A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v1.c12.t2.1

v1.c12.t2.1

[In the Hindu Materia Medica the mineral kingdom is broadly divided into the Rasas and the Uparasas, the Ratnas (gems) and the Lohas (metals). The term Rasa is in general reserved for mercury, though it is equally applicable to a mineral or a metallic salt. In the oldest medical works, *e. g.* the Charaka and the Susruta, Rasa has the literal meaning of juice or fluid of the body, which according to the notions of humoral pathology engenders blood, serum, sweat, &c., (see p. 42). Rasakriyā¹ in the Susruta means fluid extract or concentrated decoction. As mercurial and metallic preparations gradually came into vogue and even began to supplant the vegetable drugs, the term *rasa* began to be substituted for quicksilver on account of its semi-fluid character and its supposed miraculous therapeutical action on the juices or humours of the body (Cf. *Rig-Veda*, "Somarasa": *Vide* Intro.) In the Bāvaprakāsa we find rasa used in a two-fold sense,—ancient and comparatively modern.¹