588 



area over which the peculiar mental direction, and the simul- 

 taneous a ctivity of the Arabian race, extended the sphere 

 of ideas. 



The scientific knowledge of a more anciently civilized race 

 the Indians was also drawn within this circle, when under 

 the Caliphate of Harun Al-Raschid, several important works, 

 probably those known under the half-fabulous 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, 

 affords in his work on Materia Medica a striking proof of the 

 influence thus exercised by Indian literature. He is ac- 

 quainted, as the learned Royle observes, with the true San- 

 scrit name of the Deodwar of the snow-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 Juniper, from which oil of turpentine was ex- 

 tracted.f The sons of Averroes lived at the court of the 

 great Hohenstaufen, Frederic II., who 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 . J The Caliph Abdurrahman L, 

 himself laid out a botanical garden at Cordova, and caused 



* Eoyle, pp. 35-65. Susruta, the son of Visvamitra, is considered 

 by Wilson to have been a cotemporary of Kama. We have a Sanscrit 

 edition of his work (The Sus'ruta, or System of Medicine taught by 

 Dhanwantari, and composed by his disciple Sus'ruta, ed. by Sri 

 Madhusudana Gupta, vol. i. ii., Calcutta, 1835, 1836), and a Latin 

 translation, Sus'rutas. ayurvedas. Id est Medicines systema a venera- 

 bili D'havantare demonstratum, a Susruta discipulo compositum. 

 Nunc pr. ex Sanskrlta in Latinuni sermonem vertit Franc. Messier, 

 Erlangse, 1844, 1847, 2 vol. 



f Avicenna speaks of, the Deiudur (Deodar), of the genus 'abhel 

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

 deiudar (fluid turpentine). 



$ Spanish Jews from Cordova transmitted the opinions of Avicenna 

 to Montpellier, 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, Hist, des Science 

 naturelles, t. i. p. 387.) 



Respecting the gardens of the palace of Rissafah, whidi was built 

 by Abdurrahman Ibn-Moawijeh, see History of the Mohammedan 

 Dynasties in Spain extracted from Ahmed IbnMoliammsdAl-Mak- 



