Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c45.s7.1

v2.c45.s7.1

Mercury was reckoned as a very important metallic element in Indian alchemy and believed to be able to ‘transmute’ base metals to gold, and to provide an ‘elixir of life’. It was known as: *raso rasendraḥ sutaśca pārado miśrakastathā ‘rasa, rasendra, suta, pārada and miśraka’* (1.68). *Rasa* is that *rasanāt sarvadhātunām rasa iti abhidhīyate* which consumes all metals into liquid’ or amalgamates (1.77). *Pārada* ‘takes the persons across the oceans of diseases’.