Thread by @_TheSanatani

Nāgārjuna – The Rishi Who Tried to Make Gold From Mercury 😱

Before Newton.
Before Paracelsus.
Before modern science.
There was Nāgārjuna.

Let’s explore how this ancient Indian genius changed the world... and why history forgot him.

A Thread 🧵

You’ve heard of Newton.
Maybe even of Hermes Trismegistus or Jabir ibn Hayyan.

But few know that centuries earlier, India had a man who was...

Turning base metals into gold,
Crafting elixirs of immortality, and
Blending chemistry with spirituality.

👉 His name was Nāgārjuna.

📌 Who was Nāgārjuna?

Not to be confused with the Buddhist philosopher of the same name, this Nāgārjuna lived around the 7th–8th century CE, though some place him earlier.

He was:
— A metallurgist
— An alchemist
— An early chemist
— A Rasāyana scholar
— A medicine master

📌 His most famous contribution?

Using mercury and sulfur to attempt the transmutation of base metals into gold.

Yes... he openly wrote about:

👉 Purifying mercury
👉 Combining it with sulfur
👉 Heating, condensing, distilling, sublimating
👉 And finally... creating gold

📌 Here are some of his is most well-known texts:

👉 Rasaratnākara – The "Jewel Mine of Alchemy"
👉 Rasendramaṅgala – The "Auspiciousness of Mercury Lord"
👉 Rasārṇava – "Ocean of Mercury Science"
👉 Arogya Manjarī – On health sciences
👉 Yogasāra – Practical formulations

All in Sanskrit, with real lab techniques... not vague philosophy.

📌 What did his texts contain?

👉 Descriptions of lab apparatus:
Dolāyantra, Pātanayantra, Mūṣā, Tiryakpātana-yantra

👉 Methods of mercury processing:
Ṣaṭkarman – 6-fold purification of mercury
(sweating, rubbing, swooning, fixing, dropping, coercion)

👉 Formulae for turning copper, tin, lead, iron into suvarna (gold)

...and much more!

👉 Nāgārjuna even described thermal, chemical, and mechanical procedures.

🔹 Heating metals at specific temperatures
🔹 Using acids (sour plant juices) for etching
🔹 Removing impurities via repeated calcination & washing
🔹 Mixing finely ground sulfur to form mercurial sulfides

...just like in modern labs.

📌 Here are Some of his real-life results:

👉 Preparation of Rasasindūra — red mercuric sulfide (HgS)
👉 Use of Bhasmas (calcined metal oxides) as medicine
👉 Making of alloys with unusual shine & resistance
👉 Techniques for making gold-colored finishes on base metals
👉 Use of distillation and sublimation long before Europe

📌 What made Nāgārjuna unique?

➡️ He wasn’t just studying metals.
➡️ He was engineering transformations with repeatable processes.

His work shows a clear understanding of:

— Purification
— Chemical reactions
— Metal compounds
— Heat thresholds
— Storage, dosage, handling

All without any “modern science” degrees.

📌 Did he succeed in making gold?

We may never know for sure.

But what’s undeniable is:

👉 He advanced chemical metallurgy so far that later Islamic & European scientists translated his works.

👉 Arab records refer to him as "Nagarjuna al-Hindi", a legendary Indian alchemist.

👉 Even European alchemists later pursued the elixir of life and philosopher’s stone... which Nāgārjuna had already described as “Rasa-sindūra.”

So basically...

Long before Robert Boyle (1600s)...
Long before Jabir ibn Hayyan (800s)...

India had:

— Chemical labs
— Crucibles & furnaces
— Manual distillers
— Mercury-sulfur compounds
— Metallurgy & alloy-making
— Health chemistry (Rasāyana)

👉 All documented in Sanskrit.

📌 Why does this matter today?

Because it rewrites history.

It proves:

👉 Ancient India had practical science, not just philosophy
👉 Chemistry existed here before it existed in the West
👉 The pursuit of knowledge was both rigorous and visionary

Nāgārjuna’s legacy is proof that Bharat was a scientific superpower.

If this thread gave you a new respect for India’s lost scientists:

🔁 Retweet and help revive Nāgārjuna’s legacy.
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