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.
Chapter 1 - Introduction to the history of Alchemy
14 (of 18)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
14
Certain fields like astronomy, medicine and
mathematics were the first to attract the attention of the
historians of science. Alchemy and chemistry are among the
less trodden fields. Scholars like Stillman, Partington,
Read, Thorndyke, Leister, Hopkins, and Boas wrote volumes
on the history of Western alchemy and chemistry. Studies
in the history of chemistry of Eastern civilizations are
but scant.
Major work done in the field of Chinese alchemy
is the series of volumes on "Science and Civilization in
China" by Joseph Needham and his collaborators. The fifth
volume of the above series deals with metallurgical and
physiological alchemy, protochemistry and chemical
technology from the third century B.C. to the seventeenth
century AD; i.e., to the introduction of modern chemical
ideas into China by European travelers and missionaries.
Needham gives an account of a large number of texts and
demonstrates how alchemy progressed in China, its philo-
sophical basis, practical recipes and the mass of chemical
knowledge that the Chinese gathered in the process.
In the above works, at a large number of places, we
find references to India and to the visits by Indian
Buddhist monks and travelers who introduced certain
alchemical and chemical ideas into China.
These cases,
if
investigated in depth, would give interesting information
