History · Ch 5 — Through the Eyes of Travellers — Perceptions of Society
Making Sense of an Alien World: Al-Biruni and the Sanskritic Tradition
Making Sense of an Alien World: Al-Biruni and the Sanskritic Tradition
Al-Biruni arrived in the subcontinent in the early eleventh century, a Persian scholar from Central Asia who had been brought to India by Mahmud of Ghazni. What makes his account remarkable is that he did not simply record what he saw — he tried to understand a civilisation that was entirely alien to him. He was acutely aware of the difficulties involved in this task and wrote about them explicitly.
4.1 Overcoming barriers to understanding
Al-Biruni identified three major barriers that obstructed a traveller's understanding of Indian society.
The first barrier was language. Sanskrit, he noted, was fundamentally different from Arabic and Persian. Ideas and concepts could not be easily translated from one language into another. He described Sanskrit as a language of "enormous range" — it had many words for the same thing, and the same word could mean different things depending on context. This made learning it a genuine challenge.
The second barrier was the difference in religious beliefs and practices. The worldview of a Muslim scholar from Central Asia was not the same as that of a Hindu Brahmana in India, and Al-Biruni recognised that this gap made mutual understanding difficult.
The third barrier was what he called the "self-absorption and consequent insularity" of the local population. In other words, he felt that Indians were not particularly interested in engaging with outsiders or explaining their own customs.
Despite being aware of these barriers, Al-Biruni relied almost exclusively on the works of Brahmanas. He frequently cited passages from the Vedas, the Puranas, the Bhagavad Gita, the works of Patanjali, and the Manusmriti. This means his understanding of Indian society was filtered through the lens of elite, normative Sanskrit texts — not through conversations with ordinary people.
4.2 Al-Biruni's description of the caste system
Al-Biruni tried to explain the caste system by looking for parallels in other societies. He noted that in ancient Persia, four social categories were recognised:
- knights and princes
- monks, fire-priests and lawyers
- physicians, astronomers and other scientists
- peasants and artisans
By pointing this out, he suggested that social divisions were not unique to India. At the same time, he noted that within Islam, all men were considered equal, differing only in their observance of piety. This contrast — between a society that accepted hierarchy and one that preached equality — was central to his analysis.
The system of varnas — Al-Biruni's account of the four varnas follows the Brahmanical texts closely:
| Varna | Created from which part of Brahman | Al-Biruni's comment |
|---|---|---|
| Brahmana | Head | "the choice part of the whole genus" — the very best of mankind |
| Kshatriya | Shoulders and hands | Their degree is not much below that of the Brahmana |
| Vaishya | Thigh | — |
| Shudra | Feet | Between the Vaishya and Shudra "there is no very great distance" |
He also noted that despite these differences, all four varnas lived together in the same towns and villages, mixed together in the same houses and lodgings.
Al-Biruni's criticism of pollution — Although he accepted the Brahmanical description of the caste system, Al-Biruni disapproved of the notion of pollution. He argued that it was contrary to the laws of nature. Everything that falls into a state of impurity, he said, strives to regain its original purity. The sun cleanses the air; salt in the sea prevents water from becoming polluted. If this were not so, life on earth would be impossible. The idea that some people were permanently polluted by birth made no sense to him. …