History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray c8.3

c8.3

After the decline of the Harappan Civilization there followed a dark age in India, or almost an extinction of civilization, so to say, till after the advent of the Aryans near about 1500 B C. The Aryans, to begin with, were pastoral people, but they gradually built up a civilization characterized by a remarkable progress in the pursuit of science, literature, arts, philosophy and religion. Since the beginning of this civilization the evolution of chemistry may be said to have proceeded in a more or less uninterrupted course inspite of numerous political and social changes in the country till it suffered a gradual but mysterious decline towards the end of the middle ages, just at a time when science was emerging with an extraordinary vitality on the continent of Europe. In his history of *Hindu Chemistry* P. C. Ray has shown that there are four successive stages in which chemistry may be said to have developed in ancient and mediæval India since the Vedic Age. These are distinguished as the Ayurvedic Period, the Transitional Period, the Tantric Period and the Iatro-chemical Period. They are not, however, mutually exclusive, but merge into one another