly be a long one if we accept the view of a celebrated Persian theosophist that the ways to God are in number as the souls of men. It is possible, however, to reduce to a system the main features, both theoretical and practical, of any mystical type, and with the help of a highly developed symbolism to indicate in some degree what is the nature of those experiences which lie beyond thought and knowledge. My present purpose is to discuss the meanings attached by Ṣúfís to certain metaphorical terms which are used in reference to the state of union with God.

About the year 300 it became plain that a new religion was spreading through the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. This was the faith taught by one Manes or Mânî, a native of Babylonia, who was put to death by order of the Shah Bahram or Varanes I in 275. One story is that he began to teach when 13 years old, another when he was 24. We know with fair certainty that he was 60 when he died; so that if we take the more probable date his missionary activity must have lasted for thirty-five years— a longer period than has generally been allowed to founders of new religions. His teaching must also have started in the reign of Ardeshîr, the restorer of the Zoroastrian religion, by whose orders were collected the books known as the Avesta. Ardeshîr's religious restoration was avowedly made for political reasons, and with the view of binding together the newly-founded empire of the Sassanides by a common faith. It seems to have given a good deal of offence to the older Persian nobles, and it was very likely among these that Mânî found his first converts. The later Manichæans boasted that he converted to his doctrines Ardeshîr's successor, Shâpûr or Sapor, the conqueror of the Emperor Valerian, and also the next king, Hormuz or Hormidas, who reigned only a few months.

In the last October number of this Journal Mr. Kennedy gave us the concluding parts of his paper entitled “The Secret of Kanishka”. We may differ from him on some details. We may hesitate, for instance, to accept the suggestion that the origin of the era of B.C. 58 was the convocation of the Fourth Buddhist Council by the Kushan king Kanishka, rather than the actual beginning of his reign; which involves the view that, while he was king de facto for some time before that year, he became recognized as king de jure, and his regnal reckoning was fairly started, and was accepted as the official state reckoning, only when, in that year, having become converted to Buddhism, he caused the Council to be held. But there can be no doubt as to the general great value of what he has laid before us.

[This fragment, as well as a number of others, written in he Tokhari language and in Slanting Gupta characters, were forwarded to me from Simla by the Government of India, in April, 1907. In the forwarding letter it was stated that they had been “found at Jigdalik and Kaya, near Kuchar”, by a man of Kuchar, called Sahib Ali. From Sahib Ali's report it appears that Jigdalik lies one day's march from Baï, and that the manuscript fragments were dug out by him from what he calls “a house”, situated in “the hills” near Jigdalik. The term “house” is applied by the natives of Eastern Turkestan to what we call a stūpa, or shrine, see Sir Aurel Stein's Ancient Khotan, vol. i, p. 483. The name Jigdalik, as M. Pelliot informs me, is not uncommon in Chinese Turkestan, and signifies simply a place of oleasters. The Jigdalik fragments will be published in my projected series of volumes of Manuscripts from Eastern Turkestan; but as there will still be some delay in the issue of the first volume, I gladly accept the hospitality of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society to give an early specimen of Professor Sylvain Lévi's careful edition of them. A glossary of the fragment, as well as linguistic notes, by Professor Meillet, are now in my hands, and will be published with the fragment itself and its facsimile in the forthcoming first volume of my series.—R. H.]