Select Contents of Oriental Journals

Summary

This section provides an annotated list of notable articles from recent oriental journals. For the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1959), it summarises E. Richardson’s historical note on the Karma‑pa sect, which includes translations of Tibetan scrolls documenting the Ming emperor’s invitation to a Karma‑pa lama and letters from the emperor to Karma‑pa leaders. The note also includes a table of the principal incarnations of the Karma‑pa lineage. S. M. Stern’s paper on al‑Kindi’s treatise on definitions is highlighted for analysing how later philosophers used al‑Kindi’s concepts. L. A. Schwarzschild’s study of the evolution of the negative particle ‘nahin’ in modern Hindi summarises linguistic theories about the combination of the negative particle with auxiliary verbs. Turning to Japanese scholarship, the Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies special supplementary issue reports on recent activities in Indian and Buddhist studies in Japan, lists papers from the journal’s first six volumes and summarises abstracts of organisational articles and lists of officials. The March 1959 issue of the Journal of the Oriental Institute features M. R. Malsumdar’s note on a newly discovered Buddha image from Bhuj with a seventh‑century Brahmi inscription, S. L. Katre’s publication of the previously missing Prayaschittakanda section of Laksmidhara’s Krtyakalpataru, and Umakant Shah’s studies on Girvanapadamadijari and Girvanavanmadijari. The June 1959 issue includes Acrawala’s note on a difficult passage of the Pancatantra, J. S. Jaitly’s study of Jaina Nyaya works Tarkatarangini and Sasadhara Tippana, Esther Solomon’s philosophical article on scepticism, faith and mysticism, P. C. Divanji’s examination of the term ‘Brahman’ and its derivatives in the Bhagavadgita, Prasap Bhattacharyya’s linguistic analysis of the word mallaka in the Mrcchakatika, M. S. Bhat’s discussion of the Paugkarasadi and its implications for the date of Panini, Dev Raj Chanana’s exploration of the ideological aspects of slavery in ancient India, T. S. Kurpanna Sastri’s argument that the astronomical text Bijopanaya was wrongly attributed to Bhaskaracarya, and Umakant Shah’s continuation of his study on Girvanapadamadijari. The survey thus guides readers to a diverse array of research in fields ranging from Tibetan history and Arabic philosophy to Indian linguistics, epigraphy and astronomy.