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274
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Dakhani language they knew that the approaching force belonged to the enemy. Accordingly they attacked it with their swords, and discovered after slaughtering and wounding many, that it had been in charge of boxes. These were afterwards found to contain a great deal of treasure which had arrived from Dehli for the use of the infidel army. In the night
[SEPTEMBER, 1887.
the escort had lost the road and stumbled upon the outpost of Ahmad Shah whom his stars favoured, so that they imagined it to be a Maratha camp and became prisoners. The enormous treasure which fell into the hands of Ahmad Shah, was wholly distributed by him among the troops of Islâm, which consisted of Indians and Afghâns.-(To be continued.)
MISCELLANEA.
PROGRESS OF EUROPEAN SCHOLARSHIP. No. V.
(1) Transactions of the Eastern Section of the Russian Archaeological Society, Vol. I. Part 1. (a) A Chinese Paitaa, or Medal, found in the district of Minusinsk in Siberia, accompanied by a lithograph, by A. Pozdneiev.-About forty years ago a similar paitsa was obtained by General Rupert in Eastern Siberia. This one is of bronze. The inscriptions on it are as follows:Obverse, in the old Chinese writing called Shuan, we have the words, "Token given by the Emperor." On the left side of this, "Number 891," of the character tyao. On the right, "This must not be used outside the Capital." Reverse, "From the office of the Imperial Cavalry. The guard following the Emperor is to wear this token suspended at his girdle. He who does not wear it is liable to the charge of high treason. He who borrows or lends it is equally guilty." The writer of the paper then proceeds to shew that the "Number 891 of the character tyao" would be equivalent to 300, 891. He thinks that the present paitsa belongs to the period of the dynasty Yunan, and was given to a member of the Imperial Body-guard. By means of this token he had ingress and egress to and from the Imperial palace, in which the emperor lived secluded. The writer states that while living at Pekin he has seen men wearing tokens of this kind at their girdles. But how was it that this medal was found in the steppes among the Buriats of Siberia ? Unquestionably, as the Chinese terms of the inscription shew, it does not belong to the present dynasty. M. Posdneiev thinks it was the property of one of the attendants of some Mongolian Emperor, who had fled from Pekin into Siberia during some popular tumults.
(b) The Very Reverend Bishop Porphyry on Georgian Antiquities, by A. Tzagareli.-The late Bishop was an enthusiastic collector of antiquities, especially objects relating to the Greek Church and Christians of the Greek faith, e.g. the Georgians. He visited Mount Athos, Jeru
salem and Sinai; and in the library of the monastery on Mount Sinai he found in 1850 a Georgian psalter on papyrus. The paper also contains a letter from this prelate to the author, written in the year 1883, giving a description of some very old Georgian icons.
(c) Arabian narratives of the defeat of the Emperor Romanus Diogenes by Alp-Arslan, by Baron V. Rosen.-In this article a translation is given of the account written by Ibn-al-Aşir.
(d) Introductory Remarks upon some Persian dialects, by V. Zhukovski.-On the way from Isfahân to Najafabad one meets on the right and left with some picturesquely, situated villages: Najan, Paran, Zaran, Kükhan, Liadan, Südân, Randn, Khizian, Parishún, Banasbaûn. The three last are called collectively Beh-deh, i.e., the Three Villages.' Their inhabitants are engaged in industries connected with tobacco, wool, &c., and are an object of ridicule to other Persians on account of their coarse pronunciation and provincialisms. Their dialect is so peculiar that the women, who rarely quit their villages, can hardly understand ordinary Persian. But a cognate dialect with the above-mentioned has been found by M. Zhukovski at Kashi-one of the 72 villages scattered round Natanz (about 14 farsakhs or 85 versts from Isfahan), situated in the mountains. This dialect is a sort of cousin to that of the Three Villages. Another dialect, that of Kokhrud, resembles that of Kashi very much, especially in the forms of the verbs. The writer has collected some songs in this dialect. There is also another dialect spoken about Radasht which belongs to the same group, but it resembles that of the Seh-deh more than that of Kokhrad or Kashi. One of the villagers from Rûdasht gave the author 900 lines of poetry in that dialect, written by four of their poets. He intends to publish this, and also a dictionary of the dialect, on his return to St. Petersburg. He has also an interesting story on the great famine in Persia, and is labouring at the folk-tales of the people. As yet, he has not been able to collect
