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Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c45.s5: Some Salts and Natural Products

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c45.s5

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Some Salts and Natural Products

v2.c45.s5.1

Ray (1956: 201-32) has commented on some of the terms related to salts and natural products mentioned in the *Rasaśāstra* texts including *RRS*, and we may summarise these comments.

v2.c45.s5.2

Romaka has been described: ‘also called *Śākāmbari*, is the salt produced from the Sambar Lake near Ajmer’. We however believe that this was some material imported from the Roman empire.

v2.c45.s5.3

Audbhida has been identified by Ray (1956: 204) as the saline deposit *reh* obtained as an efflorescence, containing chloride and sulphates of sodium. But this *reh* has always been known in India as *sarjikā mṛttikā* or *sājimāṭi*. Audbhida was most likely the potassium-containing ash from the plants (*udbhida*), which also contained chlorides to ‘kill’ mercury.

v2.c45.s5.4

Viḍa/viṭ or black-salt probably used to be prepared by fusing common salt with sodium sulphate or *sājimāṭi* and organic materials like the fruit of *T. Chebula*. The reddish brown colour of *viḍa* is due to reduction of the sodium sulphate to sulphide which converts the iron impurity (this as well as sulphate come from the common salt) to the coloured sulphide. The material was used medicinally to aid digestion. (Ray, 1956: 205)

v2.c45.s5.5

Sauvarcala stands for saltpetre in *Rasārṇava* and other *Rasa* texts. Its use in fireworks or *Yogavartikā* was mentioned by Daṇḍi (sixth century AD) in his *Daśakumāracarita*. It occurred extensively as an efflorescence on the soil in North India. There is a seventeenth century description of its preparation at Ajmer by lixiviation of the soil, evaporation and crystallisation. (Ray, 1956: 229)

v2.c45.s5.6

Alum has been known as *saurāṣṭra* (from Saurāṣṭra or Sūrat), as well as *kāmkṣī* and *tuvarī*. Ferrous sulphate was known as *kāsīsa* and copper sulphate as *sasyaka*. These alteration products originated from rocks and mines. Several nineteenth century literatures described their manufacture (in Cutch, Rajasthan, etc.) by successive operations of lixiviation, evaporation and crystallisation. (Ray, 1956: 230-33) Similar processes must have existed earlier for many centuries.

v2.c45.s5.7

Kamkuṣṭham was possibly an efflorescence of magnesium and sodium sulphate occurring at the foot of the Himālayas (RRS, 3.109). The yellow colour was due to admixture with ferruginous dirt. This material was used as a purgative. (Ray, 1956: 201)

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