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A Concise History of Science in India c5.s9: Persian and Arabic Sources

A Concise History of Science in India c5.s9

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English

Persian and Arabic Sources

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The contact between India and Persia and West Asia is very ancient, of which we have evidence from the protohistoric period and particularly from the time of the Achaemenian power in the historic period. In fact, in the time of Darius, the Indus basin formed one of the satrapies of his extensive empire. In these circumstances Indian science and literature found their way into Iran and West Asia at a fairly early date and several typically Indian ideas and concepts appeared in the early literature of the area. This was also reciprocated.

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The Persian language, that is *Fārsī*, the language of Fārs, one of the provinces of Persia, is ‘the lineal offspring of the language which Cyrus and Darius spoke, and in which the proclamations engraved by their commands on the rocks of Behistun… and Naqsh-i-Rustam, and the walls and columns of Persepolis, are drawn up’.b Although this ancient language of the Indo-Iranian group has suffered many vicissitudes and its continuity was broken by invasions by the Greeks and by the Arabs, its identity was never lost, being inescapably modified by the culture of the conquerors.

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Another important characteristic of the language is the change of the script from the cuneiform to the Pahlavī and later on from Pahlavī to Arabic. Browne has divided the history of the Persian language into three periods,c e.g. (1) the Old Persian of the Achaemenian period (550–330 B.C.) written in cuneiform character, of which only inscriptions are available; (2) the Middle Persian of the Sassanian period (A.D. 226–652), written in the Pahlavī script, for which it is generally known as Pahlavī and of which the Zoroastrian theological and liturgical materials constitute the bulk of the literature; and (3) the Modern Persian of the Muhammadan period (from about A.D. 900 to the present day) when the Pahlavī of the Sassanian period adopted the Arabic alphabet with the addition of four letters for phonetic reasons.

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a Renou and Filliozat, p. 162.

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b Browne, I, p. 5.

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c Browne, I, pp. 7–8.

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The effect of Hellenism, as Nöldeke observed, was skin deep. The Pahlavī profoundly influenced the language by producing a large body of theological as well as secular literature covering sciences, particularly during the reign of Nūshīrwān, the Just, the greatest Sassanian king (a.d. 531–579). But Islam and the cultural content represented by it penetrated into the very core of the Persian language. India produced an extensive literature in modern Persian which, growing as it did chiefly under the influence of Hindī and local Prākṛts, was different from the Persian Persian.a

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From the point of view of history of science in India, the ancient scriptures of the Zoroastrians, the *Zend-Avesta* and their later recensions or recastings in the Sassanian period are of particular interest. According to Geldner, the *Gāthās* of the *Avesta* are the actual utterances of Zoroaster probably dating from 1000 b.c. or even 1400 b.c.b Darmesteter has, however, shown that the *Avesta* of the Achaemenian times perished after Alexander's invasion, that it was reconstructed during the first century a.d. in the reign of the Parthian Vologeses I (a.d. 51–78) and this process continued till the Sassanian times when it absorbed many elements of Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism. Moreover, Media was the home of the Zoroastrian doctrine, the old Perso-Medic language was probably its medium, and the earliest literature probably did not go beyond the sixth or seventh century b.c.c The *Avesta*, as it existed in the Sassanian period, consisted of 21 *nosks*, of which only one, the *Vendidād*, is now known to us. Portions of at least four others form the text of the *Yasna*. *Vispered*, a book of formulas and doxologies, is supplementary to *Yasna*. The contents of the remaining *nosks* are known to us in summary form from the important Pahlavī work, the *Dinkard*, dating from the ninth century a.d. Some of the scriptural hymns now form the text of the *Yashts*. And finally, we possess the *Khorda Avesta* (the *Little Avesta*) compiled for the laity in the reign of Shāpūr II (a.d. 310–379). The Sassanian *Avesta* contained about 347,000 words of which only some 83,000 or one-fourth have survived.d

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Filliozat has shown many parallelisms between the medical, physiological and pathological doctrines of the *Āyurveda* and those of the *Avesta* in its surviving texts represented by the *Vendidād*, the *Yasna*, the *Yashts* and others, although differences are also many.e In astronomy, similar parallelism and differences are known. That such exchanges of ideas took place are attested by the development of Jundīshāpūr, under Nūshīrwān, as a leading centre of Persian medicine, in which Indian *Āyurvedic* system was syncretized with the Greek system propagated there by the Nestorian Christians. Burzūya, physician to Nūshīrwān, was actually sent to India to bring back Indian works on medicine, the *Pañcatantra* (the *Book of Fables*) and the game of chess. The medical works and the *Book of Fables* were translated from Sanskrit into Pahlavī. The Jundishāpūr school of medicine continued its active existence and, after the Arab conquest of Persia, exerted a great influence on the development of Arabian medicine.a

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a Ghani, pt. 1, pp. ix–x.

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b Geldner, 'Zoroaster' in the *Encyclopaedia Britannica*, 9th ed., 1888. He also produced a German translation of the *Avesta*.

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c Browne, I, p. 96; *see also* Darmesteter, *Études Iraniennes*.

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d Browne, I, p. 98.

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e Filliozat (2), pp. 29–66 (French version).

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During the Caliphate, when vigorous centres of learning sprang up in the newly founded cities of Baghdad, Basra and Kūfa, and streams of learning began to pour in from Persia, India and the Byzantine Empire, the Sassano-Persian language still played the dominant role, particularly as a court language and as the language of belles-lettres and poetry. ‘The Persians’, writes Sarton, ‘introduced into the Caliphate a greater love of beauty, urbanity, intellectual curiosity, and much fondness for discussion. These conditions were favourable for the progress of science …’b And so it was no accident that the early architects of science through the Arabic medium were either Persians or Jews or Christians. Thus Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī, Ya‘qūb ibn Ṭāriq, al-Naubakht, Ibn al-Muqaffa were Persians, Māshāllāh was an Egyptian Jew, and the Bakhtyashū‘ family who did much to develop medicine were Nestorian Christians. Interest in the development of the Persian language never languished even after Arabic became the international language of science. In the tenth century A.D., Abū Manṣūr Muwaffaq ibn ‘Alī al-Harawī of Herat, a Persian pharmacologist, wrote his *Kitāb’l-Abniya ‘an Ḥaqā’iq’l-Adwiya* (*Book of the Foundations of the True Properties of the Remedies*). Believed to be the oldest prose work in modern Persian,c the book utilized materials from Greek, Syriac and Indian medical sources. In the second half of the eleventh century A.D., al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, Omar Khayyām, mathematician and poet, Nāṣir-i-Khusraw, poet and geographer, Zarrīn Dast, ophthalmologist, and Asadī, lexicographer, all wrote in Persian. As a language of literature and poetry, if not of the sciences, Persian reached its highest watermark in Firdawsī.

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The *Qur’ān* introduced a new and vigorous language, Arabic, which was destined to become the international language of knowledge and culture and of sciences, in particular, for several centuries. The work was edited twice by Zaid ibn Thābit (*d.* A.D. 673–74), and his final edition has remained the standard version ever since.d Arabic, like Voltaire’s French, is a dry, precise and practical language eminently suitable for the exact sciences. Its great advantage lies in its facility, like Sanskrit, to lend itself to the easy coining of technical terms.

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It was again left to the Persian élite, as remarked before, to appreciate the power and merit of the new language. The first Arabic grammar, for example, was composed not surprisingly by Abū-l-Aswad (*d. c.* A.D. 688), a Persian of Basra. Basra and the rival city of Kūfa in Iraq also witnessed the rise of early grammatical schools for the simple reason that the mixed population of these cities, after the Arab conquest, needed this key and instrument for the mastery of Arabic much more than the Bedouins who spoke it as their mother tongue. In this case the parallel with the Greek grammar is very close, for the latter also arose not among the Athenians but among the mixed Alexandrians for whom it was a practical necessity.a

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a Sarton (1), I, p. 435.

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b Sarton (1), I, p. 524.

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c Leclerc, I, pp. 361 ff.; Browne, I, pp. 11, 478.

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d Sarton (1), I, p. 465.

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When the grammatical and philological foundation of the Arabic language was thus being laid, simultaneous efforts on a much more extensive scale were made to enrich the literature by absorbing the materials from foreign sources, notably Persian, Indian and Greek. Ibn al-Muqaffa translated Pahlavī works on logic and medicine and also the *Kalīla-wa-Dimna*, originally transmitted to Persia from India. An Arabic translation from a Persian version of the *Caraka Saṃhitā* was also probably made during this early phase, as we have it from the *Fihrist*.b Another early Pahlavī book, the *Zik-i Shatro-ayār*, an astronomical work based on Indian elements, was translated into Arabic by al-Tamīmī under the Arabic title *Zīj-ashshahriyār*.

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During the reign of the second Abbāsid Caliph al-Mansūr (753–774), Sanskrit scientific works were directly available for either translations or use in composing scientific texts in Arabic. In astronomy and mathematics, as we shall see later on in chapters on these subjects, Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī (*d.* 796 or A.D. 806), Ya‘qūb ibn Ṭāriq, al-Khwārizmī (*d. c.* A.D. 850), al-Kindī (*d. c.* A.D. 873), Habash al-Ḥāṣib (*d. c.* A.D. 864 or 874) and a few others translated Sanskrit works into Arabic and/or wrote independent works explaining the Indian system and methods of calculations. In this effort, Indian astronomers and physicians engaged in Baghdad played no small part either as interpreters of Sanskrit texts or as translators into Arabic itself, which they must have mastered for this task.

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Many of these early Arabic translations of, or works on, Indian scientific texts were lost, and a few have been preserved in Latin translations. But of works no longer extant, our main source of information is the *Fihrist* or ‘Index’ of Abu’l-Faraj Muḥammad *b.* Isḥāq al-Warraq of Baghdad, better known as ibn Abi Ya‘qūb an-Nadīm, composed in A.D. 988. One of the most valuable and remarkable encyclopaedic works in Arabic (edited by Flügel), the *Fihrist* records ancient works and views on philosophy and science in its seventh discourse, in three sections, as follows: (1) account of materialist philosophers and logicians; (2) account of mathematicians, arithmeticians, geometricians, astronomers, scientific instruments makers, mechanics and engineers, musicians and accountants; and (3) account of medicine, its origin, names of physicians and medical texts, ancient and modern. The ninth discourse deals, among others, with Indian sects, and the tenth discourse is devoted to alchemy.c

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As far as Indic studies among the Arabic and Persian scholars are concerned, nobody surpassed Abū Raiḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (973–1048), a Persian by birth and a Shi‘ite. During the period between A.D. 1017 and 1030 when he was travelling, as a political hostage, with Maḥmūd of Ghazna in the course of the latter's Indian campaigns, al-Bīrūnī spent a good part of it in different parts of north-western India, studied Sanskrit, went over the original Sanskrit manuscripts to check up earlier Arabic writings on India and approached the whole subject with a critical mind and a scientific detachment rare in those days. His well-known works are the *Kitāb al-āthār al-bāqiya ‘ani-l-qurūn al-khāliya* (Chronology of Ancient Nations), discussing the calendars and eras of various peoples, including the Indians, the *Ta‘rīkh al-Hind* (Account of India), dealing, among others, with Indian sciences, particularly astronomy in great detail, the *al-Qānūn al-Mas‘ūdī* (an astronomical encyclopaedia) and the *al-Tafhīm li-awā‘il Sinā‘at al-tanjīm* (a summary of mathematics, astronomy and astrology). Sachau tells us that he composed about 20 books on India, both translations and original works, and also a number of legends and tales based on folklores of ancient Persia and India.a Besides his professional interest in Indian astronomy, mathematics and geography, already roused by the works of his predecessors like al-Khwārizmī, al-Kindī and Abū-Mā‘shār of Balkh, he developed a great deal of interest and fondness for Indian philosophical literature, particularly the *Sāṃkhya*, the *Yoga* and the *Bhāgavatgītā*. He was possibly the first foreign scholar to have seriously studied the *Purāṇas*, specially the *Viṣṇudharma*, the *Viṣṇu*, the *Matsya*, the *Vāyu* and the *Āditya*, as he incorporated several extracts from them in his *Ta‘rīkh al-Hind*. It is needless to emphasize the importance of al-Bīrūnī's works as a source of inestimable value for the study of the history of science in India.

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a Brockelmann, I, pp. 42, 96–98; Sarton (1), I, pp. 490, 502, 524.

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b Sachau, I, p. xxxi.

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c Browne, I, pp. 386–87.

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It has already been mentioned that India produced an extensive literature in Persian. In Iran, the language was enriched by the assimilation of Turkish, Arabic, French and Russian words, phrases and idioms; in India, a similar process went on in which the vitality of the language once again manifested itself in the absorption of many Hindi and Prākṛt words and idioms. The Turks who established their powers in India and introduced Persian in Hindustan usually spoke Turki and did not have Persian as their native tongue, although many of them could speak the language fluently. The Princes of the House of Timur and Bābur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, had a great love for Persian and adopted it as their own literary tongue.b Bābur, of course, wrote his autobiography in Turki, but he was sufficiently accomplished in Persian to be able to compose poetry in it. Even in the course of his brief acquaintance of India, he came under the influence of Indian languages and used hundreds of Hindī and Urdu words in his Memoirs. Ibn Batūta who wrote in chaste Arabic could not avoid the use of Indian words in his travel account.

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Of the Persian literature produced in India, the scientific and technical one represented no small part, as the bibliographical studies undertaken by the Medieval Period Unit of the History of Science study group of the National Institute of Sciences of India (now renamed Indian National Science Academy) indicate. These vast materials are yet to be studied and analyzed, and when this is done we expect to be in a better position to assess the contribution of Medieval India to the development of science and technology as far as concerns Persian and Arabic. The same is also true of other medieval *apabhraṁśa* languages, the scientific contents of which have so far received scant attention.

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a Sachau, I, p. xxvii.

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b Ghani, pt. i, p. 46.

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Nevertheless, of the editions, translations and studies of some of the works already made, Abū'l-Fazl's (1551–1602) *Ā'in-i Akbarī* deserves special consideration. This Imperial Gazetteer of Akbar's time is full of interest from the point of view of science and technology. Here we find not only an account of Indian and Arabic astronomy, but also a long list of latitudes and longitudes of places in India, compiled from the works of al-Bīrūnī, the Marāgha school of astronomers and other sources. The *Ā'in* is an important source book for botany and agriculture in Medieval India. In zoology, it has long chapters on elephants, horses, camels and other animals. In metallurgy, particularly centring round coinage, we have valuable information regarding the determination of the purity of gold and silver in coins, processes of refining and casting these metals, preparation of alloys like brass and their use in making various objects. In pyrotechnics and in the technology involved in the manufacture of guns and canons, their upkeep, cleaning of gun-barrels, etc., the *Ā'in* records details of inestimable value and mentions, among a number of scientists, Fathullah Shirazi, a versatile genius.a

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The Memoirs of Jahangir, the *Tuzuk-i-Jahangīrī*, is another important source for medieval zoology and horticulture, although matters of scientific interest relating to diseases like plague, hydrophoebia due to mad dog-bite, eclipse, comet and meteorites are occasionally mentioned.b

Cites (13)