Question

Read the given source and answer the questions that follow: 

A language with an enormous range Al-Biruni described Sanskrit as follows: If you want to conquer this difficulty (i.e. to learn Sanskrit), you will not find it easy, because the language is of an enormous range, both in words and inflections, something like the Arabic, calling one and the same thing by various names, both original and derivative, and using one and the same word for a variety of subjects, which, in order to be properly understood, must be distinguished from each other by various qualifying epithets.

1. How did Al-Biruni compare Sanskrit with Arabic?
2. Give an example of the work Al-Biruni translated in Arabic from Sanskrit.
3. Analyse the reason of Sanskrit considered as a language with enormous range.

Answer 1

1. Al-Biruni claimed that Sanskrit and Arabic were so dissimilar from one another that it was difficult to translate ideas and concepts between them.
2. He rendered into Arabic a number of Sanskrit texts, including Patanjali's grammar treatise.
3. Al-Biruni considered Sanskrit as a language with enormous range because:
   1. He claimed that learning this language was difficult because Sanskrit words occasionally sounded like Arabic words but had entirely different meanings.
   2. The same thing was referred to in Sanskrit by a variety of names, both direct and indirect. Sometimes the same word was used to refer to several different things.