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

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

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ANNOTATIONS.
 

A^OL. I.

P. I. Title.—The author proposes to investigate the
rectlity ( = hcf,kika) of Hindu modes of thought in the entire
extent of the subject. He describes the religious, literary,
and scientific traditions of India, not the country and its
inhabitants. However, in some chapters he gives more
than the title promises ; cf his notes on the roads and on
the courses of the rivers.

The contents of the eighty chapters of the book may be
arranged under the following heads :—

Chap. I. General Introduction.

Chap. 2-11. On Eeligious, Philosophical, and cognate
subjects.

Chap. 12-17. Oi^ Literature and Metrology, Strange
Customs and Superstitions.

Chap. 18-31. On Geography, Descriptive, Mathemati¬
cal, and Traditional, i.e. Pauranic.

Chap. 32-62. On Chronology and Astronomy, inter¬
spersed with chapters of Eeligious Tradition, e.g. on Nara¬
yana, Vasudeva, &c.

Chap. 6T)-y6. On Laws, Manners and Customs, Festivals
and Fast Days.

Chap. 77-80. On Astrological Subjects.

The word makiXla, translated by ca,tegory, is a technical
term of Arabian philosophy. It was coined by the first
Arabian translators of Aristotle for the purpose of render¬
ing Ko.T-qyopia, and has since become current in the school
language of Islam (cf. the Arabic title of Aristotelis Gctte-
gorice Greece cum versione Arabicet, &c., edid. J. Th. Zenker,
Lipsise, 1846). The Syrian predecessors of those Arabian
translators had simply transferred the Greek word just as
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