Essay name: Alchemy in India and China
Author:
Vijaya Jayant Deshpande
Affiliation: Panjab University / Department of Chemistry
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.
Conclusion
1 (of 16)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSION
The two historical facts which directed our
attention to the study of history of science were:
India and China were ahead of the West in a number of
fields such as mathematics, astronomy, art, architecture
and chemical arts in the medieval period, when the Western
civilizations were experiencing "Dark Ages"; and the
virtually contradictory fact that it was in the West that
modern science emerged and made stupendous progress in
the centuries following the sixteenth, giving rise to
modern civilization.
"Why
The question that naturally arose was:
did India and China lag behind?" An answer will be
found only if we have a clear picture of the nature of
early scientific knowledge, beliefs and practices in the
Eastern civilizations, prior to the advent of modern
science.
For this, collaborative and prolonged investiga-
tions on the part of scholars of various fields (viz.
historians of mathematics, physical sciences and
technology, philosophers as well as sociologists and
economists) are necessary. In this study we have concen-
trated on a particular branch of physical science, viz.
chemistry, as a step in this direction.
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