Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, Alberuni's India (v. 1)

(London :  Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.,  1910.)

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46
 

ALBERUNPS INDIA.
 

Page 23.
 

Five winds
regulating
the func¬
tions of the
body.
 

The differ¬
ence of the
souls do-
pending
upon the
difference of
the bodies
and their
interaction.
 

sun over the earth, in order to distinguish them from
the demise bodies which derive their existence from the
common five elements. The soul, in consequence of
this union with the media, uses them as its vehicles.
Thus the image of the sun, though he is only one, is re¬
presented in many mirrors which are placed opposite to
him, as also in the water of vessels placed opposite.
The sun is seen alike in each mirror and each vessel,
and in each of them his warming and light-giving effect
is perceived.

When, now, the various bodies, being from their
nature compounds of different things, come into exist¬
ence, being composed of mcde elements, viz, bones,
veins, and sperma, and of female elements, viz, flesh,
blood, and hair, and being thus fully prepared to receive
life, then those spirits unite themselves with them, and
the bodies are to the spirits what castles or fortresses
are to the various affairs of princes. In a farther stage
of development five winds enter the bodies. By the
first and second of them the inhaling and exhaling are
effected, by the third the mixture of the victuals in the
stomach, by the fourth the locomotion of the body from
one place to the other, by the fifth the transferring of
the apperception of the senses from one side of the body
to the other.

The spirits here mentioned do not, according to the
notions of the Hindus, differ from each other in sub¬
stance, but have a precisely identical nature. However,
their individual characters and manners differ in the
same measure as the bodies with which they are united
differ, on account of the three forces which are in them
striving with each other for supremacy, and on account
of their harmony being disturbed by the passions of
envy and wrath.

Such, then, is the supreme highest cause of the soul's
starting off into action.

On the other hand, the lowestjsause, as proceeding
  Page 46