Alchemy in India and China

by Vijaya Jayant Deshpande | 1988 | 42,318 words

The thesis "Alchemy in India and China" explores the comparative aspects of alchemy in these two countries, focusing on chemical and protochemical formulations while addressing why modern science developed in the West rather than in India or China. It briefly touches upon internal alchemy in China and the ritualistic tantra in India....

1. Introduction (the history of Alchemy in India)

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Alchemy flourished in India in the medieval period. It had, like in other areas of civilization, two characteristic features, viz. gold-making and elixirsyntheses. The two faces of alchemical practice, the metallurgical and the physio-religious, were superimposed providing a single picture where mercury and its elixirs were used in transmutation of base metals into noble ones as well as for internal administration, for purifying the body, rejuvenating it and taking it to an imperishable and immortal state. The ideas of rejuvenation, longevity and immortality which became the basis of physiological alchemy can be traced to earlier historical sources in Vedic literature. We come across the belief that the liquid extract of the "Soma" plant was potent and was drunk by Gods for achieving immortality. Other alchemical notions, such as that of gold being the purest and the noblest of all metals and that it can confer its imperishability upon others by mere contact, are also very ancient. This notion explains the use of gold and 19

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20 20 its compounds in medicinal recipes. Buddhist literature of the fifth/sixth century AD also gives recipes for synthesizing medicines from substances of plant and mineral origin which would give strength, long life and immortality. " 2 1 In the area of metallurgical alchemy, one finds references to brass-making and making other kinds of goldlike alloys in Kautilya's Arthasastra. (A text of the second/third century B.C.) The name for brass was Arakuta. The same text tells us how to make alloys from metals like gold, silver, lead, iron, copper, etc., of a desirable colour. Use of mercury in making gold-coloured amalgams was also known in Kautilya's time, as seen in the following' verse. 1 See "Long-Shu Wu-ming lun", i.e., Nagarjuna's Pantavidya in Tripitaka in Chinese, edited by Takakusu, J. and Watanabe, K., Tokyo, 1968, p. 962. 2 Kautiliya Artasastram - see the list of Primary Sources, p. 91. 3. Kautiliya Arthasastram p. 96. jambunadam, satakumbham, hatakam, vainavam, srmgi suktinam janarupam, rasavidham akaroddhanam ca suvarnam | Jambunadam Satakumbham Gold from the sands of Jambu river. Gold from the sands of Satakumbha river.

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21 The different kinds of golds are Jambunadam, Satakumbham, Hatakam, Vainavam, Sringisuktijam, Jatarupam, Rasaviddham, Akarotgatam and Suvarnam. Here "rasaviddham", i.e., "the one obtained from the treatment with mercury" is also included as a "kind of gold". The inclusion of "Hatakam" in the above list also provides evidence of alchemical practice, since "Hatakas" are the elixirs made from mercury and other ingredients and they could transmute other metals into gold (i.e., gold-like metals).

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