Edited with Notes and Indices by Edward C. Sachau
Volumes I & II
1030 / 1910
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(For Alberuni’s Synopsis of the Single Chapters of the Book, vide pp. 9-16.)
VOL. / PAGE
• I. 3. AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
• 9. SYNOPSIS OF THE EIGHTY CHAPTERS.
• 17. CHAPTER I., AUTHOR’S SPECIAL INTRODUCTION.
• 27. CHAPTERS II.-XI., ON RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELATED SUBJECTS.
• 125. CHAPTERS XII.-XVII., OΝ LITERATURE, METROLOGY, USAGES, AND RELATED SUBJECTS.
• 196. CHAPTERS XVIII.-XXXI., ON GEOGRAPHY, COSMOGRAPHY, AND ASTRONOMY.
• 319 TO VOL. II. Ρ. 129. CHAPTERS XXXII.-LXII., ON CHRONOLOGY, ASTRONOMY, AND RELATED SUBJECTS.
• 11. 130. CHAPTERS LXII.-LXXIX., ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, AND RELATED SUBJECTS.
• 211. CHAPTER LXXX., ON ASTROLOGY.
• 247. ANNOTATIONS OF THE TRANSLATOR.
• 403-431. INDICES.
In India Alberuni recommenced his study of Indian astronomy, this time not from translations, but from Sanskrit originals, and we here meet with the remarkable fact that the works which about A.D. 770 had been the standard in India still held the same high position A.D. 1020, viz., the works of Brahmagupta. Assisted by learned pandits, he tried to translate them, as also the Pulisasiddhanta (vide preface to the edition of the text, § 5), and when he composed the [x], he had already come forward with several books devoted to special points of Indian astronomy. As such he quotes: —
(i.) A treatise on the determination of the lunar stations or nakshatras, ii. 83.
(2.) The Kayal-alkusufaini, which contained, probably beside other things, a description of the Yoga theory, ii. 208.
(3.) A book called The Arabic Khandakhadyaka, on the same subject as the preceding one, ii. 208.
(4.) A book containing a description of the Karanas, the title of which is not mentioned, ii 194.
(5.) A treatise on the various systems of numeration, as used by different nations, i. 174, which probably described also the related Indian subjects.
(6.) A book called “Key of Astronomy,” on the question whether the sun rotates round the earth or the earth round the sun, i. 277. We may suppose that in this book he had also made use of the notions of Indian astronomers.
(7.) Lastly, several publications on the different methods for the computation of geographical longitude, i. 315. He does not mention their titles, nor whether they had any relation to Hindu methods of calculation.
Perfectly at home in all departments of Indian astronomy and chronology, he began to write the [x]. In the chapters on these subjects he continues a literary movement which at his time had already gone on for centuries; but he surpassed his predecessors by going back upon the original Sanskrit sources, trying to check his pandits by whatever Sanskrit he had contrived to learn, by making new and more accurate translations, and by his conscientious method of testing the data of the Indian astronomers by calculation. His work represents a scientific renaissance in comparison with the aspirations of the scholars working in Bagdad under the first Abbaside Khalifs.
Alberuni seems to think that Indian astrology had not been transferred into the more ancient Arabic literature, as we may conclude from his introduction to Chapter Ixxx.: "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 Varahamihira, e.g. his Brihatsamhita and Laghujatakam, which Alberuni was translating, had already been accessible to the Arabs at the time of Mansur, but we are inclined to think that Alberuni’s judgment on this head is too sweeping, for books on astrology, and particularly on jataka, had already been translated in the early days of the Abbaside rule. Cf. Fihrist, pp. 270, 271.
As regards Indian medicine, we can only say that Alberuni does not seem to have made a special study of it, for he simply uses the then current translation of Caraka, although complaining of its incorrectness, i. 159, 162, 382. He has translated a Sanskrit treatise on loathsome diseases into Arabic (cf. preface to the edition of the original, p. xxi. No. 18), but we do not know whether before the [x] or after it.
What first induced Alberuni to write the [x], 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, Aleranshahri. Not knowing him or that authority which he follows, i.e. Zurkan, we cannot form an estimate as to how far Alberuni’s strictures on them (i. 7) are founded. Though there can hardly be any doubt that Indian philosophy in one or other of its principal forms had been communicated to the Arabs already in the first period, it seems to have been something entirely new when Alberuni produced before his compatriots or fellow-believers the Samkhya by Kapila, and the Book of Patanjali in good Arabic translations. [!!!] It was this particular work which admirably qualified him to write the corresponding chapters of the [x]. The philosophy of India seems to have fascinated his mind, and the noble ideas of the Bhagavadgita 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.Preface:
Over the past forty years or so, a theory has been forged in university departments of history and cultural studies that much of what is thought to be ancient in India was actually invented -- or at best reinvented or recovered from oblivion -- during the time of the British Raj. This of course runs counter to the view most Indians, Indophiles, and renaissance hipsters share that India's ancient traditions are ageless verities unchanged since their emergence from the ancient mists of time. When I began this project, I was of the opinion that "classical yoga" -- that is, the Yoga philosophy of the Yoga Sutra (also known as the Yoga Sutras) -- was in fact a tradition extending back through an unbroken line of gurus and disciples, commentators and copyists, to Pantanjali himself, the author of the work who lived in the first centuries of the Common Era. However, the data I have sifted through over the past three years have forced me to conclude that this was not the case.
The present volume is part of a series on the great books, the classics of religious literature, works that in some way have resonated with their readers and hearers across time as well as cultural and language boundaries, far beyond the original conditions of their production. Some classics, like the works of Shakespeare for theater, are regarded as having defined not only their period but also their genre, their worldview, their credo. As the sole work of Indian philosophy to have been translated into over forty languages, the Yoga Sutra would appear to fulfill the requirements of a classic. But if this is the case, then the Yoga Sutra is a very special kind of classic, a sort of "comeback classic." I say this because after a five-hundred-year period of great notoriety, during which it was translated into two foreign languages (Arabic and Old Javanese) and noted by authors from across the Indian philosophical spectrum, Patanjali's work began to fall into oblivion. After it had been virtually forgotten for the better part of seven hundred years (700), Swami Vivekananda miraculously rehabilitated it in the final decade of the nineteenth century. Since that time, and especially over the past thirty years, Big Yoga -- the corporate yoga subculture -- has elevated the Yoga Sutra to a status it never knew, even during its seventh- to twelfth-century heyday. This reinvention of the Yoga Sutra as the foundational scripture of "classical yoga" runs counter to the pre-twentieth-century history of India's yoga traditions, during which other works (the Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vasistha, and various texts attributed to figures named Yajnavalkya and Hiranyagarbha) and other forms of yoga (Pashupata Yoga, Tantric Yoga, and Hatha Yoga) dominated the Indian yoga scene. This book is an account of the rise and fall, and latter day rise, of the Yoga Sutra as a classic of religious literature and cultural icon.
-- The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, by David Gordon White
As regards the Puranas, Alberuni was perhaps the first Muslim who took up the study of them. At all events, we cannot trace any acquaintance with them on the part of the Arabs before his time. [!!!] Of the literature of fables, he knew the Pancatantra in the Arabic edition of Ibn Almukaffa.
Judging Alberuni in relation to his predecessors, we come to the conclusion that his work formed a most marked progress. His description of Hindu philosophy was probably unparalleled. His system of chronology and astronomy was more complete and accurate than had ever before been given. His communications from the Puranas 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 Razi, with whose works he was intimately acquainted, and some Sufi 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 [x]: —
Sources of the chapters on theology and philosophy: Samkya, by Kapila; Book of Patanjali; Gita, i.e. some edition of the Bhagavadgita.
He seems to have used more sources of a similar nature, but he does not quote from them.
Sources of a Pauranic kind: Vishnu-Dharma,Vishnu Purana, Matsya-Purana, Vayu-Purana, Aditya-Purana.
Sources of the chapters on astronomy, chronology, geography, and astrology: Pulisasiddhanta; Brahmasiddhanta, Khandakhadyaka, Uttarakhandakhddyaka, by Brahmagupta; Commentary of the Khandakhadiyaka, by Balabhadra, perhaps also some other work of his; Brihatsamhita, Pancasiddhantika, Brihat Jutakam, Laghu-jatakam, by Varahamihira; Commentary of the Brihatsamhita, a book called Srudhava (perhaps (Sarvadhara), by Utpala, from Kashmir; a book by Aryabhata, junior; Karanasara, by Vittesvara; Karanatilaka, by Vijayanandin; Sripala; Book of the Rishi (sic) Bhuvanakosa; Book of the Brahman Bhattila; Book of Durlabha, from Multan; Book of Jivasarman; Book of Samaya; Book of Auliatta (?), the son of Sahawi (?); The Minor Manasa, by Puncala; Srudhava (Sarvadhara?), by Mahadeva Candrabija; Calendar from Kashmir.
As regards some of these authors, Sripala, Jivalarman, Samaya (?), and Auliatta (?), the nature of the quotations leaves it uncertain whether Alberuni quoted from books of theirs or from oral communications which he had received from them.
Source on medicine: Caraka, in the Arabic edition of 'Ali Ibn Zain, from Tabaristan.
In the chapter on metrics, a lexicographic work by one Haribhata (?), and regarding elephants a “Book on the Medicine of Elephants,” are quoted.
His communications from the Mahabharata and Ramayana, 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 (Aryabhata, jun. ?) Once he quotes Manu’s Dharmasastra, but in a manner which makes me doubt whether he took the words directly from the book itself. 1 [The places where mention of these books occurs are given in Index I. Cf. also the annotations on single cases.]
The quotations which he has made from these sources are, some of them, very extensive, e.g. those from the Bhagavadgita. 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 [x]. Sometimes he mentions Hindu individuals as his informants, e.g. those from Somanath, i. 161, 165, and from Kanoj, i 165; ii. 129.
In Chapter i. the author speaks at large of the radical difference between Muslims and Hindus in everything, and tries to account for it both by the history of India and by the peculiarities of the national character of its inhabitants (i. 17 seq.). Everything in India, is just the reverse of what it is in Islam, “and if ever a custom of theirs resembles one of ours, it has certainly just the opposite meaning” (i. 179). Much more certainly than to Alberuni, India would seem a land of wonders and monstrosities to most of his readers. Therefore, in order to show that there were other nations who held and hold similar notions, he compares Greek philosophy, chiefly that of Plato, and tries to illustrate Hindu notions by those of the Greeks, and thereby to bring them nearer to the understanding of his readers.
The role which Greek literature plays in Alberuni’s work in the distant country of the Paktyes and Gandhari is a singular fact in the history of civilisation. Plato before the doors of India, perhaps in India itself! A considerable portion of the then extant Greek literature had found its way into the library of Alberuni, who uses it in the most conscientious and appreciative way, and takes from it choice passages to confront Greek thought with Indian. And more than this: on the part of his readers he seems to presuppose not only that they were acquainted with them, but also gave them the credit of first-rate authorities. Not knowing Greek or Syriac, he read them in Arabic translations, some of which reflect much credit upon their authors. The books be quotes are these: —Plato, Phaedo.
Timoeus, an edition with a commentary.
Leges. In the copy of it there was an appendix relating to the pedigree of Hippokrates.
Proclus, Commentary on Timoeus (different from the extant one).
Aristotle, only short references to his Physica and Metaphysica. Letter to Alexander.
Johannes Grammaticus, Contra Proclum.
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Commentary on Aristotle’s [x].
Apollonius of Tyana.
Porphyry, Liber historiarum philosophorum (?).
Ammonias.
Aratus, Phoenomena, with a commentary.
Galenus, Protrepticus.
[x]
[x]
Commentary on the Apophthegms of Hippokrates.
De indole animoe.
Book of the Proof.
Ptolemy, Almagest.
Geography.
Kitab-almanshurat.
Pseudo-Kallisthenes, Alexander romance.
Scholia to the Ars grammatica of Dionysius Thrax.
A synchronistic history, resembling in part that of Johannes Malalas, in part the Chronicon of Eusebius. Cf. notes to i. 112, 105.
The other analogies which he draws, not taken from Greek, but from Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, Manichaean, and Sufi sources, are not very numerous. He refers only rarely to Eranian traditions; cf. Index II. (Persian traditions and Zoroastrian). Most of the notes on Christian, Jewish, and Manichaean subjects may have been taken from the book of Eranshahri (cf. his own words, i. 6, 7), although he knew Christianity from personal experience, and probably also from the communications of his learned friends Abulkhair Al- khammar and Abu-Sahl Almasihi, both Christians from the farther west (cf. Chronologic Orientalischer Volker, Einleitung, p. xxxii.). The interest he has in Mani’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 Mani’s “Book of Mysteries” and Thesaurus Vivificationis do not justify Alberuni’s judgment in this direction. He seems to have seen in them venerable documents of a high antiquity, instead of the syncretistic ravings of a would-be prophet.
That he was perfectly right in comparing the Sufi philosophy — he derives the word from [x], i. 33 — with certain doctrines of the Hindus is apparent to any one who is aware of the essential identity of the systems of the Greek Neo-Pythagoreans, the Hindu Vedanta philosophers, and the Sufis of the Muslim world. The authors whom he quotes, Abu Yazid Albistami and Abu Bakr Alshibli, are well-known representatives of Sufism. Cf. note to i. 87, 88. ...
P. 225. Vasishtha, Aryabhata.—The author does not take the theories of these men from their own works; he only knew them by the quotations in the works of Brahmagupta. He himself states so expressly with regard to Aryabhata, Cf. note to p. 156, and the author, 1. 370.
-- Al-Beruni's India, Vol. 1, by Dr. Edward C. Sachau