A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c32.t1.57

v2.c32.t1.57

*Rasendrachintámani* will next claim our attention. We have before us the printed copy, edited by Umesa Chandra Sena Gupta, late librarian, Sanskrit College, Calcutta, in which the text has been adopted, as the editor informs us in the preface, after collation of 3 or 4 MSS. We have carefully gone over this edition and compared its readings with those of a MS. procured from Benares and another from the Runbír Library, Kásmír. All these agree in the main, but there happen to be certain omissions and additions, which form an interesting chapter in the history of interpolations in the literature of this description. To begin with: there is a dispute over its very authorship. Some MSS. ascribe it to *Dhundhukanátha*, disciple of *Kálanátha*, others to *Rámachandra*. After the customary salutation there occur two couplets in the Calcutta edition, which are not met with in the Benares and Kásmír exemplars. In these the author is made to justify his *raison d'etre* for undertaking his task in these words: “I shall give publicity only to such processes as I have been able to verify by my own experiments.” Such protestations have already been noticed more than once.* In another place we have: “Those mercurial operations alone have found a place in my book, which I have been able to put to tests. Those who teach without being able to perform experiments labour in vain.” This last couplet is quite out of place as it hangs like a tail to a long extract from Rasárnava and is in fact conspicuous by its absence in the Benares and Kásmír MSS.† For the second time we find calomel designated as Rasakarpúra (lit. camphor of mercury; vide vol. i, p. 250). This preparation no doubt occurs in the older