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 Sedillot,[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 aeternumque." 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] {10}