al-Biruni • Kitab al-Hind

^[i.125-195]

On Literature, Metrology, Usages and Related Subjects

• Ch.12
• • 13
• • 14
• • 15
• • 16
• • 17

CHAPTER 12

• Ch.12
• • 13
• • 14
• • 15
• • 16
• • 17

CHAPTER 13

• Ch.12
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• • 15
• • 16
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CHAPTER 14

• Ch.12
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• • 16
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CHAPTER 15

• Ch.12
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CHAPTER 16

NOTES ON THE WRITING OF THE HINDUS, ON THEIR ARITHMETIC AND RELATED SUBJECTS, AND ON CERTAIN STRANGE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THEIRS

^[i.170] THE tongue communicates the thought of the speaker to the hearer. Its action has therefore, as it were, a momentary life only, and it would have been impossible to deliver by oral tradition the accounts of the events of the past to later generations, more particularly if they are separated from them by long periods of time. This has become possible only by a new discovery of the human mind, by the art of writing, which spreads news over space as the winds spread, and over time as the spirits of the deceased spread. Praise therefore be unto Him who has arranged creation and created everything for the best!

The Hindus are not in the habit of writing on hides, like the Greeks in ancient times. Socrates, on being asked why he did not compose books, gave this reply:

I do not transfer knowledge from the living hearts of men to the dead hides of sheep.

Muslims, too, used in the early times of Islam to write on hides (e.g. the treaty between the Prophet and the Jews of Khaibar, and his letter to Kisrā). The copies of the Koran were written on the hides of gazelles, as are still nowadays the copies of the Torah. There occurs this passage in the Koran (Sūra 6:91): "They make it karṭās" (i.e. τομάρια, tomaria). The karṭās (or charta) is made in Egypt, ^[i.171] being cut out of the papyrus stalk. Written on this material, the orders of the Khalifs went out into all the world until shortly before our time. Papyrus has this advantage over vellum, that you can neither rub out nor change anything on it, because thereby it would be destroyed. It was in China that paper was first manufactured. Chinese prisoners introduced the fabrication of paper into Samarkand, and thereupon it was made in various places, so as to meet the existing want. The Hindus have in the south of their country a slender tree like the date and coconut palms, bearing edible fruits and leaves of the length of one yard, and as broad as three fingers one put beside the other. They call these leaves tārī (tāla or tāṛ, Borassus flabelliformis), and write on them. They bind a book of these leaves together by a cord on which they are arranged, the cord going through all the leaves by a hole in the middle of each.

In Central and Northern India people use the bark of the tūz tree, one kind of which is used as a cover for bows. It is called bhūrja. They take a piece one yard long and as broad as the outstretched fingers of the hand, or somewhat less, and prepare it in various ways. They oil and polish it so as to make it hard and smooth, and then they write on it. The proper order of the single leaves is marked by numbers. The whole book is wrapped up in a piece of cloth and fastened between two tablets of the same size. Such a book is called pūthī (cf. pusta, pustaka). Their letters, and whatever else they have to write, they write on the bark of the tūz tree.

As to the writing or alphabet of the Hindus, we have already mentioned that it once had been lost and forgotten; that nobody cared for it, and that in consequence people became illiterate, Sunken into gross ignorance, and entirely estranged from science. But then Vyāsa, the son of Parāśara, rediscovered their ^[i.172] alphabet of fifty letters by an inspiration of God. A letter is called akshara.

Some people say that originally the number of their letters was less, and that it increased only by degrees. This is possible, or I should even say necessary. As for the Greek alphabet, a certain Asīdhas (sic) had formed sixteen characters to perpetuate science about the time when the Israelites ruled over Egypt. Thereupon Kīmush (sic) and Agenon (sic) brought them to the Greeks. By adding four new signs they obtained an alphabet of twenty letters. Later on, about the time when Socrates was poisoned, Simonides added four other signs, and so the Athenians at last had a complete alphabet of twenty-four letters, which happened during the reign of Artaxerxes, the son of Darius, the son of Artaxerxes, the son of Cyrus, according to the chronographers of the West.

The great number of the letters of the Hindu alphabet is explained, firstly, by the fact that they express every letter by a separate sign if it is followed by a vowel or a diphthong or a hamza ( visarga), or a small extension of the sound beyond the measure of the vowel; and, secondly, by the fact that they have consonants which are not found together in any other language, though they may be found scattered through different languages-sounds of such a nature that our tongues, not being familiar with them, can scarcely pronounce them, and that our ears are frequently not able to distinguish between many a cognate pair of them.

The Hindus write from the left to the right like the Greeks. They do not write on the basis of a line, above which the heads of the letters rise while their tails go down below, as in Arabic writing. On the contrary, their ground-line is above, a straight line above every single character, and from this line the letter hangs down and is written under it. Any sign above the line is nothing but a grammatical mark to ^[i.173] denote the pronunciation of the character above which it stands.

The most generally known alphabet is called siddha-mātṛikā, which is by some considered as originating from Kaśmīr, for the people of Kaśmīr use it. But it is also used in Vāranaṣī. This town and Kaśmīr are the high schools of Hindu sciences. The same writing is used in Madhyadeśa ('Middle Country,' the area all around Kanoj, which is also called Āryāvarta).

In Mālaga there is another alphabet called nāgara, which differs from the former only in the shape of the characters.

Next comes an alphabet called ardhanāgarī ('half -nāgara'), so called because it is compounded of the former two. It is used in Bhatiya and some parts of Sindh.

Other alphabets are the malwārī, used in Malwashau, in Southern Sindh, towards the sea-coast; the saindhava, used in Bahmanwā or al-Manṣūra; the karnāṭa, used in Karnāṭadeśa, whence those troops come which in the armies are known as Kannara; theaṇdhrī, used in Andhradesa; the dirwarī (drāviḍī), used in Dirwaradeśa (Draviḍadeśa); the lārī, used in Lāradeśa (Lāṭadeśa); the gaurī (gaudī), used in Pūrvadeśa ('Eastern Country'); the bhaikshukī, used in Uduṇpūr in Pūrvadeśa-this last is the writing of Buddha.

The Hindus begin their books with ōm, the Word of Creation, as we begin them with "In the name of God." The figure of the word ōm is ॐ. This figure does not consist of letters; it is simply an image invented to represent this word, which people use, believing that it will bring them a blessing, and meaning thereby a confession of the unity of God. Similar to this is the manner in which the Jews write the name of God (i.e. by three Hebrew yods). In the Torah the word is written YHWH and pronounced ^{[i.174] ᴐ}Adonai; sometimes they also say Yah. The word ^ᴐAdonai, which they pronounce, is not expressed in writing.

The Hindus do not use the letters of their alphabet for numerical notation, as we use the Arabic letters in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. As in different parts of India the letters have different shapes, the numeral signs, too, which are called aṅka, differ. The numeral signs that we use are derived from the finest forms of the Hindu signs. Signs and figures are of no use if people do not know what they mean, but the people of Kaśmīr mark the single leaves of their books with figures which look like drawings or like the Chinese characters, the meaning of which can only be learned by a very long practice. However, they do not use them when reckoning in the sand.

In arithmetic all nations agree that all the Orders of Numbers (e.g. one, ten, hundred, thousand) stand in a certain relation to the ten; that each order is the tenth part of the following and the tenfold of the preceding. I have studied the names of the Orders of the Numbers in various languages with all kinds of people with whom I have been in contact, and have found that no nation goes beyond the thousand. The Arabs, too, stop with the thousand, which is certainly the most correct and the most natural thing to do. I have written a separate treatise on this subject.

Those, however, who go beyond the thousand in their numeral system are the Hindus, at least in their arithmetical technical terms, which have been either freely invented or derived according to certain etymologies, while in others both methods are blended together. They extend the names of the Orders of Numbers until the 18^th order for religious reasons, the mathematicians being assisted by the grammarians with all kinds of etymologies.

The 18^th order is called Parārdha ('Half of ^[i.175] Heaven', or, more accurately, the 'Half of That Above'). For if the Hindus construct periods of time out of kalpas, the unit of this order is a 'Day of God' (i.e. a half nychthemeron). And as we do not know any body larger than Heaven, half of it (parārdha), as a 'Half of the Greatest Body,' has been compared with a 'Half of the Greatest Day'. By doubling it, by uniting night to day, we get the 'Whole of the Greatest Day.' There can be no doubt that the name Parārdha is accounted for in this way, and that Parār means the 'Whole of Heaven.' The following are the names of the Eighteen Orders of Numbers:

I shall now mention some of their differences of opinion relating to this system.

Some Hindus maintain that there is a 19^th order beyond the Parārdha, called Bhūri, and that this is the Limit of Reckoning. But in reality reckoning is unlimited; it has only a technical limit, which is conventionally adopted as the last of the Orders of Numbers. By the word 'reckoning' in the sentence above they seem to mean nomenclature, as if they meant to say that the language has no name for any reckoning beyond the 19^th order. It is known that the unit of this order (one Bhūri), is equal to one-fifth of the Greatest Day, but on this subject they have no tradition. In their tradition there are only traces of combinations of the Greatest Day, as we shall hereafter explain. Therefore this 19^th order is an addition of an artificial and hyper-accurate nature.

^[i.176] According to others, the limit of reckoning is koṭi; and starting from koṭi the succession of the orders of numbers would be koṭi, thousands, hundreds, and tenths; for the number of dēvas is expressed in koṭi. According to their belief there are thirty-three koṭi of dēvas, eleven of which belong to each of the three beings-Brahman, Narāyaṇa, and Mahādēva.

The names of the orders beyond that of the 18^th have been invented by the grammarians, as we have said already (i.174).

Further, we observe that the popular name of the 5^th order is Daśa sahasra, that of the 7^th order Daśa laksha, for the two names we have mentioned in the list above (Ayuta, Prayuta) are rarely used.

The book of Aryabhaṭa of Kusumapura gives the following names of the orders, from the ten till 10 koṭi:

Further, it is noteworthy that some people establish a kind of etymological relationship between the different names; so they call the 6^th order Niyuta, according to the analogy of the 5^th, which is called Ayuta. Further, they call the 8^th order Arbuda, according to the analogy of the 9^th, which is called Nyarbuda.

There is a similar relation between Nikharva and Kharva, the names of the 12^th and 11^th orders, and between Śaṅku and Mahāśaṅku, the names of the 13^th and 14^th orders. According to this analogyMahā-Padma ought to follow immediately after Padma, but this latter is the name of the 10^th, the former the name of the 13^th order.

These are differences of theirs that can be traced back to certain reasons; but besides, there are many differences without any reason, which simply arise ^[i.177] from people dictating these names without observing any fixed order, or from the fact that they hate to avow their ignorance by a frank, I do not know-a word which is difficult to them in any connection whatsoever.

The Pulisa-siddhānta gives the following list of the orders of the numbers:

The following orders, from the 11^th till the 18^th , are the same as those of the above-mentioned list.

The Hindus use the numeral signs in arithmetic in the same way as we do. I have composed a treatise showing how far, possibly, the Hindus are ahead of us in this subject. We have already explained that the Hindus compose their books in ślokas. If, now, they wish, in their astronomical handbooks, to express some numbers of the various orders, they express them by words used to denote certain numbers either in one order alone or at the same time in two orders (e.g. a word meaning either 20 or both 20 and 200). For each number they have appropriated quite a great quantity of words. Hence, if one word does not suit the meter, you may easily exchange it for a synonym that suits. Brahmagupta says:

If you want to write one, express it by everything that is unique, such as the Earth, the Moon; two by everything which is double, such as black and white;three by everything which is threefold; the naught by Heaven, the twelve by the names of the Sun.

I have united in the following table all the expressions for the numbers that I used to hear from them; for the knowledge of these things is most essential for deciphering their astronomical handbooks. ^[i.178] Whenever I shall come to know all the meanings of these words, I will add them, if God permits!

As far as I have seen and heard of the Hindus, they do not usually go beyond twenty-five with this kind of numerical notation.

We shall now speak of certain strange manners and strange customs of the Hindus. The strangeness of a thing evidently rests on the fact that it occurs but rarely, and that we seldom have the opportunity of witnessing it. If such strangeness reaches a high degree, the thing becomes a curiosity, or even something like a miracle, which is no longer in accordance with the ordinary laws of nature, and which seems chimerical as long as it has not been witnessed. Many Hindu customs differ from those of our country and of our time to such a degree as to appear to us simply monstrous. One might almost think that they had intentionally changed them into the opposite, for our customs do not resemble theirs, but are the very reverse; and if ever a custom of theirs resembles one of ours, it has certainly just the opposite meaning.

They do not cut any of the hair of the body. Originally they went naked in consequence of the heat, and by not cutting the hair of the head they intended to prevent sunstroke.

^[i.180] They divide the moustache into single plaits in order to preserve it. As regards their not cutting the hair of the genitals, they try to make people believe that the cutting of it incites to lust and increases carnal desire. Therefore such of them as feel a strong desire for cohabitation never cut the hair of the genitals.

They let the nails grow long, glorying in their idleness, since they do not use them for any business or work, but only, while living a life of sweet indolence (dolce far niente), they scratch their heads with them and examine the hair for lice.

The Hindus eat singly, one by one, on a tablecloth of dung. They do not make use of the remainder of a meal, and the plates from which they have eaten are thrown away if they are earthen.

They have red teeth in consequence of chewing areca nuts with betel leaves and chalk.

They drink wine before having eaten anything, then they take their meal. They sip the stall of cows, but they do not eat their meat.

They beat the cymbals with a stick.

They use turbans for trousers. Those who want little dress are content to dress in a rag of two fingers' breadth, which they bind over their loins with two cords; but those who like much dress, wear trousers lined with so much cotton as would suffice to make a number of counterpanes and saddle-rugs. These trousers have no (visible) openings, and they are so huge that the feet are not visible. The string by which the trousers are fastened is at the back.

Their ṣidār (a piece of dress covering the head and the upper part of breast and neck) is similar to the trousers, being also fastened at the back by buttons.

The lappets of the ḳurṭaḳas (short shirts from the shoulders to the middle of the body with sleeves, a ^[i.181] female dress) have slashes both on the right and left sides.

They keep the shoes tight till they begin to put them on. They are turned down from the calf before walking (?).

In washing they begin with the feet, and then wash the face. They wash themselves before cohabiting with their wives.

They cohabit like a stake entwined by a vine, or rather, while their wives move back and forth as if they were plowing, the husband remains completely motionless ( Cœunt stantes velut palus vitis, dum mulieres ab imo sursum moventur velut occupatae in arando, maritus vero plane otiosus manet ).

On festive days they besmear their bodies with dung instead of perfumes.

The men wear articles of female dress; they use cosmetics, wear earrings, arm-rings, and golden seal-rings on the ring-finger as well as on the toes of the feet.

Pity those catamites and men who cannot enjoy sexual relations, called pushaṇḍila, who entice men, sucking their penises and drinking their semen ( Miseret eos catamiti et viri qui rebus venereis frui non potest pushaṇḍila dicti, qui penem bucca devorans semen elicit sorbendum).

While defecating, they turn their faces toward a wall, presenting their genitals so that they can be seen by those passing by ( In cacando faciem vertunt versus murum retegentes pudenda ut videantur a praetereuntibus ).

They make sacrifices to the penis, called liṅga, which is the image of the god Mahādēva (Sacra faciunt virilibus liṅga dictis, quae est imago veretri Mahadevae).

They ride without a saddle, but if they put on a saddle, they mount the horse from its right side. In traveling they like to have somebody riding behind them.

They fasten the kuṭhāra ('dagger') at the waist on the right side.

They wear a girdle called yajnopavīta, passing from the left shoulder to the right side of the waist.

In all consultations and emergencies they take the advice of the women.

When a child is born people show particular attention to the man, not to the woman.

Of two children they give the preference to the younger, particularly in the eastern parts of the country; ^[i.182] for they maintain that the elder owes his birth to predominant lust, while the younger owes his origin to mature reflection and a calm proceeding.

In shaking hands they grasp the hand of a man from the convex side.

They do not ask permission to enter a house, but when they leave it they ask permission to do so.

In their meetings they sit cross-legged.

They spit out and blow their noses without any respect for the elder ones present, and they crack their lice before them. They consider the crepitus ventris ('noisy fart') as a good omen, sneezing as a bad omen.

They consider as unclean the weaver, but as clean the cupper and the flayer, who kills dying animals for money either by drowning or by burning.

They use black tablets for the children in the schools, and write upon them along the long side, not the broad side, writing with a white material from the left to the right. One would think that the author of the following verses had meant the Hindus:

How many a writer uses paper as black as charcoal,
While his pen writes on it with white color.
By writing he places a bright day in a dark night,
Weaving like a weaver, but without adding a woof.

They write the title of a book at the end of it, not at the beginning.

They magnify the nouns of their language by giving them the feminine gender, as the Arabs magnify them by the diminutive form.

If one of them hands over a thing to another, he expects that it should be thrown to him as we throw a thing to the dogs.

If two men play at nard (backgammon), a third one throws the dice between them.

They like the juice that flows over the cheeks of ^[i.183] the rutting elephant, which in reality has the most horrid smell.

In playing chess they move the elephant straight on, not to the other sides, one square at a time, like the pawn, and to the four corners also one square at a time, like the queen (firzān). They say that these five squares (i.e. the one straight forward and the others at the corners) are the places occupied by the trunk and the four feet of the elephant.

They play chess-four persons at a time-with a pair of dice. Their arrangement of the figures on the chess-board is the following:

Tower (rukh)	Horse	Elephant	King			Pawn	Tower
Pawn	Pawn	Pawn	Pawn			Pawn	Horse
						Pawn	Elephant
						Pawn	King
King	Pawn
Elephant	Pawn
Horse	Pawn			Pawn	Pawn	Pawn	Pawn
Tower	Pawn			King	Elephant	Horse	Tower

^[i.184] As this kind of chess is not known among us, I shall here explain what I know of it.

The four persons playing together sit so as to form a square round a chessboard, and throw the two dice alternately. Of the numbers of the dice the five and six are blank (i.e. do not count as such). In that case, if the dice show five or six, the player takes one instead of the five, and four instead of the six, because the figures of these two numerals are drawn in the following manner:

so as to exhibit a certain likeness of form to 4 and 1 (in the in the Indian signs).

The name shāh or 'king' applies here to the 'queen' ( firzān).

Each number of the dice causes a move of one of the figures.

The 1 moves either the pawn or the king. Their moves are the same as in the common chess. The king may be taken, but is not required to leave his place.

The 2 moves the tower (rukh). It moves to the third square in the direction of the diagonal, as the elephant moves in our chess.

The 3 moves the horse. Its move is the generally known one to the third square in oblique direction.

The 4 moves the elephant. It moves in a straight line, as the tower does in our chess, unless it be prevented from moving on. If this is the case, as sometimes happens, one of the dice removes the obstacle, and enables it to move on. Its smallest move is one square, the greatest fifteen squares, because the dice sometimes show two 4, or two 6, or a 4 and a 6. In consequence of one of these numbers, the elephant moves along the whole side of the margin on the chessboard; in consequence of the other number, it moves ^[i.185] along the other side on the other margin of the board, in case there is no impediment in its way. In consequence of these two numbers, the elephant, in the course of his moves, occupies the two ends of the diagonal.

The pieces have certain values, according to which the player gets his share of the stake, for the pieces are taken and pass into the hands of the player. The value of the king is 5, that of the elephant 4, of the horse 3, of the tower 2, and of the pawn 1. He who takes a king gets 5. For two kings he gets 10, for three kings 15, if the winner is no longer in possession of his own king. But if he has still his own king, and takes all three kings, he gets 54, a number that represents a progression based on general consent, not on an algebraic principle.

If the Hindus claim to differ from us, and to be something better than we, as we on our side, of course, do vice versa, we might settle the question by an experiment to be made with their boys. I never knew a Hindu boy who had only recently come into Islamic territory who was not thoroughly versed in the manners and customs of the people, but at the same time he would place the shoes before his master in a wrong order, the right one to the left foot, and vice versa; he would, in folding, turn his master's garments inside out, and spread the carpets so that the under part is uppermost, and more of the kind. All of which is a consequence of the innate perversity of the Hindu nature.

However, I must not reproach the Hindus only with their heathen practices, for the heathen Arabs too committed crimes and obscenities. They cohabited with menstruating and pregnant women; several men agreed to cohabit with the same woman in the same period of menstruation; they adopted the children of others, of their guests, of the lover of their daughter, not to men^[i.186]tion that in some kinds of their worship they whistled on their fingers and clapped with their hands, and that they ate unclean and dead animals. Islam has abolished all those things among the Arabs, as it has also abolished them in those parts of India the people of which have joined Islam. Thanks be unto God!

• Ch.12
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CHAPTER 17

ON HINDU SCIENCES WHICH PREY ON THE IGNORANCE OF PEOPLE

^[i.187] WE understand by 'witchcraft' making by some kind of delusion a thing appear to the senses as something different from what it is in reality. Taken in this sense, it is far spread among people. Understood, however, as common people understand it, as the producing of something that is impossible, it is a thing that does not lie within the limits of reality. For as that which is impossible cannot be produced, the whole affair is nothing but a gross deception. Therefore witchcraft in this sense has nothing whatever to do with science.

One of the species of witchcraft is alchemy, though it is generally not called by this name. But if a man takes a bit of cotton and makes it appear as a bit of gold, what would you call this but a piece of witchcraft? It is quite the same as if he were to take a bit of silver and make it appear as gold, only with this difference, that the latter is a generally-known process (i.e. the gilding of silver), the former is not.

The Hindus do not pay particular attention to alchemy, but no nation is entirely free from it, and one nation has more bias for it than another, which must not be construed as proving intelligence or ignorance; for we find that many intelligent people are entirely given to alchemy, while ignorant people ridicule the art and its adepts. Those intelligent people, though ^[i.188] boisterously exulting over their make-believe science, are not to be blamed for occupying themselves with alchemy, for their motive is simply excessive eagerness for acquiring fortune and for avoiding misfortune. Once a sage was asked why scholars always flock to the doors of the rich, while the rich are not inclined to call at the doors of scholars. "The scholars," he answered, "are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are ignorant of the nobility of science." On the other hand, ignorant people are not to be praised, although they behave quite quietly, simply because they abstain from alchemy, for their motives are objectionable ones, rather practical results of innate ignorance and stupidity than anything else.

The adepts in this art try to keep it concealed, and shrink back from intercourse with those who do not belong to them. Therefore I have not been able to learn from the Hindus which methods they follow in this science, and what element they principally use, whether a mineral or an animal or a vegetable one. I only heard them speaking of the process of sublimation, of calcination, of analysis, and of the waxing of talc, which they call in their language tālaka, and so I guess that they incline towards the mineralogical method of alchemy.

They have a science similar to alchemy that is quite peculiar to them. They call it rasāyana, a word composed with rasa ('gold'). It means an art which is restricted to certain operations, drugs, and compound medicines, most of which are taken from plants. Its principles restore the health of those who were ill beyond hope, and give back youth to fading old age, so that people become again what they were in the age near puberty; white hair becomes black again, the keenness of the senses is restored as well as the capacity for juvenile agility, and even for cohabitation, and the life of people in this world is even extended to a ^[i.189] long period. And why not? Have we not already mentioned on the authority of Patañjali (i.88) that one of the methods leading to Liberation is rasāyana? What man would hear this, being inclined to take it for truth, and not dart off into foolish joy and not honor the master of such a wonderful art by popping the choicest bit of his meal into his mouth?

A famous representative of this art was Nāgārjuna, a native of the fort, Daihak, near Somanāth. He excelled in it, and composed a book that contains the substance of the whole literature on this subject, and is very rare. He lived nearly a hundred years before our time.

In the time of the King Vikramāditya, of whose era we shall speak hereafter, there lived in the city of Ūjain a man of the name of Vyāḍi, who had turned his whole attention to this science, and had ruined on account of it both his life and property, but all his zeal did not even avail him so much as to help him to things which, under ordinary circumstances, are easily obtained. Becoming restricted in his means, he conceived a disgust to that which had been the object of all his exertions, and sat down on the bank of a river sighing, sorrowful, and despairing. He held in his hand his Pharmacopœia, from which he used to take the prescriptions for his medicines, but now he began to throw one leaf of it after the other into the water. A harlot happened to sit on the bank of the same river farther down, who, on seeing the leaves pass by, gathered them, and fished up some relating to rasāyana. Vyāḍi did not notice her till all the leaves of his book had gone. Then the woman came to him, asking why he had done so with his book, whereupon he answered, "Because I have derived no advantage from it. I have not obtained what I ought to have obtained; for its sake I have become bankrupt after having had great treasures, and now I am miserable ^[i.190] after having so long been in the hope of obtaining happiness." The harlot spoke: "Do not give up a pursuit in which you have spent your life; do not despair of the possibility of a thing which all sages before you have shown to be true. Perhaps the obstacle that prevents you from realizing your plans is only of an accidental nature, which may perhaps be removed by an accident. I have much solid cash. It is all yours that you may spend it on the realization of your plans." Thereupon Vyāḍi resumed his work.

However, books of this kind are written in an enigmatic style. So he happened to misunderstand a word in the prescription of a medicine, which meant 'oil and human blood,' both being required for it. It was written raktāmala, and he thought it meant 'red myrobalanon.' When he used the medicine it had no effect whatsoever. Now he began to concoct the various drugs, but the flame touched his head and dried up his brain. Therefore he oiled himself with oil, pouring it in great quantity over his skull. One day he rose to step away from the fireplace for some business or other, but as there happened to be a peg projecting from the roof right above his head, he knocked his head against it, and the blood began to flow. On account of the pain that he felt, he looked downward, and in consequence some drops of blood mixed with oil dropped from the upper part of his skull into the caldron without his noticing it. When, then, the concocting process was finished and he and his wife besmeared themselves with the concoction in order to try it, they both flew up into the air. Vikramāditya, on hearing of this affair, left his castle and proceeded to the marketplace in order to see them with his own eyes. Then the man shouted to him, "Open thy mouth for my saliva." The king, however, being disgusted, did not do it, and so the saliva fell down near the door, and immediately the threshold was filled with gold. ^[i.191] Vyāḍi and the woman flew to any place they liked.

He has composed famous books on this science. People say that both man and wife are still alive.

A similar tale is the following: In the city of Dhāra, the capital of Mālava, which is in our days ruled by Bhoja-dēva, there lies in the door of the Government-house an oblong piece of pure silver, in which the outlines of the limbs of a man are visible. Its origin is accounted for by the following story:

Once in olden times a man went to a king of theirs, bringing him a rasāyana, the use of which would make him immortal, victorious, invincible, and capable of doing everything he desired. He asked the king to come alone to the place of their meeting, and the king gave orders to keep in readiness all the man required.

The man began to boil the oil for several days, until at last it acquired consistency. Then he spoke to the king: "Spring into it and I shall finish the process." But the king, terrified at what he saw, had not the courage to dive into it. The man, on perceiving his cowardice, spoke to him: "If you have not sufficient courage, and will not do it for yourself, will you allow me myself to do it?" Whereupon the king answered, "Do as you like." Now he produced several packets of drugs, and instructed him that when such and such symptoms should appear, he should throw upon him this or that packet. Then the man stepped forward to the caldron and threw himself into it, and at once he was dissolved and reduced into pulp. Now the king proceeded according to his instruction, but when he had nearly finished the process, and there remained only one packet that was not yet thrown into the mass, he began to be anxious, and to think what might happen to his realm, in case the man should return to life as an immortal, victorious, invincible person, as has above been mentioned. And so he thought it preferable not to throw the last packet into the mass. The consequence ^[i.192] was that the caldron became cold, and the dissolved man became consolidated in the shape of the said piece of silver.

The Hindus tell a tale about Vallabha, the king of the city of Vallabhī, whose era we have mentioned in the proper chapter.

A man of the rank of a siddha asked a herdsman with reference to a plant called thohar, of the species of the lactaria, from which milk flows when they are torn off, whether he had ever seen lactaria from which blood flows instead of milk. When the herdsman declared he had, he gave him some drink-money that he should show it to him, which he did. When the man now saw the plant, he set fire to it, and threw the dog of the herdsman into the flame. Enraged thereby, the herdsman caught the man, and did with him the same as he had done to his dog. Then he waited till the fire was extinguished, and found both the man and the dog, but turned into gold. He took the dog with him, but left the man on the spot.

Now some peasant happened to find it. He cut off a finger, and went to a fruit-seller who was called Raṅka ('Poor-Man'), because he was an utter pauper, and evidently near bankruptcy. After the peasant had bought from him what he wanted, he returned to the golden man, and then he found that in the place where the cut-off finger had been, a new finger had grown. He cut it off a second time, and bought again from the same fruit-seller all that he wanted. But when the fruit-seller asked him whence he had the finger, he was stupid enough to tell him. So Raṅka went out to the body of the siddha, and brought it on a carriage to his house. He stayed in his old abode, but managed by degrees to buy the whole town. The king Vallabha desired to own the same town, and asked him to cede it to him for money, but Raṅka declined. Being however afraid of the king's resentment, he fled to the Lord ^[i.193] of al-Manṣūra, made him presents of money, and asked him to help him by a naval force. The lord of al-Manṣūra complied with his desire, and assisted him. So he made a night-attack upon the king Vallabha, and killed him and his people, and destroyed his town. People say that still in our time there are such traces left in that country as are found in places which were destroyed by an unexpected night-attack.

The greediness of the ignorant Hindu princes for gold-making does not know any limit. If any one of them wanted to carry out a scheme of gold-making, and people advised him to kill a number of fine little children, the monster would not refrain from such a crime; he would throw them into the fire. If this precious science of rasāyana were banished to the utmost limits of the world, where it is unattainable to anybody, it would be the best.

According to the Iranian tradition, Isfandiyād is said to have spoken when dying:

Kāūs had been given the power and the miraculous things mentioned in the Book of the Law. Finally he went to the mountain Ḳāf as a decrepit man, bent down by old age, but he returned thence as a lively youth of well-proportioned figure and full of force, having made the clouds his carriage, as God allowed him.

As regards charms and incantations, the Hindus have a firm belief in them, and they, as a rule, are much inclined towards them. The book that treats of those things is considered as a work of Garuḍa, a bird on which Nārāyaṇa rode. Some people describe this bird in such a way as to indicate a ṣifrid-bird and its doings. It is an enemy of fish, catching them. As a rule, animals have by nature an aversion to their opponents, and try to beware of them; here, however, there is an exception to this rule. For when this bird flutters above the water and swims on it, the fish rise from the ^[i.194] deep to the surface, and make it easy to him to catch them, as if he had bound them by his spell. Others describe it with such characteristics as might indicate a stork. The Vāyu-Purāṇa attributes to it a pale color. On the whole, Garuḍa comes nearer to a stork than to a ṣifrid, as the stork is by nature, like Garuḍa, a destroyer of snakes.

Most of their charms are intended for those who have been bitten by serpents. Their excessive confidence in them is shown by this, which I heard a man say, that he had seen a dead man who had died from the bite of a serpent, but after the charm had been applied he had been restored to life, and remained alive, moving about like all others.

Another man I heard as he told the following story:

He had seen a man who had died from the bite of a serpent. A charm was applied, and in consequence he rose, spoke, made his will, showed where he had deposited his treasures, and gave all necessary information about them. But when he inhaled the smell of a dish, he fell down dead, life being completely extinct.

It is a Hindu custom that when a man has been bitten by a venomous serpent, and they have no charmer at hand, they bind the bitten man on a bundle of reeds, and place on him a leaf on which is written a blessing for that person who will accidentally light upon him, and save him by a charm from destruction.

I, for my part, do not know what I am to say about these things, since I do not believe in them. Once a man who had very little belief in reality, and much less in the tricks of jugglers, told me that he had been poisoned, and that people had sent him some Hindus possessing the knowledge of charms. They sang their charms before him, and this had a quieting effect upon him, and soon he felt that he became better and better, while they were drawing lines in the air with their hands and with twigs.

^[i.195] I myself have witnessed that in hunting gazelles they caught them with the hand. One Hindu even went so far as to assert that he, without catching the gazelle, would drive it before him and lead it straight into the kitchen. This, however, rests, as I believe I have found out, simply on the device of slowly and constantly accustoming the animals to one and the same melody. Our people, too, practice the same when hunting the ibex, which is more wild even than the gazelle. When they see the animals resting, they begin to walk round them in a circle, singing one and the same melody so long until the animals are accustomed to it. Then they make the circle more and more narrow, till at last they come near enough to shoot at the animals that lie there in perfect rest.

The shooters of kata-birds have a custom of beating copper-vessels during the night with one and the same kind of beat, and they manage to catch them with the hand. If, however, the beat is changed, the birds fly off in all directions.

All these things are peculiar customs that have nothing whatsoever to do with charms. Sometimes the Hindus are considered as sorcerers because of their playing with balls on raised beams or on tight ropes, but tricks of this kind are common to all nations.