history of alchemy

Dagmar Wujastyk

We have arrived at the eighth, and for us, final procedure! This step is called the stimulating or kindling (dīpana) of mercury. And here is what the text (Rasahṛdayatantra, chapter 2, verse 11) tells us about this step:
 

Dagmar Wujastyk

Nine months into this experiment, we have arrived at the fifth procedure: pātana. This procedure is meant to rid the mercury once and for all of any residual amounts of tin and lead, which are understood as contaminants that render mercury poisonous. The procedure involves preparing a copper-mercury mixture.

Dagmar Wujastyk

Preparing ingredients for the fifth procedure

 

ALCHEMY READER

The Alchemy Reader will provide a broad introduction to Indian alchemy, tracing and explaining alchemical thought as it developed on the Indian subcontinent. Drawing on a selection of the most important Sanskrit alchemical works from the tenth to eighteenth centuries, it will offer the reader deep insight into the motivations and goals of Indian alchemists and will illuminate the theories and methods they developed over time.

Dagmar Wujastyk
Condensation device - patanayantra

The fourth procedure: Bringing mercury to a rise (utthāpana)

 

The mercury, still thickened from the preceding procedure, will now be brought back to its more familiar shine and mobility with the fourth procedure, 'utthāpana' - 'bringing to a rise', i.e., letting mercury evaporate and then condense in its cleansed form.

 

Dagmar Wujastyk
Dagmar Wujastyk
Image by Andrew Mason (neterapublishing)

The terms used for the alchemical procedures sometimes evoke the language of ayurvedic therapy. Svedana, the "steaming" of the first alchemical procedure, has a correlate in ayurvedic treatment. There, svedana is the application of heat to the patient's body, which results in the patient sweating (the translation for svedana here).

Dagmar Wujastyk

Perhaps you noticed at the end of the first AyurYog film on reconstructing alchemical procedures that the filmmaker thanks Dr Jinal Thakkar and Dr Parth Kale. These are the rasashastra experts with formal university training in India that Andrew Mason has consulted with.

Dagmar Wujastyk

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