Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.36

v1.c6.36

During the Sui and Tang period, there was also much development in alchemy and multiple methods of making a variety of chemical compounds for medicine. The Daoist alchemy not only used many medicines from India but also attracted many rasāyana masters and alchemists from foreign countries. Elderly Indian Brahmin rasāyana masters Nārāyanasvāmin and Lokāditya came to China in the era of Emperor Taizong and Emperor Gaozong in the Tang Dynasty. Alchemist Nārāyanasvāmin made macrobiosis/longevity medicines in Jinbiaomen. The chief of the Chinese military, Cui Dunli supervised him and ordered people in the country to collect rare medicines and innumerable precious stones to help him make the drugs. The Medicines were made eventually, but they were found to be ineffective, so he was repatriated. According to Italian scholar Antonino Forte’s study, the elderly Brāhmaṇa *rasāyana* master who held the ordination ceremony for Kang Fazang was Śākyamitra from Sri Lanka. Śākyamitra lived with Lu jia a yi duo (Ajita) in Penglai Palace and Kang Fazang was one of the participants in the medicine-making activities in the palace. Śākyamitra who visited Wutai Mountain and Zhi Falin who came from Lingshi County, Fenzhou to collect saltpeter were the same person. According to the investigation of He Bingyu, Du Gutao who was the author of *Dan fang jian yuan* (*Alchemical Sources*) was a foreign pharmaceutical dealer in the late Tang Dynasty (or the Southern Tang Dynasty), and had excellent proficiency in alchemy. These alchemists living in China came from India, Sri Lanka and Central Asia (for example, Kang Fazang) and each of them undoubtedly introduced some Indian alchemical methods to China. On the one hand, Chinese Daoists absorbed and transformed contents of foreign medicines and on the other, they also propagated Daoist medical knowledge (especially alchemy) outside China. The gold medicines refined by the Daoists were frequently sought by the Hun people (Hun merchants), who purchased and sold it among Hun countries in the Western Regions, thus spreading some alchemical technologies to India, Persia and the Arab world and influencing foreign medicines. The medical text of Siddha in South India in particular records that there were two Chinese Daoists (Bogar and Puëipari/Pulipanni) among 18 Siddhars (saints). Relations between Tamil alchemy and Daoism reflect mutual communication of ancient India-China alchemy and deserves much further research.