Rasāyana (रसायन) is a Sanskrit word literally meaning path (ayana) of essence (rasa). It is an early ayurvedic medical term referring to techniques for lengthening lifespans and invigorating the body. It is one of the eight areas of medicine in Sanskrit literature. In the Vedic alchemical context, "rasa" also translates to "metal or a mineral".
Interesting book by S. Mahdihassan.
Apparently rights-free, and in English not Sanskrit as stated:
In Roman Egypt, great scholars continued an ancient hope to transmute base metals into gold. Even though their goal eluded them, they did much to further human knowledge through experimentation. They also created a discipline that would endure for generations.
The Book of the Seven Climes is the earliest known study focused wholly on alchemical illustrations. The ‘climes’ (from which our word ‘climate’ is derived) are the seven latitudinal zones into which the astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy divided the inhabited world in the 2nd century AD. Their mention in al-‘Irāqī’s title expressed an intention for his book to be all-encompassing. Al-‘Irāqī reproduced illustrations from earlier Arabic alchemical texts and tried to decode their mysterious symbols and allegories, annotating the illustrations with his own interpretations. But how faithful was he in copying the illustrations for his book, and what changes were made as they were copied and re-copied during the five centuries of transmission linking al-‘Irāqī’s lost original to the 18th-century copy held at the British Library?
Extensive (28 pp.) and insightful article on Joseph Wright'sThe Alchemist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, discovers Phosphorus, and Prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers (1771-1795).
Lucinda Martin is a specialist on early-modern north-European pietist movements, and the thought of Jacob Böhme in particular, but in this interview we are speaking with her in her role as Director of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and Ritman Research Institute in Amsterdam. The Ritman library and its attendant initiatives is a kind of spiritual home for the historical study of western esotericism, and this has now been made official in a sense by a UNESCO award of ‘Memory of the World Register’ status to the library. We talk about a bunch of library-related matters.
Can anyone provide me with a better translation of this short verse?
I'm not entirely sure I grasp the final line.
Der Athem Gottes ists, der Luest und Leben giebt.
Der Sonn- un Mondenschein, ein jeder Weiser Liebt,
Das wesen so daraus, mit weyl, der Weise machet,
Hat Adam schon gewust, als Eva ihn anlachet.
It is the breath of God that gives life and happiness.
Every wise man loves the sun and moonlight,
The wise man makes of it the essence,
Adam already knew, when Eve looked upon him.
"After the methods of making the elixirs, the Taiqing texts describe the benefits that they afford. The Taiqing alchemical medicines were valued for two main reasons. First, they granted transcendence and immortality; second, they made it possible — even with no need of ingesting them — to summon benevolent gods and expel demons and other causes of various disturbances, including [warding off] illness and death."
. Most traditional Chinese methods of health preservation, including qigong, martial arts and traditional Chinese medicine, have links with Taoism. Ancient Chinese Taoists were enthusiastic alchemists, who attempted to produce immortality pills by smelting minerals such as aluminum and mercury. The experiments in alchemy, though irrational from a modern viewpoint, greatly promoted advances in science and technology in ancient China, including the production of gunpowder and ancient chemistry.
Waidan, which arose at least from the 2nd century BCE, is based on the compounding of elixirs through the manipulation of natural substances (especially minerals and metals) and the heating of ingredients in a crucible. Its texts contain recipes, descriptions of ingredients, ritual rules, and passages concerned with the associations of ingredients, instruments, and operations to the Chinese cosmological system.
