cause the meaning head of a caravan, merchantleader was appropriate, together with the secular use of the Sanskrit word in Central Asia, it was suggested that sa-fu/sa-pao also were transcriptions of sdrthavlha. In the ninth century, sa-po a appears in Khotanese texts, with the parallel notation spa, spata, coming from Skt. senapati, as the title of officials in that area. A similar transcription appeared in descriptions of Persia of the sixth century, and another possible occurrence is noted for the seventh century. If the series sa-fu/sa-pao is to be identified with this latter term, then the use of the same graphs for Yii-wen Hu's name is not pertinent. It may also be possible that sa-po a also represents sdrthavolha, and that the identification with spa, spata is a later etymology. However, it would seem most prudent at this time to say that the similarity of sa-po a with the other transcriptions is fortuitous, and the two series are to be distinguished. Thus while our information on the subject has greatly increased over the last hundred years, we cannot yet say that the problem has been solved satisfactorily.