GENERAL PLAN OF THE WORK. THE guiding scheme of the literary portion of the undertaking pre-supposes the complete independence of each signatory Editor, whose article or separate section of the combined work will constitute a detached brochure, or publication in itself-paged without reference to the larger Encyclopædia, the final limits of which it may be difficult to foretell; the ultimate incorporation of the separate Essays being determined by priority of date of the dynasty treated of,—while ample introductory heads of chapters and copious indices will secure all eventual facility of reference. The general plan for the conduct of the work submitted to the different contributors contemplates A.—A brief but comprehensive outline of the history of the dynasty whose coins form the subject of review; or preferably, in some cases, detached notices for each reign. B.-A leading and critical list of the regal succession, supplemented by a serial recognition of the contributions of all modern writers on the subject. C.-A subordinate notice regarding the original intrinsic and exchangeable values of the current coin. D.-A full and exhaustive numismatic list of the coins in due order; the text-notes or comments on individual pieces being restricted to marked peculiarities, which should only be enlarged upon in instances of historic importance. On the other hand, kindred illustrations from Palæographic or contemporary inscriptions, architectural or sigillary monuments, will materially aid the higher objects of the publication. E-A concluding résumé of the normal sites, the varying designations and fortunes of the mint cities, with a map and general geographical index of the towns and the dates developed on the dynastic coinage. The following are the names of the contributors and the several subjects undertaken up to this time: THE TRANSLITERATION OF ORIENTAL WORDS. THE first responsibility the Editor of the new issue of Marsden's Numismata Orientalia has to encounter is the endeavour to obtain the adhesion of the various international contributors to a fixed and uniform system of transliteration of Oriental words. Were the task limited to reconciling the different schools of the Arabic language, it would be sufficiently formidable at this moment, when each representative of a sectional adaptation of that speech claims dominance for his own method. But, in the present instance, we have to satisfy the requirements of numerous varieties of Aryan and Túránian speech, and to determine how far we are to admit the reconstructed Semitic alphabet to take rank over its elder brethren. Considering the very late date of the elaboration of Arabic grammar, and the confessed adaptation of its alphabet from previously current systems of writing, we must clearly recognize the higher claims of the more Eastern nationalities, who did not mould their vocal organs on such mixed and discordant sounds, and who are so much more largely represented, both in spread and numbers, in the work now in course of publication. It is a singular but suggestive fact that we hear of few difficulties in the way of the transliteration of the archaic languages, Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, or Hebrew on the one part, or of the Túránian and Aryan writings on the other. For the due definition or reproduction of the Sanskrit alphabet, as developed from the Indian models on the Monoliths of Aṣoka (B.c. 250), the learned world are sufficiently in accord in the acceptance of Sir W. Jones's system. The contest commences when we have to submit Aryan and Túránian languages to the test of the, for them, needlessly amplified scheme of Arabic writing. The central type by which the question has to be tried for the purposes of this work is the Aryan Persian, already full of Aramaïsms, but retaining much of its archaic simplicity of grammar,' and which ultimately spread as the official language of the Ghaznavís and their successors, the occupying Pathán and Mughal rulers of India, and formed the basis of the modern Urdú or camp lingua franca of Hindústán, the now vernacular Hindústání. Seeing, then, how much of the orthography and attendant pronunciation of the language of the majority of our coin series are dependent upon the Persian basis, the Editor recommends to his coadjutors, in accordance with the genius of that language, the simplest form of transliteration possible for the consonants, while admitting a more extended range of option in the vowels, to meet the varieties of speech from time to time embodied in the adapted Persian alphabet. The subjoined Table of Alphabets will show at a glance the different systems of transliteration advocated by the various linguistic authorities of our day, together with a final column of the scheme proposed for use in the present work. This has been framed upon the groundwork of the system adopted by Mr. Francis Johnson, in his Persian Dictionary, the latest and most enduring effort of our country towards the critical definition of a language once of the highest importance to us in our capacity as rulers of India. In order to conciliate, and in so far satisfy the reasonable demands of the contributors, who undertake the purely Arabic sections of the work, a tentative scheme of diacritical marks for consonants has been devised; though in the parallel association with the words and names in the original character, which will appear in full, the discriminative signs in the English text scarcely seem to be needed. A further provision has been made against any confusion of letters like sh and sh, etc., by the admission of a break between the English letters in the latter case. For the more simple Persian and other languages, the Editor would suggest the rejection of all but really essential diacritical marks. are peculiar to the Arabic, and are sounded in that language very differently from what they are in Persian. They have generally sounds very harsh and rough; some very difficult, and others almost impossible for an English beginner to imitate. Let him be consoled, however, with the assurance, that an exact imitation of these sounds is not only unnecessary, but absolutely useless to a reader of the Persian language; inasmuch as the Persians themselves never attempt to pronounce them as the Arabs (do, but) pronounce them merely like those Persian letters which come the nearest to them in point of sound, exactly as I have set them down in the order of the alphabet."-Persian Grammar. London, 1841. p. 4. Sir W. Jones. The Sanskrit Alphabet, with the corresponding Roman equivalents, after the system of Sir W. Jones. bbb b b Р Р t t t t I N N N N th or s S 8 で j jj dj ch ch ch tch b t - 80 g ذ N Ꮓ N N Ꮓ Ꮓ jj sh sh sh ch Ś א S b א Ꮓ t t t ظ au or aw dh ż ai ay No. 3.-Persian Dictionary. London, 1852. ey, ei ay, ai No. 5.-Arabic Grammar. London, 1859. á པ་ á The Map of India which accompanies this article has been reduced by photography from the standard copper-plate Map of the East India Government, which constitutes the matrix of the various transfer lithographic illustrations which appear from time to time in the Indian Blue Books. I have to express my acknowledgments for the permission to use the reproduction, and to thank Messrs. Markham and Saunders for the adaptation of the outline chart to the NUMISMATA ORIENTALIA. ANCIENT INDIAN WEIGHTS. ONE of the latest authorities on International Metrologies, Don V. Queipo,' abandoning the wise reserve of Boeckh, has undertaken the task of tracing the derivation of the Indian system of weights and measures to primary Egyptian sources. I am quite prepared to recognize Egypt's antecedent and more immediate influence on the civilization of the ancient world, and to admit, in advance, that, by a curious coincidence, her copper standard of 1200 B.c. is closely identical with one of India's earlier current weights, a fact, be it said, hitherto unrecognized. But, on the other hand, we must demand much more complete and searching evidence of borrowing or imitation to establish the leading proposition so confidently advanced by M. Queipo,—some such scale of proof, indeed, as that already sketched out by Boeckh himself in the following terms: "In cases where the weights and measures of two different nations are found to be in a precise and definite 1 Essai sur les Systèmes Métriques et Monétaires des Anciens Peuples, par Don V. Queipo, 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1859. 2 "Il n'en est pas de même des Indiens; ceux-ci sont certainement très-anciens; le bouddhisme est antérieur de six siècles à l'ère chrétienne; le brahmanisme est antérieur au bouddhisme, et les Védas atteignent les temps ou, pour la race indienne, du moins, l'histoire commençait à peine. Il est donc curieux de voir si cette civilisation reculée, qui a su trouver tant de choses a su aussi trouver par elle-même une métrologie, ou si elle a reçu ses poids et mesures de peuples encore plus vieux qu'elle. La coudée indienne, hasta, est composée de deux empans (vitasti), et chaque empan de 12 doigts (angula); c'est la division égyptienne. La hasta est évaluée à 18 pouces anglais ou 457 millimètres; c'est la coudée naturelle d'Egypte qui est de 450, ou, si l'on veut, la coudée olympique qui est de 462. Maintenant, comment les Indiens formeront-ils leurs mesures de capacité? Cuberont-ils une partie cette hasta qu'ils ont fait leur? Non, ils ont une cumbha qui est de 164 litres, et qui répond au cube de la coudée haschemite ou assyrienne (640 millimètres); c'est, du moins, ce que M. Queipo détermine par des calculs judicieusement conduits. Si l'on se tourne d'un autre côté, et que l'on recherche l'unité de poids chez les Indiens, on trouve le tank-sala, qui est de 3 gr. 50, c'est-à-dire la drachme des Lagides, qui est elle-même un poids d'origine égyptienne."-Article by M. Littré, Jour. des Sav., April, 1861, p. 233. The reviewer continues:-"En 1834, profitant de 3 This approximation of weights was first noticed in my Pathan Kings of Dehli (London, 1871), p. 362. |