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JULY, 1987
has been said by Nagarjuna,28 Padalipta Suri,29 Carpata 30, Natha,31 and other alchemists32 for the benefit of the people afflicted with diseases. A similar account of the preparations of mercury for the benefit of the people suffering from diseases is given in other Indian works on Rasayana with reference to Nagarjuna and Siddha Carpata. There is a problem for the scholars to identify the Buddhist Nagarjuna and Jaina Nagarjuna and to determine their dates in the history of Indian alchemy.
The Suvarna-Raupya-Siddhi-Sastra is an important treatise of the Iatro-chemical period of India. It is comprehensive and purely a chemical work dealing with many operations of mercury,34 and various chemical processes 35 are incidentally described, a good deal of which, however, overlaps each other as they are found in other Indian works 36 on alchemy in the Middle Ages.
27
The author of the Suvarna-Raupya-Siddhi-Sastra, as devout Jaina monk, begins his work with an adoration of Gautama37, Ganesa 38 and the Tirthankara Mahavira39 and even symbolizes Mahavira with mercury40 as Siva is symbolized with mercury41 in the Hindu alchemy.
28 SRSS. ch. I. 60.
29 Ibid., ch. II. 4. (Palittaya Padalipta)
30 Ibid., ch. I. 24.
31 Ibid. ch. I. 18, 24; Natha may be identified with Nityanatha of Rasaratnakara.
32 Ibid., ch. II. (Sekham Ali) SRSS., MS. (B), ch.I. 60.
33 Rasarnava,
Rasaratnakara of Nityanatha, Rasaratna Samuccaya of Vagbhat, etc.
Vide Hindu Chemistry, Dr. P. C. Ray, p. 159 and Pracin Bharat men Rasayanka Vikas, Dr. Satyaprakasa, Fourth Part.
See also Rasaratnakara of Nagarjuna (Buddhist).
34 SRSS, ch. I. 56; ch. II. 7; ch. III. 12. 13. 18, 22, 44, Ch IX, 5, 21, etc. See Rasaratna Samuccaya of Manikyadeva Suri, Paradavidhi, etc.
35 The chemical processes of making gold, silver, iron, copper, killing of mercury, tin, etc., of making medicines, Ibid.
36 See Hindu Chemistry, Dr. P. C. Ray and Pracin Bharat men Rasayanka Vikas. Fourth Part, Iatro-Chemical period.
37 SRSS, ch. I. 1. (sri gautamaya namah).
88 Ibid., ch. I. (MS.-B) (sri ganesaya namah).
39 Ibid., ch. I. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 (dhyanajjinesa, etc.).
40 Ibid., ch. II.
41 pancabhutatmakah sutastisthatyeva sadasiva-Rasarnava, XII. 78.
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