This painting, “Ladies Preparing Silk,” by the Emperor Hui Tsung, illustrates very clearly certain fundamental qualities of pure art. Whether in sculpture or in painting, the genuine artist seeks the balance and poise which give a static quality even to the most dynamic composition. In this picture one feels the strong persevering movement their work demands of these women. The artist caught one of the moments in this work, and interpreted the exquisite rhythm of the process. Each of the women is graceful, quiet, and dignified, and the movement of each is downwards. Nevertheless, one feels the strain involved in lifting up and down the heavy sticks with which they are pounding the silk.

This is a preliminary account of some finds of archæological interest which have recently come to my notice in the tracts comprised within the Gilgit Agency south of the Hindukush. Separated by high ranges from the northern extremity of the Indian North-West Frontier, these tracts are too remote for their population of Dardic speech to have directly shared in the development of Indo-Aryan civilization in the great plains along the Indus and Ganges. Nor have they been immediately exposed to the invasions and cultural influences from the west which have affected that civilization within historical times. Apart from reliable but very scant notices in the Chinese Annals, such written records of the past of these tracts as exist do not reach back much further than the advent of Islām. Hence any relics attesting the conditions prevailing there in earlier periods may claim special interest.

The Academy of Sciences of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic published in 1941 through the Institute of History, Tiflis, a report in Russian (231 pp. + 132 illustrations and 126 plates, of which 19 are coloured) by Mr. B. A. Kuftin on some remarkable archæological discoveries in Trialeti. The report contains a 16 page summary of its contents in English and an up-to-date bibliography of more than 500 references. The appearance in the middle of the war of a volume devoted to Russian research is in itself an event. It is evidence of the vitality of Russian archæology and of the confidence of the author and editor in ultimate victory at the very moment when the invader was carrying fire and sword to the foot of the Caucasus.

The Canaanite poem of Aliyan Ba'al and Mot, discovered at Ras Shamra (Ugarit), is now familiar to most students of ancient Semitic literature. As I have repeatedly pointed out, it is the libretto of a seasonal pantomime representing the victory of Rain over Drought. By comparison with the Arabic terms ba'l and mawulh, the names of the two antagonists may be rendered “Sir Rain” and “Sir Drought”.

Western science began to penetrate to the Far East at the end of the sixteenth century, along with the Christian faith spread by Portuguese Jesuits.

Astrology was important in both China and Japan. It included not only a limited knowledge of astronomy, but some philosophy and logic. The advent of astronomical knowledge as understood in Europe was the beginning of a new kind of science, which did not affect the East's traditional view of the universe; although at first information from Europe about medicine, physics, and astronomy reached the Far East along with the doctrines of Christianity, as a means of attracting converts to what the Chinese termed a new philosophy of life. An early propagator of Western civilization in China was the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1553–1610), who taught medicine and astrology together with the principles of Catholicism. Another Jesuit, Francis Xavier, advised his superiors to send a mission consisting not only of the devout but also of the cultured.

There are several recensions of the Hikayat Seri Rama or Malay Ramayana. There are three folk-versions: Seri Rama of Sumatran origin, edited with an outline in English by W. E. Maxwell (JRAS. Straits Branch, 17, 1886); Hikayat Maharaja Ravana, by H. Overbeck (JRAS. Malayan Branch, xi, pt. ii, 1933); and a Patani version, of which an outline was given by me in the Royal Batavian Society's Feestbundel, Batavia, 1929. Of literary recensions the best known are Archbishop Laud's text in the Bodleian, ed. W. G. Shellabear (JRAS. Straits Branch, 71, 1915, with outline, ibid., 70, 1917) = Sh. in this article, and that printed by Roorda van Eysinga (Amsterdam, 1843) = Ro. in this article. The last two have been compared by A. Zeiseniss in his Die Rāma-Sage bei den Malaien (Hamburg, 1928), which has a fairly complete bibliography except for the folk-tale versions. But beyond a few lines in van der Tuuk's catalogue (reprinted in Essays on Indochina, 2nd series, vol. ii) nothing has been written of Raffles Malay MS. 22 in the Library of this Society, which for various reasons is of unique interest. Throughout my description I retain the Malay forms for Sanskrit words.

In October, 1933, I contributed a lengthy article to this Journal entitled “Maimonides on Listening to Music” in which I gave a translation of the Responsum 129 from his Pe'er ha-dor (Lemberg, 1849), in so far as it touched upon listening to music. The latter portion of this responsum dealt with another point, a custom, the “Blessing of Virginity”, which took place at the house of a bridegroom. It might have been intended as a religious ceremony (so far as the Seven Benedictions are concerned, although they should have waited until after the actual wedding), but I have been unable to trace the provenance of the custom. Here is the request together with the response of Maimonides:—

Request: “Please instruct us about the so-called ‘Blessing of Virginity’ which runs ‘[Blessed art thou] who in Eden didst plant the Nut-tree’. For [there is a custom for] a company consisting of the wedding party of the bride and bridegroom and their friends to assemble in the bridegroom's house, [when] a celebrant takes a wine-cup, pronounces the customary Benediction over wine, and the Benediction over spices, and then he pronounces this so-called, i.e. new-fangled Benediction— ‘Blessed art thou.…’ And note that this new-fangled Benediction fixed by our Rabbis in the Talmud also contains the Divine Name, i.e. ‘Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who…Blessed art Thou 0 Lord…’. Please tell us whether the recital of the Benediction is merely a custom or actually orthodox and obligatory.

The chivalrous spirit that has moved Mr. Kincaid to make his defence of the Rani of Jhansi (Journal, 1943, p. 100) will be appreciated. Chivalry, however, is not sufficient reason for the reversal of an opinion generally recorded by historians. Mr. Kincaid seeks to show that the Rani was not a rebel and had nothing to do with the massacre of the English at Jhansi in the Mutiny of 1857. In arriving at this conclusion he relies on a letter written in 1889 by a Mr. Martin to the adopted son of the Rani, which states that he was saved from the massacre by the Rani, and asserts that she had nothing to do with it and actually supplied food to the garrison before their surrender. Mr. Kincaid accepts this statement as reliable and dismisses as based on hearsay the evidence of the official narrative compiled by Captain Pinkney in November, 1858. Mr. Martin's name does not occur in any of the reports to which we have access, and before accepting his assertion about the Rani's actions it would be desirable to know more about him. It is curious that he was not with his compatriots in the fort. As his letter states that he took messages from the Rani to officials he was perhaps in her service. On one point he is not borne out by the official narrative. Mr. Martin says that the Rani also saved another Englishman and a lady. The official narrative states that Mrs. Mutlow concealed herself in the town disguised as an Indian, and that a Mr. Crawford left the fort on the night of 7th June and made his way to Samthar. In neither case does the Rani appear to have given any help.

Dr. barnett recently sent me an old Siamese document in the Library of the School of Oriental Studies. It is written on a sheet of paper 11¾ in. by 13 in., and its accession-number is 12889. It forms part of the Marsden Collection.