al-Biruni • Kitab al-Hind
PREFACE
Edward C. Sachau
I.
[vii] THE literary history of the East represents the court of King Maḥmūd at Ghazna, the leading monarch of Asiatic history between 997-1030 CE, 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 Unsurī, invested with the recently created dignity of a poet-laureate, who by his verdict opened the way to royal favor for rising talents; there was grand Firdausī, composing his heroic epics 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 kasīdas on the king, his ministers and generals. History paints Maḥmūd as a successful warrior, but ignores him as a Maecenas. With the sole exception of the lucubrations of bombastic Utbī, all contemporary records, the Makāmāt of Abū-Naṣr Mishkānī, the ṭabaḳāt of his secretary Baihaḳī, the chronicles of Mullā Muḥammad Ghaznavī, Maḥmūd Warrāk, 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, Unsurī, the pane[i.viii]gyrist, does not seem to have missed the Sun of royal favor, while Firdausī, immortal Firdausī, 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 enthronization (i.e. 998 CE). But when he had finished his Shāhnāma, and found himself disappointed in his hopes for reward, he flung at him his famous satire, and fled into peaceless exile (1010 CE). In the case of the king versus the poet the king has lost. As long as Firdausī retains the place of honor accorded to him in the history of the world's mental achievements, the stigma will cling to the name of Maḥmūd, that he who hoarded up perhaps more worldly treasures than were ever hoarded up, did not know how to honor a poet destined for immortality.
And how did the author of this work, as remarkable among the prose compositions of the East as the Shāhnāma in poetry, fare with the royal Maecenas of Ghazna?
al-Biruni (Alberuni), or, as his compatriots called him, Abū Raiḥān, was born 973 CE, in the territory of modern Khiva, then called Khwārizm, or Chorasmia in antiquity. Early distinguishing himself in science and literature, he played a political part as counselor of the ruling prince of his native country of the Maᴄmunids (Maᴄmūnī family). The counsels he gave do not seem always to have suited the plans of King Maḥmūd 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 rebellion (émeute).
[ix] Maḥmūd 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 Maᴄmūnī and the leading men of the country as prisoners of war or as hostages. Among the last was Abū-Raiḥān Muḥammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni.
This happened in the spring and summer of 1017 CE. The Chorasmian princes were sent to distant fortresses as prisoners of state, the Chorasmian soldiers were incorporated in Maḥmūd's Indian army; and al-Biruni-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 Maimandī, should have accorded special favors 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 Firdausī, was in office under Maḥmūd from 1007-1025 CE, and a second time under his son and successor, Masᴄūd, from 1030-1033. There is nothing to tell us that al-Biruni 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 Baghdad, Abulkhair Alkhammār, seems to have practiced in Ghazna his medical profession. Al-Biruni probably enjoyed the reputation of a great munajjim ('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 Indika (Ἰνδικά, On India) 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 Maḥmūd. In a book written five hundred years later (see Chresto [x] mathie Persane , Schefer 1883 vol.1:107), there is a story of a practical joke which Maḥmūd played on al-Biruni 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 Maḥmūd had been dead only a few weeks. Le roi est mort ("The king is dead!")-but to whom was the Vive le roi ("Long live the king!") to be addressed?
Two heirs claimed the throne, Muhammad and Masᴄūd, 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 Maḥmūd, 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 Masᴄūd 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 Indika 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 Maḥmūd 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 ᴐAmīr Maḥmūd" (ii.13; Arabic [xi] text, Sachau 1887 :208.9), "The ᴐAmīr Maḥmūd, may God's mercy be with him" (i.116; 1887 :56.8), "The ᴐAmīr Maḥmūd, may the grace of God be with him" (ii. 103; 1887 :252 note). The title ᴐamīr was nothing very complimentary. It had been borne by his ancestors when they were simply generals and provincial governors in the service of the Samanid king of Transoxiana and Khurasan. Speaking of Maḥmūd and his father Sebüktigin (or Sabuktagīn), the author says, "Yamīn al-Daula Maḥmūd, may God's mercy be with them" (i.22; 1887 :11.9). He had received the title Yamīn al-Daula ('Right Hand of the Dynasty'), from the khalif, in recognition of the legitimacy of his rule, resembling the investiture of the German Emperor by the Pope in the Middle Ages. Lastly, we find the following terms: "The Strongest of the Pillars (of Islam), the Pattern of a Sultan, Maḥmūd, the Lion of the World and the Rarity of the Age, may God's mercy be with him" (ii.2; 1887 :203.20).
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 meager 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 Maḥmūd: "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" (i.22). To criticize these words from a Muslim point of view, the passage of [xii] the ruining of the prosperity of the country was perfectly out of place in the glorification of a Ghazi like Maḥmūd.
That it was not at all against the moral principles of al-Biruni 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 (al-Biruni 1879), he extols with abundant praise the prince of Hyrcania or Jurjān, Shams al-Maᴄālī, who was a dwarf by the side of giant Maḥmūd. The studied character of the neglect of Maḥmūd in the Indika comes out more strongly if we compare the unmerited praise which al-Biruni lavishes upon his son and successor. The preface of his canon Masudicus is a farrago of high-sounding words in honor of King Masᴄūd, who was a drunkard, and lost in less than a decennium ('ten year span') 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, Abū-Saīd Masᴄ ūd Ibn Yamīn al-Daula and ᴄAmīn al-Milla Maḥmūd-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 Masᴄūd) 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 posses [xiii] sion 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 (Masᴄūd), 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 Maḥmūd had proclaimed as his successor his son Muhammad, not Mas ᴄ ūd, 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 favor 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, etc., 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 favor, 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 Mas ᴄ ūd 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 (al-Biruni was then sixty-one years [xiv] 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 favor rain on me, always personally distinguishing and befriending me, etc.? And with regard to this (the favor 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...
Thereupon, finding that his Majesty did not require his actual service, and besides, finding that science stood in the highest favor 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 al-Ḳānūn al-Masᴄ ūdī (canon Masudicus), etc.
To put the phrases of this preface into plain language, the author was in favor with King Masᴄūd; 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, Maḥmūd. We do not know the year in which this change in the life of al-Biruni was brought about. Perhaps it was in some way connected with the fact that the chancellor, Maimandī, died 1033 CE, and that after him one Abū-Nasr Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn ᴄAbduṣṣamad became chancellor, who before (i.e. from 1017 to 1033) had administered Khwārizm, the native country of al-Biruni. He and Maimandī had been political antagonists-not so he and ᴄAbdussamad. The difference of the author's condition, as it appears to have been under Masᴄūd, from what it was under Maḥmūd when he prepared the Indika, 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 con[xv]tinues:
What scholar, however, has the same favorable 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 Multān, Peshāvar, etc., 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 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 favor, 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. (i.152)
Compare with this the dictum: "The scholars are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are ignorant of the nobility of science" (i.188).
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 Maḥmūd, and it is Maḥmūd whom he accuses of having failed in the duties of a protector of art and science imposed upon him by his royal office. Firdausī, in his satire (Mohl, in Firdausī 1876-1878: xlv), calls [xvi] him "a king without faith, without law, without manners" ( un roi qui n'a ni foi ni loi ni manières); and he says: "if the king were a man worthy of renown, he would have privileged knowledge" ( Si le roi avait été un homme digne de renom, il aurait honoré le savoir ) etc. It is most remarkable to what degree Firdausī and al-Biruni agree in their judgment of the king. To neither of them had he been a Maecenas.
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 CE, after he had been carried from his native country to the centre of Maḥmūd's realm, did not enjoy the favors 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 honorable 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 Mas ᴄūd. There is no more complaint of the time and its ruler. Al-Biruni is all glee and exultation about the royal favors and support accorded to him and to his studies. He now wrote the greatest work of his life, 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 Indika, and at the end of it he is even capable of confounding the era [xvii] of the astronomers, as used in the Khaṇḍakhādyaka of Brahmagupta, with the Guptakāla.
If the author and his countrymen had suffered and were still suffering from the oppression of King Maḥmūd, the Hindus were in the same position, and perhaps it was this community of mishap that 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 Muslims-of free-will and predestination, of future reward and punishment, of the creation or eternity of the Word of God, etc. To Maḥmūd 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 Tanēshar, Mathurā, Kanoj, and Somanāth.
To al-Biruni the Hindus were excellent philosophers, good mathematicians and astronomers, though he naively believes himself to be superior to them, and disdains to be put on a level with them (i.23). 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 [xviii] 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 al-Biruni 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 reveled in the pure theories of the Bhagavadgītā, and it deserves to be noticed that he twice mentions the saying of Vyāsa, "Learn the Twenty-Five (elements of existence) by distinctions, etc. Afterwards adhere to whatever religion you like; your end will be salvation" (i.44; cf. 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 Brihatsaṁhitā of Varāhamihira (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 al-Biruni wrote under a prince who burned and impaled the Ḳarmatians (cf. note to i.31).
Still he was a Muslim; whether Sunni or Shiᴄa [xix] cannot be gathered from the Indika. 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 civilization of Iran, and gives us to understand that the ancient Arabs were certainly nothing better than the Zoroastrian Iranians. So too in the Indika , 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 Maḥmūd, and not to forget that the founders of Islam, too, were certainly no angels.
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 9 and 71. 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 [xx] 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 Muᴄāviya 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 labors 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), 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 [xxi] one of the dragon Rāhu'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. ch.59). In another place he accuses Brahmagupta of injustice and rudeness to his predecessor, Aryabhaṭa (i.376). He finds in the works of Varāhamihira 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, Varahāmihira seems to exceed all limits of common sense, al-Biruni 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, 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, cf. i.299)
He twice explains the origin of the Dībajat (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 rasāyana (i.e. the art of making gold, of [xxii] making old people young, etc.), 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: "The greediness of the ignorant Hindu princes for gold-making does not know any limit..." (i.193). There is a spark of grim humor in his words where he criticizes 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! (i.237)
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).
In the opening of his book al-Biruni gives an account of the circumstances that suggested to him the idea of writing the Indika. 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 criticized, al-Biruni 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 respon [xxiii] sible 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 Muslim Ghāzī 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 civilization" (ii.246).
It is difficult to say what kind of readers al-Biruni had, or expected to have, not only for the Indika but for all his other publications on Indian subjects. Probably educated, and not bigoted or fanatical Muslims in Sindh, in parts of the Punjab, 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 Pulisasiddhānta, 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" (i.375). He [xiv] 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 neighborhood, 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 criticize 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 Kashmīr (cf. Sachau 1887 : xx). These relations to Kashmīr are very difficult to understand, as Muslims had not yet conquered the country, nor entered it to any extent, and as the author himself relates that it was closed to intercourse with all strangers save a few Jews (i.206). 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 al-Biruni's death, in 1048 CE, there is no more original work in this field; and even al-Biruni, 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..." (i.24). And certainly we do not know of any Indianist like him, before his time or after.
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 civilization 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. [xxv] 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. ch.5). 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 recognize 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 one (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.
He does not blindly accept the traditions of former ages; he wants to understand and to criticize 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 al-Biruni 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 [xxvi] 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 labor 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 80, 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. Al-Biruni 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 criticizes 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 lacunae, criticizes 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 recognize 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 (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.
[xxvii] When I drew the first sketch of the life of al-Biruni 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 Iran and India. As probably most valuable contributions to the historic literature of the time, we must mention his history of his native country Khwārizm, and the history of the famous sect of the Ḳarmatians, the loss of both of which is much to be deplored.
II.
THE court of the khalifs of the Umayyads (house of Umayya) 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 civilization 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 [xxvii] from the rocky wilderness of the Hijāz, 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 Rusāfa and Khunasāra there was scarcely more thought of literature than at present in the halls of Ibn Arrashīd, the wily head of the Shammar at Hāil. The cradle of Arabic literature is not Damascus, but Baghdad, and the protection necessary for its rise and growth was afforded by the Khalifs of the Abbasids (house of cAbbās), whose Arab nature has been modified by the influence of Iranian civilization during a long stay in Khurāsān.
The foundation of Arabic literature was laid between 750 and 850 CE. 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 ('sources' or 'beginnings') 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 centers 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 forever.
What did Persia, or rather the Sassanian Empire, overrun by the Arab hordes, offer to its victors in literature? [xxix] It left to the east of the Khalifate the language of administration, the use of which during the following centuries, until recent times, was probably never much discontinued. It was this Perso-Sassanian language of administration which passed into the use of the smaller Eastern dynasties, reared under the Abbasid Khalifs, and became the language of literature at the court of one of those dynasties, that of the Sāmānid kings of Transoxiana and Khurāsān. Thus it has come to pass that the dialect of one of the most western parts of Iran 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 Kalīla and Dimna, probably all of Buddhistic origin; portions of the national lore of Iran, taken from the Khudāināma (or Lord's Book) and afterwards immortalized by Firdausī; but more than anything else love-stories. All this was the fashion under the Abbasid Khalifs, and is said to have attained the height of popularity during the rule of Almuḳtadir, 908-932 CE. Besides, much favor was apparently bestowed upon didactic, paraenetic compositions, mostly clothed in the garb of a testament of this or that Sasanian king or sage (e.g. Anushirvān 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 on sex (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 Per[xxx]sians. Either they had only little of this kind, or the Arabs did not choose to get it translated.
An author by the name of ᴄAlī Ibn Ziyād al-Tamīmī is said to have translated from Persian a book, Zījalshahriyār, which, to judge by the title, must have been a system of astronomy. It seems to have been extant when al-Biruni wrote his work on chronology (1879 : 6, 368 n.). Perhaps it was from this source that the famous al-Khwārizmī drew his knowledge of Persian astronomy, which he is said to have exhibited in his extract from theBrahmasiddhānta, composed by order of the Khalif Maᴄmūn. For we are expressly told that he used the media (i.e. the mean places of the planets as fixed by Brahmagupta), while 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 (see Gildemeister 1838 :101). 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 al-Khwārizmī (Alkhwârizmî) would not have introduced its results into his own work. Of the terminology of Arabian astronomy, the word jauzahar (Caput draconis, or 'Dragon's Head'-the northern lunar node) is probably of Sasanian origin (gaocithra), as well as the word zīj ('canon,' a collection of astronomical tables with the necessary explanations), perhaps also kardaj, kardaja, a measure in geometry equal to ⅟96 of the circumference of a circle, if it be identical with the Persian karda ('cut').
What India has contributed reached Baghdad by two different roads. Part has come directly in translations from Sanskrit, part has traveled through Iran, having originally been translated from Sanskrit (Palī? Prākrīt?) into Persian, and farther from Persian into [xxxi] Arabic. In this way the fables of Kalīla and Dimna, for example, 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 Baghdad 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 Mansūr (753-774 CE), there came embassies from that part of India to Baghdad, and among them scholars, who brought along with them two books, the Brahmasiddhānta to Brahmagupta (Sindhind), and his Khaṇḍakhādyaka (Arkand). With the help of these pandits, Alfazārī, perhaps also Yakūb Ibn Tarīk, 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, 786-808 CE. 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 Naubehār—i.e. Nava Vihāra, 'New Temple.' The name Barmak is said to be of Indian descent, meaning paramaka—i.e. 'superior (or abbot) of the vihāra' (cf. Kern 1882-1884, vol.2:445, 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 Baghdad, made them the chief physicians of their hospitals, and ordered them to translate from Sanskrit into Arabic books on medicine, pharmacology, toxicology, philo[xxxii]sophy, astrology, and other subjects. Still in later centuries Muslim scholars sometimes traveled for the same purposes as the emissaries of the Barmak (e.g. Almuwaffak not long before al-Biruni's time—Seligmann 1859 : 6,10, and 15,9).
Soon afterwards, when Sindh was no longer politically dependent upon Baghdad, all this intercourse ceased entirely. Arabic literature turned off into other channels. There is no more mention of the presence of Hindu scholars at Baghdad, 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 labors of Nestorian physicians, the philosophers of Harrān, 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 ARABIC is mentioned ('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 ('epic'; cf. Weber 1852: 284, 287). A similar relation seems to exist between the names 'Kaṅka' (that of a physician of the same period) and 'Kāṅkāyana' (an authority in Indian medicine-cf. Weber 1852: 287 n.; 284 n.; 302).
The name ARABIC, that of an author of a book on potables, may be identical with 'Atri', mentioned as a medical author ( Weber 1852: 288).
There was a book by one ARABIC (also written ARABIC) on [xxxiii] wisdom or philosophy (cf. Fihrist p.305). According to Middle-Indian phonetics this name is Vedavyāsa. A man of this name (also called 'Vyāsa' or 'Bādarāyana') is, according to the literary tradition of India, the originator of the Vedānta school of philosophy (cf. Colebrooke 1858, vol.1: 352), and this will remind the reader that in the Arabian Sufism the Indian Vedānta philosophy reappears.
Further, an author ARABIC/Sadbrm is mentioned (cf. Benfey, in Bickell 1876: xl), unfortunately without an indication of the contents of his book. Al-Biruni mentions one 'Satya' as the author of a jātaka (i.157; cf. Weber 1852 :278), and this name is perhaps an abbreviation of that one here mentioned ('Satyavurman').
A work on astrology is attributed to one ARABIC /SNGHL (see Fihrist p.271), likewise enumerated by al-Biruni 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 ARABIC, probably identical with 'Vyāghra', which occurs as a name of Indian authors (cf. Fihrist p.315).
The famous Buddha legend in Christian garb, most commonly calledJoasaph and Barlaam, bears the title ARABIC (Fihrist p.300). The former word is generally explained as 'Bodhisattva,' although there is no law in Indian phonetics that 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. ARABIC)
What Ibn Wāḍiḥ in his chronicle relates of India is not of much value ( Houtsma 1883 :92-106). His words, "the king ARABIC (Ghosha), who [xxxiv] lived in the time of Sindbād the sage, and this Ghosha composed the book On the Cunning of Women," (105) are perhaps an indication of some fables of Buddhaghosha having been translated into Arabic.
Besides books on astronomy, mathematics (ARABIC), astrology, chiefly jātakas, on medicine and pharmacology, the Arabs translated Indian works on snakes (Sarpa-vidyā), on poison (Visha-vidyā), on all kinds of auguring, on talismans, on the veterinary art, on the art of love (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 favorite subject of theirs was Indian mathematics, the knowledge of which became far spread by the publications of Alkindi and many others.
The smaller dynasties that in later times tore the sovereignty over certain eastern countries of the Khalifate out of the hands of the successors of Mansūr and Harun, did not continue their literary commerce with India. The Banū-Laith (872-903 CE), owning great part of Afghanistan together with Ghazna, were the neighbors of Hindus, but their name is in no way connected with the history of literature. For the Buyid princes who ruled over Western Persia and Babylonia between 932 and 1055 CE, the fables of Kalīla and Dimna were translated. Of all these princely houses, no doubt, the Samanids, 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 Punjab, and Sindh; and their minister, al-Jaihānī, probably had collected much information about India. Originally the slave of the Samanids, then their general and provincial governor, Alptagīn, made himself practically independent in Ghazna a few [xxxv] years before al-Biruni was born, and his successor, Sabuktagīn, Maḥmūd's father, paved the road for the war with India (i.22), and for the lasting establishment of Islam in India.
Some of the books that had been translated under the first Abbasid Khalifs were extant in the library of al-Biruni when he wrote the Indika—the Brahmasiddhānta or Sindhind, and the Khaṇḍakhādyaka or Arkand in the editions of Alfazārī and of Yakūb Ibn Tārik, the Caraka in the edition of ᴄAlī Ibn Zain, and the Pañcatantra or Kalīla and Dimna. He also used an Arabic translation of the Karaṇasāra by Vitteśvara (ii.55), but we do not learn from him whether this was an old translation or a modern one made in al-Biruni's time. These books offered to al-Biruni-he complains of it repeatedly-the same difficulties as to us, namely, 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 al-Biruni 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 (ARABIC) is not known. Besides al-Fazārī and Yakūb Ibn Tārik, he learned from al-Khwārizmī, something from Abūlhasan of Ahwāz, things of little value from al-Kindī and Abū-Ma ᴄshar of Balkh, and single details from the famous book of al-Jaihānī. Of other sources which he has used in theIndika, he quotes: 1. A Muslim 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 versa, which had perhaps been necessitated by the wants of the administration under Sabuktagīn and Maḥmūd. The name of the author is [xxxvi] not mentioned. 2. Abū Ahmad Ibn Catlaghtagīn, quoted (i.317) as having computed the latitudes of Karlī and Tāneshar.
Two other authorities on astronomical subjects are quoted, but not in relation to Indian astronomy, Muḥammad Ibn Ishāk, from Sarakhs (ii.15), and a book called Ghurrat al-Zījāt, perhaps derived from an Indian source, as the name is identical with Karaṇatilaka. The author is perhaps Abū-Muḥammad al-Nāib from Āmul (cf. note to ii.90).
In India Al-Biruni 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 770 CE had been the standard in India, still held the same high position 1020 CE (namely, the works of Brahmagupta). Assisted by learned pandits, he tried to translate them, as also the Pulisasiddhānta (see preface to the edition of the text, §5), and when he composed the Indika, 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 Khayāl al-Kusūfaini, which contained, probably beside other things, a description of the yoga theory (ii.208)
3. A book called The Arabic Khaṇḍakhādyaka, 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 to Astronomy, on the question whether the Sun rotates round the Earth or the Earth round the Sun (i.277). We may suppose that in [xxxvii] 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 Indika. 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 Baghdad under the first Abbasid Khalifs.
Al-Biruni 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 80:
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 Varāhamihira (e.g. his Bṛihatsamhitā and Laghujātakam, which al-Biruni was translating) had already been accessible to the Arabs at the time of Mansūr, but we are inclined to think that al-Biruni's judgment on this head is too sweeping, for books on astrology, and particularly on jātaka, had already been translated in the early days of the Abbasid rule (cf. Fihrist, pp. 270, 271).
As regards Indian medicine, we can only say that al-Biruni does not seem to have made a special study of it, for he simply uses the then current translation of [xxxviii] 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, n.18), but we do not know whether before the Indika or after it.
What first induced al-Biruni to write the Indika 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, al-Irānshahrī. Not knowing him or that authority which he follows (i.e. Zurḳān) we cannot form an estimate as to how far al-Biruni'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 al-Biruni produced before his compatriots or fellow-believers the Sāṁkhya 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 Indika. The philosophy of India seems to have fascinated his mind, and the noble ideas of the Bhagavadgītā 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 Purāṇas, al-Biruni 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 litera [xxxix] ture of fables, he knew the Pañcatantra in the Arabic edition of Ibn al-Mukaffa.
Judging al-Biruni 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 Purāṇas 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 Rāzī, with whose works he was intimately acquainted, and some Ṣūfī philosophers, but from neither of them could he learn much about India. In the following pages we give a list of the Sanskrit books quoted in the Indika:
Sources of the chapters on theology and philosophy: Sāṁkhya, by Kapila; Book of Patañjali;Gītā (i.e. some edition of the Bhagavadgītā)-he seems to have used more sources of a similar nature, but he does not quote from them
Sources of a Paurānic kind: Vishṇu-Dharma,Vishṇu-Purāṇa, Matsya-Purāṇa,Vāyu-Purāṇa, Āditya-Purāṇa
Sources of the chapters on astronomy, chronology, geography, and astrology:Pulisasiddhānta; Brahmasiddhānta,Khaṇḍakhādyaka, Uttarakhaṇḍakhādyaka, by Brahmagupta; Commentary of the Khaṇḍakhādyaka, by Balabhadra, perhaps also some other work of his; Brihatsamhitā,Pañcasidāhantikā, Bṛihat-jātakam, Laghu-jātakam, by Varahamihira; Commentary of the Brihatsaṁhitā, a book called Srūdhava (perhaps Sarvadhara), by Utpala, from Kashmīr; a book by Āryabhaṭa, junior; Karaṇasāra, by Vitteśvara;Karaṇatilaka, by Vijayanandin; Srīpāla; Book of the Ṛishi (sic) Bhuvanakośa;Book of the Brāhman Bhaṭṭila; Book of Durlabha, [xl] from Multan; Book of Jivaśarman; Book of Samaya;Book of Auliatta (?), the son of Sahāwī(?); The Minor Mānasa, by Puñcala; Srūdhava (Sarvadhara?), by Mahādēva Candrabīja; Calendar from Kashmīr
As regards some of these authors, Srīpāla, Jīvaśarman, Samaya(?), and Auliatta(?), the nature of the quotations leaves it uncertain whether al-Biruni quoted from books of theirs or from oral communications that he had received from them.
Source on medicine: Caraka, in the Arabic edition of ᴄAlī 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 Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, 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 (Āryabhaṭa, junior?) Once he quotes Manu's Dharmaśāstra, but in a manner that makes me doubt whether he took the words directly from the book itself.
The quotations that he has made from these sources are, some of them, very extensive (e.g. those from the Bhagavadgītā). 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 Indika. Sometimes he mentions Hindu individuals as his informants (e.g. those from Somanāth, i.161, 165; and from Kanoj, i.165; ii.129).
In chapter one, 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.17f.). Everything in India is just [xli] 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 al-Biruni, 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.
The role which Greek literature plays in al-Biruni's work, in the distant country of the Paktyes and Gandhari, is a singular fact in the history of civilization. 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 al-Biruni, 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
Phaedo
Timaeus (an edition with a commentary)
Leges (Laws, in the copy of it there was an appendix relating to the pedigree of Hippocrates)
Proclus
Commentary on Timaeus (different from the extant one)
Aristotle
short references to his Physica and Metaphysica
Letter to Alexander
Johannes Grammaticus
contra Proclum (Refutation of Proclus)
Alexander of Aphrodisias
Commentary on Aristotle's fusikh\ a)kro/asij (Physics Lecture)
Apollonius of Tyana
Porphyry
Liber historiarum philosophorum (Book of Philosophers' Inquiries)
Ammonius
[xlii] Aratus
Phaenomena (with a commentary)
Galen
Προτρεπτικὸς εἰς τὰς τέχνας (Protrepticus, or Exhortation on the Arts)
Περὶ συνθέσεων φαρμάκων τῶν κατὰ τόρουν (On the Composition of Medicines, by Part )
Περὶ συνθέσεων φαρμάκων τῶν κατὰ γένη (On the Composition of Medicines, by Type )
Commentary on the Apophthegms (Sayings) of Hippocrates
De indole animae (On the Nature of the Soul)
Book of the Proof
Ptolemy
Almagest (Syntaxis of Astronomy)
Geography
Kitab al-Manshurat (Planetary Hypotheses)
Pseudo-Callisthenes
Alexander Romance
Scholia to the Ars grammatica of Dionysius Thrax
A synchronistic history, resembling in part that of Johannes Malalas, in part the Chronicum of Eusebius (cf. notes to i.112, 105)
The other analogies which he draws, not taken from Greek, but from Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, Manichaean, and Ṣūfī sources, are not very numerous. He refers only rarely to Iranian traditions (cf. glossary, 'Persian Traditions' and 'Zoroastrians'). Most of the notes on Christian, Jewish, and Manichaean subjects may have been taken from the book of al-Irānshahrī (cf. his own words, i.6, 7), although he knew Christianity from personal experience, and probably also from the communications of his learned friends Abūlkhair al-Khammār and Abū-Sahl al-Masīḥī, both Christians from the farther west (cf. al-Biruni 1879 : xxxii). The interest he has in Mānī's doctrines and books seems rather strange. We are not acquainted with the history of the remnants of Manichaeism in those days and countries, but cannot help thinking that the quotations from Mānī's Book of Mysteries and Thesaurus Vivificationis do not justify al-Biruni'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 Ṣūfī philosophy-he derives the word from sophia (σοφία, 'wisdom', i.33)—[xliii] with certain doctrines of the Hindus is apparent to anyone who is aware of the essential identity of the systems of the Greek Neo-Pythagoreans, the Hindu Vedānta philosophers, and the Ṣūfīs of the Muslim world. The authors whom he quotes-Abū Yazīd al-Bistāmī and Abū Bakr al-Shiblī-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 al-Biruni 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, while 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 Indika, 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 Indika. We must here mention two authors who lived not long after him, under the same dynasty, and probably in the same place, Ghazna (Gardēzī, cf. note to ii.6), who wrote between 1049 and 1052 CE, and Muhammad Ibn ᴄ Uḳail, who wrote between 1089 and 1099 CE (cf. note to i.5). Of the later authors who studied al-Biruni's Indika and copied from it, the most notorious example is Rashīd al-Dīn, who transferred the whole geographical chapter (18) into his huge chronicle.
When al-Biruni entered India, times were not favorable for opening friendly relations with native scholars India recoiled from the touch of the impure barbarians. The Pāla dynasty, once ruling over Kabulistan and the Punjab, had disappeared from the theater of history, and their former dominions were in the firm grasp of King Maḥmūd and under the administration of his slaves, of Turkish descent. The princes of Northwestern [xliv] 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 defense and repulse of the enemy. Single-handed Ānandapāla 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 ('outsiders') fled and took up their abode in the neighboring Hindu empires.
Kashmīr was still independent, and was hermetically sealed to all strangers (i.206). Ānandapāla had fled there. Maḥmūd had tried the conquest of the country, but failed. About the time when al-Biruni wrote, the rule passed from the hands of Saṅgrāmadēva, 1007-1030 CE, into those of Anantadēva, 1030-1082 CE.
Central and Lower Sindh were rarely meddled with by Maḥmūd. The country seems to have been split into minor principalities, ruled by petty Muslim dynasties, like the Ḳarmatian dynasty of Multan, deposed by Maḥmūd.
In the conditions of the Gurjara Empire, the capital of which was Anhilvāra or Pattan, the famous expedition of Maḥmūd to Somanāth, 1025 CE, 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 980 CE had taken the place of the Cālukyas. King Cāmuṇḍa fled before Maḥmūd, who raised another prince of the same house, Devaśarman, to the throne; but soon after we find a son of Cāmuṇḍa, Durlabha, as king of Gurjara until 1037 CE.
Mālava was ruled by the Prāmāra dynasty, who, like the kings of Kashmīr, had afforded a refuge to a fugitive prince of the Pāla dynasty of Kabulistan. Bhojadeva of Mālava, ruling between 997 and 1053 CE, is mentioned by al-Biruni. His court at Dhār, [xlv] 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 Pāla princes of Gauḍa or Bengal, who resided in Mongīr. During the reign of Rājyapāla, Kanoj had been plundered and destroyed by Maḥmūd, 1017 CE, in consequence of which a new city farther away from the mlecchas, Bārī, had been founded, but does not seem to have grown to any importance. Residing in this place, the King Mahīpāla tried about 1026 CE to consolidate and to extend his empire. Both these rulers are said to have been Buddhists (cf. Kern 1882-1884 , vol.2: 544).
The centers of Indian learning were Benares and Kashmīr, both inaccessible to a barbarian like al-Biruni (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.
India, as far as known to al-Biruni, was Brahmanic, not Buddhistic. In the first half of the eleventh century all traces of Buddhism in Central Asia, Khurāsān, Afghanistan, and Northwestern India seem to have disappeared; and it is a remarkable fact that a man of the inquisitive mind of al-Biruni 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 al-Irānshahrī, who, in his turn, had copied the book of one Zurkān, 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 calledCūḍāmani ('Jewel', not Gūḍhāmana, as I have written, i.158), on the knowledge of the supranaturalistic world.
The Buddhists or Shamans (Śramaṇa) are called Muḥammira, which I translate "the red-robe wearers," taking it for identical with raktapaṭa (cf. note to i.21).
[xlvi] 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 Vishṅu-Dharma, on which see note to i.54).
Of Buddhistic authors there are mentioned Candra, the grammarian (i.135; cf. Kern 1882-1884, vol.2:520), Sugrīva, 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).
Al-Biruni speaks of a building erected by King Kanishka in Peshavar, and called Kanishkacaitya, as existing in his time, most likely identical with that stūpa which he is reported to have built in consequence of a prophecy of no less a person than Buddha himself (ii.11; cf. Kern 1882-1884, vol.2:187). The word bihār (i.e. vihāra) which al-Biruni sometimes uses in the meaning of 'temple' and the like, is of Buddhistic origin (cf. Kern 1882-1884 , vol.2:57).
Among the various kinds of writing used in India, he enumerates as the last one the "Bhaikshukī, used in Udunpūr in Purvadeśa. This last is the writing of Buddha" (i.173). Was this Udunpūr (we may also read Udannapūr) the Buddhistic monastery in Magadha, Udaṇḍapurī, that was destroyed by the Muslims, 1200 CE (cf. Kern 1882-1884, vol.2:545)?
The cosmographic views of the Buddhists, as given by al-Biruni (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 al-Biruni had had the same opportunity for traveling in India as Xuanzang (Hiouen-Tsang) had, he would easily have collected plenty of information on Buddhism. [xlvii] Considering the meagerness 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 Brāhmaṇ pandits probably knew enough of Buddhism, but did not choose to tell him.
Lastly, India, as known to al-Biruni, was in matters of religion Vishnuitic (vaishṇava), not Śivaitic (śaiva). Vishṇu, or Nārāyaṇa, is the first god in the pantheon of his Hindu informants and literary authorities, while Śiva is only incidentally mentioned, and that not always in a favorable manner. This indicates a remarkable change in the religious history of those countries. For the predecessors of Maḥmūd in the rule over Kabulistan and the Punjāb, the Pāla dynasty, were worshippers of Śiva (cf. Lassen 1858-1874: 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 1858-1874: 3, 915). The image of Nanda reappears a second time on the coins of the last of the descendants of King Maḥmūd 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 Indika, 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.
[xlviii] In 1885-1886 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 al-Biruni, 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. Sachau 1887: viii). Assuredly, to do justice to the words of al-Biruni would require a command over English like that of Sir Theodore Martin, the translator of Faust, or Chenery, the translator of Harīrī.
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 co-operate 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 [xlix] 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 al-Biruni, and as to those materials which guided me in translating. On the phonetic peculiarities of the Indian words as transcribed by al-Biruni, 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 [l] 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, etc., 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 Fergosson, Reinhold Rost, and Theodore Goldstücker, who first proposed to me to translate the Indika. 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, Mémoire géographique, historique et scientifique sur I'lnde (1849), has been most useful to me (cf. on this and the labors of my other predecessors, Sachau 1887: preface §2).
The Sanskrit alphabet has been transliterated in the following way—a, ā, i, ī, u, ū-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, I, v-ś, sh, s, h .
Edward Sachau
Berlin, August 4, 1888
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