THE ARABS. 217 



der the Califale of Haroun Al-Raschid, several important 

 works, probably those known under the half-fabiJous name of 

 Tscharaka and Susruta,* were translated from the Sanscrit 

 into Arabic. Avicenna, who possessed a powerful grasp of 

 mind, and who has often been compared to Albertus Magnus, 

 ailbrds, in his work on Materia Medica, a striking proof of the 

 influence thus exercised by Indian literature. He is acquaint- 

 ed, as the learned Royle observes, wdth the true Sanscrit name 

 of the Deodwar of the snoAv-crowned Himalayan Alps, which 

 had certainly not been visited by any Arab in the eleventh 

 century, and he regards this tree as an alder, a species of ju- 

 niper, from which oil of turpentine was extracted.! The sons 

 of Averroes lived at the court of the great Hohenstaufen, Fred- 

 eric II., w^ho owed a portion of his knowledge of the natural 

 history of Indian animals and plants to his intercourse with 

 Arabian literati and Spanish Jews, versed in many languages. i 

 The Calif Abdurrahman I. himself laid out a botanical gar- 

 den at Cordova,^ and caused rare seeds to be collected by his 

 own travelers in Syria and other countries of Asia. He plant- 

 ed, near the palace of Rissafah, the first date-tree known in 

 Spain, and sang its praises in a poem expressive of plaintive 

 longing for his native Damascus. 



The most powerful influence exercised by the Arabs on 

 general natural physics was that directed to the advances of 



* Royle, p. 35-65. Susruta, the sou of Visvamitra, is considered by 

 Wilson to have been a cotemporary of Rama. We have a Sanscrit edi- 

 tion of liis vi^ork ( The SiisWuta, or System of Medicine taught by Dhan- 

 tcantari, and composed by his disciple SusWuta, ed. by Sri Madhus(idana 

 Gupta, vol. i., ii., Calcutta, 1835, 1836), and a Latin translation, StisWu- 

 tas. dyurvedas. Id est Medicines Systema a venerabili D^ havantare demon- 

 stratum, a Susruta discip^do compositum. Nunc pr. ex Sanskrita in Lat 

 mum sermonem vertit Franc. Hessler, Erlangag, 1844, 1847, 2 vols. 



t Avicenna speaks of the Deiudur {Deodar), of the genus ^abhel (Ju- 

 niperus) ; and also of an Indian pine, which gives a peculiar milk, syr 

 de'cudar (fluid turpentine). 



X Spanish Jews from Cordova transmitted the opinions of Avicenna 

 to MontpelHer, and principally contributed to the establishment of its 

 celebrated medical school, which was framed according to Arabian 

 models, and belongs to the twelfth century. (Cuvier, Hisi. des Sciences 

 Naturelles, t. i., p. 387.) 



$ Respecting the gardens of the palace of Rissafah, which was built 

 by Abdurrahman Ibn-Moawijeh, see History of the Mohammedan Dy- 

 nasties in Spain extracted from Ahmed Ibn-Mohammed Al-Makkari, by 

 Pascual de Gayangos, vol. i., 1840, p. 20D-211. *' En su Huerta planto 

 el Rey Abdurrahman una palma que era entonces (756) unica, y de 

 ella procedieron todas las que huy en Espana. La vista del arbol acren* 

 taba mas que templaba su melancolia." (Antonio Conde, Hist, de la 

 Domtnacion de los A abes en Espana, t. i., p. 169.) 



Vol. II.- K 



