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Ritual and Medicine in Indian Alchemy
Patricia Sauthoff (Hong Kong Baptist University)
The primary function of works within the alchemical (rasaśāstra) corpus is to provide written technical instructions for iatrochemical processes. These medical interventions require the user to be skilled in botany, metallurgy, and mineral- and gemologies. The specifications themselves are often incomplete, demonstrating that the user must have the practical experience and technical training to complete operations successfully. Though largely focused on the purification of mercury for use in medicinal elixirs to rejuvenate the body and cure disease, rasaśāstra works contain detailed descriptions of plants, substances, and the apparatuses used in alchemical production. The practicalities of rasaśāstra make the works more akin to āyurvedic manuals than religious ones. Alchemy includes the chemical arts of pharmacy and metallurgy, the transmutation of imperfect metals (dhātuvāda), and the search for a universal medicine that is both panacea (sarvārha) and elixir of longevity (rasāyana).
However, unlike their āyurvedic counterparts, rasaśāstra works contain specific medico-religious technologies required for the efficacy of their medicines. Where āyurveda points back to the sages, rasaśāstra looks directly toward god. While early works, such as the Rasahṛdayatantra discusses an immortal body, it is longevity, not immortality proper, that is the goal of the alchemist. The perfected body (dehasiddhi) of the alchemical patient is one with long life and free of disease. Once this perfect body is achieved, one can then work toward the attainment of superhuman powers and enter into the transcendent states familiar to tantric and yoga practitioners.