One point only in Dr. Barnett's vivacious article in the last number of this Bulletin (pp. 519–22) seems to merit further examination, because it deals with an issue which is capable of definitely objective treatment, namely the reference in the Pratimānāṭaka to the Nyāyaçāstra of Medhātithi. Dr. Barnett, despite the brief refutation of his view given by me above (Vol. III, Pt. II, p. 295), still insists that the Nyāyaçāstra can only mean the Manubhāṣya, a work of the tenth century a.d.

In the Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, London, at pp. 107 to 117 of III, 1, are to be found some criticisms by Messrs. Krishna Pishāroḍi and Rama Pishāroḍi on my views of Bhāsa and his authorship of Svapna-Vāsavadatta and the connected dramas published in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series. Their arguments are summarized hereunder with replies thereto:—

I. “Every open-minded critic must perforce admit that Pratimā-nāṭaka must come after Kālidāsa, Chārudatta after Śūdraka, and Avimāraka after Daṇḍin.”

In support of his view that the drama published by him under the title Svapna-vāsavadatta in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series (to which I shall henceforth refer as “the TSS. play”) is the work of Bhāsa, Mahāmahōpâdhyāya Gaṇapati Śāstri cites in JRAS., Oct. 1924, p. 668, a passage from the unpublished Bhāva-prakāśa of Śāradātanaya. I have examined three MSS. of the latter work. It nowhere ascribes the play to Bhāsa; but the context of the quotation and the observations on nāndī throw some light on the Bhāsa-problem.

The following is a brief digest of a pamphlet published by the Committee of Orientalists in Petrograd early in 1924. The publication was by order of the Academy of Sciences and is compiled and edited by M. V. Kotvich.

The problem of “accent” in the Japanese language has attracted the attention of a few Japanese scholars for some hundred years. In recent years more writers, both native and foreign, on the Japanese language have touched upon this problem. For instance, B. H. Chamberlain, A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, 3rd ed., 1898, pp. 19–20; R. Lange, Lehrbuch der japanischen Umgangssprache, 1906, ss. xxvii–viii; E. R. Edwards, Étude phonétique de la langue japonaise, 1903, § 142 f., § 159. Native writers: S. Izawa, Kokutei Tokuhon Seidokuho (The Orthoepy of the State Text Books); B. Yamada, Nihon Daijiten (Japanese Grand Dictionary); T. Takahashi, Hatsuon Jiten (Pronouncing Dictionary). Yet the results attained by these writers have not been quite satisfactory, as, for instance, Lange considers the Japanese “accent” to be that of stress, while Izawa thinks it is the delicate difference of length of speech-sounds. Yamada, Takahashi, etc., while they were right in thinking it to be difference of pitch, could not make out the pitch relations of the syllabic units of each word, and their method of indicating the “accent” was quite misleading.

Khajuri, in Sanskrit Kharjūrikā, is the name of (inter alia) a small village about 2 miles to the west of Guḍā (Gooda), and some 44 miles to the west of Indargaṛh, in Rajputana. Among its ruins is the inscription which I now edit from an estampage recently sent to me by Pandit Gopāl Lāl Vyās, the learned and energetic Curator of the Darbar Archæological Museum at Jhalrapatan, who has also very kindly supplied me with some notes on the topography.

The following is a translation of a little work bearing the full title of: Relation / de la / Mission / des Peres de la / Compagnie / de Iesus/. Establie dans le Royaume de Perse / par le R. P. Alexandre / de Rhodes. Dressée et mise au iour par un Pere / de la mesme Compagnie. A Paris, chez Iean Henault, Libraire-Iure, / ruë Saint Iacques, à l'Ange Gardien & / Saint Raphaël. M. DC. LIX. Avec privilege du Roy.

There is an old and widespread opinion that India is the “Country without a History”. And this idea is one of the reasons of its having become wrapped in that veil of mystic twilight in which the Romantic Period of the last century saw it, given up only to religious and philosophical speculation. Perhaps this veil has not yet fallen from the whole of its antiquity. It is true research has enabled us to attain some knowledge of the history of many dynasties, wars and social revolutions, religious struggles and literary feuds; nevertheless, all this seems to be merely a ripple on the surface, a waving of billows above the calm depth of a population that never changes its manner of life. Again and again we are told that much of the oldest tradition has survived in India up to the present day. And this is certainly true, for there is no land so fitted to serve as a place of refuge for past forms of civilization and culture as this country is, great as a small continent, with all its contrasts of plains, deserts, and sultry jungle, of mild hill climate and exuberant tropical vegetation. But this statement evades the essential facts. In every country, side by side with the latest forms of civilization, its oldest traditions are still alive, and though they may be of interest to the folklorist, it is not the task of the historian to trace cultural developments in their atavist remains, but in the beginnings and the culminating points of their evolution; and these have always been supported by the leading classes, and the history of them has been more or less that of the reigning civilization of their time.

The following remarks on the pronunciation of Hausa are the result of observations extending over a period of two months made by the writers upon the speech of some of the Hausa-speaking natives employed at the Wembley Exhibition.

Within twenty years of the flight of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, and only ten years after his death, the recently persecuted adherents of the new Faith embarked on a series of conquests which distinguish the spread of Islam as one of the most important, if not the most important, historical period of the last two thousand years. The conquest of Egypt by the Khalifa Omar was hardly complete in a.d. 641, when the Arabs turned westward along the southern shore of the Mediterranean and became involved in a series of adventures which were destined to menace Europe at a most critical time in its history. The people of Arabia had begun to make another bid for world power which the European branches of Western Man eventually achieved, at their expense.

In a review of Professor Hertel's recent little book Die Zeit Zoroasters, to be published in the JRAS., I have said that for his very wide-reaching conclusions concerning the date of Zoroaster there seems in reality to be no evidence at all. A renewed investigation of the facts which seem to bear on this intricate question has only corroborated this opinion; and as there could be no room for a detailed refutation of Professor Hertel's arguments in a short review, I feel it a duty to set forth, in somewhat fuller detail, the main points which speak, as far as I understand, against his new theory.

Oertel, in Lectures on the Study of Language, writes (in the footnote on p. 304): “The effect of taboo on the lexicon of savage tribes deserves further investigation.”

This vocabulary of over 800 words has been compiled with a view to supplying some omissions in Belsare's Dictionary, published in 1895. Belsare based his work on the valuable Narmakoṣa of the poet Narmadāśankara, of date 1873. The Gujarātī language has in the latter half of the past and in the present century been enriched by the addition of many Sanskṛt tatsamas, and of Persian or Arabic words. On the one hand, eminent modern poets such as Govardhanarāma and Narsinharao, and present century dramatists such as Dolatrāma Kṛparāma Paṇḍya (a Sanskṛt purist), are responsible for the use of many tatsamas. On the other hand, the advance of science and the more intimate acquaintance with the writings of English authors and poets have necessitated recourse to the classical language for expressing abstract ideas and terms, in which the vernacular is clearly deficient. This must be the excuse for introducing so many tatsamas into this vocabulary. It is unavailing nowadays to reject some as “pressed into service to gratify the vanity of a writer”, which is the reason why Belsare omits them. Yet it is not apparent why he excluded the oft-recurring word (blue lotus), while he inserts the rarer (desirous of salvation).

In my Shina Grammar just published there is a popular description of the sounds written eight years ago in India, when it was impossible for me to consult anyone. Now I should like to alter some of it. In phonetics advance is so rapid that one's descriptions are out of date almost as soon as they are written. Happily it is all advance. There is no retrogression.