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architecture and historical sites, and a supplement of 214 pages of critically edited text. The latter is the concluding portion of Bhaṭṭasvamin's word-for-word Sanskrit commentary on Kautilya's Arthasastra, mentioned in last year's review, and completed by the editors in the September issue. Messrs. Jayaswal and Banerji-Sastri are now preparing an introduction to their edition of the Commentary, which will be published shortly.

As regards the Journal itself, although the eleventh volume included the whole of our edition of Buchanan's Shahabad Journal as a double number, its successor exceeds it in size and still more in the number of contributions and variety of subjects with which they are concerned. After attempting to notice as many as twenty-six articles and sixteen miscellaneous contributions by twenty-three different authors in the manner usually adopted in the Vice-President's annual review, I find that it would be impossible to do the barest justice to them without extending my remarks on this occasion to undue length. In departing from the usual procedure, however, I must make an exception in the case of the two contributions received from our honorary members, because each of these in its own sphere settles a controversy of considerable local interest, and each pronounces judgment definitely against a theory which has hitherto held the field.

In 1914 the late Dr. Spooner discovered on the terrace at Kumrahar the remarkable terracotta plaque which is familiar to all our members, since in accordance with the opinion expressed by him in the very first article appearing in our Journal, it was accepted as a representation of the famous temple at Bodh Gaya, and as such has been reproduced on the cover of every issue. A year later, in the September number of 1916, the late Dr. Vincent Smith challenged this view, mainly on the ground that Hiuen Tsiang mentions two temples at the site, the earlier by Asoka having been replaced by one which the Chinese traveller himself saw and described, and that this did not agree with the representation on the plaque. Dr. Spooner in reply tentatively claimed the plaque as a

representation of the Asokan temple on the strength of the age of the Kharoṣṭbi script which it bears, but he added that "if ever the inscription can be read, the matter may be settled once for all." Dr. Sten Konow, who is editing the forthcoming Kharoṣṭhi volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, has made a careful examination both of the plaque itself and of photographs, and has published his reading in the June issue, as Ko[thuma sa] samghada[sa]sa kiti or the work of Samghadāsa, the Kauthuma." From the character of the script, which he assigns to the second or third century A.C., he concludes that "the so-called Bodh Gaya plaque was left in ancient Pataliputra by a Buddhist pilgrim from the north-west, where Kharosthi was the usual script."

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Mr. Oldham's monograph on the battle of Buxar (October 23rd, 1764) is the work of a specialist on the subject, whose interest was first quickened by his accidental discovery in 189394, when Subdivisional Officer of Buxar, of the inscriptions on the tombstones of two of the chief generals of the Nawab Wazir who fell in that battle, Saiyid Ghulam Qadir and Sheikh Muhammad'Isa, otherwise known as Shuja 'Quli Khan, now resting in the arms of a large banyan (bar) tree about eight feet from the ground, on the outskirts of the modern village of Katkauli; and also of the filled-up well called ganj-i-shahidan or" heap of martyrs", within a few yards of that tree. In addition to copies of these inscriptions and a photograph of the bar tree taken in 1917, Mr. Oldham has with the sanction of the Secretary of State reproduced a hitherto unpublished plan of the battle attached to the diary of Major Champion, Munro's second-in-command, in the Record Departinent of the India Office, and has supplemented it by other maps and plans drawn by himself, which show the present topographical conditions as well as the approximate positions of the contending forces. Every known source of information from both sides has been consulted in his description of the battle and of the events of the few days preceding it, and the evidence that the scene of the most severe fighting was east instead of west of Katkauli, and

that the present monument is about a mile too far west of its proper position, seems to be overwhelming.

Besides this article, matters connected with Indian History in the eighteenth century are dealt with in two papers by Ma L. Lockhart, a new contributor from Teheran, describing a rare Spanish account of Nadir Shah, and Mr. R. P. Khosla in a study of Mughal nobility. Doubtful questions of genealogy and tribal relations in medieval times are discussed by Messrs. Parmananda Acharya and Nalininath Das Gupta and by the Rev. H. Heras; and in a series of four papers Dr. BanerjiSastri goes back to the earliest period in seeking to reconstruct the history of the ancient Asuras from literary tradition.

Ancient Indian Mathematics, Philosophy and Geography are each represented by one contribution from Messrs. 8. K. Ganguly, H. R. Rangaswamy Iyer and Binyak Misra, respectively.

Religious and social history are the subject matter of two papers, one by Dr. Banerji-Sastri on the Ajivikas and the other by Mr. Manmatha Nath Roy on Ostracis a in ancient Indian Society.

Anthropology and its kindred subjects ethnology and folklore are also strongly represented this year. Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Ray contributes four papers, three of which are a continuation of his enquiries among the Oraons of Chota Nagpur and the fourth deals with the small tribe calling themselves Asurs, in the west of that division. There are also two contributions by the Rev. P. O. Bodding on Santhali, and in folklore no less than three by Mr. S. C. Mitra, two by Mr. S. N. Ray three by Mr. K. P. Mitra and one by Mr. S. C. Ghosh.

In Archæology the late Mr. Manomohan Ganguly was the author of three papers published in this year's Journal on the subject of Indian Architecture, Vedio and Post-Vedic. In Epigraphy in addition to Dr. Sten Konow's article, there is a short note by myself on a possible reading of the Karṇa Chopar inscription, and a paper by Dr. Banerji-Sastri on the possibility of Jain and therefore anti-Ajivika influence in this and other Barabar Cayes.

Art is represented by two contributions. One is Mr. Manuk's lecture tracing the course of Indian painting from the earliest days, and the other by Mr. N. C. Mehta deals with the pictorial motif in ancient Indian literature.

The search for Sanskrit manuscripts is proceeding steadily. The Mithila Pandit is now working in Search for Sans- the district of Bhagalpur. Government krit Manuscripts having given the necessary financial assistance, an Oriya Pandit was appointed in September, and the search for similar manuscripts in Orissa was resumed. He is now working in Dhenkanal. The printing of the first volume (on Dharmaśāstra) of the eight contemplated volumes of the descriptive catalogue of Mithila Sanskrit MSS. prepared under the supervision of Mr. Jayaswal and Dr. Banerji-Sastri, has been finished and will be published as soon as the Index and Introduction are ready. The cost will be met from the first instalment of Rs. 5,000 given by the Maharajadhiraj of Darbhanga. The publication of a similar descriptive catalogue of the Oriya MSS. cannot be undertaken until funds are available. Two lectures, illustrated by lantern slides, were arranged during the year, in order to bring the members of the Society and the general public together. The first on Glimpses into the Study of Pictorial Art in India by Mr. P. C. Manuk, published in the June issue of the Journal, has already been referred to, and the second, on Antiquities in Mayurbhanj by Rai Bahadur Ramaprasad Chanda, will be published in the March issue of

1927.

Meetings

The Buchanan Journals

Reports

and

As regards the important work which has been undertaken by the Society in connection with the publication of the Buchanan Journals and Reports, it is now possible to state that arrangements have been finally settled which bring the end of this heavy task definitely within sight. During the year, Mr. Oldham's edition of the Shahabad Journal has been completed by the addition of his Index, and the whole is soon to be published by Government in

volume form. I expressed the hope last year that we would be able to obtain the services of an equally competent editor for the third and last of the series of these hitherto unpublished Journals, and it is with special satisfaction that I can now announce that Mr. Oldham himself has consented to continue this work. He has been engaged for some time in editing this Journal, which refers to Buchanan's tour of Bhagalpur, the Santal Parganas, and Monghyr during the cold weather of 1810-11.

Several essential matters have been considered and settled during the year by the Council in connection with the four Bihar volumes of the Buchanan Reports, which are to be published for the first time in full. Government have been good enough to extend the privilege of publication at the Government Press to these volumes also, and have further undertaken to purchase a number of sets of each of the volumes at their published price. I gladly take this opportunity of expressing our appreciation of the assistance which we have received from the authorities of the Press, both in this matter and in the work of printing our own Journal.

The only one of Buchanan's Reports which has ever been published in complete form previously is that on the district of Dinajpur, written in 1808 and brought out in parts between 1831 and 1833 in Calcutta under the supervision of Captain Herbert, succeeded by the illustrious James Prinsep. In preparing the volume containing the Purnea Report for the Press, I have endeavoured to arrange it in a form which will be considerably more attractive to the reader than the Dinajpur edition, and also one which will be equally suitable for the three volumes to follow. Moreover, each of the new volumes will be provided with a much-needed index, and with a reproduction of Buchanan's own map of the corresponding district, improved in a way which I am about to describe.

The whole of the Purnea Report itself is already in type, and extends over more than 600 pages, but the preparation of the index has been unexpectedly delayed. We have found that so many alterations in the district have been caused

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