The details of philological processes are generally lost in the mists of obscurity, and most recognized linguistic development is difficult to follow because it took place hundreds or thousands of years ago. We must often have wished for the chance of hearing one sound change into another, and the wish is usually vain. But in the case of English words in India it is frequently possible to see them entering the country and watch the changes taking place.

The publication of P'u-yi's autobiography is an occasion of great importance, not merely to sinologists and historians, but also to sociologists and political scientists, for the book contains a wealth of valuable information about the recent past of China, life in the Manchu court, particularly that of the author, and the technique of political education adopted by the Chinese Communists. The book itself is a unique document in two respects—it is the first autobiography of a Chinese monarch and this monarch's life spans the period from the medievalism of Aisin-Gioro to the Communism of Mao Tse-tung.

The Sanskrit-Khotanese bilingual text edited in this study is contained in the manuscript fonds Pelliot 5538. Since we are still seriously in need of bilingual texts in the elucidation of Khotanese problems, the present short text is welcome. I am deeply indebted to Professor Paul Pelliot who has most kindly and courteously given me permission to read and to publish Khotanese manuscripts of his collection. I was able during the Christmas vacation last year to examine some sixty texts at the Bibliotheque Nationale. The recto of the Manuscript P 5538 contains a carefully written Parau ‘decree’, which is indicated also by a large drawing of the Chinese character ‘imperial commands’, kindly identified for me by M. C. M. Wang.

Cette description se fonde sur des observations faites en plusieurs points du Territoire français des Afars et des Issas (Goda, Mabla, ‘Àlta, Gamàrri notamment), de 1973 à 1975, et sur le témoignage d'informateurs originaires, pour certains, de l'Àwsa. Ceux-ci nous ont permis d'acquérir la certitude qu'un même dialecte était parlé dans la zone comprise entre le delta lacustre de l'Awash (Kalo) et le golfe de Tadjoura. Il semble aussi que l'afar méridional s'étende en amont même de Ba'àdu et jusqu'au piémont éthiopien, (Dòk'a, Dawwe et Awra); d'autre part, il est attesté au nord, à Baylūl, mouillage au delà duquel commence l'afar septentrional. Si nous n'avons pu encore enquêter personnellement dans ces régions, la classification proposée par Mahafly nous paraît toutefois approximative. Il est hasardeux d'isoler l'Awsa des régions côtières. De nombreux faits historiques (comme en témoignent les traditions orales) et sociologiques fournissent la preuve du contraire. Les tribus ‘asayammàra établies au nord et à l'ouest du Territoire français atteignent le Kalo au cours de leurs migrations saisonnières. Les Debne de la plaine du Gōba'ad, en transhumant par Anḍaḍkàlu au sud du lac Abḥe, touchent le pays gal'êla qui, au début de ce siècle, s'étendait à la majeure partie du Gōba'ad. De plus, les famines, les affaires de sang ont souvent été jusqu'à un passé récent à l'origine de l'exode de tout ou partie d'un groupe tribal. Les guerres pour la conquête de la vallée de l'Awash ont également opéré des bouleversements démographiques importants. Le déplacement vers l'ouest des Mōdayto ou des Badoyta-m mēla en est une illustration. On pourrait aussi mentionner les relations commerciales, occasions d'une dissémination de plusieurs tribus spécialisées dans les opérations de transit, tels les Ḥasōba que l'on retrouve tout au long d'une piste caravanière allant de Bāte à Ambabbo, près de Tadjoura.

The bibliography of the literature of Tibet is beset with extraordinary difficulties. The access to the literary treasures of this country is not easy and our knowledge in this domain is therefore exceedingly limited. If we exclude the two great Collections of Translations (the Kanjur and the Tanjur) which are tolerably well known from the bibliographical standpoint, we must confess that the great ocean of the original Tibetan literature, the literature of Tibet proper, remains almost entirely unknown.

The ‘Analects of Confucius’ 1/13 records a saying of Yu Tzu which begins as follows:

The meaning of yen k'efu yeh has never, to my knowledge, been satisfactorily explained. Any acceptable explanation, it seems to me, must furnish satis-factory answers to three questions. (1) What does the wordfu mean in this context ? (2) What is the construction of the sentence ? (3) What is the point of the saying ?

I PROPOSE in this paper to discuss only pure Turkish words, that is I specifically exclude all words which were borrowed from some other language at one time or another, and what I shall try to establish is one segment of the phonetic make-up of the oldest form of the Turkish language which we can reconstruct, that is the Turkish spoken appreciably earlier than the eighth century A.D., the date of the earliest substantial specimens of the language which still exist.

During a renaissance of Hindu mythology in the late colonial period, the Mahābhārata in particular was embraced as the essential account of the nation's ancient past. In the many literary retellings of the period, epic history is often recast as national history, even as the epic narratives themselves are inscribed with allegorical significance. Such is the case in the many poems and plays on the subject of Abhimanyu and his nemesis Jayadrath, including the most famous example in Hindi, Maithilisharan Gupta's narrative poem, Jayadrath-vadh (The slaying of Jayadrath, 1910). In this essay I situate Gupta's poem within the genre of paurāṇik or mythological literature and read the poem against the Abhimanyu-Jayadrath episode as found in the critical edition of the Sanskrit Mahābhārata to illustrate how Gupta both modernizes the poem and imbues it with nationalist ideology. I ultimately argue that Gupta's Abhimanyu is like a freedom fighter battling an imperial goliath, and his wife, Subhadra, a model for women dedicated to the cause. I also discuss some of the subsequent literature on Abhimanyu which was inspired by Gupta's classic work, and which also re-envisions the story in terms of contemporary political circumstances.

The earliest dated signature of a Mawṣilī artist is incised on a small inlaid brass box belonging to the Benaki Museum, Athens (Case 65, No. 17). This is an oblong miniature piece which measures only 6·3 cm. in length and 3·6 cm. in width. It is 2·3 cm. high and provided with an overlapping, bevelled lid (1·1 cm. high) which is fixed by means of two tiny hinges at the back and with a hasp in front. Its shape strongly resembles that of a snuff box and has no known parallel in Islamic metal work. Despite its exiguous dimensions it is decorated with intricate arabesques and inscriptions. The skilfully worked decor was for the most part filled with fine silver inlay, much of which has survived.

This document (No. 661 in Kharosṣṭhī inscriptions transcribed and edited by A. M. Boyer, E. J. Rapson, and É. Senart [and P. S. Noble]) has been the subject of special study by Professor Konow (Acta Orientalia, ii, pp. 124–7; x, pp. 77–80; xiv, pp. 233–240), and by Professor Noble (Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, VI, pp. 445–455), not to mention the subsequent discussion by Dr. Burrow of the word hinajha and his translation. The historical and linguistic importance which has been given to the document may excuse a further study of its problems. In order to make an auspicious commencement of these notes we may welcome the opportunity of acknowledging the advance made in the interpretation by Professor Konow's latest discussion, in Acta Orientalia, xiv, pp. 231 sqq. He shows that on the basis of the Saka-Khotanī forms the prima facie surprising royal name Vijita-Siṃha may be interpreted as practically equivalent to the Vijaya-Siṃha of the Khotan Chronicle. In Sanskrit-Prākrit also vijita could in certain circumstances have the same meaning as vijaya “victory” (as well as also that of “dominions”), so that a hearer or reader need not have been misled into understanding “Vanquished Lion”. We may accordingly forgo the reading Avijita-Siṃha or the idea of a guasi-approbrious name on the lines of Raṇa-bhīta, etc.: to understand the name as a bahu-vrīhi “one who has vanquished (s.c. surpasses) the lion” would be inappropriate, since the Vijaya/Vijita is a recurrent, dynastic, element in the names. Possibly, however, we may not even yet have completely solved the problem the (elsewhere also instanced) form Vijita, to which we may recur infra.

In the Dark Ages there was a break in the ruling dynasty of Ethiopia, and the kingdom fell into the hands of a line called Zāguē, of Agaw origin from Beguenā. (Bugnā), which made its capital at Roha in Lāstā. There is much that is obscure about the events that led to the Zaguē usurpation; the orthodox Ethiopian view, as expressed in the Be'ela nagaśtāt, was that God was angry with the House of David (the dynasty which they believe to be descended from Menilek son of Solomon and the ‘Queen of Sheba’) and gave the kingdom to the Zāguē. According to a document at Dabra Libānos in Šimezana, 2 a woman called Terde'a Gabaz transferred the kingdom to the Zāguē after the reign of Ḥezba Nañ, ‘and they reigned for 133 years, 700 years from the bringing of the Faith to Ethiopia’ (= A.D. 1033). This suggests that Terde'a Gabaz was the daughter of Ḥezba Nañ and married the first Zāguē king, thereby establishing him on the throne. These Zāguē, being Agaw, are referred to in the Chronicles as ‘not Israelites’, as in the Paris Chronicle, f. 2: ‘Anbasa Wedem begot Delna'ād, from whom the throne was taken3 and given to others who were not Israelites’. The end of the Zāguē line came in 1268, when ‘Takla Hāymānot restored the kingdom to Yekuno Amlāk’ (Paris Chron., f. 3), a descendant of the last king before the Zāguē. That there was a break and a restoration cannot be doubted, but the manner of the restoration is not clear and the evidence is conflicting, as well as of late date.

Many years ago the late Dr. Samuel Stern brought to my attention an item preserved among the Geniza documents in the Cambridge University Library. I remember that we used it as part of the illustrative material for a joint course of lectures on medieval Islamic administration, during which I, very much the junior partner, benefited greatly from his experience and store of knowledge. Stern himself intended to publish this piece, but had also brought it to the notice of Dr. Hassanein Rabie who used it, not entirely accurately, in his The financial system of Egypt, A.H. 564–741/A.D. 1169–1341 Rabie did not publish the text and, as far as I know, no one else ever has, although Geoffrey Khan has briefly referred to the titulature of the addressee. It seems worthwhile to do so now, after such a long interval, because of the intrinsic interest of this document.

1. The following article has grown out of notes made in response to a request from Sir George Grierson for the paradigm of a Shina () transitive verb with a root ending in a consonant, and in reply to a suggestion made by him that the construction with the trs. vb. is agential, i.e. that the ostensibly active trs. vb. is in fact passive, or was originally so.

In his Ta’rīkh al-Mawṣil, al-Azdī (d. 945) records the safe-conduct (amān) said to have been written for the surrender of the Abbasid ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Alī (d. 764) to his nephew, the caliph al-Manṣūr. This text has been overlooked in discussions of early Abbasid history and in studies of the work of Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (d. c. 756), who is widely credited with its production. This article presents an annotated translation of the amān and considers its transmission, authenticity, attribution and significance. Parallels with epigraphic, documentary and literary sources suggest that it was indeed originally composed in the early Abbasid period and that it conforms to developing conventions for amāns. Thus, it is important evidence for political theory and practice in the mid-eighth-century caliphate. Furthermore, it probably substantially reflects the agreement between the caliph and his uncle and may indeed be the work of Ibn al-Muqaffa‘.

From medieval times until today ideas of heredity through lineage and of merit through slave status have jostled for pre-eminence as explanations for transitions of Mamluk royal authority. This article contributes to this debate through an analysis of events in late 1341 marking the transition from the reign of one of the sultanate's most successful rulers, al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn, to that of his sons. This is achieved by focusing on the whereabouts of one of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad's most powerful agents, Qūṣūn al-Sāqī al-Nāṣirī, and on how this amir monopolized power in Egypt and Syria in such a way that his accession to the sultanate seemed inevitable. The article then demonstrates how things went wrong for Qūṣūn and how his failed attempt to obtain the sultanate triggered a Qalāwūnid dynastic succession practice that was to remain dominant for many decades.

It has always been said of Mehri that it has no dual forms of the verb. Thus Bittner, in what seems to be the most recent statement on the subject, says, discussing Śḥeri dual forms, that they ‘umso interessanter sind, als das Mehri im Bereiche des Zeitwortes keinen Dual besitzt’. It had, however, been suggested tentatively by Leslau, and later more positively by Wagner, that Ḥarsūsi (Ḥarsi) had dual forms of the verb.

The tone patterns of the Recent Style (chin-t‘i ) have always given trouble to Western readers of Chinese poetry. Chinese authorities offer us a confusing variety of patterns, each with a different tone sequence for every line of the quatrain, no apparent principle of organization, and seemingly unaccountable licences for certain syllables. Yet if we choose to ignore these patterns, we are left only with such clumsy rules of thumb as that syllables of the same tone tend to fall into pairs and that corresponding syllables within the couplet generally contrast in tone.