Rasārṇavakalpa (English critical edition)

It should be emphasized that transmutation has two facets and represents the great desire to change imperfect metal into perfect metal, and the old into the youthful state. This desire, which was the summum bonum Latin: "highest good" of alchemists in various parts of the world, particularly in the early medieval period, led them to evolve a potent composition possessing both powers. In India, such a composition came under the general name of rasāyana. Speaking of this rasāyana, the Rasārṇavakalpa stresses that the purpose of preparing artificial gold or silver is to attain the four goals of life—dharma (righteousness), artha (wealth), kāma (desire), and mokṣa (liberation)—because the transmuted gold, the perfect metal, can be used as a medicine to restore youth and cure all diseases that cause the body to decay.

For this reason, the text prioritizes both facets of transmutation by describing numerous related methods. The Rasārṇavakalpa contains at least forty different types of such transmutation processes and nearly as many longevity compositions.

Plants: The rasavādins (alchemists) consider certain plants and their extracts to be the most effective ingredients, not only in the purification of metals but also in the development of longevity compositions. The Rasārṇavakalpa gives a distinct place to the use of many plants, and as previously noted, there are twenty-one kalpas (chapters/formulations), each devoted to a particular plant or group of plants. It should be emphasized that a methodical treatment of metals or minerals with plant extracts is a prerequisite for making them medicinally efficacious. In other words, plants play as vital a role as metals or minerals in the preparation of rasāyanas.

The whole vegetable kingdom is divided into two broad categories based on their properties: (i) divyauṣadhi and (ii) tṛṇauṣadhi. The divyauṣadhis (literally, heavenly medicinal plants) are said to belong to sixty-four kulas (families). For this reason, they are also referred to as kulauṣadhi. They are mainly employed for various mercurial processes, such as restoring lost essence and imparting to mercury the desired properties of metal (dhāturupīrasa). The tṛṇauṣadhis, on the other hand, are described as adivya (non-heavenly), growing inside mountain cavities. They cannot purify mercury, nor can they impart to it the power of transmuting base metals. In total, the Rasārṇavakalpa describes about one hundred plants, their attributes, and uses. A brief account of the most important among them is given in the table (see Appendix).

Apparatus: The Rasārṇavakalpa, like other texts on rasaśāstra (the science of mercury/alchemy), contains descriptions—albeit a limited number—of apparatus and their uses in processing metals and minerals. Such apparatus include the medinī (for heating mercury with mica), pātāla and tailayantra (for the extraction of oil from vegetable substances), and two kinds of mūṣā (open and closed crucibles).

Of these, the medinī and pātāla do not appear to have been described in considerable detail in other well-known texts. The dolā, bhūdhara, vidyādhara, and vālukā are among the commonly used apparatus mentioned in rasaśāstra texts. Regarding the puṭas, which involve prolonged heating to reduce a substance into a fine, palpable, and efficacious powder of a specific particle size, the Rasārṇavakalpa mentions only three: the gajapuṭa, gajendrapuṭa, and kharparapuṭa. The latter may correspond to the bhāṇḍapuṭa described in the Rasaratnasamuccaya, as both kharpara and bhāṇḍa denote the same thing—an earthen vessel.

Alongside the apparatus, the Rasārṇavakalpa provides experimental details in an elaborate way. These include rubbing (mardana) in a khalva (mortar), roasting (dhamana, puṭapāka), heating (tāpana), steaming (svedana), digestion (pācana), calcination (jāraṇa), and filtration (gālana). In particular, more processing details are given regarding the treatment of mercury and the purification of a few other metals and minerals. In this respect, the Rasārṇavakalpa aligns with other standard works on rasaśāstra.

Although the Rasārṇavakalpa places a prominent position on the use of medicinally beneficial plants, it simultaneously emphasizes the use of metallic preparations, minerals, and allied natural products. However, the text does not contain a systematic classification of these substances as found in texts like the Rasārṇava or Rasaratnasamuccaya. Attempts at classifying chemical substances seem to be a later development, involving categories like mahārasas, uparasas, sādhāraṇarasas, dhātus (metals), precious stones, and poisons. Even the knowledge of the preparation and purification of metallic compounds is found in a more advanced stage in those texts than in the Rasārṇavakalpa. Nevertheless, their uses, as mentioned in the Rasārṇavakalpa, are similar to those in the advanced texts.

Of the chemical substances described in the Rasārṇavakalpa, the following deserve special mention: abhra or gagana (mica), gandhaka or gandhapāṣāṇa (sulphur), hiṅgula or darada (cinnabar), kānta (loadstone), mākṣika (gold-pyrites), narasāra (sal-ammoniac), nāga (lead), rasa, sūta, pārada, liṅga (mercury), rasaka (calamine), śilā, kunāṭī or manaḥśilā (realgar), śulva (copper), tālaka (orpiment), ṭaṅkaṇa (borax), tāpya (iron-pyrites), and tuttha (copper sulphate). The nomenclature here is similar to that found in later texts.

a. In the dolāyantra, the substance is tied in cloth and suspended by a rod placed across a pot half-filled with the desired liquid.
b. The bhūdharayantra is a simple closed crucible containing chemical substances, kept inside a mass of sand and heated from the outside by burning cow-dung cakes.
c. In the vidyādharayantra, two pots are placed one above the other. The upper one contains cold water, and the lower one, containing cinnabar, is heated to obtain mercury.
d. The vālukāyantra is a sand bath used for heating substances uniformly over an unusually long time.