Prafulla Chandra Ray

Name: A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1
Author: Prafulla Chandra Ray

A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

Summary

Prafulla Chandra Ray’s A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 delves into the scientific and philosophical underpinnings of ancient Indian chemistry, tracing its development through texts associated with figures such as Susruta, Charaka, and Kanāda. Concentrating on topics including alchemy, atomic theory, and medical practices, Ray investigates the relationship between mercury, caustic substances, and elemental properties in Hindu thought.

He challenges Western disregard for Eastern knowledge while drawing attention to similarities between Indian and Greek scientific ideas. The work highlights India’s role in the history of chemistry, underscoring its lasting impact on global scientific traditions.

Quotes from A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (Prafulla Chandra Ray)

Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ I know of men who could not construe a line of Sanskrit, and who speak and write of your ancient literature, religion, and philosophy as if they knew a great deal more than any of your best Srotriyas. How often you must have smiled on reading such books! The idea that anything could come from the East equal to European thought, or even superior, never enters the mind of these writers, and hence their utter inability to understand and appreciate what is really valuable in Oriental literature. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ But surely there are many points of analogy which are most instructive, and suggestive at least of more than an analogical connection; points that may throw light upon the natural course of the evolution of human conceptions and, in doing so, help to throw light on dark corners of the history of that culture out of which our own has arisen. It is a common saying that it is impossible to know any one language well without at the same time knowing another, and I venture to think that a similar remark holds good of the history of religion or of ethics, or of institutions, or of philosophy. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Indebtedness of the Arabians to India.
The Arabians are acknowledged on all hands to have played a prominent part in the propagation of science and mathematics in the West. When in the dark and middle ages, the lamp of knowledge had begun to burn very low in Europe and even when the very vestiges of Greek culture and learning had all but disappeared, save in the obscure and dingy cells of the monk, it was the Arabs who carried there the accumulated intellectual treasures of the East, and thus laid the foundation, so to speak, of modern European greatness. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ The Hindus do not pay particular attention to alchemy, but no nation is entirely free from it, and one nation has more bias for it than another, which must not be construed as proving intelligence or ignorance; for we find that many intelligent people are entirely given to alchemy, whilst ignorant people ridicule the art and its adepts. Those intelligent people, though exulting boisterously over their make-believe science, are not to be blamed for occupying themselves with alchemy, for their motive is simply excessive eagerness for acquiring fortune and for avoiding misfortune. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ The body, some one may say, is seen to be perishable, how can then its permanency be effected? Think not so, it is replied, for though the body, as a complexus of six sheaths or wrappers of the soul, is dissoluble, yet the body as created by Hara and Gaurī under the names of mercury and mica, may be perdurable. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ While gold is regarded as the elixir of life, lead is looked upon as the dispeller of sorcery: "To the lead Varuna gives blessing, to the lead Agni gives help. Indra gave me the lead; unfailingly it dispels sorcery." ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Kanāda, the founder of the Vaiseshika system, chiefly occupied himself with the study of the properties of matter. The atomic theory, as propounded by him, has many points in common with that of the Greek philosopher Democritus. His theory of the propagation of sound cannot fail to excite our wonder and admiration even at this distant date. No less remarkable is his statement that light and heat are only different forms of the same essential substance. But Kanāda is anticipated in many material points by Kapila, the reputed originator of the Sāmkhya philosophy. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Some of the leading doctrines of the Eleatics, that God and the universe are one, that everything existing in multiplicity has no reality, that thinking and being are identical, are all to be found in the philosophy of the Upanishads and the Vedānta system, which is its outcome. Again, the doctrine of Empedocles, that nothing can arise which has not existed before, and that nothing existing can be annihilated, has its exact parallel in the characteristic doctrine of the Sāmkhya system about the eternity and indestructibility of matter. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ If we consider the state of philosophical thought in India such as it is represented to us in the Brāhmanas and Upanishads, and afterwards in the canonical books of the Buddhists, we cannot wonder that all attempts at fixing the dates of the six recognised systems of philosophy, nay even their mutual relationship, should hitherto have failed. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ The other comprehensive Sanskrit treatise, the Charaka was also fully laid under contribution.
We have ample and overwhelming testimony of Arabic writers, notably of Haji Khalifa, that Hindu astronomy, algebra and medicine were zealously studied by their compatriots, and many Hindu servants were induced to reside at the Court of the Caliphs as their instructors. Mussulman students, in their eager thirst for knowledge, used to flock to the centres of learning in India, and there drank deep at the very fountain-head. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ During the 8th and 9th centuries the Indians became the teachers in arithmetic and algebra of the Arabs, and through them of the nations of the West. Thus, though we call the latter science by an Arabic name, it is a gift we owe to India." We have thus far attempted to present our readers with a brief, hurried and necessarily imperfect survey of the gradual evolution and development of Hindu medicine and alchemy from the Vedic age onward. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Kanāda arranges the objects of sense in six categories, viz., substance, quality, action, community, difference and aggregation. According to him:—
"I. Substance is the intimate cause of an aggregate effect or product: it is the site of qualities and of action; or that in which qualities abide, and in which action takes place.
"Nine are enumerated, and no more are recognised. Darkness has been alleged by some philosophers; but it is no substance; nor is body a distinct one; nor gold which the Mīmāmsakas affirm to be a peculiar substance. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Why the Acid Neutralises the Alkali
"If you question, my son! how is it that the application of the pungent acid of kānjika relieves the burning of the fire-like hot alkaline caustic, then hear the following explanation from me. Alkalies possess all the tastes except that of the acid. The acrid taste prevails in it and the saline one to a less degree (cf. ante p. 28) . The sharp saline taste when mixed with acid becomes very mild, and gives up its sharp quality. From this modification of the saline taste, the pain of caustics is relieved just as fire is extinguished by water." ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ The Soma plant is an object of particular adoration and the Vedic worshippers are in ecstacy over the exhilarating effects of the fermented juice expressed from it. [1] The Soma rasa (juice) began even to be regarded as the amrita; this immortal draught, allied to the Greek ambrosia, is "the stimulant which conferred immortality upon the gods . . . it is medicine for a sick man and the god Soma heals whatever is sick." It will be seen later on that in the Soma rasa and its attributes we have the dawn of Hindu Alchemy (Vide p. 79) . ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Origin of the Tantric Cult.Before we proceed further it would be advisable to take a hasty glance at the origin of the Tantric Cult, as Indian Alchemy very largely derives its colour and flavour from it. In almost every country the progress of chemistry can be traced to medicine and the belief in the artificial gold-making,—the search after elixir vitæ and the philosopher's stone. In India, however, these ends have played a secondary part in promoting a knowledge of the chemical processes. Here the origin of astronomy, geometry and anatomy is to be sought in the exigencies of religious rites. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ The theological doctrine of the nature of disease indicated its means of cure. For Hippocrates was reserved the great glory of destroying them both, replacing them by more practical and material ideas, and, from the votive tablets, traditions, and other sources, together with his own admirable observations, compiling a body of medicine. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Another excellent result which may, and I hope will, follow from our increased acquaintance with the actual thoughts and literature, as well as with the personalities of Oriental peoples, is a loosening of that prejudice which undoubtedly obtains, even among scholarly circles, in the West. It would be perhaps too much to complain that classical scholars, for instance, should have a decided repugnance to admit any actual influence on Greek thought or institutions as having been exercised by the thinkers of the East, however ungrudgingly that privilege is conceded to Egypt. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ As Hindu medicine has seldom been able to shake itself completely free from the influence of magic and alchemy as auxiliaries, physicians, as practicers of the "black art," have been given an inferior position in the legal treatises. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ It is curious to reflect that the upholders of the "Greek Culture" are often found ready, though unconsciously, to twist and torture facts and conclusions to serve their own purpose, and reserve to themselves the benefit of doubt as regards date; but whenever the priority of the Hindus is unquestionable, an appeal is made to the theory of common origin and independent parallelism of growth. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ We are here reminded of the essay written by Dugald Stewart "in which he endeavoured to prove that not only Sanskrit literature but also Sanskrit language was a forgery made by the crafty Brahmans on the model of Greek after Alexander’s conquest" (Macdonell) .
Those who attempt to prove that India owes her civilisation—or at any rate such advance and progress in the arts and sciences which make civilisation worth the name—to Hellenic influence seem to be only one degree removed from a Dugald Stewart. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ It is well known that not only Indian life with all its social and political institutions has been at all times under the mighty sway of religion, but that we are also led back to religious belief and worship when we try to account for the origin of research in those departments of knowledge which the Indians have cultivated with such remarkable success. ”

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Prafulla Chandra Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1 (1903)

“ Roger Bacon does not hesitate to assert that the philosopher's stone was able to transform a million times its weight of base metal into gold. The above-named alchemists are also unanimous in regarding it as a universal medicine, and "it was no unusual assertion that adepts, the fortunate possessors of the panacea, had been able to prolong their lives to 400 years and more."—Meyer. ”

Prafulla Chandra Ray

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