
February, 1908. | - Annual Address. X XIX 
appears on the official seal of the Dalai Lama, was borrowed from 
the. Syriac, through the agency of Nestorian missionaries. I do 
not feel competent. to or upon the respective merits. of 
thiése theories, nor am I i a position to reconcile them; but 
it does seem to me that “the question is worth investigation, 
whether Mongolia aged not have got her art of writing from at 
least two independent sources, namely, Syria and Tibet. 
’ Babu Rakhal Das Baner rjee deals, in his paper on “ Clay ta blets 
from the Malay Peninsula,” with the external influence of Indian 
thought and art. These seals were brought from the Malay 
Peninsula by Dr. Annandale, who, in his introductory note, dwells 
on the long intercourse which existed between the western parts 
of the Peninsula and the southern coast of India. This affords a 
confirmation of previous evidence on the subject, which had 
oa min ob controversy, the influence of Indian religion 
and art the islands of the Indian Archipelago, I 
original castes. Mr. Jackson seeks to establish the theory that, 
before the advent of the Mahomedans, India was divided into 
numerous distinct kingdoms governed by kings, who followed 
divergent customs, with the result that, if a caste lived in an area 
so extensive as ha be subject to more than one political jurisdic- 
tion, it became naturally split up into sections whose customs 
differed in detail, based, as these were, on the divergent pasa 
of the kings to whom the were subject. The matter, it m 
conceded, is of a highly controversial character, and the hie: 
however ingenious it may be, can hardly be treated as conclu- 
sively founded upon a substantial basis of evidence. At any rate 
even if it be admitted that in a particular locality a cause of the 
description mentioned led to a sub-division of the castes, it would 
be a mistake to suppose that the same cause was in 0 io 
everywhere, and that every sub-caste is traceable to the existence 
of sree circumstances. 
our younger members, Babu Bhabesh Chandra 
Babiaties and Babu Nilmony Chuckerbutty, have given us in- 
teresting papers, which show a creditable spirit of research. T 
former’ deals with the subject of Vedic sacrifices, and endeavours 
to establish that the Aryans, at one time, used to sacrifice human 
beings and it ea abandoned the practice, substituting the 
lower animals, and gradually corn, milk, etc. The latter treats of 
the chronology of badion authors, and gives us some important 
Tad: supplemental to those contained in Dufi's Chronology of 
Tn the domain of the Natural and Ph ysical Sciences, our 
Journal and Proceedings and Memoirs exhibit unabated activity. 
Prof: Mallick’s brief but important paper on Magnetic {Induction 
of Spheroids has been, with the e permission of the Society, subse- 
quently republished in gre Philosophical Magazine. In Physical 
Chemistry we had a stimulating paper from Dr. Travers on the 
