J 809.] 
MUHAMMADAN NOTICES. 
21 
AlTberunl’s interest 
in Kasmlr. 
13. Notwithstanding the circumstances above indicated, Arabic 
literature furnishes us with a very accurate 
and valuable account of old Kasmlr. We owe 
it to the research and critical penetration of 
AlberunI of whom indeed it might be said as of an early British ex¬ 
plorer of Afghanistan, 1 that he could look through the mountains. 
The great Muhammadan scholar had evidently utilized every opportunity 
during his long stay at Grhazna and in the Panjab, (a.d. 1017-30) for 
collecting information on Kasmlr. 
His interest in the distant alpine valley is easily understood. He, 
himself, tells us in the first chapter of his great work on India, how 
Hindu sciences when the victories of Mahmud had made the Hindus 
‘ like atoms of dust scattered in all directions,’ had retired far away 
from the conquered parts of the country. They “ fled to places which 
our hand cannot yet reach, to Kasmlr, Benares and other places.” 2 
In another passage he speaks again of Benares and Kasmlr as the high 
schools of Hindu sciences. 3 He repeatedly refers to Kasmirian authors, 
and from the notices shown below it is evident that among his infor 
mants, if not among his actual teachers, there were Kasmirian scholars. 4 
The curious fact that AlberunI himself composed some Sanskrit 
treatises for circulation among ‘ the people of Kasmlr,’ 5 proves beyond all 
arabicorum, ed. De Goeje, i. p. 4 ; ii. pp. 9, 445 ; v. p. 364; vi. pp. 5, 18, 68; vii. pp. 
89, 687; also Abii-l-Fidd , ed. Reinaud, pp. 361, 506. 
1 Mountstuart Elphinstone. 
2 Alberuni’ s India , transl. Saohau, i. p. 22. 
8 India, i. p. 173. 
4 AlberunI, ii. 181, refers particularly to Kasmirian informants with whom he 
conversed regarding the miracle of the ‘ Kudaishahr ,’ i.e., the Kapatefaara Tirtha 
(see below § 112). The way in which the pilgrimage to this spot was described to 
Alberuni, makes it quite certain that his informants were personally familiar with 
the Tirtha. The same must be said of his note on the pilgrimage to the temple 
of S'arada (i. 117 ; see below § 127). The details regarding a local Kasmlr festival 
(ii. p. 178), the anecdote about the propagation of the S'isyahitavrtti in Kasmir 
(i. 135), are such as could not well have reached Alberuni otherwise but by verbal 
communication. 
Writing himself in A.D. 1030 he refers to a statement contained in the almanac 
for the S'aka year 951 (A.D. 1029—30) ‘which had came from Kashmir’ (i. p. 391). 
He could scarcely have secured such an almanac except through Kasmirian Pandits 
who even at the present day, wherever they may be, make it a point to provide 
themselves from home with their local naksatrapattrikd. 
For references to Kasmirian authors or texts specially connected with Kasmlr, 
see i. pp. 126, 157, 298, 334, i. p. 54 (Visnndharma), etc. Compare also the very 
detailed account of the calendar reckoning cux-rent in Kasmlr and the conterminous 
territories, ii. p. 8. 
8 See India, Prof. Sachan’s preface, p. xxiv., and the introduction to his edition 
of the text, p. xx. 
