P. C. Rāy and the History of Hindu Chemistry

The original books

The publication history of this two-volume work is slightly complicated.

• 1902: volume 1 (London & Oxford)
• 1903: volume 1, revised and enlarged (Calcutta)
  
• 1907: volume 1, revised and enlarged (London)
• undated: volume 1, second edition, revised and enlarged (Calcutta & London)
  
  
• 1909: volume 2 (Calcutta & London)
• 1925: volume 2, second edition, revised and enlarged (Calcutta)
  (includes a prefaced to the 2nd edition that is dated 1904)

The later rewriting

• 1956: Ray, P. (ed.), History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the ‘History of Hindu Chemistry’ by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Rāy. Calcutta: Indian Chemical Society.
  This is not by P. C. Ray, but by P. Ray. 
  The difference between this 1956 "incorporation" and the original volumes is well described in the book review by
  
  Jean Filliozat (1956), “Review of P. Ray, History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray,” ISIS. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226955.
  
   
   
  
  

Sanskrit Vidh - On alchemical transubstantiation versus piercing

[This reproduces a post by me to the INDOLOGY list, earlier today]

I am trying to firm up the idea that vedh- means convert, transmute, or (for the philosophers among us, perhaps) transubstantiate.

The Rasaratnasamuccaya is a kind of late-ish nibandha text that brings together, organizes and medicalizes the earlier, more tantric alchemical literature.  Meulenbeld argued that it is datable to the sixteenth century (HIML IIA 670).  Earliest dated MS: 1699 CE.  This text is not bad as a representative of the developed ("classical"?) rasaśāstra tradition; one would expect less standardization of vocab. in earlier texts.
At Rasaratnasamuccaya 8.94-95 there is a definition of śabdavedha. 

from blowing of iron, with mercury in the mouth, there is the creation of goldenness and silverness. That is known as Word-vedha.

and the commentator makes it even more explicit that this is transmutation, using pari-ṇam.  Rasaratnasamuccayabodhinī on 8.95:

... tat lauhakhaṇḍaṃ svarṇādirūpeṇa pariṇatam//
that bit of iron is converted into the form of gold etc.

... yatra vedhe svarṇādirūpeṇa pariṇamet sa śabdavedha ity arthaḥ//

Word-vedha is where it converts with the form of gold etc. ...

 

The operation being described here is not unclear.  The alchemist puts a piece of mercury in his mouth and blows on a piece of iron.  It becomes golden or silvery.  This "becoming" is "vedha."

The Bodhinī authors were Āśubodha and Nityabodha (hence the witty title), the sons of Jīvānanda Vidyāsāgara Bhaṭṭacārya, and the Bodhinī was published in Calcutta in 1927.  So it's arguable that their interpretation was influenced by nineteenth-twentieth century thought.  However, their commentary is very śāstric and elaborate (note the Pāṇinian grammatical parsing, "dhama dhāvane ity asmāt lyuḥ" (>P.1.3.134 and pacādi ākṛtigaṇa).  And as Meulenbeld points out, they cite an exceptionally wide range of earlier rasaśāstra texts (HIML IIA 671-2).  Their interpretations are based on a close reading of classical rasaśāstra literature.  At the very least, one can say that their view represents the understanding of learned panditas in turn of the century Calcutta, that vedha meant pariṇāma, or transmutation. 

What this leaves unexplained is whether this is a different IE root than vedh "split, pierce."