of the Greeks (= A.D. 781), the name of the reigning Patriarch of the Nestorian church MAR HANAN ISHUA (dead in 778, but the fact apparently had not reached China), that of ADAM, Bishop and Pope of Tzinisthan (i.e.  China), and those of the clerical staff of the capital which here bears the name, given it by the early Arab Travellers, of Kumdan.  There follow sixty-seven names of persons in Syriac characters, most of whom are characterised as priests (Kashisha), and sixty-one names of persons in Chinese, all priests save one.

[It appears that Adam (King tsing), who erected the monument under Te Tsung was, under the same Emperor, with a Buddhist the translator of a Buddhist sutra, the Satparamita from a Hu text. (See a curious paper by Mr. J. Takakusu in the T’oung Pao, VII pp. 589-591.)

Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 157, note) makes the following remarks.  “It is strange, however, that the two famous Uigur Nestorians, Mar Jabalaha and Rabban Cauma, when on their journey from Koshang in Southern Shan hsi to Western Asia in about 1276, while they mention ’the city of Tangut, or Ning hsia on the Yellow River as an important Nestorian centre’ do not once refer to Hsi anfu or Chang an.  Had Chang an been at the time the Nestorian Episcopal see, one would think that these pilgrims would have visited it, or at least referred to it. (Chabot, Mar Jabalaha, 21)”—­H.C.]

Kircher gives a good many more Syriac names than appear on the rubbing, probably because some of these are on the edge of the slab now built in.  We have no room to speak of the controversies raised by this stone.  The most able defence of its genuine character, as well as a transcript with translation and commentary, a work of great interest, was published by the late M. Pauthier.  The monument exists intact, and has been visited by the Rev. Mr. Williamson, Baron Richthofen, and other recent travellers. [The Rev. Moir Duncan wrote from Shen si regarding the present state of the stone. (London and China Telegraph, 5th June, 1893) “Of the covering rebuilt so recently, not a trace remains save the pedestals for the pillars and atoms of the tiling.  In answer to a question as to when and how the covering was destroyed, the old priest replied, with a twinkle in his eye as if his conscience pinched, ‘There came a rushing wind and blew it down.’  He could not say when, for he paid no attention to such mundane affairs.  More than one outsider however, said it had been deliberately destroyed, because the priests are jealous of the interest manifested in it.  The stone has evidently been recently tampered with, several characters are effaced and there are other signs of malicious hands.”—­H.C.] Pauthier’s works on the subject are—­De l’Authenticite de l’Inscription Nestorienne, etc., B. Duprat, 1857, and l’Inscription Syro Chinoise de Si ngan fou, etc., Firmin