Hanoi Vietnamese, although not apparently genetically related to Chinese, is a language phonologically of the Chinese type; in the terminology of Hockett (1955, 60–1, 129), Hanoi Vietnamese phonology constitutes a system without interludes, with syllable juncture, and with tones as ICs of syllables. Hanoi phonology is in fact rather close to the phonology of Middle Chinese (Karlgren's ‘Ancient Chinese’, cf. Pulleyblank, 1962, 64), the source, via the dialect of Chinese called ‘Sino-Vietnamese’ (Haudricourt, 1954, 79), of the majority of Vietnamese lexical items.

This article attempts to shed new light on the significance of the Zhouyi (Changes of Zhou or Book of Changes) in Zhong Hong's intellectual biography, and sets forth insights into the way in which intellectual influences of philosophical strata are interwoven in the Shipin (Kriterion Poietikon), one of the major contributions to Chinese literary criticism during the Nanbeichao period. Departing from comments made by Zhong Hong's biographers about his expertise on the Zhouyi, the intricate textual fabric of his writings is explored in the light of the intellectual discourse of his day. The Shipin is read as a complex blend of scholarly traditions and original insights, a number of its underlying structural principles are interpreted as allusions closely linked to conceptual kernels which originate from the Zhouyi and its exegetical literature.

The Geniza fragment T-S AS 161.50 contains three poems, all in Judaeo-Arabic, attributed to the Egyptian Sufi poet Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Abū ʿAbd Allāh, known as Ibn al-Kīzānī (d. 562/1167). None of the texts are present in his published dīwān. In the Egyptian section of his anthology Kharīdat al-qaṣr, Saladin's secretary ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī (d. 597/1201) testifies to the interest of Saladin in Ibn al-Kīzānī. We are thus in a unique position to evaluate the readership of this poet; while his followers called Kīzāniyya were already known, his popularity evidently extended not only across confessional lines to be read in a Jewish milieu, but also reached elite levels, despite his (according to ʿImād al-Dīn) “heterodox” beliefs. These new texts accordingly throw light on inter-religious and unorthodox currents normally not understood to have been promoted by Saladin and his avowedly Sunni successors.

A new English translation, by Peter Khoroche and Herman Tieken, of “Hāla's 700” Prakrit verses caters for a long-felt want in the field of classical Indology. It is an attractive literary rendering, succinctly annotated, of stanzas epitomizing the delights and sorrows of love. The result is not, however, in every case an improvement upon previous efforts, and it emphasizes the need for more objective textual criticism. It is the compilers' personal selection, both from among the thousand or so verses that vie to represent the nominal 700, and from among the multifarious variant readings that have accrued over the centuries in half a dozen distinct recensions. It is particularly regrettable that the work is based substantially upon Weber's Madhyadeśa Vulgate text, despite the indications, largely provided by Tieken's own previous work on the text, of the reliability of the “Jaina” recension, especially Bhuvanapāla's readings when supported and corrected by their Madhyadeśa and Kerala offshoots. The evidence does not really justify postulation, following Weber, of an underlying original corpus of 700 verses.

The documented history of the theory of the muwashshaḥ and one of its constituent parts, the kharja, spans almost 800 years: from Ion Sanā' al-Mulk (d. 608/1211) to the present day. Apologists for the various theories broadly belong to one of two schools, which for the sake of convenience I shall label ‘integralist’ and ‘partialist’. The integralist view holds that the muwashshaḥ is an indivisible poetic unit with a coherent internal structure; partialists, on the other hand, divide the muwashshaḥ into two separate units where certain linguistic criteria are applicable: the main body of the muwashshaḥ in Classical Arabic and the kharja if it employs a Romance and/or Arabic vernacular.

The importance of documentary sources for the history of the official postal system (barīd) in the first century of Islam has long been acknowledged. In addition to a small number of documents from the eastern part of the Muslim Empire, Egyptian papyri from the 90s/710s and 130s/750s form the main documentary sources for modern studies on the postal system. These papyri belong to a distinct phase in Islamic history. Papyri from other, especially earlier, phases have largely been neglected. The present article addresses the history of Egypt's official postal system from the Muslim conquest up to c. 132/750. It argues that the postal system gradually developed out of Byzantine practices and was shaped by innovations by Muslim rulers through which their involvement in the postal system's administration gradually increased. The article ends with an edition of P.Khalili II 5, a papyrus document from 135/753 on the provisioning of postal stations.

Jnānadeva's commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, completed in the year A.D. 1290 as recorded in the iti śrī in chapter xviii, shows, after making allowances for the errors and glosses of copyists, the state of the Marāthī language at the end of the thirteenth century A.D. The oldest known existent copy is dated by the poet Ekanātha in the Śaka year 1506, corresponding to A.D. 1584.

Among the numerous Kharosthi documents recovered from Chinese Turkestan and transcribed and edited by A. M. Boyer, E. J. Rapson, and E. Senart, is one which is in many ways unique. This is the oblong wooden tablet which is numbered 661 in the second volume of these scholars' Kharosthī Inscriptions, where there is given on plate 12 a photographic reproduction of the document in question. It is one of the few documents discovered at Endere, which seems in ancient times to have been a sort of military fort situated about halfway between Charchan (Calmadāna of the inscriptions) and Nina or Niya (Cad'ota). Not only does it show some marked peculiarities of alphabet, dialect, and general style of composition, but as can be seen from the reproduction the form of writing also is quite unusual.

It is written in a very stiff and archaic form of script, but the ink is fresh and the writing is very well preserved and clear and Konow is probably right when he says in his paper on “ The Names of the Kings in the Niya documents ”, published in Acta Orientalia, that “ it does not seem possible to ascribe a late date to E. vi, ii, i, which is probably not an original but a copy from an old tablet ”. Various indications supporting this view of a very early date for the original of this document will be noticed in the course of the following commentary. For the sake of convenience of reference, I repeat the text of the inscription here.

Modern Gujrātī has three phonemes in the group of voiced cerebrals: viz. the unaspirated stop ḍ, the unaspirated tapped ṛ, and the aspirated stop ḍh, there being no corresponding aspirated tapped in the standard language. In Gujrātī script ḍ and ṛ are written with the same symbol, while ḍh has a different symbol.

The Mahasin al-majalis of Ibn al-'Arif (†536/1141) is a Sufi treatise of minor dimensions and inconsiderable importance, one of a multitude of such summaries that bridge the gap between the classical works of Kalabadhi, Qushairi, and Makki, and the phenomenal productivity of Ibn al-'Arabi. For all that, the essay (for it is little more) is not without interest; it is allusive and elliptical in style, thus affording material for commentators; and the author begins his discourse proper by quoting, though not by name, the Mawdqif of Niffari; as Ibn al-'Arabi afterwards used Ibn al-'Arif quite freely and approvingly, it is always possible that he got to know and take an interest in Niffari through this intermediary.

The document here edited is one of the large collection of papers presented by B. H. Hodgson to the library of the India Office, being vol. 29, no. 8 (34/3), ff. 48–51. At the top of the first page is written, presumably by Hodgson,“Ethics and Ritual of Buddhism”; but the word“Ethics”here refers simply to the fact that the text is followed (ff. 52–53) by the standard lists of the ten kuśalas, the ten pāramitās, the four brahmavihāras, the thirty-seven bodhipāksika-dharmas, and so forth, the first two lists being given also in the body of the text. The main text gives in outline the chief rites of Buddhism, daily, monthly, and annual ceremonies (forming, so to speak, a Buddhist “Church′s Year ”), followed by accounts of the thirteen sacraments.

Section 1. General

Until the publication in the Gaekwar's Oriental Series XXXVII of the Apabhramśakvyatrayi (AKT) (edited with Sanskrit Introduction, Notes, and Appendices by the Jain pandit Lalchandra B. Gandhi) in 1927, the existence of prose Apabhramśa was unknown. This work, however, able though it is, is not much utilized or even consulted, and the extracts from the Kuvalayamālā Kahā, which he uses as illustrations, have never been discussed from a linguistic point of view. The whole of the Kuvalayamālā (as it is also called) has never been published, and it is an original work of linguistic importance.