Thread by @shrikanth_krish

A very funny remark from Al Biruni on 11th century Indian life

"Of two children they give the preference to the younger, for they maintain the elder owes his birth to predominant lust, whilst the younger owes his origin to mature reflection and a calm proceeding"

Another funny observation -

"When a child is born people show particular attention to the man, not the woman"

On the deference of 11th century Indian husbands to their wives -

"In all consultations and emergencies they take the advice of the women"

On the Indian handshaking technique:

"In shaking hands they grasp the hand of a man from
the convex side"

On the behavior of Indian guests

"They do not ask permission to enter a house, but
when they leave it they ask permission to do so"

On Indian dining

"The Hindus eat singly, one by one, on a tablecloth
of dung. They do not make use of the remainder of a
meal, and the plates from which they have eaten are
thrown away if they are earthen"

On Indian teeth

"They have red teeth in consequence of chewing arecanuts with betel-leaves and chalk"

More on Indian eating habits

"They drink wine before having eaten anything, then
they take their meal. They sip the stall of cows, but
they do not eat their meat"

On the attire of men

"The men wear articles of female dress; they use
cosmetics, wear earrings, arm-rings, golden seal-rings on
the ring-finger as well as on the toes of the feet"

"On festive days they besmear their bodies with dunginstead of perfumes"

It looks like black slates were in use in schools even in 11th century

"They use black tablets for the children in the schools,
and write upon them along the long side, not the broad
side, writing with a white material from the left to the
right"

This is interesting - indicative of the Indian tendency to downplay ownership? (I am presuming even the author's name was not mentioned upfront)

"They write the title of a book at the end of it, not at
the beginning"

On the writing material used by Hindus

Leaves down south
Tree bark in the northern country

"The Hindus have in the south of their country a
slender tree like the date and cocoa-nut palms,...
They call these leaves tari and write on them"

In the North

"people use the bark of the tuz tree, one kind of which is used as a cover for bows. It is called bhurja...They oil and polish it so as to make it hard and smooth, and then they write on it"

Elsewhere he suggests the Hindus had "lost" the art of writing, but recovered it thanks to Vyasa. Could this be a civilizational memory of the loss of IVC script, and its recovery in the late Vedic age?

"As to the writing or alphabet of the Hindus, ..once had been lost and forgotten ; that nobody cared for it, and that in consequence people became illiterate, sunken into gross
ignorance. But then Vyasa, the son of Parasara, rediscovered their alphabet by an inspiration of God"

Interestingly he associates Kannauj with the sons of Pandu. Not sure about the Pandava connection

"As Kanoj (Kanyakubja) has become famous by the
children of Pandu, the city of Mathura has become famous by Vasudeva"

Kannauj, the great capital of Harsha had already declined as a city by Al Biruni's time

"Kanoj lies to the west of the Ganges, a very large
town, but most of it is now in ruins and desolate since
the capital has been transferred thence to the city of
Bari, east of the Ganges"

The distance assessments of Al Biruni vary a fair bit from what we know of these towns today

E.g

"The distance between Mathura and Kannauj is 28 farsakh"

Now the persian farsakh is 6.23 kms

28 farsakh = 175 kms

But today we know Kannauj-Mathura distance to be 282 kms!

Three possibilities -

Either the farsakh meant a different distance back in his day
or
he got the distance wrong
or
Either Mathura or Kannauj do not correspond to the modern Mathura / Kannauj (which is unlikely)

The distance between Thanesar (Sthaneshwara) and Mathura - he appears to be more accurate

50 farsakh from Mathura as per Al Biruni

That works out to be 311 kms

Distance b/w these two towns today - 347 kms

Here's his route to travel from Mathura to Dhar - the great city in Malwa

Mathura - 35 farsakh -> Dudahi - 17 farsakh -> Bamahur - 5 farsakh -> Bhailsan - 9 farsakh -> Ardin - 7 farsakh -> Dhar

That's 75 farsakh roughly
Close to 500kms

But today the distance by road is 770 km

Now among these towns, "Bhailsan" appears to be Bhilsa - the great Paramara city

This corresponds to Vidisha / Besnagar in more ancient times - home to the Heliodorus pillar installed by the Greek ambassador in the Shunga court in 2nd cen BCE

Bhilsa was raided by Alladin Khilji in 1293 CE, and appears to have never recovered its status

Not sure if there is significant habitation there in the site today

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alauddin_…

The route from Dhar to the Western coast -

Dhar -> 7 farsakh -> Valley of Namiyya - > 18 farsakh -> Mahratta Desh -> 25 farsakh -> Konkan coast (city of Tana)

50 farsakh -> 310 km

Now Tana I presume is modern Thane? (Mumbai)

We know Dhar - Mumbai distance to be 550 kms today

What's striking is the continuity of these settlements notwithstanding all the cataclysms of the past 1000 years

We still have Mathura, Dhar, Tana (Thane), Kannauj

Sure, some like Bhilsa are no longer major settlements today

But the continuity is remarkable

In fact I correct myself here...

Even Bhilsa is a reasonably large settlement to this day (notwithstanding all the raids it has been subjected to)

Vidisha town today has 155K people

The route from modern Karachi to Mumbai is also described by Al Biruni

Daibal corresponds Karachi
Tana to Mumbai (my guess)

Route

Daibal -> Tawalleshar -> Loharani -> Baga -> Kacch -> Baroi -> Somanath -> Kanbayat (Khambat?) ->Bihroj -> Sandan -> Subara -> Tana (Konkan coast)

The total flying distance today is about 883 kms

The route suggested by Al Biruni is roughly 215-220 farsakh as far as I can make out

That's around 1300-1400 kms by road, which sounds right

What's odd about this route is that it is so v roundabout!

Why would you travel all the way down to Somanath in southern Gujarat , and then travel back up to Khambat, if you want to go to Tana from Karachi?

Clearly Al Biruni is describing his journey, and not the shortest route

On a separate note, Al Biruni's visit coincided with the reign of Raja Bhoja in Malwa

He refers to Bhoja as the ruler of Dhara while narrating an anecdote

So this is an independent external reference to Raja Bhoja (discounting any inscription based evidence)

The South of the country is less well documented by Al Biruni

His assessments of distances are far less accurate here.

But he does talk of Ramsher (Rameshwaram) which is opposite Sarandib island (Sri Lanka)

Distance is 12 farsakh as per him - 80 kms?

Not too off

As per Al Biruni the distance from Ramsher (Rameshwaram) to Sethubandba (Rama's ocean bridge) is 2 farsakh - which is likely close to 15-20 kms

That is pretty close to the distance between Dhanushkodi in Pamban island and the town of Rameshwaram today

The mountain of the "monkeys" (Kihkind) (presumably Kishkinda of Ramayana lore), is 16 farsakh from Sethubandha as per Al Biruni

This would place Kihkind in the Tamil country

Which is strange, given that tradition places Kishkinda in northern Karnataka (near Hampi)

Moving back to the North, here's Al Biruni describing the towns and landmarks to the east of Kannauj

Things get hazy here

Kannauj to Bari (the "new" capital on the banks of Ganges) is 10 farsakh

Now I am not sure which town this is - "Bari" - do chip in if you have an idea

Bari - 45 farsakh -> Dugum - 10 farsakh -> Empire of Shilahat (no clue what this is) - 12 farsakh -> Bihat

Further east he talks of a country called "Tilawat".

Opposite Tilawat, you have the realm of Naipal (presumably Nepal)

While describing the terrain to the south-east of Kannauj, Al Biruni mentions Khajuraho!

Khajuraho is famous for its great temples which came into prominence after a rediscovery in the 1830s

But these temples were built at around the same time Al Biruni visited India

At a distance of 30 farsakh from Kannauj, there is the kingdom of Jajahuti (as per Al Biruni)

Khajuraho is described as the capital of this kingdom!

It is not improbable the great temples of this place were being built during Al Biruni's time in India

Today Khajuraho is at a distance of 300 kms from Kannauj

So the 30 farsakh estimate of Al Biruni is not off by a long margin.

Al Biruni also states that the two fortress towns of Gwalior and Kalanjar lie between Khajuraho and Kannauj

A rare early reference to Gwalior in literature

But Al Biruni is not accurate

While Kalinjar is indeed near Khajuraho, Gwalior lies to the west of Kannauj not south east

Al Biruni has some interesting things to say about Kashmir - a territory which eluded Mahmud of Ghazni (Al Biruni's boss and patron)

""The south and east of the country
belong to the Hindus, the west to various kings, the
Bolar-Shah and the Shugnan-Shah"

"and the more remote parts up to the frontiers ot Badhakhshan, to the WakhanShah. The north and part of the east of the country belong to the Turks of Khoten and Tibet"

So it's interesting that there was some Turk presence in Northern Kashmir in that early date

"The inhabitants of Kashmir are pedestrians, they
have no riding animals nor elephants. The noble
among them ride in palankins called katt, carried on
the shoulders of men."

And here's an intriguing comment that follows ->

Kashmiris were v zealous of their "autonomy" even then :)

"it is difficult to have any commerce with them.
In former times they used to allow one or two foreigners....at present they do not allow any Hindu whom they do not know personally to enter, much less other people"

Will stop here...

The book can be found here -

columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digita…

An earlier thread on Al Biruni from last year

https://twitter.com/shrikanth_krish/status/1033463851763814403

Post-script : On the first tweet on the preference for younger kids -

Al Biruni adds the qualifier
"particularly in the eastern parts of the country"

Didn't mention it for want of characters