Mercury, sulphur, metals and the fascinating world of material transformation in premodern India. What happens when medicine meets metallurgy, minerals meet the furnace, and the transformation of matter becomes intertwined with the transformation of the human body? One answer from the history of India is Rasaśāstra. Rasaśāstra occupies a particularly fascinating—and sometimes misunderstood—place in the history of Indian scientific and medical traditions. Its literature describes the processing of mercury, sulphur, metals, minerals and other substances through elaborate operations involving heating, grinding, purification, calcination, sublimation and distillation. It is tempting, therefore, to simply call Rasaśāstra "ancient Indian chemistry. But that description is both too easy and historically inadequate. A more useful way to understand it is: Rasaśāstra represents a historical domain in which medicinal practice, mineral processing, metallurgical techniques and alchemical tradi...
Rajeev Singh is Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College (ARSD), University of Delhi. He is an inorganic chemist with research specialization in Material Chemistry and Organometallics. He did his Ph. D. from the University of Delhi and was a TWAS postdoctoral fellow. His other area of academic interests are into revival, communication, and awareness of knowledge of ancient Indian sciences, IKS specially Chemistry and the contributions of Indian scientists.