CHAPTER I.

ALBERUNI’S INDIA.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE,

GEOGRAPHY, CHRONOLOGY, ASTRONOMY, CUSTOMS,

LAWS AND ASTROLOGY OF INDIA

ABOUT A.D. 1030.

An English Edition, with Notes and Indices.

BY

Dr. EDWARD C. SACHAU,

Professor in the Royal University of Berlin, and Principal

of the Seminary for Oriental Languages; Member of the Royal

Academy of Berlin, and Corresponding Member of the Imperial

Academy of Vienna, Honorary Member of the Asiatic Society of

Great Britain and Ireland, London, and of the American

Oriental Society, Cambridge, U.S.A.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO. LTD

DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.

1910

Dedicated

TO

CHARLES SCHEFER,

MEMBRE DE L’INSTITUT, PARIS

AS

A HOMAGE BOTH TO

THE MAN AND THE SCHOLAR.

PREFACE.

I.

[Maḥmûd and Firdausî.] The literary history of the East represents the

court of King Maḥmûd at Ghazna, the leading monarch of Asiatic history

between A.D. 997–1030, as having been a centre of literature, and of

poetry in particular. There were four hundred poets chanting in his

halls and gardens, at their head famous Unsurî, invested with the

recently created dignity of a poet-laureate, who by his verdict opened

the way to royal favour for rising talents; there was grand Firdausî,

composing his heroic epos by the special orders of the king, with many

more kindred spirits. Unfortunately history knows very little of all

this, save the fact that Persian poets flocked together in Ghazna,

trying their kasîdas on the king, his ministers and generals. History

paints Maḥmûd as a successful warrior, but ignores him as a Mæcenas.

With the sole exception of the lucubrations of bombastic Utbî, all

contemporary records, the Makâmât of Abû-Naṣr Mishkânî, the Ṭabaḳât of

his secretary Baihaḳî, the chronicles of Mullâ Muḥammad Ghaznavî,

Maḥmûd Warrâk, and others, have perished, or not yet come to light, and

the attempts at a literary history dating from a time 300–400 years

later, the so-called Tadhkiras, weigh very light in the scale of

matter-of-fact examination, failing almost invariably whenever they are

applied to for information on some detail of ancient Persian

literature. However this may be, Unsurî, the panegyrist, does not seem

to have missed the sun of royal favour, whilst Firdausî, immortal

Firdausî, had to fly in disguise to evade the doom of being trampled to

death by elephants. Attracted by the rising fortune of the young

emperor, he seems to have repaired to his court only a year after his

enthronisation, i.e. A.D. 998. But when he had finished his Shâhnâma,

and found himself disappointed in his hopes for reward, he flung at him

his famous satire, and fled into peaceless exile (A.D. 1010). [1] In

the case of the king versus the poet the king has lost. As long as

Firdausî retains the place of honour accorded to him in the history of

the world’s mental achievements, the stigma will cling to the name of

Maḥmûd, that he who hoarded up perhaps more worldly treasures than were

ever hoarded up, did not know how to honour a poet destined for

immortality.

And how did the author of this work, as remarkable among the prose

compositions of the East as the Shâhnâma in poetry, fare with the royal

Mæcenas of Ghazna?

[Maḥmûd and Alberuni.] Alberuni, or, as his compatriots called him, Abû

Raiḥân, was born A.D. 973, in the territory of modern Khiva, then

called Khwârizm, or Chorasmia in antiquity. [2] Early distinguishing

himself in science and literature, he played a political part as

councillor of the ruling prince of his native country of the Maʾmûnî

family. The counsels he gave do not seem always to have suited the

plans of King Maḥmûd at Ghazna, who was looking out for a pretext for

interfering in the affairs of independent Khiva, although its rulers

were his own near relatives. This pretext was furnished by a military

émeute.

Maḥmûd marched into the country, not without some fighting, established

there one of his generals as provincial governor, and soon returned to

Ghazna with much booty and a great part of the Khiva troops, together

with the princes of the deposed family of Maʾmûn and the leading men of

the country as prisoners of war or as hostages. Among the last was

Abû-Raiḥân Muḥammad Ibn Ahmad Alberuni.

This happened in the spring and summer of A.D. 1017. The Chorasmian

princes were sent to distant fortresses as prisoners of state, the

Chorasmian soldiers were incorporated in Maḥmûd’s Indian army; and

Alberuni—what treatment did he experience at Ghazna? From the very

outset it is not likely that both the king and his chancellor, Aḥmad

Ibn Hasan Maimandî, should have accorded special favours to a man whom

they knew to have been their political antagonist for years. The

latter, the same man who had been the cause of the tragic catastrophe

in the life of Firdausî, was in office under Maḥmûd from A.D.

1007–1025, and a second time under his son and successor, Masʿûd, from

1030–1033. There is nothing to tell us that Alberuni was ever in the

service of the state or court in Ghazna. A friend of his and companion

of his exile, the Christian philosopher and physician from Bagdad,

Abulkhair Alkhammâr, seems to have practised in Ghazna his medical

profession. Alberuni probably enjoyed the reputation of a great

munajjim, i.e. astrologer-astronomer, and perhaps it was in this

quality that he had relations to the court and its head, as Tycho de

Brahe to the Emperor Rudolf. When writing the Ἰνδικά, thirteen years

after his involuntary immigration to Afghanistan, he was a master of

astrology, both according to the Greek and the Hindu system, and indeed

Eastern writers of later centuries seem to consider him as having been

the court astrologer of King Maḥmûd. In a book written five hundred

years later (v. Chrestomathie Persane, &c., par Ch. Schefer, Paris,

1883, i. p. 107 of the Persian text), there is a story of a practical

joke which Maḥmûd played on Alberuni as an astrologer. Whether this be

historic truth or a late invention, anyhow the story does not throw

much light on the author’s situation in a period of his life which is

the most interesting to us, that one, namely, when he commenced to

study India, Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature.

Historic tradition failing us, we are reduced to a single source of

information—the author’s work—and must examine to what degree his

personal relations are indicated by his own words. When he wrote, King

Maḥmûd had been dead only a few weeks. Le roi est mort—but to whom was

Vive le roi to be addressed?

Two heirs claimed the throne, Muḥammad and Masʿûd, and were marching

against each other to settle their claims by the sword. Under these

circumstances it comes out as a characteristic fact that the book has

no dedication whatever, either to the memory of Maḥmûd, or to one of

the rival princes, or to any of the indifferent or non-political

princes of the royal house. As a cautious politician, he awaited the

issue of the contest; but when the dice had been thrown, and Masʿûd was

firmly established on the throne of his father, he at once hastened to

dedicate to him the greatest work of his life, the Canon Masudicus. If

he had been affected by any feeling of sincere gratitude, he might have

erected in the Ἰνδικά a monument to the memory of the dead king, under

whose rule he had made the necessary preparatory studies, and might

have praised him as the great propagator of Islam, without probably

incurring any risk. He has not done so, and the terms in which he

speaks of Maḥmûd throughout his book are not such as a man would use

when speaking of a deceased person who had been his benefactor.

He is called simply The Amîr Maḥmûd, ii. 13 (Arabic text, p. 208, 9),

The Amîr Maḥmûd, may God’s mercy be with him, i. 116 (text, p. 56, 8),

The Amîr Maḥmûd, may the grace of God be with him, ii. 103 (text, p.

252, 11). The title Amîr was nothing very complimentary. It had been

borne by his ancestors when they were simply generals and provincial

governors in the service of the Sâmânî king of Transoxiana and

Khurasan. Speaking of Maḥmûd and his father Sabuktagîn, the author

says, Yamîn-aldaula Maḥmûd, may God’s mercy be with them, i. 22 (text,

p. 11, 9). He had received the title Yamîn-aldaula, i.e. The right hand

of the dynasty (of the Khalif), from the Khalif, as a recognition of

the legitimacy of his rule, resembling the investiture of the German

Emperor by the Pope in the Middle Ages. Lastly, we find at ii. 2 (text,

p. 203, 20) the following terms: “The strongest of the pillars (of

Islam), the pattern of a Sultan, Maḥmûd, the lion of the world and the

rarity of the age, may God’s mercy be with him.”

Whoever knows the style of Oriental authors when speaking of crowned

heads, the style of their prefaces, which attains the height of

absurdity at the court of the Moghul emperors at Delhi, will agree with

me that the manner in which the author mentions the dead king is cold,

cold in the extreme; that the words of praise bestowed upon him are

meagre and stiff, a poor sort of praise for a man who had been the

first man in Islam, and the founder of Islam in India; lastly, that the

phrases of benediction which are appended to his name, according to a

general custom of Islam, are the same as the author would have employed

when speaking of any acquaintance of his in common life who had died.

He says of Maḥmûd (i. 22): “He utterly ruined the prosperity of the

country (of India), and performed those wonderful exploits by which the

Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like

a tale of old in the mouth of the people.” To criticise these words

from a Muslim point of view, the passage of the ruining of the

prosperity of the country was perfectly out of place in the

glorification of a Ghâzî like Maḥmûd.

That it was not at all against the moral principles of Alberuni to

write such dedications to princes is shown by two other publications of

his, with dedications which exhibit the customary Byzantinism of the

time. In the preface of the “Chronology of Ancient Nations”

(translated, &c., by Edward Sachau, London, 1879), he extols with

abundant praise the prince of Hyrcania or Jurjân, Shams-almaʿâlî, who

was a dwarf by the side of giant Maḥmûd. The studied character of the

neglect of Maḥmûd in the Ἰνδικά comes out more strongly if we compare

the unmerited praise which Alberuni lavishes upon his son and

successor. The preface of his Canon Masudicus is a farrago of

high-sounding words in honour of King Masʿûd, who was a drunkard, and

lost in less than a decennium most of what his father’s sword and

policy had gained in thirty-three years. The tenor of this preface,

taken from the manuscript of the Royal Library in Berlin, is as

follows:—

“To those who lead the community of the believers in the place of the

Prophet and by the help of the Word of God belongs the king, the lord

majestic and venerated, the helper of the representative of God, the

furtherer of the law of God, the protector of the slaves of God, who

punishes the enemies of God, Abû-Saʿîd Masʿûd Ibn Yamîn-aldaula and

ʾAmin-almilla Maḥmûd—may God give him a long life, and let him

perpetually rise to glorious and memorable deeds. For a confirmation of

what we here say of him lies in the fact that God, on considering the

matter, restored the right (i.e. the right of being ruled by Masʿûd) to

his people, after it had been concealed. God brought it to light. After

he had been in distress, God helped him. After he had been rejected,

God raised him, and brought him the empire and the rule, after people

from all sides had tried to get possession of it, speaking: ‘How should

he come to rule over us, as we have a better right to the rule than

he?’ But then they received (from God) an answer in the event (lit.

sign) which followed. God carried out His promise relating to him

(Masʿûd), giving him the inheritance without his asking for it, as He

gave the inheritance of David to Solomon without reserve. (That is, the

dead King Maḥmûd had proclaimed as his successor his son Muḥammad, not

Masʿûd, but the latter contested the will of his father, and in the

following contest with his brother he was the winner.) If God had not

chosen him, the hearts of men would not have been gained (?) for him,

and the intrigues of his enemies would not have missed their aim. In

short, the souls of men hastened to meet him in order to live under his

shadow. The order of God was an act of predestination, and his becoming

king was written in the Book of Books in heaven (from all eternity).

“He—may God make his rule everlasting!—has conferred upon me a favour

which was a high distinction to me, and has placed me under the

obligation of everlasting gratitude. For although a benefactor may

dispense with the thank-offerings for his deeds, &c., a sound heart

inspires those who receive them with the fear that they might be lost

(to general notice), and lays upon them the obligation of spreading

them and making them known in the world. But already, before I received

this favour, I shared with the inhabitants of all his countries the

blessings of his rule, of peace and justice. However, then the special

service (towards his Majesty) became incumbent upon me, after (until

that time) obeying in general (his Majesty) had been incumbent on me.

(This means, probably, that Masʿûd conferred a special benefit (a

pension?) on the author, not immediately after he had come to the

throne, but some time later.) Is it not he who has enabled me for the

rest of my life (Alberuni was then sixty-one years old) to devote

myself entirely to the service of science, as he let me dwell under the

shadow of his power and let the cloud of his favour rain on me, always

personally distinguishing and befriending me, &c.? And with regard to

this (the favour conferred upon me), he has deigned to send his orders

to the treasury and the ministry, which certainly is the utmost that

kings can do for their subjects. May God Almighty reward him both in

this and in yonder world,” &c.

Thereupon, finding that his Majesty did not require his actual service,

and besides, finding that science stood in the highest favour with him,

he composes a book on astronomy, to which he had been addicted all his

life, and adorns it with the name of his Majesty, calling it Canon

Masudicus (Alḳânûn Almasʿûdî), &c.

To put the phrases of this preface into plain language, the author was

in favour with King Masʿûd; he had access to the court—living,

probably, near it—and received an income which enabled him to devote

himself entirely to his scientific work. Besides, all this appears as a

new state of things, the reverse of which had been the case under the

king’s predecessor, his father, Maḥmûd. We do not know the year in

which this change in the life of Alberuni was brought about. Perhaps it

was in some way connected with the fact that the chancellor, Maimandî,

died A.D. 1033, and that after him one Abû-Naṣr Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn

ʿAbduṣṣamad became chancellor, who before, i.e. from 1017 to 1033, had

administered Khwarizm, the native country of Alberuni. He and Maimandî

had been political antagonists—not so he and ʿAbduṣṣamad.

The difference of the author’s condition, as it appears to have been

under Masʿûd, from what it was under Maḥmûd when he prepared the

Ἰνδικά, is further illustrated by certain passages in the book itself.

When speaking of the difficulties with which he had to grapple in his

efforts to learn everything about India, he continues: “What scholar,

however, has the same favourable opportunities of studying this subject

as I have? That would be only the case with one to whom the grace of

God accords, what it did not accord to me, a perfectly free disposal of

his own doings and goings; for it has never fallen to my lot in my own

doings and goings to be perfectly independent, nor to be invested with

sufficient power to dispose and to order as I thought best. However, I

thank God for that which He has bestowed upon me, and which must be

considered as sufficient for the purpose” (i. 24). These lines seem to

say that the author, both at Ghazna and in India, at Multân, Peshâvar,

&c., had the opportunity of conversing with pandits, of procuring their

help, and of buying books; that, however, in other directions he was

not his own master, but had to obey a higher will; and lastly, that he

was not a man in authority.

In another place (i. 152) he explains that art and science require the

protection of kings. “For they alone could free the minds of scholars

from the daily anxieties for the necessities of life, and stimulate

their energies to earn more fame and favour, the yearning for which is

the pith and marrow of human nature. The present times, however, are

not of this kind. They are the very opposite, and therefore it is quite

impossible that a new science or any new kind of research should arise

in our days. What we have of sciences is nothing but the scanty remains

of bygone better times.” Compare with this a dictum quoted (i. 188):

“The scholars are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are

ignorant of the nobility of science.”

These are not the words of an author who basks in the sunshine of royal

protection. The time he speaks of is the time of Maḥmûd, and it is

Maḥmûd whom he accuses of having failed in the duties of a protector of

art and science imposed upon him by his royal office. Firdausî, in his

satire (Mohl, i. préf. p. xlv.), calls him “un roi qui n’a ni foi ni

loi ni manières” (royales); and he says: “Si le roi avait été un homme

digne de renom, il aurait honoré le savoir,” &c. It is most remarkable

to what degree Firdausî and Alberuni agree in their judgment of the

king. To neither of them had he been a Mæcenas.

In the absence of positive information, we have tried to form a chain

of combinations from which we may infer, with a tolerable degree of

certainty, that our author, during the thirteen years of his life from

1017 to 1030, after he had been carried from his native country to the

centre of Maḥmûd’s realm, did not enjoy the favours of the king and his

leading men; that he stayed in different parts of India (as a companion

of the princes of his native country?), probably in the character of a

hostage or political prisoner kept on honourable terms; that he spent

his leisure in the study of India; and that he had no official

inducement or encouragement for this study, nor any hope of royal

reward.

A radical change in all this takes place with the accession of Masʿûd.

There is no more complaint of the time and its ruler. Alberuni is all

glee and exultation about the royal favours and support accorded to him

and to his studies. He now wrote the greatest work of his life, [3] and

with a swelling heart and overflowing words he proclaims in the preface

the praise of his benefactor. Living in Ghazna, he seems to have

forgotten India to a great extent. For in the Canon Masudicus he rarely

refers to India; its chapter on Hindu eras does not prove any progress

of his studies beyond that which he exhibits in the Ἰνδικά, and at the

end of it he is even capable of confounding the era of the astronomers,

as used in the Khaṇḍakhâdyaka of Brahmagupta, with the Guptakâla.

[The author’s interest in India.] If the author and his countrymen had

suffered and were still suffering from the oppression of King Maḥmûd,

the Hindus were in the same position, and perhaps it was this community

of mishap which inspired him with sympathy for them. And certainly the

Hindus and their world of thought have a paramount, fascinating

interest for him, and he inquires with the greatest predilection into

every Indian subject, howsoever heathenish it may be, as though he were

treating of the most important questions for the souls of

Muhammadans,—of free-will and predestination, of future reward and

punishment, of the creation or eternity of the Word of God, &c. To

Maḥmûd the Hindus were infidels, to be dispatched to hell as soon as

they refused to be plundered. To go on expeditions and to fill the

treasury with gold, not to make lasting conquests of territories, was

the real object of his famous expeditions; and it was with this view

that he cut his way through enormous distances to the richest temples

of India at Tanêshar, Mathurâ, Kanoj, and Somanâth.

To Alberuni the Hindus were excellent philosophers, good mathematicians

and astronomers, though he naïvely believes himself to be superior to

them, and disdains to be put on a level with them (i. 23). [4] He does

not conceal whatever he considers wrong and unpractical with them, but

he duly appreciates their mental achievements, takes the greatest pains

to appropriate them to himself, even such as could not be of any use to

him or to his readers, e.g. Sanskrit metrics; and whenever he hits upon

something that is noble and grand both in science and in practical

life, he never fails to lay it before his readers with warm-hearted

words of approbation. Speaking of the construction of the ponds at holy

bathing-places, he says: “In this they have attained a very high degree

of art, so that our people (the Muslims), when they see them, wonder at

them, and are unable to describe them, much less to construct anything

like them” (ii. 144).

Apparently Alberuni felt a strong inclination towards Indian

philosophy. He seems to have thought that the philosophers both in

ancient Greece and India, whom he most carefully and repeatedly

distinguishes from the ignorant, image-loving crowd, held in reality

the very same ideas, the same as seem to have been his own, i.e. those

of a pure monotheism; that, in fact, originally all men were alike pure

and virtuous, worshipping one sole Almighty God, but that the dark

passions of the crowd in the course of time had given rise to the

difference of religion, of philosophical and political persuasions, and

of idolatry. “The first cause of idolatry was the desire of

commemorating the dead and of consoling the living; but on this basis

it has developed, and has finally become a foul and pernicious abuse”

(i. 124).

He seems to have revelled in the pure theories of the Bhagavadgîtâ, and

it deserves to be noticed that he twice mentions the saying of Vyâsa,

“Learn twenty-five (i.e., the elements of existence) by distinctions,

&c. Afterwards adhere to whatever religion you like; your end will be

salvation” (i. 44, and also i. 104). In one case he even goes so far as

to speak of Hindu scholars as “enjoying the help of God,” which to a

Muslim means as much as inspired by God, guided by divine inspiration

(ii. 108). These words are an addition of the author’s in his

paraphrase of the Bṛihatsaṁhitâ of Varâhamihira, v. 8. There can be

scarcely any doubt that Muslims of later times would have found fault

with him for going to such length in his interest for those heathenish

doctrines, and it is a singular fact that Alberuni wrote under a prince

who burned and impaled the Karmatians (cf. note to i. 31).

Still he was a Muslim; whether Sunnî or Shîʿa cannot be gathered from

the Ἰνδικά. He sometimes takes an occasion for pointing out to the

reader the superiority of Islam over Brahmanic India. He contrasts the

democratic equality of men with the castes of India, the matrimonial

law of Islam with degraded forms of it in India, the cleanliness and

decency of Muslims with filthy customs of the Hindus. With all this,

his recognition of Islam is not without a tacit reserve. He dares not

attack Islam, but he attacks the Arabs. In his work on chronology he

reproaches the ancient Muslims with having destroyed the civilisation

of Eran, and gives us to understand that the ancient Arabs were

certainly nothing better than the Zoroastrian Eranians. So too in the

Ἰνδικά, whenever he speaks of a dark side in Hindu life, he at once

turns round sharply to compare the manners of the ancient Arabs, and to

declare that they were quite as bad, if not worse. This could only be

meant as a hint to the Muslim reader not to be too haughty towards the

poor bewildered Hindu, trodden down by the savage hordes of King

Maḥmûd, and not to forget that the founders of Islam, too, were

certainly no angels.

[The author’s character.] Independent in his thoughts about religion

and philosophy, he is a friend of clear, determined, and manly words.

He abhors half-truths, veiled words, and wavering action. Everywhere he

comes forward as a champion of his conviction with the courage of a

man. As in religion and philosophy, so too in politics. There are some

remarkable sentences of political philosophy in the introductions to

chapters ix. and lxxi. As a politician of a highly conservative stamp,

he stands up for throne and altar, and declares that “their union

represents the highest development of human society, all that men can

possibly desire” (i. 99). He is capable of admiring the mildness of the

law of the Gospel: “To offer to him who has beaten your cheek the other

cheek also, to bless your enemy and to pray for him. Upon my life, this

is a noble philosophy; but the people of this world are not all

philosophers. Most of them are ignorant and erring, who cannot be kept

on the straight road save by the sword and the whip. And, indeed, ever

since Constantine the Victorious became a Christian, both sword and

whip have ever been employed, for without them it would be impossible

to rule” (ii. 161). Although a scholar by profession, he is capable of

taking the practical side of a case, and he applauds the Khalif

Muʿâviya for having sold the golden gods of Sicily to the princes of

Sindh for money’s worth, instead of destroying them as heathen

abominations, as bigoted Muslims would probably have liked him to do.

His preaching the union of throne and altar does not prevent him from

speaking with undisguised contempt of the “preconcerted tricks of the

priests” having the purpose of enthralling the ignorant crowd (i. 123).

He is a stern judge both of himself and of others. Himself perfectly

sincere, it is sincerity which he demands from others. Whenever he does

not fully understand a subject, or only knows part of it, he will at

once tell the reader so, either asking the reader’s pardon for his

ignorance, or promising, though a man of fifty-eight years, to continue

his labours and to publish their results in time, as though he were

acting under a moral responsibility to the public. He always sharply

draws the limits of his knowledge; and although he has only a

smattering of the metrical system of the Hindus, he communicates

whatever little he knows, guided by the principle that the best must

not be the enemy of the better (i. 200, 6–9), as though he were afraid

that he should not live long enough to finish the study in question. He

is not a friend of those who “hate to avow their ignorance by a frank I

do not know” (i. 177), and he is roused to strong indignation whenever

he meets with want of sincerity. If Brahmagupta teaches two theories of

the eclipses, the popular one of the dragon Râhu’s devouring the

luminous body, and the scientific one, he certainly committed the sin

against conscience from undue concessions to the priests of the nation,

and from fear of a fate like that which befell Socrates when he came

into collision with the persuasions of the majority of his countrymen.

Cf. chapter lix. In another place he accuses Brahmagupta of injustice

and rudeness to his predecessor, Âryabhaṭa (i. 376). He finds in the

works of Varâhamihira by the side of honest scientific work sentences

which sound to him “like the ravings of a madman” (ii. 117), but he is

kind enough to suggest that behind those passages there is perhaps an

esoteric meaning, unknown to him, but more to the credit of the author.

When, however, Varâhamihira seems to exceed all limits of common sense,

Alberuni thinks that “to such things silence is the only proper answer”

(ii. 114).

His professional zeal, and the principle that learning is the fruit of

repetition (ii. 198), sometimes induce him to indulge in repetitions,

and his thorough honesty sometimes misleads him to use harsh and even

rude words. He cordially hates the verbosity of Indian authors or

versifiers, [5] who use lots of words where a single one would be

sufficient. He calls it “mere nonsense—a means of keeping people in the

dark and throwing an air of mystery about the subject. And in any case

this copiousness (of words denoting the same thing) offers painful

difficulties to those who want to learn the whole language, and only

results in a sheer waste of time” (i. 229, 299, 19). He twice explains

the origin of the Dîbajat, i.e. Maledives and Laccadives (i. 233; ii.

106), twice the configuration of the borders of the Indian Ocean (i.

197, 270).

Whenever he suspects humbug, he is not backward in calling it by the

right name. Thinking of the horrid practices of Rasâyana, i.e. the art

of making gold, of making old people young, &c., he bursts out into

sarcastic words which are more coarse in the original than in my

translation (i. 189). In eloquent words he utters his indignation on

the same subject (i. 193): “The greediness of the ignorant Hindu

princes for gold-making does not know any limit,” &c. There is a spark

of grim humour in his words on i. 237, where he criticises the

cosmographic ravings of a Hindu author: “We, on our part, found it

already troublesome enough to enumerate all the seven seas, together

with the seven earths, and now this author thinks he can make the

subject more easy and pleasant to us by inventing some more earths

below those already enumerated by ourselves!” And when jugglers from

Kanoj lectured to him on chronology, the stern scholar seems to have

been moved to something like a grin. “I used great care in examining

every single one of them, in repeating the same questions at different

times in a different order and context. But lo! what different answers

did I get! God is all-wise” (ii. 129).

[The tendency of his work.] In the opening of his book Alberuni gives

an account of the circumstances which suggested to him the idea of

writing the Ἰνδικά. Once the conversation with a friend of his, else

unknown, ran on the then existing literature on the history of religion

and philosophy, its merits and demerits. When, in particular, the

literature on the belief of the Hindus came to be criticised, Alberuni

maintained that all of it was second-hand and thoroughly uncritical. To

verify the matter, his friend once more examines the books in question,

which results in his agreeing with our author, and his asking him to

fill up this gap in the Arabic literature of the time. The book he has

produced is not a polemical one. He will not convert the Hindus, nor

lend a direct help to missionary zealots. He will simply describe

Hinduism, without identifying himself with it. He takes care to inform

the reader that he is not responsible for whatsoever repugnant detail

he has to relate, but the Hindus themselves. He gives a repertory of

information on Indian subjects, destined for the use of those who lived

in peaceable intercourse with them, and wished to have an insight into

their mode and world of thought (i. 7; ii. 246).

The author has nothing in common with the Muhammadan Ghâzî who wanted

to convert the Hindus or to kill them, and his book scarcely reminds

the reader of the incessant war between Islam and India, during which

it had been prepared, and by which the possibility of writing such a

book had first been given. It is like a magic island of quiet,

impartial research in the midst of a world of clashing swords, burning

towns, and plundered temples. The object which the author had in view,

and never for a moment lost sight of, was to afford the necessary

information and training to “any one (in Islam) who wants to converse

with the Hindus, and to discuss with them questions of religion,

science, or literature, on the very basis of their own civilisation”

(ii. 246).

[The author and his readers.] It is difficult to say what kind of

readers Alberuni had, or expected to have, not only for the Ἰνδικά, but

for all his other publications on Indian subjects. Probably educated,

and not bigoted or fanatical Muslims in Sindh, in parts of the Panjab,

where they were living by the side of Hindus and in daily intercourse

with them; perhaps, also, for such in Kabul, the suburb of which had

still a Hindu population in the second half of the tenth century,

Ghazna, and other parts of Afghanistan. When speaking of the

Pulisasiddhânta, a standard work on astronomy, he says: “A translation

of his (Pulisa’s) whole work into Arabic has not hitherto yet been

undertaken, because in his mathematical problems there is an evident

religious and theological tendency” [6] (i. 375). He does not tell us

what this particular tendency was to which the readers objected, but we

learn so much from this note that in his time, and probably also in his

neighbourhood, there were circles of educated men who had an interest

in getting the scientific works of India translated into Arabic, who at

the same time were sufficiently familiar with the subject-matter to

criticise the various representations of the same subject, and to give

the preference to one, to the exclusion of another. That our author had

a certain public among Hindus seems to be indicated by the fact that he

composed some publications for people in Kashmîr; cf. preface to the

edition of the text, p. xx. These relations to Kashmîr are very

difficult to understand, as Muslims had not yet conquered the country,

nor entered it to any extent, and as the author himself (i. 206)

relates that it was closed to intercourse with all strangers save a few

Jews. Whatever the interest of Muslims for the literature of and on

India may have been, we are under the impression that this kind of

literature has never taken deep root; for after Alberuni’s death, in

A.D. 1048, there is no more original work in this field; and even

Alberuni, when he wrote, was quite alone in the field. Enumerating the

difficulties which beset his study of India, he says: “I found it very

hard to work into the subject, although I have a great liking for it,

in which respect I stand quite alone in my time,” &c. (i. 24). And

certainly we do not know of any Indianist like him, before his time or

after.

[The author’s method.] In general it is the method of our author not to

speak himself, but to let the Hindus speak, giving extensive quotations

from their classical authors. He presents a picture of Indian

civilisation as painted by the Hindus themselves. Many chapters, not

all, open with a short characteristic introduction of a general nature.

The body of most chapters consists of three parts. The first is a

précis of the question, as the author understands it. The second part

brings forward the doctrines of the Hindus, quotations from Sanskrit

books in the chapters on religion, philosophy, astronomy, and

astrology, and other kinds of information which had been communicated

to him by word of mouth, or things which he had himself observed in the

chapters on literature, historic chronology, geography, law, manners,

and customs. In the third part he does the same as Megasthenes had

already done; he tries to bring the sometimes very exotic subject

nearer to the understanding of his readers by comparing it with the

theories of ancient Greece, and by other comparisons. As an example of

this kind of arrangement, cf. Chapter v. In the disposition of every

single chapter, as well as in the sequence of the chapters, a

perspicuous, well-considered plan is apparent. There is no patchwork

nor anything superfluous, and the words fit to the subject as close as

possible. We seem to recognise the professional mathematician in the

perspicuity and classical order throughout the whole composition, and

there was scarcely an occasion for him to excuse himself, as he does at

the end of Chapter i. (i. 26), for not being able everywhere strictly

to adhere to the geometrical method, as he was sometimes compelled to

introduce an unknown factor, because the explanation could only be

given in a later part of the book.

[The author’s critical mind.] He does not blindly accept the traditions

of former ages; he wants to understand and to criticise them. He wants

to sift the wheat from the chaff, and he will discard everything that

militates against the laws of nature and of reason. The reader will

remember that Alberuni was also a physical scholar, and had published

works on most departments of natural science, optics, mechanics,

mineralogy, and chemistry; cf. his geological speculation on the

indications of India once having been a sea (i. 198), and a

characteristic specimen of his natural philosophy (i. 400). That he

believed in the action of the planets on the sublunary world I take for

certain, though he nowhere says so. It would hardly be intelligible why

he should have spent so much time and labour on the study of Greek and

Indian astrology if he had not believed in the truth of the thing. He

gives a sketch of Indian astrology in Chapter lxxx., because Muslim

readers “are not acquainted with the Hindu methods of astrology, and

have never had an opportunity of studying an Indian book” (ii. 211).

Bardesanes, a Syrian philosopher and poet in the second half of the

second Christian century, condemned astrology in plain and weighty

words. Alberuni did not rise to this height, remaining entangled in the

notions of Greek astrology.

He did not believe in alchemy, for he distinguishes between such of its

practices as are of a chemical or mineralogical character, and such as

are intentional deceit, which he condemns in the strongest possible

terms (i. 187).

He criticises manuscript tradition like a modern philologist. He

sometimes supposes the text to be corrupt, and inquires into the cause

of the corruption; he discusses various readings, and proposes

emendations. He guesses at lacunæ, criticises different translations,

and complains of the carelessness and ignorance of the copyists (ii.

76; i. 162–163). He is aware that Indian works, badly translated and

carelessly copied by the successive copyists, very soon degenerate to

such a degree that an Indian author would hardly recognise his own

work, if it were presented to him in such a garb. All these complaints

are perfectly true, particularly as regards the proper names. That in

his essays at emendation he sometimes went astray, that, e.g. he was

not prepared fully to do justice to Brahmagupta, will readily be

excused by the fact that at his time it was next to impossible to learn

Sanskrit with a sufficient degree of accuracy and completeness.

When I drew the first sketch of the life of Alberuni ten years ago, I

cherished the hope that more materials for his biography would come to

light in the libraries of both the East and West. This has not been the

case, so far as I am aware. To gain an estimate of his character we

must try to read between the lines of his books, and to glean whatever

minute indications may there be found. A picture of his character

cannot therefore at the present be anything but very imperfect, and a

detailed appreciation of his services in the advancement of science

cannot be undertaken until all the numerous works of his pen have been

studied and rendered accessible to the learned world. The principal

domain of his work included astronomy, mathematics, chronology,

mathematical geography, physics, chemistry, and mineralogy. By the side

of this professional work he composed about twenty books on India, both

translations and original compositions, and a number of tales and

legends, mostly derived from the ancient lore of Eran and India. As

probably most valuable contributions to the historic literature of the

time, we must mention his history of his native country Khwârizm, and

the history of the famous sect of the Karmatians, the loss of both of

which is much to be deplored.

II.

[On the origines of Arabic literature.] The court of the Khalifs of the

house of Omayya at Damascus does not seem to have been a home for

Arabic literature. Except for the practical necessities of

administration, they had no desire for the civilisation of Greece,

Egypt, or Persia, their thoughts being engrossed by war and politics

and the amassing of wealth. Probably they had a certain predilection

for poetry common to all Arabs, but they did not think of encouraging

historiography, much to their own disadvantage. In many ways these Arab

princes, only recently emerged from the rocky wilderness of the Hijâz,

and suddenly raised to imperial power, retained much of the great

Bedouin Shaikh of the desert. Several of them, shunning Damascus,

preferred to stay in the desert or on its border, and we may surmise

that in their households at Rusâfa and Khunâsara there was scarcely

more thought of literature than at present in the halls of Ibn

Arrashîd, the wily head of the Shammar at Hâil. The cradle of Arabic

literature is not Damascus, but Bagdad, and the protection necessary

for its rise and growth was afforded by the Khalifs of the house of

Abbâs, whose Arab nature has been modified by the influence of Eranian

civilisation during a long stay in Khurâsân.

The foundation of Arabic literature was laid between A.D. 750 and 850.

It is only the tradition relating to their religion and prophet and

poetry that is peculiar to the Arabs; everything else is of foreign

descent. The development of a large literature, with numerous

ramifications, is chiefly the work of foreigners, carried out with

foreign materials, as in Rome the origines of the national literature

mostly point to Greek sources. Greece, Persia, and India were taxed to

help the sterility of the Arab mind.

What Greece has contributed by lending its Aristotle, Ptolemy, and

Harpocrates is known in general. A detailed description of the influx

and spread of Greek literature would mark a memorable progress in

Oriental philology. Such a work may be undertaken with some chance of

success by one who is familiar with the state of Greek literature at

the centres of learning during the last centuries of Greek heathendom,

although he would have to struggle against the lamentable fact that

most Arabic books of this most ancient period are lost, and probably

lost for ever.

[Persian element in Arabic literature.] What did Persia, or rather the

Sasanian empire, overrun by the Arab hordes, offer to its victors in

literature? It left to the east of the Khalifate the language of

administration, the use of which during the following centuries, till

recent times, was probably never much discontinued. It was this

Perso-Sasanian language of administration which passed into the use of

the smaller Eastern dynasties, reared under the Abbaside Khalifs, and

became the language of literature at the court of one of those

dynasties, that of the Sâmânî kings of Transoxiana and Khurâsân. Thus

it has come to pass that the dialect of one of the most western parts

of Eran first emerged as the language of literature in its farthest

east. In a similar way modern German is an offspring of the language

used in the chanceries of the Luxembourg emperors of Germany.

The bulk of the narrative literature, tales, legends, novels, came to

the Arabs in translations from the Persian, e.g. the “Thousand and One

Nights,” the stories told by the mouth of animals, like Kalîla and

Dimna, probably all of Buddhistic origin, portions of the national lore

of Eran, taken from the Khudâinâma, or Lord’s Book, and afterwards

immortalised by Firdausî; but more than anything else love-stories. All

this was the fashion under the Abbaside Khalifs, and is said to have

attained the height of popularity during the rule of Almuḳtadir, A.D.

908–932. Besides, much favour was apparently bestowed upon didactic,

parænetic compositions, mostly clothed in the garb of a testament of

this or that Sasanian king or sage, e.g. Anushirvân and his minister

Buzurjumihr, likewise upon collections of moralistic apothegms. All

this was translated from Persian, or pretended to be so. Books on the

science of war, the knowledge of weapons, the veterinary art, falconry,

and the various methods of divination, and some books on medicine and

de rebus venereis, were likewise borrowed from the Persians. It is

noteworthy that, on the other hand, there are very few traces of the

exact sciences, such as mathematics and astronomy, among the Sasanian

Persians. Either they had only little of this kind, or the Arabs did

not choose to get it translated.

An author by the name of ʿAlî Ibn Ziyâd Altamîmî is said to have

translated from Persian a book, Zîj-alshahriyâr, which, to judge by the

title, must have been a system of astronomy. It seems to have been

extant when Alberuni wrote his work on chronology; vide “Chronology of

Ancient Nations,” translated, &c., by Edward Sachau, London, 1879, p.

6, and note p. 368. Perhaps it was from this source that the famous

Alkhwârizmî drew his knowledge of Persian astronomy, which he is said

to have exhibited in his extract from the Brahmasiddhânta, composed by

order of the Khalif Maʿmûn. For we are expressly told (vide

Gildemeister, Scriptorum Arabum de rebus Indicis loci, &c., p. 101)

that he used the media, i.e. the mean places of the planets as fixed by

Brahmagupta, whilst in other things he deviated from him, giving the

equations of the planetary revolutions according to the theory of the

Persians, and the declination of the sun according to Ptolemy. Of what

kind this Persian astronomy was we do not know, but we must assume that

it was of a scientific character, based on observation and computation,

else Alkhwârizmî would not have introduced its results into his own

work. Of the terminology of Arabian astronomy, the word jauzahar =

Caput draconis, is probably of Sasanian origin (gaocithra), as well as

the word zîj (= canon), i.e. a collection of astronomical tables with

the necessary explanations, perhaps also kardaj, kardaja, a measure in

geometry equal to 1⁄96 of the circumference of a circle, if it be

identical with the Persian karda, i.e. cut.

[Indian elements in Arabic literature.] What India has contributed

reached Bagdad by two different roads. Part has come directly in

translations from the Sanskrit, part has travelled through Eran, having

originally been translated from Sanskrit (Palî? Prâkṛit?) into Persian,

and farther from Persian into Arabic. In this way, e.g. the fables of

Kalîla and Dimna have been communicated to the Arabs, and a book on

medicine, probably the famous Caraka. Cf. Fihrist, p. 303.

In this communication between India and Bagdad we must not only

distinguish between two different roads, but also between two different

periods.

As Sindh was under the actual rule of the Khalif Mansûr (A.D. 753–774),

there came embassies from that part of India to Bagdad, and among them

scholars, who brought along with them two books, the Brahmasiddhânta to

Brahmagupta (Sindhind), and his Khaṇḍakhâdyaka (Arkand). With the help

of these pandits, Alfazârî, perhaps also Yakûb Ibn Ṭâriḳ, translated

them. Both works have been largely used, and have exercised a great

influence. It was on this occasion that the Arabs first became

acquainted with a scientific system of astronomy. They learned from

Brahmagupta earlier than from Ptolemy.

Another influx of Hindu learning took place under Harun, A.D. 786–808.

The ministerial family Barmak, then at the zenith of their power, had

come with the ruling dynasty from Balkh, where an ancestor of theirs

had been an official in the Buddhistic temple Naubehâr, i.e. nava

vihâra = the new temple (or monastery). The name Barmak is said to be

of Indian descent, meaning paramaka, i.e. the superior (abbot of the

vihâra?). Cf. Kern, Geschichte des Buddhismus in Indien, ii. 445, 543.

Of course, the Barmak family had been converted, but their

contemporaries never thought much of their profession of Islam, nor

regarded it as genuine. Induced probably by family traditions, they

sent scholars to India, there to study medicine and pharmacology.

Besides, they engaged Hindu scholars to come to Bagdad, made them the

chief physicians of their hospitals, and ordered them to translate from

Sanskrit into Arabic books on medicine, pharmacology, toxicology,

philosophy, astrology, and other subjects. Still in later centuries

Muslim scholars sometimes travelled for the same purposes as the

emissaries of the Barmak, e.g. Almuwaffak not long before Alberuni’s

time (Codex Vindobonensis, sive medici Abu Mansur liber fundamentorum

pharmacologiæ, ed. Seligmann, Vienna, 1859, pp. 6, 10, and 15, 9).

Soon afterwards, when Sindh was no longer politically dependent upon

Bagdad, all this intercourse ceased entirely. Arabic literature turned

off into other channels. There is no more mention of the presence of

Hindu scholars at Bagdad nor of translations of the Sanskrit. Greek

learning had already won an omnipotent sway over the mind of the Arabs,

being communicated to them by the labours of Nestorian physicians, the

philosophers of Harrân, and Christian scholars in Syria and other parts

of the Khalifate. Of the more ancient or Indo-Arabian stratum of

scientific literature nothing has reached our time save a number of

titles of books, many of them in such a corrupt form as to baffle all

attempts at decipherment.

Among the Hindu physicians of this time one ابن دهن‎ is mentioned, i.e.

the son of DHN, director of the hospital of the Barmaks in Bagdad. This

name may be Dhanya or Dhanin, chosen probably on account of its

etymological relationship with the name Dhanvantari, the name of the

mythical physician of the gods in Manu’s law-book and the epos (cf. A.

Weber, Indische Literaturgeschichte, pp. 284, 287). A similar relation

seems to exist between the names Kaṅka, that of a physician of the same

period, and Kâṅkâyana, an authority in Indian medicine (cf. Weber, l.

c., pp. 287 note, and 284 note, 302).

The name اطر‎, that of an author of a book on drinkables, may be

identical with Atri, mentioned as a medical author by Weber, l. c., p.

288.

There was a book by one بيدبا‎ (also written بيدباه‎) on wisdom or

philosophy (cf. Fihrist, p. 305). According to Middle-Indian phonetics

this name is = vedavyâsa. [7] A man of this name, also called Vyâsa or

Bâdarâyaṇa, is, according to the literary tradition of India, the

originator of the Vedânta school of philosophy (cf. Colebrooke, Essays,

i. 352), and this will remind the reader that in the Arabian Sufism the

Indian Vedânta philosophy reappears.

Further, an author سادبرم‎, Sadbrm, [8] is mentioned, unfortunately

without an indication of the contents of his book. Alberuni (i. 157)

mentions one Satya as the author of a jâtaka (cf. Weber, l. c., p.

278), and this name is perhaps an abbreviation of that one here

mentioned, i.e. Satyavarman.

A work on astrology is attributed to one صنجهل‎, SNGHL (vide Fihrist,

p. 271), likewise enumerated by Alberuni in a list of names (i. 158).

The Indian equivalent of this name is not certain (cf. note to i. 158).

There is also mentioned a book on the signs of swords by one باجهر‎,

probably identical with Vyâghra, which occurs as a name of Indian

authors (cf. i. Fihrist, p. 315).

The famous Buddha legend in Christian garb, most commonly called

Joasaph and Barlaam, bears in Fihrist, p. 305, the title بوٮاسف و

بلوهر‎. The former word is generally explained as Bodhisattva, although

there is no law in Indian phonetics which admits the change of sattva

to saf. The second name is that of Buddha’s spiritual teacher and

guide, in fact, his purohita, and with this word I am inclined to

identify the signs in question, i.e. بلوهد‎.

What Ibn Wâḍiḥ in his chronicle (ed. by Houtsma) relates of India, on

pp. 92–106, is not of much value. His words on p. 105, “the king كوش‎ =

Ghosha, who lived in the time of Sindbâd the sage, and this Ghosha

composed the book on the cunning of the women,” are perhaps an

indication of some fables of Buddhaghosa having been translated into

Arabic.

Besides books on astronomy, mathematics (الحساب الهندى‎), astrology,

chiefly jâtakas, on medicine and pharmacology, the Arabs translated

Indian works on snakes (sarpavidyâ), on poison (vishavidyâ), on all

kinds of auguring, on talismans, on the veterinary art, de arte amandi,

numerous tales, a life of Buddha, books on logic and philosophy in

general, on ethics, politics, and on the science of war. Many Arab

authors took up the subjects communicated to them by the Hindus and

worked them out in original compositions, commentaries, and extracts. A

favourite subject of theirs was Indian mathematics, the knowledge of

which became far spread by the publications of Alkindî and many others.

The smaller dynasties which in later times tore the sovereignty over

certain eastern countries of the Khalifate out of the hands of the

successors of Mansûr and Harun, did not continue their literary

commerce with India. The Banû-Laith (A.D. 872–903), owning great part

of Afghanistan together with Ghazna, were the neighbours of Hindus, but

their name is in no way connected with the history of literature. For

the Buyide princes who ruled over Western Persia and Babylonia between

A.D. 932 and 1055, the fables of Kalila and Dimna were translated. Of

all these princely houses, no doubt, the Samanides, who held almost the

whole east of the Khalifate under their sway during 892–999, had most

relations with the Hindus, those in Kabul, the Panjab, and Sindh; and

their minister, Aljaihânî, probably had collected much information

about India. Originally the slave of the Samanides, then their general

and provincial governor, Alptagîn, made himself practically independent

in Ghazna a few years before Alberuni was born, and his successor,

Sabuktagîn, Mahmûd’s father, paved the road for the war with India (i.

22), and for the lasting establishment of Islam in India.

[The author’s study of India before he wrote the present book.] Some of

the books that had been translated under the first Abbaside Khalifs

were extant in the library of Alberuni when he wrote the Ἰνδικά, the

Brahmasiddhânta or Sindhind, and the Khaṇḍakhâdyaka or Arkand in the

editions of Alfazârî and of Yakûb Ibn Târik, the Caraka in the edition

of ʿAlî Ibn Zain, and the Pañcatantra or Kalila and Dimna. He also used

an Arabic translation of the Karaṇasâra by Vitteśvara (ii. 55), but we

do not learn from him whether this was an old translation or a modern

one made in Alberuni’s time. These books offered to Alberuni—he

complains of it repeatedly—the same difficulties as to us, viz.,

besides the faults of the translators, a considerable corruption of the

text by the negligence of the copyists, more particularly as regards

the proper names.

When Alberuni entered India, he probably had a good general knowledge

of Indian mathematics, astronomy, and chronology, acquired by the study

of Brahmagupta and his Arabian editors. What Hindu author was his

teacher and that of the Arabs in pure mathematics (الحساب الهندى‎) is

not known. Besides Alfazârî and Yakûb Ibn Târik, he learned from

Alkhwârizmî, something from Abulhasan of Ahwâz, things of little value

from Alkindî and Abû-Maʿshar of Balkh, and single details from the

famous book of Aljaihânî. Of other sources which he has used in the

Ἰνδικά, he quotes: (1.) A Muhammadan canon called Alharḳan, i.e.

ahargaṇa. I cannot trace the history of the book, but suppose that it

was a practical handbook of chronology for the purpose of converting

Arabian and Persian dates into Indian ones and vice versâ, which had

perhaps been necessitated by the wants of the administration under

Sabuktagîn and Mahmûd. The name of the author is not mentioned. (2.)

Abû Ahmad Ibn Catlaghtagîn, quoted i. 317 as having computed the

latitudes of Karlî and Tâneshar.

Two other authorities on astronomical subjects are quoted, but not in

relation to Indian astronomy, Muhammad Ibn Ishâk, from Sarakhs, ii. 15,

and a book called Ghurrat-alzîjât, perhaps derived from an Indian

source, as the name is identical with Karaṇatilaka. The author is

perhaps Abû-Muhammad Alnâib from Âmul (cf. note to ii. 90).

In India Alberuni recommenced his study of Indian astronomy, this time

not from translations, but from Sanskrit originals, and we here meet

with the remarkable fact that the works which about A.D. 770 had been

the standard in India still held the same high position A.D. 1020,

viz., the works of Brahmagupta. Assisted by learned pandits, he tried

to translate them, as also the Pulisasiddhânta (vide preface to the

edition of the text, § 5), and when he composed the Ἰνδικά, he had

already come forward with several books devoted to special points of

Indian astronomy. As such he quotes:—

(1.) A treatise on the determination of the lunar stations or

nakshatras, ii. 83.

(2.) The Khayâl-alkusûfaini, which contained, probably beside other

things, a description of the Yoga theory, ii. 208.

(3.) A book called The Arabic Khaṇḍakhâdyaka, on the same subject as

the preceding one, ii. 208.

(4.) A book containing a description of the Karaṇas, the title of which

is not mentioned, ii. 194.

(5.) A treatise on the various systems of numeration, as used by

different nations, i. 174, which probably described also the related

Indian subjects.

(6.) A book called “Key of Astronomy,” on the question whether the sun

rotates round the earth or the earth round the sun, i. 277. We may

suppose that in this book he had also made use of the notions of Indian

astronomers.

(7.) Lastly, several publications on the different methods for the

computation of geographical longitude, i. 315. He does not mention

their titles, nor whether they had any relation to Hindu methods of

calculation.

Perfectly at home in all departments of Indian astronomy and

chronology, he began to write the Ἰνδικά. In the chapters on these

subjects he continues a literary movement which at his time had already

gone on for centuries; but he surpassed his predecessors by going back

upon the original Sanskrit sources, trying to check his pandits by

whatever Sanskrit he had contrived to learn, by making new and more

accurate translations, and by his conscientious method of testing the

data of the Indian astronomers by calculation. His work represents a

scientific renaissance in comparison with the aspirations of the

scholars working in Bagdad under the first Abbaside Khalifs.

Alberuni seems to think that Indian astrology had not been transferred

into the more ancient Arabic literature, as we may conclude from his

introduction to Chapter lxxx.: “Our fellow-believers in these (Muslim)

countries are not acquainted with the Hindu methods of astrology, and

have never had an opportunity of studying an Indian book on the

subject,” ii. 211. We cannot prove that the works of Varâhamihira, e.g.

his Bṛihatsaṁhitâ and Laghujâtakam, which Alberuni was translating, had

already been accessible to the Arabs at the time of Mansûr, but we are

inclined to think that Alberuni’s judgment on this head is too

sweeping, for books on astrology, and particularly on jâtaka, had

already been translated in the early days of the Abbaside rule. Cf.

Fihrist, pp. 270, 271.

As regards Indian medicine, we can only say that Alberuni does not seem

to have made a special study of it, for he simply uses the then current

translation of Caraka, although complaining of its incorrectness, i.

159, 162, 382. He has translated a Sanskrit treatise on loathsome

diseases into Arabic (cf. preface to the edition of the original, p.

xxi. No. 18), but we do not know whether before the Ἰνδικά or after it.

What first induced Alberuni to write the Ἰνδικά was not the wish to

enlighten his countrymen on Indian astronomy in particular, but to

present them with an impartial description of the Indian theological

and philosophical doctrines on a broad basis, with every detail

pertaining to them. So he himself says both at the beginning and end of

the book. Perhaps on this subject he could give his readers more

perfectly new information than on any other, for, according to his own

statement, he had in this only one predecessor, Alêrânshahrî. Not

knowing him or that authority which he follows, i.e. Zurḳân, we cannot

form an estimate as to how far Alberuni’s strictures on them (i. 7) are

founded. Though there can hardly be any doubt that Indian philosophy in

one or other of its principal forms had been communicated to the Arabs

already in the first period, it seems to have been something entirely

new when Alberuni produced before his compatriots or fellow-believers

the Sâṁkhya by Kapila, and the Book of Patañjali in good Arabic

translations. It was this particular work which admirably qualified him

to write the corresponding chapters of the Ἰνδικά. The philosophy of

India seems to have fascinated his mind, and the noble ideas of the

Bhagavadgîtâ probably came near to the standard of his own persuasions.

Perhaps it was he who first introduced this gem of Sanskrit literature

into the world of Muslim readers.

As regards the Purâṇas, Alberuni was perhaps the first Muslim who took

up the study of them. At all events, we cannot trace any acquaintance

with them on the part of the Arabs before his time. Of the literature

of fables, he knew the Pañcatantra in the Arabic edition of Ibn

Almuḳaffaʿ.

Judging Alberuni in relation to his predecessors, we come to the

conclusion that his work formed a most marked progress. His description

of Hindu philosophy was probably unparalleled. His system of chronology

and astronomy was more complete and accurate than had ever before been

given. His communications from the Purâṇas were probably entirely new

to his readers, as also the important chapters on literature, manners,

festivals, actual geography, and the much-quoted chapter on historic

chronology. He once quotes Râzî, with whose works he was intimately

acquainted, and some Sûfî philosophers, but from neither of them could

he learn much about India.

[His Sanskrit sources.] In the following pages we give a list of the

Sanskrit books quoted in the Ἰνδικά:—

Sources of the chapters on theology and philosophy: Sâṁkhya, by Kapila;

Book of Patañjali; Gîtâ, i.e. some edition of the Bhagavadgîtâ.

He seems to have used more sources of a similar nature, but he does not

quote from them.

Sources of a Paurânic kind: Vishṇu-Dharma, Vishṇu-Purâṇa,

Matsya-Purâṇa, Vâyu-Purâṇa, Âditya-Purâṇa.

Sources of the chapters on astronomy, chronology, geography, and

astrology: Pulisasiddhânta; Brahmasiddhânta, Khaṇḍakhâdyaka,

Uttarakhaṇḍakhâdyaka, by Brahmagupta; Commentary of the Khaṇḍakhâdyaka,

by Balabhadra, perhaps also some other work of his; Bṛihatsaṁhitâ,

Pañcasiddhântikâ, Bṛihat-jâtakam, Laghu-jâtakam, by Varâhamihira;

Commentary of the Bṛihatsaṁhitâ, a book called Srûdhava (perhaps

Sarvadhara), by Utpala, from Kashmîr; a book by Âryabhaṭa, junior;

Karaṇasâra, by Vitteśvara; Karaṇatilaka, by Vijayanandin; Srîpâla; Book

of the Ṛishi (sic) Bhuvanakośa; Book of the Brâhman Bhaṭṭila; Book of

Durlabha, from Multan; Book of Jîvaśarman; Book of Samaya; Book of

Auliatta (?), the son of Sahâwî (?); The Minor Mânasa, by Puñcala;

Srûdhava (Sarvadhara?), by Mahâdeva Candrabîja; Calendar from Kashmîr.

As regards some of these authors, Śrîpâla, Jîvaśarman, Samaya (?), and

Auliatta (?), the nature of the quotations leaves it uncertain whether

Alberuni quoted from books of theirs or from oral communications which

he had received from them.

Source on medicine: Caraka, in the Arabic edition of ʿAlî Ibn Zain,

from Tabaristan.

In the chapter on metrics, a lexicographic work by one Haribhaṭa (?),

and regarding elephants a “Book on the Medicine of Elephants,” are

quoted.

His communications from the Mahâbhârata and Râmâyaṇa, and the way in

which he speaks of them, do not give us the impression that he had

these books before him. He had some information of Jaina origin, but

does not mention his source (Âryabhaṭa, jun. ?). Once he quotes Manu’s

Dharmaśâstra, but in a manner which makes me doubt whether he took the

words directly from the book itself. [9]

The quotations which he has made from these sources are, some of them,

very extensive, e.g. those from the Bhagavadgîtâ. In the chapter on

literature he mentions many more books than those here enumerated, but

does not tell us whether he made use of them for the Ἰνδικά. Sometimes

he mentions Hindu individuals as his informants, e.g. those from

Somanâth, i. 161, 165, and from Kanoj, i. 165; ii. 129.

In Chapter i. the author speaks at large of the radical difference

between Muslims and Hindus in everything, and tries to account for it

both by the history of India and by the peculiarities of the national

character of its inhabitants (i. 17 seq.). Everything in India is just

the reverse of what it is in Islam, “and if ever a custom of theirs

resembles one of ours, it has certainly just the opposite meaning” (i.

179). Much more certainly than to Alberuni, India would seem a land of

wonders and monstrosities to most of his readers. Therefore, in order

to show that there were other nations who held and hold similar

notions, he compares Greek philosophy, chiefly that of Plato, and tries

to illustrate Hindu notions by those of the Greeks, and thereby to

bring them nearer to the understanding of his readers.

[Greek and other parallels.] The rôle which Greek literature plays in

Alberuni’s work in the distant country of the Paktyes and Gandhârî is a

singular fact in the history of civilisation. Plato before the doors of

India, perhaps in India itself! A considerable portion of the then

extant Greek literature had found its way into the library of Alberuni,

who uses it in the most conscientious and appreciative way, and takes

from it choice passages to confront Greek thought with Indian. And more

than this: on the part of his readers he seems to presuppose not only

that they were acquainted with them, but also gave them the credit of

first-rate authorities. Not knowing Greek or Syriac, he read them in

Arabic translations, some of which reflect much credit upon their

authors. The books he quotes are these:—

Plato, Phædo.

Timæus, an edition with a commentary.

Leges. In the copy of it there was an appendix relating to the

pedigree of Hippokrates.

Proclus, Commentary on Timæus (different from the extant one).

Aristotle, only short references to his Physica and Metaphysica.

Letter to Alexander.

Johannes Grammaticus, Contra Proclum.

Alexander of Aphrodisias, Commentary on Aristotle’s φυσικὴ

ἀκρόασις.

Apollonius of Tyana.

Porphyry, Liber historiarum philosophorum (?).

Ammonius.

Aratus, Phænomena, with a commentary.

Galenus, Protrepticus.

περὶ συνθέσεως φαρμάκων τῶν κατὰ τόπους.

περὶ συνθέσεως φαρμάκων κατὰ γένη.

Commentary on the Apophthegms of Hippokrates.

De indole animæ.

Book of the Proof.

Ptolemy, Almagest.

Geography.

Kitâb-almanshûrât.

Pseudo-Kallisthenes, Alexander romance.

Scholia to the Ars grammatica of Dionysius Thrax.

A synchronistic history, resembling in part that of Johannes

Malalas, in part the Chronicon of Eusebius. Cf. notes to

i. 112, 105.

The other analogies which he draws, not taken from Greek, but from

Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, Manichæan, and Sûfî sources, are not

very numerous. He refers only rarely to Eranian traditions; cf. Index

II. (Persian traditions and Zoroastrian.) Most of the notes on

Christian, Jewish, and Manichæan subjects may have been taken from the

book of Êrânshahrî (cf. his own words, i. 6, 7), although he knew

Christianity from personal experience, and probably also from the

communications of his learned friends Abulkhair Alkhammâr and Abû-Sahl

Almasîḥî, both Christians from the farther west (cf. Chronologie

Orientalischer Völker, Einleitung, p. xxxii.). The interest he has in

Mânî’s doctrines and books seems rather strange. We are not acquainted

with the history of the remnants of Manichæism in those days and

countries, but cannot help thinking that the quotations from Mânî’s

“Book of Mysteries” and Thesaurus Vivificationis do not justify

Alberuni’s judgment in this direction. He seems to have seen in them

venerable documents of a high antiquity, instead of the syncretistic

ravings of a would-be prophet.

That he was perfectly right in comparing the Sûfî philosophy—he derives

the word from σοφία, i. 33—with certain doctrines of the Hindus is

apparent to any one who is aware of the essential identity of the

systems of the Greek Neo-Pythagoreans, the Hindu Vedânta philosophers,

and the Sûfîs of the Muslim world. The authors whom he quotes, Abû

Yazîd Albistâmî and Abû Bakr Alshiblî, are well-known representatives

of Sufism. Cf. note to i. 87, 88.

As far as the present state of research allows one to judge, the work

of Alberuni has not been continued. In astronomy he seems by his Canon

Masudicus to represent the height, and at the same time the end, of the

independent development of this science among the Arabs. But numerous

scholars toiled on in his wake, whilst in the study of India, and for

the translation of the standard works of Sanskrit literature, he never

had a successor before the days of the Emperor Akbar. There followed

some authors who copied from his Ἰνδικά, but there was none who could

carry on the work in his spirit and method after he had died, eighteen

years after the composition of the Ἰνδικά. We must here mention two

authors who lived not long after him, under the same dynasty, and

probably in the same place, Ghazna, viz., Gardêzî (cf. note to ii. 6),

who wrote between A.D. 1049 and 1052, and Muḥammad Ibn ʿUḳail, who

wrote between A.D. 1089 and 1099 (cf. note to i. 5). Of the later

authors who studied Alberuni’s Ἰνδικά and copied from it, the most

notorious is Rashîd-aldîn, who transferred, e.g. the whole geographical

Chapter xviii. into his huge chronicle.

[India at the author’s time.] When Alberuni entered India, times were

not favourable for opening friendly relations with native scholars.

India recoiled from the touch of the impure barbarians. The Pâla

dynasty, once ruling over Kabulistan and the Panjab, had disappeared

from the theatre of history, and their former dominions were in the

firm grasp of King Maḥmûd and under the administration of his slaves,

of Turkish descent. The princes of North-Western India had been too

narrow-minded, too blind in their self-conceit, duly to appreciate the

danger threatening from Ghazna, and too little politic in due time to

unite for a common defence and repulse of the enemy. Single-handed

Ânandapâla had had to fight it out, and had succumbed; but the others

were to follow, each one in his turn. All those who would not bear the

yoke of the mlecchas fled and took up their abode in the neighbouring

Hindu empires.

Kashmîr was still independent, and was hermetically sealed to all

strangers (i. 206). Ânandapâla had fled there. Maḥmûd had tried the

conquest of the country, but failed. About the time when Alberuni

wrote, the rule passed from the hands of Saṅgrâmadeva, A.D. 1007–1030,

into those of Anantadeva, A.D. 1030–1082.

Central and Lower Sindh were rarely meddled with by Mahmûd. The country

seems to have been split into minor principalities, ruled by petty

Muslim dynasties, like the Karmatian dynasty of Multân, deposed by

Maḥmûd.

In the conditions of the Gurjara empire, the capital of which was

Anhilvâra or Pattan, the famous expedition of Maḥmûd to Somanâth, A.D.

1025, in some ways resembling that of Napoleon to Moscow, does not seem

to have produced any lasting changes. The country was under the sway of

the Solanki dynasty, who in A.D. 980 had taken the place of the

Câlukyas. King Câmuṇḍa fled before Mahmûd, who raised another prince of

the same house, Devaśarman, to the throne; but soon after we find a son

of Câmuṇḍa, Durlabha, as king of Gurjara till A.D. 1037.

Mâlava was ruled by the Prâmâra dynasty, who, like the kings of

Kashmîr, had afforded a refuge to a fugitive prince of the Pâla dynasty

of Kabulistan. Bhojadeva of Mâlava, ruling between A.D. 997 and 1053,

is mentioned by Alberuni. His court at Dhâr, where he had gone from

Ujjain, was a rendezvous of the scholars of the time.

Kanoj formed at that time part of the realm of the Pâla princes of

Gauḍa or Bengal, who resided in Mongîr. During the reign of Râjyapâla,

Kanoj had been plundered and destroyed by Maḥmûd, A.D. 1017, in

consequence of which a new city farther away from the mlecchas, Bârî,

had been founded, but does not seem to have grown to any importance.

Residing in this place, the King Mahîpâla tried about A.D. 1026 to

consolidate and to extend his empire. Both these rulers are said to

have been Buddhists. Cf. Kern, Geschichte des Buddhismus in Indien, ii.

544.

The centres of Indian learning were Benares and Kashmîr, both

inaccessible to a barbarian like Alberuni (i. 22), but in the parts of

India under Muslim administration he seems to have found the pandits he

wanted, perhaps also at Ghazna among the prisoners of war.

[The author and Buddhism.] India, as far as known to Alberuni, was

Brahmanic, not Buddhistic. In the first half of the eleventh century

all traces of Buddhism in Central Asia, Khurâsân, Afghanistan, and

North-Western India seem to have disappeared; and it is a remarkable

fact that a man of the inquisitive mind of Alberuni knew scarcely

anything at all about Buddhism, nor had any means for procuring

information on the subject. His notes on Buddhism are very scanty, all

derived from the book of Êrânshahrî, who, in his turn, had copied the

book of one Zurḳân, and this book he seems to indicate to have been a

bad one. Cf. i. 7, 249, 326.

Buddha is said to be the author of a book called Cûḍâmani (not

Gûḍhâmana, as I have written, i. 158), i.e. Jewel, on the knowledge of

the supranaturalistic world.

The Buddhists or Shamanians, i.e. śramaṇa, are called Muḥammira, which

I translate the red-robe wearers, taking it for identical with

raktapaṭa. Cf. note to i. 21.

Mentioning the trinity of the Buddhistic system, buddha, dharma,

saṅgha, he calls Buddha Buddhodana, which is a mistake for something

like the son of Śuddhodana. Cf. note to i. 40 and i. 380, which latter

passage is probably derived from the Vishṇu-Dharma (on which vide note

to i. 54).

Of Buddhistic authors there are mentioned Candra, the grammarian, i.

135 (cf. Kern, Geschichte des Buddhismus in Indien, ii. 520), Sugrîva,

the author of an astronomical work, and a pupil of his, i. 156.

Of the manners and customs of the Buddhists, only their practice of

disposing of their dead by throwing them into flowing water is

mentioned, ii. 169.

Alberuni speaks (ii. 11) of a building erected by King Kanishka in

Peshavar, and called Kanishkacaitya, as existing in his time, most

likely identical with that stûpa which he is reported to have built in

consequence of a prophecy of no less a person than Buddha himself. Cf.

Kern, l. c., ii. 187. The word bihâr, i.e. vihâra, which Alberuni

sometimes uses in the meaning of temple and the like, is of Buddhistic

origin. Cf. Kern, l. c., ii. 57.

Among the various kinds of writing used in India, he enumerates as the

last one the “Bhaikshukî, used in Udunpûr in Pûrvadeśa. This last is

the writing of Buddha,” i. 173. Was this Udunpûr (we may also read

Udannapûr) the Buddhistic monastery in Magadha, Udaṇḍapurî, that was

destroyed by the Muslims, A.D. 1200? Cf. Kern, l. c., ii. 545.

The kosmographic views of the Buddhists, as given by Alberuni, i. 249,

326, ought to be examined as to their origin. Perhaps it will be

possible to point out the particular Buddhistic book whence they were

taken.

He speaks twice of an antagonism between Buddha and Zoroaster.

If Alberuni had had the same opportunity for travelling in India as

Hiouen-Tsang had, he would easily have collected plenty of information

on Buddhism. Considering the meagreness of his notes on this subject,

we readily believe that he never found a Buddhistic book, and never

knew a Buddhist “from whom I might have learned their theories,” i.

249. His Brahman pandits probably knew enough of Buddhism, but did not

choose to tell him.

Lastly, India, as known to Alberuni, was in matters of religion

Vishṇuitic (vaishṇava), not Sivaitic (śaiva). Vishṇu, or Nârâyaṇa, is

the first god in the pantheon of his Hindu informants and literary

authorities, whilst Śiva is only incidentally mentioned, and that not

always in a favourable manner. This indicates a remarkable change in

the religious history of those countries. For the predecessors of

Mahmûd in the rule over Kabulistan and the Panjâb, the Pâla dynasty,

were worshippers of Śiva (cf. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, 3,

895), as we may judge from their coins, adorned with the image of

Nanda, the ox of Śiva, and from the etymology of their names. Cf. note

to ii. 13, and Lassen, l. c., 3, 915. The image of Nanda reappears a

second time on the coins of the last of the descendants of King Mahmûd

on the throne of Ghazna.

CONCLUSION.

It was in the summer of 1883 that I began to work at the edition and

translation of the Ἰνδικά, after having fulfilled the literary duties

resulting from my journey in Syria and Mesopotamia in 1879 and 1880. A

copy of the Arabic manuscript had been prepared in 1872, and collated

in Stambul in the hot summer months of 1873.

In order to test my comprehension of the book, I translated it into

German from beginning to end between February 1883 and February 1884.

In the summer of the latter year the last hand was laid to the

constitution of the Arabic text as it was to be printed.

In 1885–86 the edition of the Arabic original was printed. At the same

time I translated the whole book a second time, into English, finishing

the translation of every single sheet as the original was carried

through the press.

In 1887 and the first half of 1888 the English translation, with

annotations and indices, was printed.

My work during all these years was not uninterrupted.

Translating an Arabic book, written in the style of Alberuni, into

English, is, for a person to whom English is not his mother-tongue, an

act of temerity, which, when I was called upon to commit it, gravely

affected my conscience to such a degree that I began to falter, and

seriously thought of giving up the whole thing altogether. But then

there rose up before “my mind’s eye” the venerable figure of old

MacGuckin de Slane, and as he had been gathered to his fathers, I could

not get back the word I had given him. Cf. preface to the edition of

the Arabic text, p. viii. Assuredly, to do justice to the words of

Alberuni would require a command over English like that of Sir Theodore

Martin, the translator of “Faust,” or Chenery, the translator of

Harîrî.

As regards my own translation, I can only say I have tried to find

common sense in the author’s language, and to render it as clearly as I

could. In this I was greatly assisted by my friend the Rev. Robert

Gwynne, Vicar of St. Mary’s, Soho, London, whose training in Eastern

languages and literature qualified him to coöperate in revising the

entire manuscript and correcting the proof sheets.

Perhaps it will not be superfluous to point out to the reader who does

not know Arabic that this language sometimes exhibits sentences

perfectly clear as to the meaning of every single word and the

syntactic construction, and nevertheless admitting of entirely

different interpretations. Besides, a first translator who steers out

on such a sea, like him who first tries to explain a difficult, hardly

legible inscription, exposes himself to many dangers which he would

easily have avoided had kind fortune permitted him to follow in the

wake of other explorers. Under these circumstances, I do not flatter

myself that I have caught the sense of the author everywhere, and I

warn the reader not to take a translation, in particular a first

translation, from Arabic for more than it is. It is nothing absolute,

but only relative in many respects; and if an Indianist does not find

good Indian thought in my translation, I would advise him to consult

the next Arabic philologist he meets. If the two can obtain a better

insight into the subject-matter, they are very likely to produce a

better rendering of the words.

My annotations do not pretend to be a running commentary on the book,

for that cannot be written except by a professed Indianist. They

contain some information as to the sources used by Alberuni, and as to

those materials which guided me in translating. On the phonetic

peculiarities of the Indian words as transcribed by Alberuni, the

reader may compare a treatise of mine called Indo-Arabische Studien,

and presented to the Royal Academy of Berlin on 21st June of this year.

My friend Dr. Robert Schram, of the University of Vienna, has examined

all the mathematical details of chronology and astronomy. The results

of his studies are presented to the reader in the annotations signed

with his name. All this is Dr. Schram’s special domain, in which he has

no equal. My thanks are due to him for lending me his help in parts of

the work where my own attempts at verification, after prolonged

exertions in the same direction, proved to be insufficient.

Of the two indices, the former contains all words of Indian origin

occurring in the book, some pure Sanskrit, some vernacular, others in

the form exhibited by the Arabic manuscript, howsoever faulty it may

be. The reader will perhaps here and there derive some advantage from

comparing the index of the edition of the Arabic original. The second

index contains names of persons and places, &c., mostly of non-Indian

origin.

It was the Committee of the Oriental Translation Fund, consisting at

the time of Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx, Edward Thomas, James Fergusson,

Reinhold Rost, and Theodore Goldstücker, who first proposed to me to

translate the Ἰνδικά. Thomas, Goldstücker, and Fergusson are beyond the

reach of human words, but to O. de Beauvoir Priaulx, Esq., and to Dr.

Rost, I desire to express my sincerest gratitude for the generous help

and the untiring interest which they have always accorded to me, though

so many years have rolled on since I first pledged to them my word.

Lastly, Her Majesty’s India Office has extended its patronage from the

edition of the Arabic original also to this edition of the work in an

English garb.

Of the works of my predecessors, the famous publication of Reinaud, the

Mémoire géographique, historique et scientifique sur l’Inde, Paris,

1849, has been most useful to me. Cf. on this and the labours of my

other predecessors § 2 of the preface to the edition of the Arabic

original.

The Sanskrit alphabet has been transliterated in the following way:—a,

â, i, î, u, û—ṛi, ai, au—k, kh, g, gh, ṅ—c, ch, j, jh, ñ—ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh,

ṇ—t, th, d, dh, n—p, ph, b, bh, m—y, r, l, v—ś, sh, s, h.

EDWARD SACHAU.

Berlin, August 4, 1888.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

(For Alberuni’s Synopsis of the Single Chapters of the Book, vide pp.

9–16.)

VOL. PAGE

I. 3. Author’s Preface.

9. Synopsis of the Eighty Chapters.

17. Chapter I., Author’s Special Introduction.

27. Chapters II.–XI., on Religion, Philosophy,

and Related Subjects.

125. Chapters XII.–XVII., on Literature,

Metrology, Usages, and Related Subjects.

196. Chapters XVIII.–XXXI., on Geography,

Cosmography, and Astronomy.

319 to Vol. II. Chapters XXXII.–LXII., on Chronology,

p. 129. Astronomy, and Related Subjects.

II. 130. Chapters LXIII.–LXXIX., on Manners and

Customs, Festivals, and Related Subjects.

211. Chapter LXXX., on Astrology.

247. Annotations of the Translator.

403–431. Indices.

ALBÊRÛNÎ’S INDIA

AN

ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF ALL CATEGORIES OF HINDU THOUGHT,

AS WELL THOSE WHICH ARE ADMISSIBLE AS THOSE WHICH MUST BE REJECTED.

COMPOSED BY

ʾABÛ-ALRAIḤÂN MUḤAMMAD IBN ʾAḤMAD ALBÊRÛNÎ.

PREFACE.

[Page 2.]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

[1. On tradition, hearsay and eye-witness.]

[2. The different kinds of reporters.]

[3. Praise of truthfulness.] No one will deny that in questions of

historic authenticity hearsay does not equal eye-witness; for in the

latter the eye of the observer apprehends the substance of that which

is observed, both in the time when and in the place where it exists,

whilst hearsay has its peculiar drawbacks. But for these, it would even

be preferable to eye-witness; for the object of eye-witness can only be

actual momentary existence, whilst hearsay comprehends alike the

present, the past, and the future, so as to apply in a certain sense

both to that which is and to that which is not (i.e. which either has

ceased to exist or has not yet come into existence). Written tradition

is one of the species of hearsay—we might almost say, the most

preferable. How could we know the history of nations but for the

everlasting monuments of the pen?

The tradition regarding an event which in itself does not contradict

either logical or physical laws will invariably depend for its

character as true or false upon the character of the reporters, who are

influenced by the divergency of interests and all kinds of animosities

and antipathies between the various nations. We must distinguish

different classes of reporters.

One of them tells a lie, as intending to further an interest of his

own, either by lauding his family or nation, because he is one of them,

or by attacking the family or nation on the opposite side, thinking

that thereby he can gain his ends. In both cases he acts from motives

of objectionable cupidity and animosity.

Another one tells a lie regarding a class of people whom he likes, as

being under obligations to them, or whom he hates because something

disagreeable has happened between them. Such a reporter is near akin to

the first-mentioned one, as he too acts from motives of personal

predilection and enmity.

Another tells a lie because he is of such a base nature as to aim

thereby at some profit, or because he is such a coward as to be afraid

of telling the truth.

Another tells a lie because it is his nature to lie, and he cannot do

otherwise, which proceeds from the essential meanness of his character

and the depravity of his innermost being.

Lastly, a man may tell a lie from ignorance, blindly following others

who told him.

If, now, reporters of this kind become so numerous as to represent a

certain body of tradition, or if in the course of time they even come

to form a consecutive series of communities or nations, both the first

reporter and his followers form the connecting links between the hearer

and the inventor of the lie; and if the connecting links are

eliminated, there remains the originator of the story, one of the

various kinds of liars we have enumerated, as the only person with whom

we have to deal.

That man only is praiseworthy who shrinks from a lie and always adheres

to the truth, enjoying credit even among liars, not to mention others.

It has been said in the Koran, “Speak the truth, even if it were

against yourselves” (Sûra, 4, 134); and the Messiah [Page 3.] expresses

himself in the Gospel to this effect: “Do not mind the fury of kings in

speaking the truth before them. They only possess your body, but they

have no power over your soul” (cf. St. Matt. x. 18, 19, 28; St. Luke

xii. 4). In these words the Messiah orders us to exercise moral

courage. For what the crowd calls courage—bravely dashing into the

fight or plunging into an abyss of destruction—is only a species of

courage, whilst the genus, far above all species, is to scorn death,

whether by word or deed.

Now as justice (i.e. being just) is a quality liked and coveted for its

own self, for its intrinsic beauty, the same applies to truthfulness,

except perhaps in the case of such people as never tasted how sweet it

is, or know the truth, but deliberately shun it, like a notorious liar

who once was asked if he had ever spoken the truth, and gave the

answer, “If I were not afraid to speak the truth, I should say, no.” A

liar will avoid the path of justice; he will, as matter of preference,

side with oppression and false witness, breach of confidence,

fraudulent appropriation of the wealth of others, theft, and all the

vices which serve to ruin the world and mankind.

[I. On the defects of Muslim works on religious and philosophical

doctrines.]

[II. Exemplified with regard to the Hindus. Criticism of the book of

Erânshahrî.]

[III. Bêrûnî asked to write a book on the subject.]

[IV. He states his method.] When I once called upon the master

ʾAbû-Sahl ʿAbd-Almunʿim Ibn ʿAlî Ibn Nûḥ At-tiflîsî, may God strengthen

him! I found that he blamed the tendency of the author of a book on the

Muʿtazila sect to misrepresent their theory. For, according to them,

God is omniscient of himself, and this dogma that author had expressed

in such a way as to say that God has no knowledge (like the knowledge

of man), thereby misleading uneducated people to imagine that,

according to the Muʿtazilites, God is ignorant. Praise be to God, who

is far above all such and similar unworthy descriptions! Thereupon I

pointed out to the master that precisely the same method is much in

fashion among those who undertake the task of giving an account of

religious and philosophical systems from which they slightly differ or

to which they are entirely opposed. Such misrepresentation is easily

detected in a report about dogmas comprehended within the frame of one

single religion, because they are closely related and blended with each

other. On the other hand, you would have great difficulty in detecting

it in a report about entirely foreign systems of thought totally

differing both in principle and details, for such a research is rather

an out-of-the-way one, and there are few means of arriving at a

thorough comprehension of it. The same tendency prevails throughout our

whole literature on philosophical and religious sects. If such an

author is not alive to the requirements of a strictly scientific

method, he will procure some superficial information which will satisfy

neither the adherents of the doctrine in question nor those who really

know it. In such a case, if he be an honest character, he will simply

retract and feel ashamed; but if he be so base as not to give due

honour to truth, he will persist in litigious wrangling for his own

original standing-point. If, on the contrary, an author has the right

method, he will do his utmost to deduce the tenets of a sect from their

legendary lore, things which people tell him, pleasant enough to listen

to, but which he would never dream of taking for true or believing.

In order to illustrate the point of our conversation, [Page 4.] one of

those present referred to the religions and doctrines of the Hindus by

way of an example. Thereupon I drew their attention to the fact that

everything which exists on this subject in our literature is

second-hand information which one has copied from the other, a farrago

of materials never sifted by the sieve of critical examination. Of all

authors of this class, I know only one who had proposed to himself to

give a simple and exact report of the subject sine irâ ac studio, viz.

ʾAbû-alʿabbâs Alêrânshahrî. He himself did not believe in any of the

then existing religions, but was the sole believer in a religion

invented by himself, which he tried to propagate. He has given a very

good account of the doctrines of the Jews and Christians as well as of

the contents of both the Thora and the Gospel. Besides, he furnishes us

with a most excellent account of the Manichæans, and of obsolete

religions of bygone times which are mentioned in their books. But when

he came in his book to speak of the Hindus and the Buddhists, his arrow

missed the mark, and in the latter part he went astray through hitting

upon the book of Zarḳân, the contents of which he incorporated in his

own work. That, however, which he has not taken from Zarḳân, he himself

has heard from common people among Hindus and Buddhists.

At a subsequent period the master ʾAbû-Sahl studied the books in

question a second time, and when he found the matter exactly as I have

here described it, he incited me to write down what I know about the

Hindus as a help to those who want to discuss religious questions with

them, and as a repertory of information to those who want to associate

with them. In order to please him I have done so, and written this book

on the doctrines of the Hindus, never making any unfounded imputations

against those, our religious antagonists, and at the same time not

considering it inconsistent with my duties as a Muslim to quote their

own words at full length when I thought they would contribute to

elucidate a subject. If the contents of these quotations happen to be

utterly heathenish, and the followers of the truth, i.e. the Muslims,

find them objectionable, we can only say that such is the belief of the

Hindus, and that they themselves are best qualified to defend it.

This book is not a polemical one. I shall not produce the arguments of

our antagonists in order to refute such of them as I believe to be in

the wrong. My book is nothing but a simple historic record of facts. I

shall place before the reader the theories of the Hindus exactly as

they are, and I shall mention in connection with them similar theories

of the Greeks in order to show the relationship existing between them.

For the Greek philosophers, although aiming at truth in the abstract,

never in all questions of popular bearing rise much above the customary

exoteric expressions and tenets both of their religion and law. Besides

Greek ideas we shall only now and then mention those of the Sûfîs or of

some one or other Christian sect, because in their notions regarding

the transmigration of souls and the pantheistic doctrine of the unity

of God with creation there is much in common between these systems.

I have already translated two books into Arabic, one about the origines

and a description of all created beings, called Sâṁkhya, and another

about the emancipation of the soul from the fetters of the body, called

Patañjali (Pâtañjala?). These two books contain most of the elements of

the belief of the Hindus, but not all the single rules derived

therefrom. I hope that the present book will enable the reader to

dispense with these two earlier ones, and with other books of the same

kind; that it will give a sufficient representation of the subject, and

will enable him to make himself thoroughly acquainted with it—God

willing!

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

[Page 5.]

CHAPTER I.

ON THE HINDUS IN GENERAL, AS AN INTRODUCTION TO OUR ACCOUNT OF THEM.