Minerals and Metals in Sanskrit literature

by Sulekha Biswas | 1990 | 69,848 words

This essay studies the presence of Minerals and Metals in Sanskrit literature over three millennia, from the Rigveda to Rasaratna-Samuccaya. It establishes that ancient Indians were knowledgeable about various minerals and metallurgy prior to the Harappan era, with literary references starting in the Rgveda. The thesis further examines the evolutio...

1. Introduction to the Rigveda

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The Rigveda is the oldest Indo-Aryan literary document available to us. Before we discuss the metals and minerals mentioned in the Rgveda, we may briefly comment on the controversial views on its authorship and date of compilation. John Max Muller, the famous scholar and translator of the Rgveda, noticed the similarities between the Indo-European languages and proposed in 1859, that Rgveda was compiled around 1200 B.C. by the Aryans 'who had came to India from outside around 1500 B.C.' (Max Muller, 1859). His theory was shown by Winternitz, Buhler, Macdonnel, Muir etc. to be based on very flimsy premises. Muir assetted in 1872 that the Rgvedic Aryans were not aware of any land outside India, and also that 'the nations whose speech is derived from Sanskrit have sprung from the gradual dispersal of the ancient Aryan race of India' (Muir, 1872: 2, 322-323). The most recent rebuttal of Max Muller's dates has been recorded by K.C. Varma (1987). We agree with Winternitz that 'no power on earth can anytime be sure whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years before Christ'. As a matter of fact, the were verses orally transmitted through centuries, and the only question is: in which era in the pre-history did the events, narrated in the verses, take actually took place. Our considered opinion is that the Rgveda corresponds to the ancient civilization on the valley of the lost river. (vinasana)

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II-: Sarasvati (Biswas, 1987). The archaeological expeditions have unearthed not only the ancient course of the said river (Stein, 1942; Ghose et al, 1979) but also the details of many important sites on the river such as Kalibangan (Lal, 1979), Banawali (Bisht, 1982), Bhagwanpura (Lal, 1982) etc. C-14 measurements have shown that the different strata of the above settlements ranged from 3000 to 1500 B.C. In other words, the Rgvedic culture was Pre-, Mature- as well as Post-Harappan. We agree with B.B. Lal (1982: 337) that the uninterrupted sequence from the Pre-Harappan ploughed field to the post-Harappan PGW 'formed the base on which the Mature Harappan appeared like bubbles on a vast lake, only to disappear and merge into the waters of the lake itself'. de In other words, we consider that the myth of 'foreigner Aryans invading India and dstroying the totally different Harappan culture is fictitious, unproven and unacceptable. Many scholars have provided arguments as to why the myth cannot be accepted at the present level of our knowledge (Dalas, 1964; Poliakov, 1974; Shaffer, 1984; Srivastava, 1984; Biswas, 1988). It appears more likely that the Rgvedic civilization was indigenous and, flourishing on the banks of the Sarasvati and its tributaries such as Drishadvati, Satadru or Sutlej, was neolithic < mesolithic in the Pre-Harappany and Chalcolithic during the Mature Harappan era. Its econany was essentially agro-rural when it came into contact with the economically exploiting class of the

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II-3 Panis or Harappan traders. The Rgvedic war was basically a civil war fought around 2500-2000 B.C. and won by the authors of the Rgveda. Their opponents belonged to the same racial stock but different religious seet. As the Sarasvati river got dried up, the Rgvedic people moved towards the eastern valley of Ganga and Yamuna and continued with the later part of the Vedic civilization, lasting upto 800 B.C. and heralding the onset of the second urbanisation and the Historical Period in India.

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