Volume 120 / Number 4 / October-December 2000

ISSN 0003-0279

JOURNAL
OF THE
AMERICAN
ORIENTAL
SOCIETY

JAN E. M. HOUBEN, The Ritual Pragmatics of a Vedic Hymn: The "Riddle Hymn" and the Pravargya Ritual     499
W. SOUTH COBLIN, A Brief History of Mandarin    537
MANUEL GERBER, A Common Source for the Late Babylonian Chronicles Dealing with the Eighth and Seventh Centuries     553
STEPHEN H. RAPP, JR., Sumbat Davit'is-dze and the Vocabulary of Political Authority in the Era of Georgian Unification     570
SULEIMAN A. MOURAD, On Early Islamic Historiography: Abu Isma`il al-Azdi and His Futuh al-sham (Conquest of Syria)     577
YAEL BENTOR, Interiorized Fire Rituals in India and Tibet 594

Brief Communications

BARBARA BÖCK, "An Esoteric Babylonian Community" Revisited     615
NADAV NA'AMAN, Habiru-like Bands in the Assyrian Empire and Bands in Biblical Historiography     621
F. W. DOBBS-ALLSOPP, Darwinism, Genre Theory, and City Laments     625

Reviews of Books     631

Brief Reviews of Books     693