[INDOLOGY] Alchemy metaphor

[Dominik Wujastyk]

On 10 July 2014 16:17, Ashok Aklujkar <ashok.aklujkar at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Was the book History of Hindu Chemistry  by Prafulla Chandra Ray? If it
> was, it is said to have been incorporated in:
> Ray, Priyadaranjan. 1956. History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval
> India, Calcutta: Indian Chemical Society. Other title: Chemistry in Ancient
> and Medieval India.
>

​The 1956 reworking by Priyadaranjan Ray of Prafulla Chandra Rây's 1902
volumes is an interesting "moment" in the history of Indian science in the
immediate post-colonial period.  It is not a reprint of Rây's original
books, but a re-framing.  It was published by the Indian Chemical Society,
and valorizes the idea that rasaśāstra was proto-chemistry.  As such, it
plays down, and almost completely omits, the tāntrika materials to which PC
Rây gave balanced weight.

Further, Rây's own *History of Hindu Chemistry* evolved a lot between the
first and the second editions.  After the first edition, Rây discovered a
manuscript in the Raghunatha Temple collection that he felt was centrally
important, and his second edition places that newly-discovered work at the
centre of his account of alchemical history in India.  Rây explicitly
modelled his volumes on the works of Marcellin Berthelot
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellin_Berthelot>, whom he corresponded
with (and met, if I remember correctly). So he had a genuinely historical
interest in alchemy-as-it-was, which I think Priyadaranjan Ray did not.

Best,
Dominik


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