A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v1.c16.s2.2

v1.c16.s2.2

It is very remarkable that in the later Sanskrit chemico-medical literature the very word sauvarchala, which stands for saltpetre in the Sukranīti and in the Rasārnava, ceases altogether to be applied to it, but is used as a synonym of sārjikā (natron), while yavakshāra has been pressed into service, it being clean forgotten that from the time of Charaka and Susruta this word has been used in its radical sense, *viz.*, the *ashes of barley* (impure carbonate of potash, from *yava*, barley and *kshāra*, ashes). Both Wilson and Monier Williams in their Sanskrit-English Dictionaries, following no doubt the authority of modern writers, erroneously render *yavakhāra* as saltpetre as also does Colebrooke in his "Amarakosha". Roth and Böhtlingk in their Wörterbuch, however, correctly translate it as "Aetzkali, ous der Asche von Gerstenstroh."¹