Rasadhyayah (Of The Deciple of Sri Kankalaya On alchemical Processes)

Alchemy is a popular science in most of the ancient world cultures and it has two utilities as of Neuclear power. Neuclear power provides prosperity if used in a proper way and creates destruction of human race, if used otherwise. Alchemy too can make the humans immortal and at the same time make the pros- perity to dwindle, when alchemy is adopted unwisely for raising base metals to precious metals. This doesnot mean that the sci- ence of raising base metals to Gold is a myth.

There are many books on this subject written by seers of yore for the benefit of the mankind. Few of them seen the light of the day. Many are rotting, either in the manuscript libraries of the country or kept secret by few private holdings. It is true that many technical term's used in these books could not deciphered, as they are to be learnt from the teachers directly through practi- cal demonstrations. Those who practiced alchemy in olden days, . may not be scholars of sanskrit, but has the goodwill of passing their experiences for the progenyto their might in the language/ terms they know. They used few terms probably the local terms. As is seen now, alchemy is mostly practiced by people not ex- posed to Sanskrit, apart from not acquiring the knowledge from an expert teacher. These contributed to brand the scince as a myth.

The present book, though small, is a good combination of both the facets of alchemy. This has few terms which are prob- 7 ably, dilectical or local as said above. They are difficult to under- stand in their true perspective unless we know the language of these terms. The author has very aptly said in the beginning ofthe book, that needs attention by the amaetures. He says -" Even after studying the scriptures well .and understanding, one cannot be successfull in alchemy without the practical experience taught by the Guru, the teacher".

As is said above, the book contains many words that are not found in the lexicons of Ayurveda available to the present translator. Hence, they were left without translation.

As regards the computing the weight and measures, no universally accepted method is available till date. There are dif- ferent weights & measures in different parts of the country and accordingly used them in their books by the then authours of that land. But, which books belongs to wsich land has not been found as yet. Similarly, the weights and measures used in this book are found in Leelavati Ganitam of Bhaskaracharya. The weights men- tioned e.g. Manam etc. are calculated based on the metric equiva- lent of one Rati. Here again, few adopt 120 mg. and some 125 mg. as ratio This small difference of 5 mg. make huge difference when computed to bigger measures like Manam. Hence, a com- mon consenses is the need of the hour.

Small things make perfection and perfection is no small thing. Keeping this in mind, and facing these constraints, effort has been made to translate this book to my ability. Readers are requested to inform, the mistakes, if any, for correction in future.

No much information is available about the author. His name has not been mentioned. But, it is understood from the in- troductory and closing stanzas that the author is the deciple of Kankalaya Yogi, the expert alchemist.

Out of many books of ayurveda which wer~ not trans- lated from sanskrit, the present small book Rasadhyaya is pre- sented to the fraternity of Ayurveda, with a fervent hope of accep- tance.