Preface.

§ 1. Indica Arabica.

An Arabic book on Brahmanical India is a rarity in literature, and almost a contradiction in terms. It seems strange that an author who writes in the language of the Coran the holy book of Islam should command sufficient breadth of view to choose the Hindu world of thought as the favourite object of his studies and the theme of a book. The early Arabs knew admirably how to spread their faith sword in hand, how to conquer foreign countries, and to colonize many of them, but they never cared for archaeological researches, for what had been in those countries before them. And indeed, all that Muhammadan authors relate about the pre-Muhammadan times of Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Spain, etc., is a mass of confusion and is, with very rare exceptions, totally devoid of historic interest. Traditions of this kind have only occasionally a special merit of their own by allowing us a glance into the development of literary fiction and folklore, when the single threads of their web are unravelled by scholarly sagacity and laid open to inspection. Islam is to embrace the whole world, and all that was before Islam, and all that is not Islam, is devil's work condemned to all eternity. The less therefore a Muslim minds it, the better for his soul.

This ruling tendency of Islam is preeminently illustrated by the deeds of that Muhammadan prince in whose reign the present book was composed. The picture which Indian history draws of the great Mahmûd of Ghazna is all destruction of temples and idols. However, under the shadow of his victorious banner there was a quiet scholar at work, a hero in the camp of spiritual achievements who was not engaged in fighting the Hindus, but in trying to learn from them, to study Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature, and to translate Sanskrit books into Arabic. Though convinced of the superiority