Copper in Ancient India c5.1

c5.1

The present monograph is a companion volume to my *Iron in Ancient India* and embodies in an enlarged form a lecture delivered on the 9th April, 1914, at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, the late Maharaja Kumud Chandra Singha Bahadur of Susanga presiding. The sources from which materials have been drawn have been similar to those which had been utilised in the preparation of my monograph on Indian iron. In addition to medico-chemical Sanskrit texts examined by Dr. P. C. Ray in his *History of Hindu Chemistry*, non-medical Sanskritic, minerological and specially archaeological literature has freely been laid under contribution. I take this opportunity of submitting that archaeological literature, which has hitherto remained unexplored by students of the history of Hindu Chemistry, affords by far the most convincing evidence which can be brought to the solution of a problem relating to the knowledge of metals in ancient India, as archaeological specimens unearthed by the unceasing labours of the Archaeological Department can be seen, tested and handled by the public at large and speak with unerring emphasis of the existence of a prosperous metallic industry in ages gone by. Owing to that reason I have, wherever possible, attempted to collect archaeological evidence to the best of my abilities, and I believe that literary texts when supported by archaeological evidence receive an added confirmation which would convince even the most sceptic.