Part 2 - Alkaline substance (2): Usara or Sora (salt-petre)

Barth, taken out from the banks of the Ganges, or any other salty earth is to he dissolved with pure water and then filtered through a piece of thick cloth. This water is next to be kept in an earthen pot for about 12 hours to settle. The clearest part of the solution is then to be taken out and heated till it gets condensed. The product, which is of white colour, is then to be taken out. It is called ushara or sora. It is the same thing as ushara shilajatu (vide page 104, Vol, II).

Its names.

Ushara or sora is also called “sauvarchala” salt, on account of its being of saline taste. It is both a kshara as well as a salt. It is called “ushara”, simply because it grows out of ushara (salty) soil.

Its properties.

Ushara is a pacifier of vayu. It is moistening, destroyer of strength, increaser of appetite, laxative, soft, easily capable of spreading throughout the whole system, a little increaser of pitta, light, increaser of laugh, disgestive, and purifier of elching winds.

It is also efficacious in the following:—constipation, intestinal obstruction, colic, gulma, mucus, worms, and, especially, wind moving upwards.

Note on Nitre (sora)

The colloquial Indian name for nitre is sora or soraka, which are the corrupted forms of the Sanskrit usara and usaraka, respectively, all of these words being synonymous. Now, usara (or usaraka) is a word which has been in use in its present sense even from the pre-historic times. This word is to be found in every Sanskrit dictionary, modern or ancient, and even in sushruta.

In this connection, it would be amusing to note how some of the Indian Allopaths, and their sympathisers, not conversant with Sanskrit, which was the language of their fore-fathers and not caring to study the Indian system of medicine, sometimes rush into opinions which are simply ridiculous. Let us quote here a few lines from Dr. U. C. Butt’s “Materia Medica of the Hindus” (pp 89—90)

“Nitre was unknown to the ancient Hindus. There is no recognized name for it in Sanskrit. * * * Some ancient Sanskrit formulas for the preparation of mineral acids containing nitre mention this salt under the name of “soraka”. This word, however, is not met with in any Sanskrit dictionary and is evidently sanskritized from the vernacular “sora”, a term of foreign origin. The manufacture of nitre was therefore most probably introduced into India after the adoption of gun-powder as an implement of warfare.”

These are the remarks made by an Indian Allopath who wrote a book on the materia medica of the Hindus, without acquiring an adequate knowledge of the subject. This indicates a state of things which occurs probably in India alone.

The dogma that nitre was unknown to the ancient Hindus is not based on facts. It will be evident from a passage (quoted by Dr, Sir P. 0. Boy in his History of Hindu Chemistry, (VoL I,- pp. 184-185, footnote) in a work entitled. “ The Travels of John Albert de Mand els o from Persia into the East Indies, London 1669,” that salt-petre used to be manufactured in tbe middle ages, at the latest, in large scales in India whence it was brought into Europe.

We propose to prove elsewhere that the use of gun-powder was quite known to the Hindus even at the time of the composition of the oldest portion of the Vedas.