The Hindu-Arabic Numerals | Page 4

the tenth century, Mo[t.]ahhar ibn [T.][=a]hir,[20] author of the Book of the Creation and of History, who gave as a curiosity, in Indian (N[=a]gar[=i]) symbols, a large number asserted by the people of India to represent the duration of the world. Huart feels positive that in Mo[t.]ahhar's time the present Arabic symbols had not yet come into use, and that the Indian symbols, although known to scholars, were not current. Unless this were the case, neither the author nor his readers would have found anything extraordinary in the appearance of the number which he cites.
Mention should also be made of a widely-traveled student, Al-Mas`[=u]d[=i] (885?-956), whose journeys carried him from Bagdad to Persia, India, Ceylon, and even {8} across the China sea, and at other times to Madagascar, Syria, and Palestine.[21] He seems to have neglected no accessible sources of information, examining also the history of the Persians, the Hindus, and the Romans. Touching the period of the Caliphs his work entitled Meadows of Gold furnishes a most entertaining fund of information. He states[22] that the wise men of India, assembled by the king, composed the Sindhind. Further on[23] he states, upon the authority of the historian Mo[h.]ammed ibn `Al[=i] `Abd[=i], that by order of Al-Man[s.][=u]r many works of science and astrology were translated into Arabic, notably the Sindhind (Siddh[=a]nta). Concerning the meaning and spelling of this name there is considerable diversity of opinion. Colebrooke[24] first pointed out the connection between Siddh[=a]nta and Sindhind. He ascribes to the word the meaning "the revolving ages."[25] Similar designations are collected by Sédillot,[26] who inclined to the Greek origin of the sciences commonly attributed to the Hindus.[27] Casiri,[28] citing the T[=a]r[=i]kh al-[h.]okam[=a] or Chronicles of the Learned,[29] refers to the work {9} as the Sindum-Indum with the meaning "perpetuum ?ternumque." The reference[30] in this ancient Arabic work to Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i] is worthy of note.
This Sindhind is the book, says Mas`[=u]d[=i],[31] which gives all that the Hindus know of the spheres, the stars, arithmetic,[32] and the other branches of science. He mentions also Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i] and [H.]abash[33] as translators of the tables of the Sindhind. Al-B[=i]r[=u]n[=i][34] refers to two other translations from a work furnished by a Hindu who came to Bagdad as a member of the political mission which Sindh sent to the caliph Al-Man[s.][=u]r, in the year of the Hejira 154 (A.D. 771).
The oldest work, in any sense complete, on the history of Arabic literature and history is the Kit[=a]b al-Fihrist, written in the year 987 A.D., by Ibn Ab[=i] Ya`q[=u]b al-Nad[=i]m. It is of fundamental importance for the history of Arabic culture. Of the ten chief divisions of the work, the seventh demands attention in this discussion for the reason that its second subdivision treats of mathematicians and astronomers.[35]
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The first of the Arabic writers mentioned is Al-Kind[=i] (800-870 A.D.), who wrote five books on arithmetic and four books on the use of the Indian method of reckoning. Sened ibn `Al[=i], the Jew, who was converted to Islam under the caliph Al-M[=a]m[=u]n, is also given as the author of a work on the Hindu method of reckoning. Nevertheless, there is a possibility[36] that some of the works ascribed to Sened ibn `Al[=i] are really works of Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i], whose name immediately precedes his. However, it is to be noted in this connection that Casiri[37] also mentions the same writer as the author of a most celebrated work on arithmetic.
To Al-[S.][=u]f[=i], who died in 986 A.D., is also credited a large work on the same subject, and similar treatises by other writers are mentioned. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the Arabs from the early ninth century on fully recognized the Hindu origin of the new numerals.
Leonard of Pisa, of whom we shall speak at length in the chapter on the Introduction of the Numerals into Europe, wrote his Liber Abbaci[38] in 1202. In this work he refers frequently to the nine Indian figures,[39] thus showing again the general consensus of opinion in the Middle Ages that the numerals were of Hindu origin.
Some interest also attaches to the oldest documents on arithmetic in our own language. One of the earliest {11} treatises on algorism is a commentary[40] on a set of verses called the Carmen de Algorismo, written by Alexander de Villa Dei (Alexandra de Ville-Dieu), a Minorite monk of about 1240 A.D. The text of the first few lines is as follows:
"Hec algorism' ars p'sens dicit' in qua Talib; indor[um] fruim bis quinq; figuris.[41]
"This boke is called the boke of algorim or augrym after lewder use. And this boke tretys of the Craft of Nombryng, the quych crafte is called also Algorym. Ther was a kyng of Inde the quich heyth Algor & he made this craft.... Algorisms, in the quych we use teen figurys of Inde."
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CHAPTER II
EARLY HINDU