A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c32.s2.t1.6

v2.c32.s2.t1.6

* These laconic recipes all refer to the floating mass of traditions current at the time of the author on the transmutation of the base metals into gold. As they are of a fragmentary and disjointed character, the meaning is not always clear. Recipe 3 also occurs in *Rasārnava*; *vide* Vol. i, pp. 70-71. Various ingenious methods were resorted to for debasing gold or making an alloy, which would mimic the appearance of this metal. Silver, copper, lead, zinc and mercury were often made into an amalgam, and the latter rendered compact and coloured yellow with the aid of orpiment. No wonder that the law-books prescribe several penalties on the fraudulent debasers of the precious metals. Thus according to Manu "the king shall cause a goldsmith, who behaves dishonestly, the most nocuous of all the thorns, to be cut to pieces with razors." IX, 292.