al biruni's india

i've got my al biruni's' they are very fat books and in fonts of 9 translated from arabic to german then to english. on India and chronology of nations - astronomy and science. i thought almanacs were recents and did not know they are 2500 or more years old. albiruni in detail showed their origin to human perception using knowledge of geometry. the books were themselves 1000 plus years old. al biruni accompanied ghazni and was with him for 30 years. he was captured by ghazni from iran and learnt arabic and found as a language it is superior to pustu for both science philosophy and literature. that was the time conquerors took captives of minds who were well advanced for their time and given them freedom and patronage to advance their ability; and did not impose superiority of their own; unlike what we have been seeing from invaders from west and recently USA. al biruni learnt sanskrit; he read many available writings and learnt directly from the learned captives from India. he was quite taken aback with existing wealth of learning hindus had, far exceeding knowledge available from rest of the world at that time. he was already knew all about geometry astronomy science and philosophy from greece, egypt, rome and europe,

i am reading autobiography of koestler. where he is trying to create his horoscope searching the news paper on his day of birth and around the world. it is so silly. i have read koestler extensively at least 15-20 books. he is historian of science and astronomy. but nothing comparable to al biruni's brilliance!

al biruni is far advanced than current science and technology unbelievably brighter than hawkins or any science writers of today. 

[page 13].... Think of Socrates when he opposed the crowd of his nation as to their idolatry and did not want to call stars gods! at once eleven of the twelve judges of the athenians agreed on a sentence of death, and socrates died faithful to the truth.
the hindus had no men of this stamp both capable and willing to bring sciences to a classical perfection. therefore you mostly find that even the so-called scientific theorems of hindus are in a state of utter confusion, devoid of any logic order, and in the last instance always mixed up with the silly notion of crowd, e.g. immense numbers, enormous spaces of time, and all kinds of religious dogmas, which the vulgar belief does not admit of being called into question. therefore it is prevailing practice among the hindus jurare in verba magistri; and i can compare their mathematical and astronomical literature, as far as i know it, to a mixture of pearl shells and sour dates, or of pearls and cow dung, or of costly crystals and common pebbles. Both kinds of things are equal in their eyes, since they cannot raise themselves to the methods of strictly scientific deduction.