تحقيق ما للهند (Al-Biruni's India — Sachau edition, BnF)

VI

traveled in India, and on his return compiled his book of travels from what he had seen and heard. His predecessors in this line had been Fa-Hian Chinese monk and traveler (399—413 A.D.) and Sung-Yun Chinese Buddhist monk (502 A.D.). These works are of great importance and have met with all the credit due to them, especially in questions of geography and history. Hwen-Thsang Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar visited India in the years 629 to 645 A.D.

Alberuni belongs to a much later period. He has not seen as much of the country as Megasthenes Ancient Greek diplomat and historian, and his travels are, in comparison with those of Hwen-Thsang, perfectly insignificant. Though in this respect he cannot successfully compete with his predecessors, yet he excels them by most remarkable qualities of a very high order, which fully bear out the following estimate pronounced by one of the most distinguished Sanskrit scholars of our day:

"Both the accounts left us by the Greeks and the Chinese pilgrims read, by the side of Beruni's work, like children's books or the compilations of uneducated and superstitious men, who marvelled at the strange world into which they had fallen, but understood its true character very little." original: "Beide Berichte, der griechische wie der chinesische, lesen sich neben Beruni’s Werk wie Kinderbücher oder wie Compilationen von ungebildeten und abergläubischen Leuten, die wohl über die fremde Welt, in die sie gerathen waren, staunten, aber ihren wahren Charakter nur wenig verstanden." (G. Bühler in Trübner's Record, August 1885, p. 63.)

The fragmentary condition of the Indica Alberuni’s treatise on India of Megasthenes does not admit of its being compared with the work of Alberuni, but we may state that the latter certainly comprehends a much wider range of Indian subjects than Hwen-Thsang. It is an archaeological investigation, as this term is understood in our time. Alberuni did not only study the country and its inhabitants, but also its language and literature, and in doing so he had more and better sources of information at his disposal than either Megasthenes or Hwen-Thsang. He tells us that which he has seen himself, that which he has heard and, more extensively, that which he has read. Approaching his subject with a mind trained by mathematical and philosophical studies, by the study of Aristotle and Plato, Ptolemy and Galenus, he investigates every subject in the spirit of modern criticism, in such a manner as is sure to win him the admiration of modern scholarship. He is almost free from any superstition; he seems fondly devoted to his subject and he never spares any trouble or time for the purpose of carrying on his studies in general or for ascertaining the truth of any single fact in particular. He is, though a Muslim, able to sympathize with those heathen Hindu philosophers, and to approve their theorems. In order to curb Muhammadan haughtiness and self-complacency, he never fails, when speaking of any dark feature in Hindu life, to contrast it with the savagery of old Arabian heathendom. The author's impartiality, which to many a Muslim may seem to exceed due limits, is such that the reader may peruse many pages of his book without even noticing