The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c4.s2.22

c4.s2.22

*Chemical Industries.*—Early in the sixth century, Varáhamihira in the Vrihat Samhitá gives several preparations of cements or powders called Vajra-lepa, “cements strong as the thunderbolt”; and there was ample use for these in the temple architecture of the Buddhist period, the remains of which bear testimony to the adamantine strength of these metal or rock cements. (प्रासादहर्म्यवलभीलिङ्गप्रतिमासु कुड्यकूपेषु सन्तप्तो दातव्यो वर्षसहस्रायुतस्थायी। Chapter LVI., *ibid.*) Varáhamihira also alludes to the experts in machinery (यन्त्रविदः, यन्त्रज्ञाः) and the professional experts in the composition of dyes and cosmetics (रागगन्धयुक्तिविदः Ch. XVI., also Ch. XV.). I would also refer to the interesting chapter on Perfumery (Ch. LXXVI.) where Varáhamihira gives various recipes for artificial imitations of natural flower-scents, as of the essence of Vakula, Utpala, Champaka, Atimuktaka, etc., arranges compound scents in a sort of scale according to the proportions of certain ground essences used in their preparation, and determines by the mathematical calculus of combination (लोधकप्रस्तार) the number of variations of the different notes in this scale. To these classes of professional experts were due three of the great Indian discoveries in the chemical arts and manufactures which enabled India to command for more than a thousand years the markets of the East as well as the West and secured to her an easy and universally recognised pre-eminence among the nations of the world in manufactures and exports: (1) the preparation of fast dyes for textile fabrics by the treatment of natural dyes like Mañjishthá with alum (तुवरी मंजिष्ठा रागवन्धिनी) and other chemicals (*e.g.* sulphate of iron) also cow-dung (*cf.* the "cow-dung substitute," Roscoe) ; (2) the extraction of the principle of indigotin from the indigo plant by a process which, however crude, is essentially an anticipation of modern chemical methods ; and (3) the tempering of steel in a manner worthy of advanced metallurgy, a process to which the mediæval world owed its Damascus swords. It was this applied chemistry much more than handicraft skill which gave India her premier position in the Middle Ages and earlier (indeed from Pliny to Tavernier) in exports and manufactures ; for in handicraft skill, as in design and workmanship, great as were her merits, India came to be surpassed by her disciples China and Japan.