Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c44.s1: Saṃhitās of Caraka and Suśruta

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c44.s1

Language: English

Saṃhitās of Caraka and Suśruta

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The above two saṃhitās along with Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya by Vāgbhaṭa, known as the ‘great trio’ of ancient Indian medical texts, provide many references to the uses of minerals and metals in medicine.

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Caraka wrote (26.12) that there is ‘nothing in the world which does not have therapeutic ability’. Three types of matter were recognised.

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जंगम् उद्भिद पार्थिवम् jaṅgam udbhid pārthivam (1.68) — animal, plant and mineral.

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The mineral-cum-metals were further subdivided:

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सुवर्ण समला: पंचलोहा: ससिकता: सुधा। मन:शिलाले मणयो लवणं गैरिकंजने।। suvarṇa samalāḥ pañcalohāḥ sasikatāḥ sudhā । manaḥśilāle maṇayo lavaṇam gairikāñjane ।। (1.70)

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gold, five lohas (copper, silver, tin, lead and iron) their by-products, silica, red and yellow arsenic, gems, salt, collyrium, etc.

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सौवर्चलं सैन्धवं च विडम् औद्भिदम् एव च। सामुद्रेण सहैतानि पंच स्यु: लवणानि च।। sauvarcalam saindhavam ca vidam audbhidam eva ca । sāmudreṇa sahaitāni pañca syuḥ lavaṇāni ca ।। (1.88)

sauvarcala (saltpetre, sodium/potassium nitrate), saindhava (rock salt), viḍa (ammonium chloride) audbhida (plant product, potassium carbonate?) *sāmudra* (sea salt), etc. These were used for improving digestion and as medicines.

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Young plant *Butea frondosa* used to be dried, reduced to ashes and lixiviated with water to produce potassium carbonate, *audbhida* salt or *kṣāra* (alkali).

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Minerals like sulphate of copper, sulphate of iron (*aśmakāsīsa*), realgar (*manaḥśila*), orpiment (*haritāla*), and sulphur (*gandhaka*) were prescribed for external application in many skin diseases. Under the recipe of a pearl compound, there is mention of pearl, powder of iron, copper and sulphur. The metals were obviously used after being roasted with sulphur. This was one of the early landmarks of *rasaśāstra* or Indian alchemy. The text also described the uses of coral, lapis lazuli, ashes of conch-shell, calces of iron and copper (‘killing’ of metals to produce oxides), sulphide of antimony (*sauvīrāñjana*), etc. The mention of coral (*vidruma*), emerald (*marakata*), *romaka*, etc. indicated that a part of the *Saṃhitā* was written after the trade with Rome had been started.

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Elaborate descriptions about the preparation and properties of alkali carbonates (prepared by lixiviation of burnt plant ash) and caustic alkali (lixiviation of burnt limestone, conch-shell and bivalve shells) were provided in *Suśruta Saṃhitā*. Mild (*mṛdu*), medium strength (*madhyama*) and strong (*tīkṣṇa*) solutions of alkali (*kṣāra*) were prepared by lixiviation and successive operations of evaporation and concentration. There was widespread use of caustic alkali solutions for cauterisation in surgery. The application of the pungent acid of *kañjika* (fermented rice water, i.e., crude vinegar) was known to relieve the burning sensation and taste of the ‘fire-like hot alkaline caustic’, ‘just as fire is extinguished by water’. Distinction was made between *yavakṣāra* (factitious carbonate of potash) and *sarjikākṣāra* (carbonate and bicarbonate of soda from river bed alluvium).

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Suśruta recommended as drugs, the oxides (calces) of tin, lead, copper, silver, iron and gold which were prepared by roasting the metals with minerals like alum-earth and red ochre. For the roasting of iron, thin leaves of the metal were smeared with the levigated powder of the salts including common salt, saltpetre, sulphate of magnesia, and heated in the fire of cow-dung cakes. This process, called *ayaskrti*, affected the metal and produced oxides and oxy-salts. Mercury was not well-known during Suśruta’s time. Two types of pyrites (*mākṣika*) known to ‘resemble gold and silver’ were evidently chalcopyrite and ordinary iron-bearing pyrite. Compounds of arsenic (*phenasama bhasma*) and orpiment were recognised as poisons.

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Both Caraka and Suśruta mentioned crude processes of calcination, distillation (of liquor from fermented juices), sublimation, steaming, fixation, etc. They distinguished between chemical compounds and mechanical mixtures.

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At this stage, it may be useful to mention the compilatory nature of the *Saṃhitās* of Caraka and Suśruta. The two texts recognised that *Āyurveda* or the early medical science of India was an *upaveda* of the *Atharvaveda*. Even in the Atharvavedic age, minerals and metals were used as medicines (see chapter 3). There must have been many medical texts between the *Atharvaveda* and the *Caraka Saṃhitā*.

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*Caraka Saṃhitā* is based on an earlier work of Agniveśa, whose teacher Ātreya taught medicine in the University of Takṣaśilā (Taxilā) during the age of Buddha. The *Saṃhitā* must have been redacted in several versions by Carakas of successive centuries, till the final version was organised by Dṛḍhabala, the court physician of King Kaniṣka (AD 100). Suśruta was a teacher in the University of Varanasi during Buddha’s time, and a disciple of Dhanvantari. His surgico-medical treatise was gradually elaborated over centuries, and the extant version is generally believed to be an edition executed by the famous Buddhist chemist Nāgārjuna. Thus the two *Saṃhitās*, containing various references on minerals and metals, depict Indian progress on the knowledge of these materials over centuries (fourth century BC to second century AD).

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During the above period, considerable progress about the sciences of minerals, metals were made. Kauṭilya mentioned *rasapāka* which has been translated as ‘distillation and condensation of mercury’ by Shamashastri, and as ‘chemistry’ by Jolly and Schmidt. During Aśoka’s reign, techniques were developed for quarrying laterite and sandstone rocks, mining gold deposits at Kanakagiri or Subarṇagiri (near the present Haity gold mines and Raichur), rock-cutting and polishing granite-gneiss rock pillars, stone-railings and caves at Karmachampar, Barabar, Gaya etc. (Brown, 1956; Lahiri, 1971: 495; Roy, 1946: 117)

Linked texts (1)

Carakasaṃhitā — Agniveśa (Āyurveda) & Caraka, Sanskrit