the whole, there can be no doubt that this second edition marks a considerable advance on the first. It is to be hoped that Mr. Lyall will have an early opportunity of showing, in a third edition, that he can do better still.

Mahâ-Kassapa, one of the chief disciples of Gotama Buddha, is a figure of considerable importance in the tradition of the Buddhist Church. The Right Reverend Pandit Widurupola Piyatissa, Primate of the Amarapura Sect, has found himself peculiarly attracted by this personality, and has been inspired to write a Pali poem, the Maha-Kassapa-charita, describing the history of his hero as narrated in Buddhaghosa's Commentaries on the Anguttara-nikâya and Samyutta-nikaya, which has recently been published at Colombo. The poem consists of twenty cantos, comprising in all 1,532 stanzas, and is written in a fluent and agreeable style, which makes it generally pleasant reading. As a specimen of modern Pali composition, it is worthy of study.

Upadhyaya Mangalavijaya, a Jain scholar of distinction, has recently published in the Yasovijaya Jain Series a grammar of the Sanskrit language, which bears the title Dharma-dipika, in honour of the late Vijayadharma Sûri. The work is based upon the celebrated Sabdânusasana of Hemachandra, the aphorisms of which are here rearranged and furnished with a brief, but lucid, Sanskrit commentary. It comprises two parts, the first dealing with vocalism, gender, declension, composition, and the taddhitastems, with an alphabetical index of the aphorisms quoted, and the second containing the verbal systems of the remaining sections of the grammar of classical Sanskrit, with appendices and indexes to the lists of verbal roots and to the aphorisms cited. The book is altogether a good exposition of Sanskrit grammar as taught in the Jain schools, and will be especially useful to students in India.

The legends of St. Thomas's travels and martyrdom in India have attracted much attention in recent years, and several attempts have been made to find a substrate of fact under the mass of fiction which has attached itself to the Saint's name. The latest of these is the second edition of a monograph by Father Alfons Vath, S.J., entitled Der hl. Thomas, der Apostel Indiens, which forms Heft 4 in the Abhandlungen aus Missionskunde und Missionsgeschichte, and handles the subject in a critical and truth-seeking spirit. The author begins by reviewing the well known “Acts of St. Thomas." He admits with perfect frankness that the greater part of this work is fiction, but considers that it has an underlying nucleus of historical fact, viz., that the Apostle travelled to India, that he had some dealings with a king named Gundaphar, that he was martyred in the realm of another king, and that his body was later taken back to the West. A study of the commercial relations between India and the West in the first century leads to the justified conclusion that a journey of the Apostle to India was theoretically possible, and actually easy; the history of North-Western India in that period, in which there appears from coins and an inscription an actual king Gundaphar, who is otherwise known to history, and in which moreover Hellenistic art strongly influenced India, lends further support to the statement of the Acts that Thomas (who was a carpenter and builder) visited India, and there met a king Gundaphar, a name which

ikewise reappears nowhere in Christian literature. The Father then proceeds to examine the evidences from the Apostle's travels in Southern India, his martyrdom at Mailapur, and the removal of his bones to Edessa, which are certainly persuasive, concluding with a discussion of several cognate topics, viz., the antiquity of Christianity in India, Thomas the Manichaean and Thomas of Kana, St. Thomas's martyrdom, Pantaenus and Bartholomew, the proper names in the Acts of St. Thomas, Mailapur and Kalamina, etc. The book is thoughtful, scholarly, and candid, and it well deserves an honourable place in the literature of the subject.

In his Trois Conferences sur les Gatha de l'Avesta, delivered for the Olaus Petri Foundation at the University of Upsala, and published in the Annales due Musée Guimet, Professor A. Meillet handles a theme on which he speaks with special authority (he was a disciple of James Darmesteter), and on which his views will be read with keen interest by students of Avestic literature. He regards the Gâthâs as fragments, not necessarily by one author, "the surviving débris of the Zoroastrian reform," which "form in the traditional Avestic text a foreign body, and one that is felt as such." The discrepancy between their doctrine and that of the later Avesta is well known, and needs no further meation here, and it is accentuated by their difference in language (the later Avesta is more faithful to the traditional Indo-Iranian vocabulary than the Gâthâs). As to the vexed question of the time of Zarathustra, M. Meillet would assign it to a date shortly before the great Achaemenids, supporting this view by a comparison of the social conditions indicated in the Gâthâs and in the inscriptions and later Avesta, and he rejects the identification of Vistâspa, the patron of Zarathustra, with the father of Darius. The fact that the name Mazdaka appears in an Assyrian inscription of the 8th century does not daunt him; he maintains that the designation of the great God of Iran as Ahura Mazdâ was older than Zarathustra, that Zarathustra worshipped a generally accepted deity. We are not justified, he thinks, in concluding that the Achaemenid monarchs were Zoroastrians. The tradition that Zarathustra was born in the North-West of Iran (at Ragha or Rai, according to some texts) is singularly confirmed by the fact that the language of the Avesta belongs to the North-Western dialects. Then follows an instructive comparison of the state of evolution of the languages of the inscriptions, the Gâthâs, and the later Avesta; while the Gâthâs are more archaic than the inscriptions, they need not be assigned to a date earlier than the end of the 7th century B.C. Passing next to their composition, M. Meillet plausibly explains the difficulties. The Avesta is a series of fragments of ancient texts, shapeless ruins, in which no order can be recognised," but genuine fragments which, thanks to the mental poverty of the Sasanid compilers, have been put together without adulteration, the different portions being transliterated from the Aramaean script into the new and specially created alphabet separately, the Gâthâs coming first, and then the later Avesta. Now the Gâthâs consist of strophic verses, in several respects resembling the hymns of the Rigveda, but differing from the latter in having, as a rule, no regular sequence of ideas to link them together. The reason for this incoherence, in M. Meillet's view, is that originally they were connected one with another by prose passages, now lost, exactly like the Buddhist Gâthâs of India; the

Gâthâs of the Avesta are "the expressive, exactly formulated, and accordingly versified portion of a discourse of which the portion consisting of running exposition, free and without fixed form, has disappeared." Irish, Latin, and Icelandic literatures furnish parallels. M. Meillet tests this hypothesis on Yasna xxix., the lament of the Soul of the Ox, and naturally finds in it a corroboration. He then passes to the doctrines of the Gâthâs, studying in some detail certain marked differences between them and the later Avesta. The Gâthâs are not yet dualistic; they do not place good and evil on parallel planes-they only note their opposition; there is in them no evil power forming a pendant to Ahura Mazdâ. They know of an opposition between good and evil spirit or spiritual influences, but Ahura Mazdâ is outside this opposition. Finally, we have a comparison between Vedic and Gâthic religion: the former is that of a conquering aristocracy, the latter that of husbandmen and herdsmen worshipping the powers of nature and physical order under the names of abstractions, like the Indigetes of Latium : "it expresses the aspirations of men who work, and who need a peaceful, ordered society in order to benefit by their work," and who, when the law of right is disturbed by the rule of violence and injustice in this world, look forward to a vindication of it in the world to come. Our readers will perceive how interesting and valuable are the views set forth with his wonted lucidity and erudition by M. Meillet. That there are also some questionable points follows inevitably from the nature of the Avesta itself and of the ancient literature of Iran; but whether we agree or disagree— and on main points most of us must agree there can be no question that M. Meillet has given us an excellent little book.

An Anthology of Ancient Egyptian Poems, compiled by Miss C. Elissa Sharpley, adds a fourth to the list of Egyptian books issued in the " Wisdom of the East" Series, thus practically completing a very useful survey of Egyption literature for English readers. The dominant note in this latest volume is religion, and—always closely related to it-the glorification, often worship, of the Pharaoh, the classic example of which is Pentaur's long poem on the Battle of Kadesh. In spite, however, of a selection, which includes every type of religious poem, from extracts from the Pyramid Texts to the perfect little hymn to Thoth (after W. Max Muller, Egyptian Mythology), the compiler has found space, not only for such indubitably poetical pieces as the Love poems from Pap. Harris 500, but even for an extract from Panbesa's letter describing the City of Pi-Ramses. The translations are by different hands, past and modern. Of the latter, Sir Ernest Budge has justly been called upon for the bulk of the religious material. In other cases, the compiler has not scrupled to sacrifice exact scholarship to linguistic effect, preferring the translations, sometimes of the early Egyptologists, whose instinct seemed to give the clue where grammar as yet failed, at others, those of the modern poet. There is a useful, if provocative, introduction which bears witness to the writer's appreciation of her subject, but whether the "Hymn to the One God" is really worthy of comparison with the sublimest passages of Hebrew Scriptures," is a question which can only be answered by persons who can read both in their original languages, for we have yet to find the Egyptologist whose English could rival that of our Authorised Version.

Woman in Ancient India, by Clarisse Bader. Translated by Mary E. R. Martin. This is a translation of a book which appeared in Paris nearly 50 years ago under the title, "La Femme dans l'Inde antique." It was crowned by the French Academy, and its translation, which was undertaken by the Indian poetess, Toru Dutt, was delayed by the latter's death, and appears now, at a time when some of its freshness has inevitably faded, owing to the wider diffusion, since the original work was written, of European knowledge of Indian literature and ideals.

In Mlle. Bader's view, it was woman that inspired the greater part of the Vedic hymns, the sacred epics, and the classical Sanscrit drama, of all of which she gives descriptions, in greater or less detail. There are also accounts of woman's position in the home and in law. At times the emotional note is overworked, but on the whole the sincerity and vitality of the authoress carry her successfully through a formidable task. The style is never heavy, and the breadth of the writer's grasp is remarkable in view of the fact that the book was written when she was only 22. The detailed descriptions of the stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the striking comparison between the former and the Iliad, and the accounts of Kalidasa's dramas will prove of special value to all who wish for an introduction to the imaginative masterpieces of Sanscrit literature without acquiring the language.

The Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (the most venerable of all the Asiatic Societies) continues to maintain the highly scientific level of its Verhandelingen, of which Deel LXV. (in three parts) contains legends and folktales of the Torajas of Central Celebes and the Kei islanders. As these are represented by the original texts with Dutch translations and the necessary notes, they are invaluable as linguistic material, besides being contributions to the study of folklore and primitive religious ideas.

The Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, issued by the same society, contains in the two volumes of its Deel LXIV. a number of scholarly articles, the most important of which are, perhaps, one by Ir. J. L. Moens on the Tantric phase of Buddhism, which flourished in Java and Sumatra in the 13th and 14th centuries, and another by Dr. F. D. K. Bosch on the linga-cult, as illustrated by a Sanskrit inscription of the 8th century found in Java. English readers will be particularly interested in Mrs. W. Fruin-Mees's account of the Bantam embassy to England in 1682, and in the English documents bearing on the founding of the settlement of Bencoolen in 1685, collected by P. Wink.

Deel I. of the Publicaties van den Oudheidkundigen Dienst in Nederlandsch-Indie contains a description of the temple of Kidal by B. de Haan and Dr. F. D. K. Bosch, an article by Dr. J.Ph. Vogel on the oldest Sanskrit inscriptions of Java, and a paper by Dr. P. V. van Stein Callenfels on the Mintaraga basreliefs of Eastern Java. All are of interest and profusely illustrated.

The same Department's Oudheidkundig Verslag for 1924 (in two parts) presents the usual report on the work of the Archaeological Survey of the Dutch East Indies during that year. Amongst the appendices must be men

tioned a detailed account of an interesting attempt to re-discover the plan of the old Javanese capital, Majapahit, by the light of the data recorded in the Nagarakretagama, a 14th century Javanese poem. There are a number of shorter articles, including one on the first palaeolithic implement found in the Indian Archipelago.

Dr. G- F. Pijper's Het Boek der Duizend Vragen is a critical edition, preceded by a very valuable introduction, of a Malay theological and cosmological work, which is derived from an Arabic original, traceable nearly a thousand years back. Though its contents are not intrinsically of the first importance, this was evidently a very popular work, for it was translated (with much enlargement and variation) into many Eastern languages, and its long pedigree gives it a peculiar interest, an early Arabic recension having been done into Latin as long ago as 1143 A.D. Curiously enough, of all the versions examined by the learned editor, the Malay one, which bears traces of having come through a Persian recension that has not yet been identified, is nearest to that Latin version.

De Toonkunst van Bali, by J. Kunst and C. J. A. Kunst-van-Wely, is a very full and detailed account of Balinese music and musical instruments of which there are many varieties, together with some comparison with their Javanese counterparts. Several of the instruments can be traced back a thousand years on the Javanese sculptures. This is a very valuable monograph, laying down a sure foundation for further comparisons with Indian (and also Chinese) music and musical instruments.

Professor Johannes Hertel, with untiring energy, has added the sixth volume to the series of Indo-Iranische Quellen und Forschungen, of which previous numbers have been noticed in these columns. The present work is part I. of Die Arische Feuerlehre, a bold and skilful attempt to reconstruct the " Weltanschauung," the general conception of the natural world held by the ancient Indo-Iranians, and to interpret in the light of it a number of words and passages in Vedic and Avestic literature. As is well known, Dr. Hertel's fundamental doctrine is that the Indo-Iranians believed fire to surround the world and to pervade all nature; that fire was identified by them with reason, wisdom and strength; that they held a dualistic creed, in which the deities representing the heavens, who, at the same time, were embodiments of storm and of supreme wisdom and power, were opposed to the powers of darkness. Heaven they conceived as a vast transparent mountain, upon which dwelt the powers of light in an atmosphere of flaming brightness; under its summit, and surrounded by it, lay a cave, the floor of which was the world of mankind, which received light and water from the heavenly world through apertures which the supreme God cut with his “vajra,” piercing the mountain, so that by some passages the lights known to the earth as sun, moon, and stars entered, and by others the rivers, which came from the celestial waters. Zoroaster retained the ancient belief in a heavenly and earthly fire, embodied in a celestial deity, but deprived the latter of all naturalistic attributes, and made him into a pure incarnation of wisdom and power. These central ideas are applied by Dr. Hertel to the study of certain Vedic and Avestic words, which he examines in their context and interprets in accordance with his "fire-theory," Like his previous works