रसोपनिषद्- Rasopanishad A Discourse on Indian Alchemy (English Translation and Exposition of Scientific Content)

Dr. Vijaya Jayant Deshpande

A chemist by training, Vijaya Deshpande turned to history of science, technology and medicine. She studied Sanskrit and Chinese classical works on alchemy and medicine and particularly examined Sino Indian scientific contacts through Buddhism. She was a post doctoral scholar in the Chemistry Department of Peking University and later a Welcome fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She also worked on a number of research projects in India, has read papers in various conferences, delivered invited lectures and published several research articles.

Vijaya Deshpande worked at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune on a project titled 'A critical study of Sanskrit alchemical text Rasopanisad', which was funded by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi from July 1990 to August 1993. Later, she worked as an Infosys scholar from 1st October 2020 to 31st March 2021 on the topic of 'The Golden Magic of Rasa Rasopanisad and Essentials of Indian alchemy Understanding the scientific underpinning.

This book is an outcome of the work carried out under the Academic Development Programme of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute supported financially by the Infosys foundation. The author who has vast experience in chemistry as well as various facets of the history of science has chosen a medieval Sanskrit text Rasopanisad for this stupendous scholarly endevour. Rasopanisad belongs to the eleventh century CE and is related to alchemy (not modern chemistry).

Modern chemistry, like many other sciences such as biology (folk biology) and medicine (ethnomedicine), has roots in ideas and beliefs prevalent in ancient and medieval societies all over the world. Various streams of thoughts and beliefs about the chemical properties of the materials were together known as alchemy. There were two major drivers in the medieval world that made people go after First was a desire to convert inferior metals such as copper and iron into gold. The second driving force was a longing to become immortal, or at least have long healthy life. The author has aptly introduced the historical background of alchemy, and with a word of wisdom that what has been presented here is only a translation of a medieval text and must be viewed only from historical point of view. It does not claim to be experimentally validated knowledge about chemistry or metallurgy.

Inspired by Joseph Needham's volumes Science and Civilization in China' and Nathan Sivin's work 'Chinese alchemy - Preliminary Studies', I became conscious of the possibility of examining ancient Sanskrit Rasayana works for their scientific content and tracing germs of scientific thought through them.

P.C. Ray in his A History of Hindu Chemistry has done pioneering work in this field. He selected passages from a number of Sanskrit alchemical works and examined the processes narrated in them. He further identified their scientific analogues. He also edited a major alchemical work Rasarnava with Pt. Harişcandra Kaviratna. Later, B.V. Subbarayappa & Mira Roy translated Rasarnavakalpa and identified the processes involved and jotted them down in the margins. Then, in 1989, A.K. Bag of INSA suggested that I take up a Sanskrit work for study. As a result, I resolved to work on an alchemical work in Sanskrit.

I went through the collection of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and elsewhere for a suitable text. I found a copy of Rasopanisad in the BORI library and selected it for the variety and quantity of chemical/ metallurgical processes recorded in it.

My project on Rasopanisad was approved and funded by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. Subsequently, I worked at The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute between 1990 and 1993 on 'A Critical Study of Sanskrit Alchemical Text Rasopanisad. This work chiefly involved its complete translation into English. I was particularly looking into chemical content found in this text and trying to appraise the alchemist's understanding in the field of chemistry and metallurgy. Three papers on related topics were published in INSA's journal in the years 1992 to 1996.

Rasopanisad is a large Sanskrit work on alchemy written in the medieval period by an unknown author. Two available manuscripts of the original Sanskrit work, one incomplete copy in the library of Thirunakkara Swamiyar Matom in Kottayam and the other worn out but complete manuscript in the possession of Vayaskara Narayanan Moossu of Kottayam, were edited by K. Sambasivasastri and the book was printed by the Superintendent, Government Press, Trivandrum in 1928. Other translations are available but without a critical study. Present copy of Rasopanisad contains some two thousand and five hundred verses in eighteen chapters. It is probably part of a larger treatise Mahodadhi, no longer extant. All eighteen chapters deal largely with gold and silver making processes, i.e. metallurgical alchemy. Last two chapters also discuss physiological alchemy which involves techniques for prolonging life and syntheses of elixirs of immortality.

**Contents and Sample Pages**