The following is a Chinese description of the kingdom of Bengal, written at the commencement of the fifteenth century, about eighty years before the Portuguese discovered the route round the Cape of Good Hope, and about sixty years or so after Ibn Batuta had visited those regions. This account is a chapter taken from a work, bearing the Chinese title Ying-yai--shêng-lan (a general account of the shores of the ocean), compiled by one Mahuan, an Interpreter attached to the suite of Chêng Ho, who was sent to the various kingdoms of the western ocean by the Chinese Emperor Tung-lo. The object of this expedition was, that the Emperor Yung-lo feared that Hui-ti, his predecessor, whom he had driven from the throne, was concealing himself in some country over the sea; he wanted to trace him, and at the same time to display his military force in foreign countries, in order to show that China was rich and strong.

At the end of January of the year 1258 A.D., after a siege of more than a month, the Mongol array stormed and took possession of Baghdad; then, on or about the 18th of February following, the thirty-seventh and last Caliph of the House of Abbas, Al-Musta'ṣim-billah, was by order of Hūlāgū put to death. Concerning the manner of his death the accounts differ; unfortunately there has come down to us no narrative by an eye-witness of these events, for the only really contemporary historian, the author of the Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣirī, was a native of India and wrote at Delhi.

The only Pai. quotation connected directly with the Bṛh. is given by Mārkaṇḍeya (seventeenth century): Bṛhatkathāyām kupaci pisāḷam (Grierson, EPG., 134). Keith, HSL., p. 269, observes, “We really cannot be sure that we have a single relic of the Bṝhatkathā, still less that so late a grammarian as Mārkaṇḍeya actually had the text before him.” Pisālaṃ, moreover, is a neo-Indian form, which normally would not occur before the twelfth century, for the words in AMg pisalla (PG 595) and in Pkt. pisalla (Hem., i, 193) are normal Mid-Indian as contrasted with Mar. pisāḷeṇ “madness”.

De Mailla tells us that the Shato were descended from the horde Chu yué of the Western Tu kiu (Chu yué was the family name of its chiefs, vide infra), who had settled to the south of the mountain Kin po shan, and to the east of the lake Pu lei hai (i.e. the Kukunor), and near the stream called Shato, whence they derived their name (op. cit. vol. vi. p. 378). Hyacinthe tells us they lived south of Kara Mannai Ola, in Khur-Kara-Ussu (Borgs, Hyacinthe, p. 277). He derives their name from the Mongol word Shato, meaning a leader (id.). De Guignes tells us the Chu yué Turks lived in the neighbourhood of lake Lop, near which was a great desert which the Turks called Shato, whence these Turks derived their name (cf. Hist. des Huns, vol. ii. p. 37). Like Klaproth, De Guignes identifies them with the Ta ghaz ghaz, a view to which I shall revert in a future paper on the Uighurs. De Guignes tell us the Shato horde was subject to the Great Khans of the Western Turks, and assisted them in their various expeditions.

It is the aim of the following paper to present to the readers of this Journal the problem of the origin of Chinese writing as it appears at the opening of the historical period in the ninth century b.c., and to give some account of the new light thrown upon the subject by recent discoveries in North China. It is also my hope to show that there are reasons for endeavouring to stir an interest in this question of origin, and some grounds for defining, as clearly as present conditions allow, the main features of what is already known of the problem, and indicating the lines along which fruitful investigation must advance. Especially valuable it should be to investigators of other primitive systems of writing to have a working knowledge of the rise and progressive changes of a script, probably of very ancient origin, certainly claiming a continuous history of 3,600 years, still in vigorous activity, betraying no signs of impending decay. The facts of such a life-history, properly ascertained and appreciated, might well contribute some illuminating sidelights or useful suggestions on analogous inquirics.

Ancient tombs and hoards across the Eurasian steppe call for a thorough revision of art-historical categories associated with pastoral societies from Mongolia to Crimea. This study focuses on one such category. “Animal style” is an umbrella term traditionally used to categorise portable precious metalwork ornamented with dynamic scenes of vigorous animal fights and entwined zoomorphic designs. With its emphasis on irregular animal anatomies and deeply rooted in a “pars-pro-toto” mode of expression, steppe imagery of fantastic fauna presents a useful case study in broader investigations of composites in the ancient world and their diffusion across cultural spheres. This study views beasts through a binary lens, the structured monsters of Greco-Roman thinkers and the organic composites of nomadic steppe artisans. In the Western canon, “composites” existed within a politically-manufactured framework of governable “otherness”, in which fantastic fauna conveys a certain tension with the exotic, unknown and uncontrollable East. Meanwhile, in the visual rhetoric of steppe artisans, monsters represented a tension with the (cyclical) shifts occurring in one's biota rather than the tumultuous events in one's constructed environment. This paper explores how the contrasting steppe pastoralist and sedentary imperial world-views came to define the various functions and meanings of “composites” in Eurasian Antiquity.

Having been led from the interest which has attached to Mr. Colebrooke's opinion, on the subjects discussed in Professor Whitney's paper, to examine the very copious memoranda on Hindu astronomy, which are in my possession, I think I am in a position to clear up some of the points which have given rise to this controversy. It seemed to be so improbable that Mr. Colebrooke should have taken such pains to identify the constellations named in the passage of the Jyotish, and have so pointedly referred to the double observation of the solstices as determining the epoch of the observation, while he was really grounding his opinion on the position of another asterism, that I thought the subject merited a closer scrutiny.

Naghm (pi. Anghām) and Naghmah (pi. Naghamāt) mean “Vocal melody”, both being derived from the Arabic “To speak, hum, or sing in a low pleasant tone”. Such were the classical meanings of those terms, in distinction from LAḤN (pi. ALḤĀN), which stood for “melody” whether in the vocal or instrumental art. Thus, one of the earliest Arabic books on music—the Kitāb al-naghm (Book of vocal melody)—by Yūnus al-Kātib (d. c. 765), became the source book on this subject. Then came Isḥāq al-Mauṣilī (d. 791) who wrote the Kitāb al-naghm wa'l-īqā' (Book of melody and rhythm). Yet the famous Kitāb al-aghānī of Al-Iṣfahānī (d. 967) introduces each song under the title of saut, although that is only done so as to indicate the singing (taghannī) of a poem. Later, the term naghm came to be used in a modal sense, equating with the Sanscrit rāga and jātī, and the Persian āvāz. We know of the naghm in the modal sense as early as Al-Kindī (d. c. 874), one of them (called ṭarā'iq) being known as Iṣfahān. In the Mafātiḥ al-'ulūm of Abū 'Abdallāh al-Khwārizmī (d. c. 1000), these modes (dasātīn) were attributed to the famous Bārbad of the court of Khusrau Parviz the Sāsānī ruler. Al-Mas'ūdī (d. c. 957) names one of these modes as mihrbānī (cf. mihrgānī) among the ancient Persian modes, whilst Ibn Zaila (d. 1048) mentions a mode (ḍarb) called nāqūsi, which is the 26th of the Sī laḥn of Khusrau va Shīrīn of Nīzāmī of Ganja (1203).

The Babylonians divided the night into three watches, to which they gave the names maṣṣartu bararîtu, evening watch, maṣṣartu ḳablîtu, midnight watch, maṣṣarti šat urri, morning watch. Bararîtu and kablîtu are adjectives in this construction. The full forms occur rarely as in Ebeling, Religiöse Keilschrifttexte aus Assur, No. 58, Rev. 7 ; No. 91, Rev. 21–2. Ordinarily maṣṣartu is omiṭted in the Semitic texts and bararîtu, ḳablîtu are treated as nouns. So in the syllabars, where the Sumerian equivalents contain the word ennun = maṣṣartu, the noun for “ watch ” is invariably omitted.

It has been suggested that all historical sources are subjective from their inception and that authors' styles, commitments and views determine the bases of historical writings. Claude Lévi-Strauss has ventured so far as to claim: “Besides, historical fact has no objective reality. It only exists as a result of a retrospective construction undertaken by people who have lived the events they speak of in a purely arbitrative sense.” Indeed, historical narratives are fraught with danger when used as sources of actual information, for factual accuracy often does not extend to validity in representation of events. Formal histories such as dynastic chronicles were particularly vulnerable to misrepresentation. They usually were composed either with the intent of flattering the rulers who served as patrons of the author's efforts - and, hence, reflect royal ideology and imperial propaganda - or as a means of disparaging and vilifying the royal house

The supreme importance of the Rig-veda in all questions bearing on the history of the Aryan mind, and on the development of the religious idea in man, gives interest to every attempt to throw light on that priceless heir-loom of India. Much has already been done by able scholars, in many ways, to investigate the language and ideas enshrined in the Rig-veda-sanhitâ; but no one has yet discovered the principle on which the hymns are arranged among themselves, or has advanced beyond the mere consciousness expressed by Prof. Max Müller in his History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, that “there is some system,” “some priestly influence,” “traces of one superintending spirit,” and such-like generalities. The object of the following paper is to show the principle which regulated the formation of the Sanhitâ, the aggregation of hymns into Maṇḍalas, the reason for the positions assigned to the Maṇḍalas, and the method followed in placing each particular hymn. If my deductions prove accurate, it is evident that a fresh impetus will be given to the study of these remarkable documents, for the clue to the labyrinth will be in the hands of future investigators.

At the conclusion of a paper dealing with the possible identity of the site of Kasiā with Veṭhadīpa, I expressed the hope that a continuation of my explorations on that site would lead to a final solution of the topographical problem. Owing to unforeseen circumstances, this hope has not been fulfilled. Last winter's excavations, however, have had the result of settling another question no less important for the ancient geography of India—that of the position of Śrāvastī.