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It would seem from a few of his comments that Ibn Ezra had a fascination for the Hindus and their culture.

For instance, the hand-under-thigh oath that we see between Eliezer (?) and Abraham,¹ and between Joseph and Jacob.² Rashi takes this practice as akin to swearing on a bible: Eliezer and Joseph swore on the place of circumcision. Ibn Ezra’s comment is not clear on whether “thigh” is mere euphemism as Rashi takes it, but claims that:

It was the law (custom?) in those days for a man to put his hand under the thigh of authority … as if to say: behold, my hand is under your authority to do your will. And this is still the law in India.³

I am not aware of any such custom today, unlike where Ibn Ezra reports that the Hindus are vegetarian. Pharaoh commands that Israel and his sons should reside in Goshen, as “those who herd sheep are an abomination to Egypt.”⁴ Rashi says that for Egyptians, sheep were sacred. Ibn Ezra says that the Egyptians of that time were vegetarian, and he compares them to Hindus that “do not eat and do not drink all that comes from a feeling creature, even today.”⁵ Later he expands:

India and Egypt are both descendants of Ham, and each relates to the other… The [Egyptian] practice [of vegetarianism] did not change, until the Ishmaelite Kingdom overtook them, and they acquired its religion.⁶

There he also notes that Indians believed “one cannot speak with God and live,” which, he argues, the Egyptians also would have held and hence doubted Moses.

These comments may say a lot about Ibn Ezra’s image of ancient sociology and anthropology. He seems to see the Hindus as continuing an ancient tradition that the Egyptians and Jews had a share in.

Ibn Ezra might have find his respect for Indians in Hindu mathematical and astronomical scholarship. He is known for bringing Hindu numerical and arithmetic concepts to some of the minds of Europe,⁷ and for translating to Hebrew some early Arabic works based on Hindu astronomy.⁸ A few times in his bible commentary he mentions the Indians with regards to their study of the stars and reckoning of times.⁹

Rabbi Ibn Ezra did a lot of travelling in his life, living off the hardly dependable sales of his intellectual produce. Yet, while there is a tradition that he visited India,¹⁰ academics have endeavoured to prove otherwise.¹¹ Possibly even more remarkable, then, is his oriental intrigue that shows itself on occasion in his religious commentaries. (Was Ibn Ezra a Jubu?)

Notes:

1. Gen. 24:2 [↩]
2. Gen. 47:29 [↩]
3. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 24:2. [↩]
4. Gen. 46:34 [↩]
5. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 46:34 [↩]
6. Ibn Ezra on Ex. 19:9 [↩]
7. See J. J. O’Connor and E. F. Robertson, A history of Zero. [↩]
8. See David Eugene Smith and Jekuthial Ginsburg, Rabbi Ben Ezra and the Hindu-Arabic problem. [↩]
9. Ibn Ezra on Ex. 16:1; 20:13; Lev. 25:9. [↩]
10. Jewish Encyclopedia [↩]
11. See the citation at Rabbi Ben Ezra …, p. 101, note 1. [↩]