His understanding of the Hindu religion and phi­losophy was deep, as befitted a scholar of his stature. Reading extensively the texts in Sanskrit, he wrote: “The majority of the Hindus believed in eight classes of spiritual beings, viz, the Devas or angels, Daitya Danava, Apsaras, Yakshas, Rakshasas, Kinnaras, Nagas and Vidyadharas…This is the cause which leads to the manufacture of idols, monuments in honour of certain much venerated persons, priests, sages, an­gels, destined to keep alive their memory when they are absent or dead, to create for them a lasting place of grateful veneration in the hearts of men when they die…”

He knew about the Trinity; Brahma, Vishnu and Siva and realized that the beliefs of the educated and uneducated were different. The former believed in abstract ideas and general principles while the latter were guided by prescribed rules, not much con­cerned about the underlying details: “….the multi­tude of Gods is for vulgar belief; the educated

Hindus believe God to be one, eternal, without beginning and end, acting by free will, almighty, all- wise living, giving life, ruling and preserving. The existence of God, they (Hindus) consider as real existence, because everything that exists, exists through Him.”

Al-Beruni was aware of the doctrine of karma, the rewards and punishments that one gets in the next life for good or bad deeds performed in this one and the Hindu belief in salvation through true knowledge when “…the soul turns away from matter, the connecting links are broken, the union is dis­solved. Separation and dissolution take place, and the soul returns to its home, carrying with itself as much of the bliss of knowledge as sesame develop grains and blossoms afterwards never separating from its oil. The intelligent being, intelligence, and its object are united and became one.”

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Al-Beruni expresses himself on many aspects customs as practised in India.

On Holy Places “Pilgrimages formed a p of Hindu religious beliefs. They were not obligatory but were considered to bring merit. In every place, to which some holiness was ascribed, the Hind constructed ponds for ablutions. In this they h~ attained a high degree of art.”

The practice of sati “When a raja dies, wives burn themselves on his pyre”.

Disposal of the dead “The disposal of the de was in one of the three ways: by fire, or by floating the body into a stream, by being cast away to feed wild animals. The Brahmans wailed aloud for their dead but not so the Buddhists….regarding the return of the immortal soul (to God), the Hindus think the partly it is effected by the rays of the sun, the so attaching itself to them, partly by the flame of the fire which raises it (to God)”.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The Hindu preoccupation with the after-world did not escape his notice. He knew of the three abodes of the soul: “The Hindus called the world lot Its division consists of the upper, lower and middle.

The upper one is called swargaloka, i.e paradise; the lower narakaloka, i.e., the world serpents; and the middle world, the world in while we live is called madhyaloka and manushyaloka, i.e. the world of men. In the madhyaloka, man has earn and in the upper to receive his rewards w” in the lower, he gets his punishments ….but in either of them, there is the soul, the soul free from body.”

Al-Beruni felt that the Hindus of north-western India considered the foreigners, especially the Muslims, as impure. They were enjoined not to touch things handled by the mlechcha. It was, of course, a consequence of the barbarities perpetrated on the Indian people by Mahmud and his men, and Al-Beruni knew it when he wrote that Hindus were not allowed “….to receive anybody who does not belong to them, even if he wished to, or was inclined to their religion.”

He knew of the plight of the Hindu widows: “Hindus marry at a very young age ….if a wife loses husband by death, she cannot marry another man. She has only to choose between two things-either to remain a widow as long as she lives or to burn herself; and the latter eventually is considered the preferable, because as a widow, she is ill-treated as long as she lives.”

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The hot and humid climate of the country made the people go about with just a loin cloth (it could also be due to poverty): “They use turbans for trousers. Those who want little dress are content to dress in a rag of two fingers’ breadth, which they bind over their loins with two cords; but those who like much dress, wear trousers lined with so much cotton as would suffice to make a number of counterpanes and saddle-rugs.

These trousers have no visible openings and they are so huge that the feet are not visible. The string by which the trousers are fastened is at the back. Their sidar (a piece of dress covering the head and the upper part of breast and neck) is similar to the trousers, being also fastened to the back by buttons. The lapels of kurtakas (short shirt for the females from the shoul­ders to the middle of the body with sleeves) have slashes both on the right and left sides.”

With regard to the spoken language, he was aware that the Hindi or Hindavi speech was preva­lent in North India and that Sanskrit was the learned or scholarly form of this popular dialect. The difference between Sanskrit and the Prakrit and Apabhramsa was not of a fundamental character during this period.

In their essential forms, they were rather the learned and the vulgar types of the same Indian speech. He mentions that Bhatta Utpala, a Kashmiri wrote a commentary on the Brihanmimamsa. It is known that Al-Beruni studied the Vishnu- dharmottara-purana minutely along with other sacred texts.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The Hindu settlements in the series of islands called the Suvarnadvipa is mentioned by him: “The eastern islands in this ocean which are nearer to China than to India, are the islands of the Zabaj, called by the Hindus Suvarnadvipa, i.e., the gold islands…The islands of the Zabaj are called the Gold Country, because you obtain much gold as deposit if you wash only a little of the earth of that country”.

Al-Beruni said that Kamara, whose Hindushahi coins were the most archaic, was the brahman, Kallara, the founder of a new dynasty. This is not correct, since Kamara is identified as Kamaluka by Kalhana in Rajatarangini. Kamara or Kamala was most probably one of the later Hindushahi rulers. Kamala, according to Al-Beruni was succeeded by Bhima, the last Hindushahi ruler to mint and issue coins, including those made of gold.