Alberuni's India (An Account of the Riligion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India about A.D. 1030) Set of 2 Volumes

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Alberuni's India, translated and introduced by Edward C. Sachau, is a detailed exploration of India through the lens of the 11th-century scholar Al- Biruni (Abu Rayhän Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni). Originally written in Arabic as Tahqiq ma li-l-Hind (meaning "Verifying All That the Indians Recount, the Reasonable and the Unreasonable"), this work offers a rare glimpse into the society, religion, science, and culture of medieval India from an outsider's perspective.

Al-Biruni, a Persian polymath, was invited to India during the conquest of parts of the region by Mahmud of Ghazni. His work is notable for its objective approach; unlike many travelers and historians of the time, he sought to understand rather than judge the practices and beliefs of the people he encountered. His commitment to accuracy and depth of study makes this work a unique historical source on India during the 11th century.

Edward C. Sachau's translation and analysis provided the Western world with one of the earliest academic windows into Al-Biruni's scholarship. Sachau preserved Al-Biruni's observations, which included discussions of Hindu philosophy, mathematics, astrology, astronomy, geography, and social customs. Notably, Al-Biruni's work addressed Sanskrit texts and teachings and offered comparisons between Indian and Greek thought, showing a level of respect for Indian intellect and traditions that was unusual for his time.

Edward C. Sachau (1845-1930) received the honorary degree Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of Oxford in October 1902, in connection with the tercentenary of the Bodleian Library. He was a prominent German orientalist and scholar, best known for his contributions to the study of Middle Eastern languages, history, and literature. Sachau was a professor at the University of Berlin, where he specialized in Semitic studies, and his work primarily focused on translating and interpreting historical and literary texts from Persian, Arabic, and Syriac sources.

THE literary history of the East represents the court of King Malhmud at Ghazna, the leading monarch of Asiatic history between A.D. 997-1030, as having been a centre of literature, and of poetry in particular. There were four hundred poets chanting in his halls and gardens at their head famous Unsuri, invested with the recently created dignity of a poet-laureate, who by his verdict opened the way to royal favour for rising talents; there was grand Firdausi, composing his heroic epos by the special orders of the king, with many more kindred spirits. Unfortunately history knows very little of all this, save the fact that Persian poets flocked together in Ghazna, trying their kasidas on the king, his ministers and generals. History paints Mahmud as a successful warrior, but ignores him as a Maecenas. With the sole exception of the lucubrations of bombastic Utbi, all contemporary records, the Makumat of Abt- Nasr Mishkani, the Tabakat of his secretary Baihaķi, the chronicles of Mulla Muhammad Ghaznavi, Mahmud Warrak, and others, have perished, or not yet come to light, and the attempts at a literary history dating from a time 300-400 years later, the so-called Tadhkiras, weigh very light in the scale of matter-of-fact examination, failing almost invariably whenever they are applied to for information on some detail of ancient Persian literature.