Any suggestions by clients, with a view to increasing the usefulness of this list, are solicited, and will, where practicable, be adopted.

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REVIEWS, NOTES, NEWS.

The frontispiece omitted from the last Issue of this list is enclosed with this number.

Binding cases for Vol. XXXVII, 1926, of the Oriental List, in halfred roan, may be had on application, price 2s. 6d.

Deel LXVI, Aflevering 3, of the " Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde " (1926), contains several items of specially local interest relating to Bali, Java and New Guinea. But an article by Dr. B. Schrieke on the "Evolution of Culture in the Pacific in relation to the Theories of the Kulturhistorische' and the Manchester' schools of Social Anthropology," will appeal to a much wider circle of readers. After sketching in outline the development of anthropological science, it culminates in a trenchant criticism of the methods and hypotheses of the schools represented by Graebner on the one hand, and Elliot Smith and Perry on the other. In Dr. Schrieke's opinion, "what we need is positive knowledge, acquired through inductive methods, and not speculations about possibilities."

Deel LXVI, Derde Stuk, of the "Verhandelingen van het Koniklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen " (1926) consists of " Epigraphia Balica" (I), a collection of twenty-five inscriptions from Bali transcribed by Dr. P. V. van Stein Callenfels, and preceded by an Introduction. In the absence of any translation or commentary (which may be expected to follow at some future date), it is not possible to do full justice to this collection, but it bids fair to be of considerable linguistic and historical interest. There are eighteen plates, of good quality; but it is to be regretted that their scale is not somewhat larger and that Dutch epigraphists do not always give complete facsimiles of the inscriptions they publish, but only of certain portions of them. This serves well enough for giving specimens of palaeography, but it precludes the possibility of checking the transcriptions as a whole.

The fourth fasciculus of the same volume gives an account by J. N. Smith of the peculiarities of the Javanese dialect of Tjeribon (Cheribon) in Western Java, together with texts and a vocabulary.

The Oudheidkundig Verslag," 1925, Derde en Vierde Kwartaal, of the "Oudheidkundige Dienst in Nederlandsch-Indie " (1926), contains the report on the archaeological work done in the Dutch East Indies in the third and fourth quarters of 1925, and deals mainly with Central and Eastern Java, Bali, Sumatra and Borneo. There are twenty-three plates. The Archaeological Survey Department of the Dutch East Indies is not likely to be in want of material for many years to come, and it shows commendable activity. A large part of its energies is devoted to the conservation and restoration of the ancient and more or less ruined buildings of the medieval Javanese period; but research is by no means neglected.

Readers of Servant of Sahibs," by Ghulam Rasul Galwan, Aksakal of Leh, may remember that the author of that entertaining work showed especial affection for one particular master, an American gentleman, whose methods of travel were peculiar and unorthodox, and whom Rasul accompanied for two years in a trying journey in Central Asia.

"The Himalayan Letters of Gypsey Davy and Lady Ba" shed further light on the ways of this traveller and his party--including his wife during a later journey, this time in Baltistan and Ladakh. Rasul is again one of the company.

Few persons who visit the further Himalayas can resist the temptation to publish their experiences, but these "Letters" do not constitute an ordinary book of "off travel. Travel is, for the writers, an end in itself. They are refreshingly duty," and are not preoccupied with the hunt for records in climbing, sport, cr archæology, nor tied down to routes and time-tables-to the great gain of themselves and their readers.

The book, however, does not profess to be a consecutive account even of the witness's travels. It is a collection of lively and picturesque letters to various people, very few of whom appear to be specialists. The details of the journeys can, nevertheless, be followed with ease by the aid of the numerous maps, the whimsicality of which in no way obscures their value-a remark which holds good of the letters themselves.

In commemoration of the late Mr. V. Krishnaswamy Ayyar a lectureship has been founded by his son, Mr. K. Balasubrahmanya Ayyar, in the University of Madras, and the first course of lectures under the scheme has been delivered by Mr. C. Sankararama Sastri, and published under the title, "Fictions in the Development of the Hindu Law Texts." Legal fictions have been of immense value to mankind in facilitating the evolution of law by adaptation to new circumstances, and Bentham's ferocious vilification in his well-known description of them only demonstrates his lack of historical sense. Roman law, English law, and Hindu law alike are founded on similar fictions: the Roman law in all its plenitude was assumed to have been wholly evolved from the Twelve Tables, the laws of England are supposed to have grown out of the Common Law, and the Hindu Smritis are all imagined to be the product of the divinely inspired Vedas. It is the object of Mr. Sankararama Sastri's five lectures to show how this process worked in Indian law, and his survey is thoroughly scholarly and singularly interesting. Beginning with a comparative study of fictions in general in Roman, English and Hindu law, he points out that as in India, unlike Rome, substantive law was not compelled to evolve out of a meagre system of adjective law, and there were no clearly marked lines of demarcation between the jurisdictions of the various courts, and consequently no need of subterfuges to enable one court to usurp the jurisdiction of another, the necessity for fictions in the narrower sense of the term was much less than with us. But in the larger significance they are numerous, both fundamental and derivate; and of the former the first is the idea that all law rests upon the omniscient, infallible and eternal Veda and exists therein, and can be logically deduced thence by proper study. Actually the Vedas (including under that term the Samhitâs and Brâhmaņas) contain very few references to law, except the laws of sacrificial rituals; but the study of this ritual law produced a copious literature, the Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ, with its subtle sustems of logical deductions, which were applied to the later legal texts, the Smritis, for which also a Vedic origin was claimed. Now it often happens that the Smritis disagree with the Vedas and with one another-very naturally, too, for they often represent the legal principles of different sections of the Aryans, partly those of Vedic times, partly and more often those of later periods. It therefore became necessary for the legists of the Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ to limit and sometimes even overrule the authority of Smriti, realising that the validity of any of its rules depended upon its acceptance by the conscience and practice of the orthodox community. To do justice to this fact, and at the same time to save the theory that all Smriti is based on Veda and is never really opposed to it, legists invented a large number of ingenious quibbles, which our author ably explains. Another source of law besides Smriti is custom, the "practice of good men,' " which was also by a fiction assumed to be based upon Veda, and similarly had to be harmonised by the legists by means of limitations, judicious selections, and frequently also by quibbles. In the interpretation and application of the Smritis to the conditions of different ages and places Hindu writers have been largely influenced by three

principles, firstly the theory that all the Smritis, however they may seem to disagree with one another, are really in harmony, secondly the rule of atide'sa or application of rules from one group of circumstances to another by analogy, and thirdly the principle of substitution, which has produced the fiction of adoption. The application of these ideas, together with that of the fictions by which women and slaves became able to inherit and possess property, forms the fifth lecture, with which this very able and instructive book concludes.

"The Ascharyachûḍâmaṇi of Saktibhadra," of which an edition has lately been published with a commentary by the Bâlamanôramâ Press in Madras, is a classical Sanskrit and Prakrit drama of distinct merit and much interest. Its theme is the ever-green story of Râmâyana. The first act introduces us to the hut in the forest where Râma and Sîtâ, with the faithful Lakshmaņa, are living in exile. The amorous female demon Sûrpaṇakhâ, her real nature concealed, insinuates herself into the little household. The second act shows the revelation of her true nature and her mutilation and flight. In the third act we are introduced to a group of sylvan hermits, who present to the royal couple a miraculous crest-jewel and ring, which give its title to the play, and then follows the episode in which Râvana, with the aid of Mârîcha and Sûrpaņakhâ, ravishes away Sîtâ in his chariot. The fourth act presents the journey of Râvana and Sîtâ to Lankâ, interrupted by Jațâyu's fruitless attempt to recover Sîtâ. In the fifth act we are in Lanka, witnessing Sîtâ's virtue and Râvana's vain passion; and the sixth represents the visit of Hanumân to Sîtâ in the garden of the palace and his return to Râma, the advent of Râma with his victorious troops, and the vindication of Sitâ's virtue, all ending happily. It is a good play of its kind: indeed, Professor Kuppuswami Sastri, who contributes a valuable English introduction, is of the opinion that it is the best of all the plays on this theme, with the possible exception of Bhavabhûti's "Uttara-râma-charita" in certain respects. The style is graceful and free from excessive pedantry, the characters are well drawn, and there is a refreshing absence of the unwholesome erotic spirit which spoils so much Indian literature. The date of Saktibhadra is unknown tradition avers that he was a disciple of Sankara Acharya, which seems improbable, but suggests that he lived about the eighth or ninth century, which is quite likely, though it needs confirmation. The commentary, which is by an anonymous author, is a learned work which appeals to the learned rather than to students only moderately acquainted with the technique of the literary schools. Professor Kuppuswami Sastri's introduction, as is to be expected from a scholar of his learning and critical ability, is a very interesting and instructive contribution; and to us it seems that it is particularly instructive in the passages in which he shows the utter baselessness of the arguments on which the late Mahâmahopadhyâya Ganapati Sâstri constructed his hypothesis of Bhâsa's authorship of the plays published in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, since the same arguments would make Saktibhadra their author, which is a reductio ad absurdum. Mr. Kuppuswami Sastri's authoritative exposition of the facts will be very effective in relegating Bhâsa to the realm of myth, in addition to its other merits as a skilful study of the literary character and position of the Ascharyachûḍâmaņi.

"Ram-Sita: the Ramayana in Verse," by A. Christina Albers, is, as its title indicates, an abridged metrical paraphrase epic of Valmiki. The authoress in her foreword tells us that she "feels the delicacy of the undertaking," and that to her knowledge there exists no English metrical verse of the poem. The latter statement is strange, for the late Mr. Griffith's rendering is widely read, as indeed it deserves to be. As to the quality of the present version, opinions may differ: but it is certainly unequal, sometimes rising to a fair height of poetic style, and sometimes sinking to a lower level. If it were permissible to take the views of a poetess on history seriously, one would be inclined to query her statement in her

foreword that no one doubts that the main happenings related in the Ramayana are historical facts," to criticise her super-euhemeristic explanations of its characters, and to marvel at her readiness to believe in the miracles narrated in it as proving that science was evidently far advanced in those days."

The Punjab Sanskrit Series is growing apace. We have now to notice the advent of two more volumes, forming numbers 11 and 12. The first of these is Principles of Indian Silpaśāstra," by Prof. Phanindra Nath Bose, to which Mr. J. H. Cousins contributes a foreword. Prof. Bose surveys the origin of Silpa (i.e., architecture, sculpture and painting), native text-books on these arts, their principles and æsthetic standards, the materials and measurements of images, the beginnings of Hindu images, the traditional conventions as regards their postures, ornaments and decorations, general rules for building houses and temples, and principles of painting, with a very brief list of the most important monuments of Indian art, to which is added as an appendix the text of the Mayaśāstra, a Sanskrit tract on the proportions of images, etc. The book on the whole is sound, and will be useful as a general introduction to the study of the subject. Some defects, however, may be noticed in it. The author's command of the English language is somewhat imperfect (an example is "The thing of beauty is joy for ever,” p. 2), and misprints and misspellings also are very numerous. The list of works on architecture that Prof. Bose mentions is very far from exhaustive; a large number of books have been published which seem to be unknown to him. Finally it must be admitted that his ideas on the time when images of gods began to be made seem to be very woolly," for on p. 49 he says that Panini and Patanjali" (considerably before the Christian era) were familiar with the images of gods," and then on p. 54 proceeds to say: Though we can place the beginning of the Hindu images in the first and second centuries before the birth of Christ, yet their images began to be made only in the third and fourth centuries after the birth of Christ." If words mean anything, this sentence specifically contradicts itself, and is a typical example of the untidiness of thought and speech which is so common in Hindu writing. There can be no reasonable doubt that images were common long before the days of Patanjali; the figures of them on Mitra and Kushan coins are simply drawn from actual icons.

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No. 12 is Ancient Indian Tribes," by Mr. Bimala Churn Law, which is mainly a collection of the statements found in Sanskrit and Pali literature regarding the Kāśis, Kosalas, Assakas, Magadhas and Bhojas, illustrated by five plates of archæological interest. The author, as he tells us, has "refrained from building up doubtful theories and hypotheses," and has presented "only the solid facts," i.e.. the data given in the literary sources and some of the materials furnished by archæology. It would perhaps have been better if he had arranged them a little more scientifically, and added a fuller index than he has done. However, it will certainly be useful.

"The Main Currents of Maratha History," by G. S. Sardesai. Although Maratha dominion lasted for only about 150 years, the historical material on the subject, in a variety of languages, is enormous in extent, and has not yet been fully sifted, though notable scholars have long been engaged in this work. The six lectures here reproduced were delivered in 1926 before the Patna University. Their object is twofold. They summarise the present state of research, and they survey, in the light of the latest information, the chief features of Maratha history. The author, whose Marathi Riyasat" not yet completed is well known, is a recogrised authority on his subject, and the lectures are marked by insight and impartiality. Each one, apart from dealing with research, takes a central idea, such as the Maharashtra Dharma, or Shivaj of a Hindu Empire, and develops

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