by Peter Watson
Just as Baghdad and its House of Wisdom had been a major translation centre in the ninth century, so Toledo occupied a similar position after the Christian conquest of the city in1085. Chronologically speaking, the first person to produce Latin translations of Arabic works was probably Constantine the African (d. 1087), a Tunisian Muslim who converted to Christianity, and who worked in Salerno, southern Italy. He produced fairly poor translations (‘barbarous’ according to one scholar) of works by Hippocrates and Galen, sometimes passing them off as his own. There were also a number of translators in Sicily, who worked on the Arab falaysufs, but the harvest in Toledo was incomparably greater.84
Translations from Arabic were made in Catalonia from the tenth century on, and Barcelona was the home of the first Spanish translator we have a name for–Plato of Tivoli. Between 1116 and 1138, with the help of an Andalusian Jew, Savasorda, he translated Jewish and Arab works on astrology and astronomy, but shortly afterwards the centre of these activities shifted to Toledo, which had become a jewel of Graeco-Judaic-Arab culture. Scholars flocked to Toledo to consult the primarily Arabic treasures that had been gathered in Spain during the years of Islamic dominance. The name of the archbishop of Toledo, Raymund (1125–1152), has become associated with this venture, and the term ‘Toledo school’ has been applied to this otherwise disparate collection of individuals. What seems to have happened is that, to begin with, very few of the Western scholars who arrived in Toledo understood any Arabic, and they therefore made use of Jewish and Mozarabic scholars already living there (Mozarabs were Christians allowed to practise their faith under strictly controlled circumstances). These individuals turned the Arabic texts into Spanish, and the immigrant scholars then turned the Spanish into Latin. Gradually, however, this situation evolved, as the immigrant scholars themselves learned Arabic. Even so, the spirit of co-operation continued. Just as Plato of Tivoli had co-operated with Savasorda, so two of the most distinguished translators of the Toledo school had their collaborators. Dominicus Gundisalvi, archdeacon of Segovia, worked with the converted Jew Avendeath (Ibn Dawud), better known as Johannes Hispanus, and Gerard of Cremona, probably the best-remembered translator of all, worked with the Mozarab Galippus (Ghalib).85
Gundisalvi was the principal translator of the Arabic philosophers–al-Farabi, al-Kindi, al-Ghazali and Ibn Sina included. The pre-eminence of Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) is testified by the fact that, after his death, his colleagues and pupils in Toledo compiled a biographical and bibliographical note which was inserted into the manuscripts of his many translations. ‘From this note we learn that Gerard, scorning the worldly riches which he possessed, led an austere life entirely devoted to science, for love of which he learned Arabic and translated from that language more than seventy works, a list of these being given in the note.’86 Prominent among these was the Almagest (which is how Ptolemy became known in the West), Ibn Sina’s Canon, and works of Euclid, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, al-Razi, al-Khwarizmi (‘the beginning of European algebra’) and al-Kindi. In effect, the whole range of Hellenistic-Arabic science, which had inspired the Abbasid culture of the ninth and tenth centuries, was preserved and transmitted by Gerard, who, after spending a considerable number of years in Toledo, returned home to Lombardy to die. To these names, we should add those of two Englishmen, Adelard of Bath, who translated Euclid and al-Khwarizmi, and Robert of Chester, notable for producing the first Latin version of the Qur’an and the first translation of al-Khwarizmi’s algebra.87
By the close of the thirteenth century, the bulk of Arabic (and therefore Greek) science and philosophy had been transmitted to Europe. Since the land route from the north to the Iberian peninsula lay through Provence and the Pyrenees, the southern French towns–Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseilles, Narbonne–benefited. Translations were carried out at all these locations, with Montpellier becoming the chief centre of medical and astronomical studies in France. At the famous abbey of Cluny, north of Lyons, a number of Spanish monks helped make the abbey a focus for the diffusion of Arab learning. The abbot, Peter the Venerable (1141–1143), sponsored a new Latin translation of the Qur’an. Arab and Greek science passed north from there to Liège, among other places, and then on to Germany and England.
The overall shape of the Arab empire, encircling the east–west Mediterranean (like the Romans before), and extending as far as India, thus had an important role in the development of Europe. Greek learning was preserved, and added to, and by a roundabout route–across north Africa and up through Spain, rather than directly through Byzantium and the Balkans–reached western Europe. The long-term effects of that transmission will emerge over the remaining chapters of this book, but two points are worth making here. The first is that Europe’s initial encounter with the Greeks, Aristotle in particular, but Plato and other authors also, was via Arab ‘re-elaborations’ rather than through direct transmission. For example, the logic, physics and metaphysics of Aristotle were studied either in translations from Arabic translations of the Greek originals, or in the works of Ibn Sina. This meant that, for a time at least, Greek philosophy was overlaid with the Islamic concern of trying to reconcile the Qur’an with rationalism, in particular Ibn Sina’s view that passages which did not agree with reason were to be understood allegorically. This had a profound influence on people like Thomas Aquinas and on interpretations of the Bible.
In the second place it meant that Europe for a time accepted the close link established in Islamic thought between philosophy and medicine. This link (evidenced by the fact that the Arabic word hakim can mean either physician or philosopher) is seen especially in the works of al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. The obvious importance of Arab medicine, recognised in the West, added to the importance of philosophy, so closely associated with it.
Arab knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy were of crucial importance in the early days of science in the West. The roundabout route from Baghdad to Toledo kept alive the basic ideas by which we still live today.
13
Hindu Numerals, Sanskrit, Vedanta
To Chapter 13 Notes and References
In the year AD 499 the Hindu mathematician Aryabhata calculated pi as 3.1416 and the length of the solar year as 365.358 days. At much the same time he conceived the idea that the earth was a sphere spinning on its own axis and revolving around the sun. He thought that the shadows of the earth falling on the moon caused eclipses. One wonders what all the fuss was about when Copernicus ‘discovered’ some of the above nearly a thousand years later. Indian thought in the Middle Ages was in several areas far ahead of European ideas. Buddhist monasteries in the India of the time were so well endowed that they acted as banks, investing surplus funds in commercial enterprises.1 Such details as these explain why historians refer to the reunification of north India under the Guptas (c. 320–550) as a golden era. Their dynasty, combined with that of Harsha Vardhana (606–647), comprises what is now regarded as India’s classical age. Besides the advances in mathematics, it saw the emergence of Sanskrit literature, new and enduring forms of Hinduism, including Vedanta, and a brilliant temple architecture.
Like the Mauryas before them (see above, Chapter 8), the economic base of the Guptas lay in the rich vein of iron in the Barabar hills (south of modern Patna, in Bihar). Chandra Gupta I, who was no relation to the Chandragupta who had founded the Mauryan dynasty, celebrated his coronation at Pataliputra in February 320 by striking a coin and taking the Sanskrit title Maharajadhiraja, or ‘Great King of Kings’. By means of a series of conquests, and marital alliances, Chandra Gupta–or his son Samudra, ‘skilled in a hundred battles’–routed nine kings of northern India, eleven more in the south, and made another five, on the periphery of empire, pay tribute: twenty-five rival clans were subdued. The highpoint of Gupta classicism, however, came in the reign of Samudra’s son, Chandra Gupta II (c. 375–415). His most spectacular deed, if it ever happened, was recorded in a Sanskrit play composed later, possibly in the sixth century. Th
is drama tells of how Chandra’s elder brother Rama, a weak man, agreed to surrender his wife to a Shaka king who had humiliated him in battle. The cunning Chandra dressed as the wife and, as soon as he was admitted to the Shaka harem, killed the king and escaped. There may be something in the story, for the coins struck at the time show that the Shakas were indeed defeated by the Guptas in 409 (i.e., during Chandra Gupta II’s reign), after which they had control over the ports on the west coast of India, which gave access to the lucrative trade of the Arabian Sea. More political marriages followed, so that Gupta territory–direct rule, tributary or influence–extended for all of modern India, save for the extreme south-west and the extreme north. In terms of territory controlled, the Guptas were probably the most successful Indian dynasty of all time.2
The second Chandra Gupta’s reign is better documented than most. He was written about in an important inscription, displayed on a pillar in the city of Allahabad; there also exists a vivid, detailed diary from that era kept by a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Faxian; in addition, Kalidasa, ‘the Indian Shakespeare’, probably wrote his plays and poems at that time; and finally, a new aid to historians appeared around then.
To take the last first, there emerged in the early centuries AD a corpus of land charters which evolved into what was virtually a literary form. To begin with they were written on palm leaves, but since these were hardly durable the charters began to be engraved, sometimes on cave walls, but more and more on copper plates. These charters, or sasanas, recorded the gift of land, usually donated by the king. That made them precious, which is why they were kept. Some were kept hidden, some were built into the fabric of a mansion or a farm, much as early deities had been encased in walls in the first civilisations of the Middle East. Where they were unusually complicated, the charters were recorded on several plates, which were held together by a metal ring.3 But what made them historically important was the fact that they were more than just commercial dockets. They would begin with an elaborate panegyric to the royal donor and, even allowing for rhetorical exaggeration, these panegyrics became valuable historical records, listing which kings lived when, and incorporating other political and social details from which history could be reconstructed. They would end threatening dire penalties for anyone who went against the charter–for example, the penalty for overruling sasanas was commonly equated with that of killing 10,000 Varanasi cows, ‘a sacrilege of unthinkable enormity’.4 Without the copper plates we should know much less about the Guptas than we do.
Turning to the Allahabad inscription, this is probably the most famous in all India. It is written in a script known as Gupta Brahmi, but composed of Sanskrit verses and prose.5 The earliest evidence for the alphabet in India comes from the third century BC, when two forms, Kharosthi and Brahmi, appear fully developed in the Ashokan inscriptions. The Kharosthi alphabet, written from right to left, was confined to north-west India, areas that had once been under Persian domination. It was an adaptation of the Aramaic alphabet and died out in the fourth century AD. The Brahmi alphabet, written from left to right, is the foundation of all Indian alphabets and of those other countries which came under Indian cultural influence–Burma, Siam, Java. It is derived from some form of Semitic alphabet but the exact evolution is unknown.6 Until the invention of printing, Sanskrit was written in regional alphabets but with the adoption of type the north Indian alphabet known as Devanagari became standardised. The commonest writing material, to begin with, was palm leaf, which meant that most ancient manuscripts have perished. Thus the bulk of Sanskrit literature is preserved in manuscripts belonging to the last few centuries.7 Chandra Gupta, it seems, intended the Allahabad inscription as an addition to the Edicts of Ashoka (see Chapter 8, page 187). Now in Allahabad, it is likely that the pillar was removed down-river from Kausambi, an ancient and architecturally distinguished city in the Ganges basin where some of the earliest examples of the arch have been found. It is through these pillar inscriptions that we know about Gupta campaigns and conquests and how Chandra distributed 100,000 cows as gifts to his Brahman supporters.8 After the inscription was translated into western languages in the nineteenth century, he was labelled ‘the Indian Napoleon’.
To Faxian, a Buddhist pilgrim from China, visiting India at the very beginning of the fifth century, around the time of the final defeat of the Shakas, Gupta territory seemed little short of perfect. He records how he was able to travel the length of the Ganges in absolute safety, as he visited all the sites associated with the Buddha’s life.9 ‘The people are very well-off, without poll tax or official restrictions…The kings govern without corporal punishment; criminals are fined according to circumstance, lightly or heavily. Even in cases of repeated rebellion they only cut off the right hand. The king’s personal attendants, who guard him on the right and on the left, have fixed salaries. Throughout the country the people kill no living thing nor drink wine, nor do they eat garlic or onions…’10 He found highly influential guilds, which governed the training of craftsmen, the quality control of goods, pricing and distribution.11 The leaders of the various guilds met regularly, like a modern chamber of commerce.12 He found, however, that Kapilavastu, the Buddha’s birthplace, was abandoned, ‘like a great desert’, with ‘neither king nor people’. Ashoka’s palace at Pataliputra was likewise in ruins.13 Yet Buddhism still had huge popular support in India. Faxian counted hundreds of stupas–some colossal–together with well-endowed monasteries, housing thousands of monks. Though Ashoka’s palace might be abandoned, at Pataliputra Faxian witnessed an impressive annual festival, marked by a procession with some twenty wheeled stupas, lined with silver and gold.
It was now that Sanskrit came into its own. It was the ‘discovery’ of Sanskrit in the eighteenth century, and its relation to other languages, such as Latin and Greek, that began the whole enterprise of comparative philology. This is considered more fully below, in Chapter 29, but a few examples will show the overlap between Sanskrit and other ‘Indo-European’ languages. The Sanskrit word deva, ‘god’, lives on in the English words ‘deity’ and ‘divinity’. The Sanskrit for ‘bone’, asthi, was echoed in the Latin os. ‘In front of’ = anti in Sanskrit, ante in Latin. ‘Quickly’ is maksu in Sanskrit, mox in Latin. ‘Sneeze’ = nava in Sanskrit, niesen in German.
More than most languages, Sanskrit embodies an idea–that special subjects should have a special language. It is an old tongue, dating back more than three thousand years. In its earliest period it was the language of the Punjab, but then it spread east. Whether the authors of the Rig Veda were Aryans from outside India, or indigenous to the area, as was discussed in Chapter 5, they already possessed a language of great richness and precision and a cultivated poetic tradition.14 As was also described in Chapter 5, the custodians of this liturgical poetry were the families of priests, who eventually evolved into the Brahman/Brahmin caste. This poetry was developed in the centuries before about 1000 BC, after which the main developments were in prose, devoted to ritual matters. This prose form of Sanskrit was slightly different from the poetic, showing traces of Eastern influence. For example, the use of ‘l’ replaced the use of ‘r’, a sound-shift that also occurred in China. But both the poetic and prose literature was entirely oral at that time. It had changed a little, inevitably, but the families whose task it was to preserve the material had performed amazing feats of memory and so the language had changed far less than might be expected, and far less than the vernacular languages spoken by the rest of the population. Pre-classical Sanskrit literature is divided into the Samhitas of the Rig Veda (1200–800 BC), the Brahmana prose texts, mystical interpretations of the ritual (800–500 BC), and the Sutras, detailed instruction about ritual (600–300 BC).15
Then, some time in the fourth century BC, there came Panini and his Grammar. The importance of the grammarians in the history of Sanskrit is unequalled anywhere else in the world. The pre-eminence of this activity arose because of the need to preserve intact the sacred texts of the Veda: according to traditio
n, each word of the ritual had to be pronounced exactly. Almost nothing is known of Panini’s life save for the fact that he was born at Salatura in the extreme north-west of India. His Astadhyayi comprises four thousand aphorisms. These describe in copious detail the form of Sanskrit in use by the Brahmans of the time. Panini was so successful in his aim that, uniquely, the Sanskrit language as described by him was fixed for all time, and was ever after known as Samskrta (‘perfected’).16 Panini’s achievement lay not only in his great efforts to describe the language completely but in the effect this had on language evolution in India. Even by then, the ‘Aryan’ language existed in two forms. Sanskrit was the language of learning, and ritual, reserved to the Brahman caste. On the other hand, Prakrit was the language of everyday intercourse. These actual terms did not come into use until much later, but the distinction had been there even by the times of the Buddha and Mahavira, and from Panini’s time, as a result of his Grammar, normal linguistic evolution took place only in the vernacular tongue. It was a curious situation, highly artificial, and paralleled nowhere else. Even more curiously, although the gap between Sanskrit and Prakrit grew larger as the centuries passed, Sanskrit did not suffer. If anything, the opposite was true. For example, during Mauryan times, as can be seen from the inscriptions of Ashoka’s reign, the language of administration was Prakrit. Over the following centuries, however, it was gradually replaced by Sanskrit, until by Gupta times it was the only tongue used for administrative purposes. An equivalent change took place among Buddhists. Originally, according to the Buddha himself, the texts and scriptures were to be preserved in the vernacular languages, a form of Middle Indo-Aryan known as Pali. But, in the early centuries AD, the northern Buddhists turned away from Pali: the old scriptures were translated–and new ones written–in Sanskrit. Exactly the same thing happened with the Jains, though at a much later date.17 The ‘modern’ languages of India–Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi–only begin to be recorded from about the end of the first millennium AD.18
