Al-Biruni's barriers to understanding
Topic: Medieval India through Travellers' Eyes · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Through the Eyes of Travellers"
Meaning
Al-Biruni (11th century) said three "barriers" made it hard for a foreigner to understand India. He wrote about them in his Kitab-ul-Hind, an Arabic book about Indian society.
- Language: Sanskrit was so different from Arabic and Persian that ideas could not easily be translated.
- Religion: beliefs and practices were very different.
- Insularity: the local people kept to themselves and were wrapped up in their own world.
These barriers show that he was aware of the limits of his own view.
Example
Al-Biruni called Sanskrit a language "of an enormous range, both in words and inflections" (word endings). Even so, he learned it from Brahmana scholars in the Punjab. He then relied almost entirely on Brahmanical texts to describe Indian society: the Vedas, Puranas, Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali's works and the Manusmriti. So his picture shows the ideal described in the texts more than how people actually lived.