Al-Biruni His Times, Life and Works

Prof. Hajime Nakamura, D. Litt. (University of Tokyo), Honorary D.Litt. (Government of India and Nehru University), was a distinguished scholar of international repute. He was a member of the Japan Academy and was decorated with the highest Japanese awards such as the Medal of Culture and the First Order of the Sacred Treasure. Conferred further honorary degrees of Vidyavacaspati by the President of the Republic of India, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the honorary doctorate by the University of Delhi, Kuppu-Swami Research Institute, Chennai, he was also Visiting Professor at Harvard and Stanford universities. Founder-Director of the Easter Institute and President of the Eastern Academy, Prof. Nakamura was a versatile and striking genius. He undertook research that was novel, original, and pioneering, and the number of his publications is astonishingly large. It is, however, regrettable that his works are mostly in Japanese. Among his many scholastic achievements, the first to be mentioned is A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, here translated into English. Other important works are: The Selected Works of Hajime Nakamura in 40 Volumes; The Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples; A Grand Dictionary of Buddhist Terms, in 3 Volumes; The Illustrated Dictionary of Buddhist Terms, Parallel Developments, A Comparative History of Ideas; The Structure of Logic, in two volumes, and many others.