A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c29: Preliminary Remarks on the Mechanical, Physical and Chemical Theories of the Ancient Hindus
A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c29
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Preliminary Remarks on the Mechanical, Physical and Chemical Theories of the Ancient Hindus
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My paper on the *Mechanical, Physical and Chemical Theories of the Ancient Hindus* is intended to be a synoptic view of the entire field of Hindu Physico-chemical Science, so far as this reached the stage of positive Science as distinguished from the prior mythological and empirical stages. As the work in which my paper appears relates to Hindu Chemistry, I have elaborated the chemical portions, including the Hindu account of the constitution of the fats and oils, and the organic tissues, in addition to Hindu inorganic chemistry. I have also briefly noticed the chief chemical industries of the Hindus which secured them an easy pre-eminence in manufactures for a thousand years, and, in the *Addenda*, given some interesting recipes relating to several matters of chemical technology. Of mechanico-physical theories, I have expounded the Hindu conception of Energy, potential as well as kinetic, and of molecular motion, so far as they are applied to the elucidation of problems of a physico-chemical nature, *viz.*, the constitution of matter, the genesis of atoms and their infra-atomic constituents, and the chain of mechanical causation in the system of Nature. I have also touched on the Hindu theories of light, heat and sound, as implying current or wave motion, leaving the elaborate exposition to my paper on Hindu Mechanics and Physics. In the *Appendix*, I have added a brief account of the Scientific Method of the Hindus, which shows that all this was not a mass of unverified and unverifiable speculation (the very antipodes of science),—the charge usually brought against Hindu thought and culture,—but professed to be the outcome of a Scientific Methodology which, in its formulation of the canons of the two fundamental Inductive Methods, is more comprehensive as well as more original and suggestive than Mill, and which, as regards its Applied Logic of the Sciences, (*e. g.*, the Logic of Therapeutics, of Grammar *etc.*), is a standing testimony to the systematic completeness and rigour of the Hindu scientific mind. The difficulties of my task have been formidable, but I have not written one line which is not supported by the clearest and most authoritative texts. The ground trodden is, for the most part, absolutely new. I have gone back to the *origines*, and studied the authorities at first hand, being resolved to eschew all second-hand sources of imformation. Fortunately, the Sanskrit philosophico-scientific terminology, however difficult from its technical character, is exceedingly precise, consistent and expressive. The materials also are full, and the sources of information corroborate one another. Another difficulty I have sought to guard myself against is the unscientific, unhistorical but very common and almost inevitable habit of reading modern ideas into old guesses or speculations of a happy-go-lucky or nebulous character. I do not think that the mere passion for Truth is a sufficient safeguard against this fatal facility of unconscious distortion or misrepresentation. A true historical perspective can only be acquired by historico-comparative studies, with the application of the correct historico-comparative method (*vide* the Introduction to my Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity). I have also practised, or tried to practise, a habitual understatement, without consciously falling into that ‘*suppressio veri*’ which is so often a ‘*suggestio falsi*.’ How far I have succeeded in exhibiting the truth about Hindu science or the Hindu scientific mind is a question which I leave to competent judges to answer.
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Before concluding, I must advert to my use of the terms “isomeric” and “polymeric” in senses different from the current ones, though suggested by the principle of analogous extension. Instead of coining new terms, I adopted (perhaps with a questionable freedom) these existing ones to express the Hindu idea of distinctions of chemical substances due merely to difference in spatial position or arrangement among the particles, without any implications whatever as to percentage composition or molecular weight. A study of the original sources has made it clear to me that a "Bhúta" in Hindu Chemistry represents a class of elements composed of similar atoms, and the different elementary substances comprised under one and the same "Bhúta" are 'isomers', in this limited sense, in reference to the atoms, being specifically constituted by differences of spatial position and arrangement among the latter. This is true of the Sánkhya-Pátañjala and the Nyáya-Vaiseshika alike. But, in the Sánkhya-Pátañjala, the atoms themselves are composed of Tanmátras; and in one view, the atoms that enter into the "isomeric" modes of the same "Bhúta" are themselves "stereo-isomers" in reference to the Tanmátras. A tri-Tanmátric atom, for example, may have different isomeric forms which would account for the divers modes of the "Bhúta" originating with this class of atoms. Hence under the Sánkhya Pátañjala, I speak of "isomeric" atoms, while under the Nyáya-Vaiseshika I confine myself to the phrase "isomeric modes of the same Bhúta". It appears to me also that in the Sánkhya-Pátañjala view, while an atom of a particular kind (say a tri-Tanmátric or a tetra-Tanmátric one) may have "isomeric" forms of its own, the atoms of the different “Bhúta” classes (from the mono-Tanmátric to the penta-Tanmátric) are what may in a broad sense be termed polymers of the Ákása Tanmátra and Bhutadi (matter-rudiment). Under the Sánkhya-Pátanjala, therefore, I have spoken of “polymeric” atoms and “polymeric” combinations of these, though I must confess that I have done so with great diffidence and hesitation.
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VICTORIA COLLEGE, COOCH BEHAR. 23rd May, 1909. } B. N. SEAL.
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