The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c13.s6.57

c13.s6.57

Previous to the composition of the work on India Alberuni had translated two Sanskrit books into Arabic, as he says in the preface (Vol. I. p. 8), one about the origines and a description of all created beings called *Sāmkhya*, and another about the emancipation of the soul from the fetters of the body called *Pātañjali*. According to this eleventh century Moslem "indologist" "these two books contain most of the elements of the belief of the Hindus." He hoped that the work on India would "enable the reader to dispense with these two earlier ones, and with other books of the same kind."