A History of Hindu Chemistry, vol. 2

press the Hindu idea of distinctions between chemical substances that arise merely from differences in the spatial position or arrangement of particles, without any implications regarding percentage composition or molecular weight. A study of the original sources has made it clear to me that a "Bhúta" In Hindu philosophy, the five primary material elements. in Hindu chemistry represents a class of elements composed of similar atoms. The different elementary substances comprised under one and the same "Bhúta" are 'isomers' in this limited sense; relative to the atoms, they are specifically constituted by differences of spatial position and arrangement. This is true of the Sánkhya-Pátanjala and the Nyáya-Vaiseshika Two major schools of Indian philosophy. systems alike. But, in the Sánkhya-Pátanjala, the atoms themselves are composed of Tanmátras Subtle elements or "rudiments" of matter.; and in one view, the atoms that enter into the "isomeric" modes of the same "Bhúta" are themselves "stereo-isomers" in reference to the Tanmátras. A tri-Tanmátric atom, for example, may have different isomeric forms which would account for the various modes of the "Bhúta" originating from this class of atoms. Hence, under the Sánkhya-Pátanjala, I speak of "isomeric" atoms, while under the Nyáya-Vaiseshika I confine myself to the phrase "isomeric modes of the same Bhúta." It appears to me also that in the Sánkhya-Pátanjala view, while an atom of a particular kind (say a tri-Tanmátric or a tetra-Tanmátric one) may have "isomeric" forms of its own, the