Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, Alberuni's India (v. 2)

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

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CHAPTER LX.                                  117

and there will be much hunger and killing." If in
this passage the translator has not made a blunder,
we can only say that this description applies to each
parvan preceding such a one in which there occurs an
eclipse.

Stranger still is the following remark of his (V. 24):
"If an eclipse occurs earlier than has been calculated,
there is little rain and the sword is drawn. If it
occurs later than has been calculated, there will be
pestilence, and death, and destruction in the corn, the
fruit, and flowers. (V. 25.) This is part of what I have
found in the books of the ancients and transferred to
this place. If a man properly knows how to calculate,
it will not happen to him in his calculations that an
eclipse falls too early or too late. If the sun is eclipsed chap. ui.
and darkened outside a parvan, you must know that an
angel called Tvashtri has eclipsed him."

Similar to this is what he says in another passage:
" If the turning to the north takes place before the sun ibid. v. 4,
enters the sign Capricornus, the south and the west
will be ruined. If the turning to the south takes place
before the sun enters Cancer, the east and the north
will be ruined. If the turning coincides with the sun's
entering the first degrees of these two signs, or takes
place after it, happiness will be common to all four
sides, and bliss in them will increase."

Such sentences, understood as they seem intended
to be understood, sound like the ravings of a madman,
but perhaps there is an esoteric meaning concealed
behind them v/hich we do not know.

After this we must continue to speak of the domini
temp)orum, for these two are of a cyclical nature, adding
such materials as are related to them.
  Page 117