Iatrochemical and Alchemical Knowledge in Medieval India

Abstract

Inthis essay, I describe very briefly, the pursuit of chemical knowledge in India until the period of the early eighteenth century. The attempt is not to discuss in any exhaustive way various strands of chemical practices from the antiquity till the late seventeenth century but to offer a glimpse of a variety of chemical endeavours, in different geographical locations of India, visualized from iatrochemical, alchemical and chemical industry perspectives. The first two perspectives also seem to suggest a strong theoretical backdrop of the relevant practices. However, it historically remains an open question how the theory and the practices informed each other if at all it actually happened. The motivation for organizing this essay in the way I have arises from two distinct ideas. The first is to revisit the historiographic insights that late Professor Prafulla Chandra Ray brought to bear in writing a remarkable two volumebook titled A History of Hindu Chemistry. I will explain that in a bit more detail below. Second, in engaging with the primarily textual accounts of chemical practices in Ancient and Medieveal India, I stay true to the view that Chemistry is both a science (a body of knowledge about some aspects of nature or the material world) and an art, a set of practices which have a bearing on the kind of knowledge these practices produce including making new materials with interesting functions and properties. Indeed there has been a great deal of interest to review our understanding of Chemistry given that Chemistry is involved in making new materials and molecules. This synthetic and preparative aspect of chemistry (see e.g., Schummer (1997), opens up new historiographical directions to write history of chemistry.I will have a bit more to say about what historiographical repercussion this view has and how I employ it below.