Part 1 - Introduction (justifying ancient Indian knowledge of the use of mercury)

Note: Reprinted from the author’s “Indian Civilization and its Antiquity.”

Mr. H. E. Stapleton M. A., B. Sc. (Oxon), retired Director of Public Instruction, Bengal, had been faking much interest in ancient chemistry. His illuminating paper on the “chemistry in Iraq and Persia in the tenth century A.D.” (vide Memoirs of Asiatic Society of Bengal, V ol. VIII. No. 6) which he wrote in collaboration with the late R. F. Azo and Shamsul-ulama H. Hidayat Hossain, has been devoted to a critical study of the works of the celebrated Persian chemist and physician, Ar-Razi, who died late in the first quarter of the tenth century. In making a very able and careful survey of the work of Ar-Razi, Mr. Stapleton has been forced to conclude from a comparison of the facts that have been brought to light in his paper with those given in the History of Hindu chemistry by Sir P. O. Roy “that the earlier and possibly autochthonous system of Indian alchemy based almost entirely on the use of vegetable juices was superseded sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D., by a system of external origin which was primarily based on the use of mercury,” and that most of the knowledge regarding metallic and inorganic chemistry found in Indian treatises on alchemy actually originated from outside India.

Mr. Stapleton has based his conclusion mainly on the ground that Ar-Razi and some of his Persian predecessors were acquainted with a good deal of metallic chemistry before the composition of what he considers, on the authority of Sir P. C. Roy, to be the earliest treatise on the metallic chemistry of the Hindus, viz. Rasa ratnakara, which, Dr. Sir P. C. Roy wrongly considers to have been compiled in the tenth century A. D. Mr. Stapleton, however, admits that Ar-Razi was acquainted with Charaka and Sushruta, the two well-known treatises on the science of vegetable chemistry and medicine of the Hindus, and even made use of them in his medical works. It is, therefore, only in the field of mineral chemistry and alchemy, and not in the field of vegetable chemistry and medicine, that Mr. Stapleton claims priority for Ar-Razi and a few of his more ancient countrymen.

This is a view taken by Mr. Stapleton prior to the publication of my Rasa-jala-nidhi. In the preface of vol. 1 of my book, I have maintained that chemistry and alchemy began to be cultivated by the ancient Indians even from the dawn of Indian civilization, which, according to the Puranas, took place sometime after the commencement of the present Kalpa, i.e., about 1950,000000 years ago. This will appear to be incredible to many people.

Whatever that may be, Mr. Stapleton has, however, made the following remarks, in respect of my claim to the antiquity of Indian chemistry:—“What everybody is anxious to obtain is some historical proof that there was a metallic Ayurveda before the time of the Muhammedans; or whether mercury preparation, for example, came to be known in India only after the time of the celebrated Persian physician and chemist, Ar-Razi.”

In order to satisfy Mr. Stapleton, I propose to deal here with only a few of the points justifying my conclusion that metallic chemistry and alchemy, based on the use of mercury, was known to the Indians, long before the time of Ar-Razi, who died late in the first quarter of the tenth century A. D.