---
title: "Alchemy"
chunk: 3/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:38:25.858667+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

True alchemy never regarded earth, air, water, and fire as corporeal or chemical substances in the present-day sense of the word. The four elements are simply the primary, and most general, qualities by means of which the amorphous and purely quantitative substance of all bodies first reveals itself in differentiated form." Later alchemists extensively developed the mystical aspects of this concept.
Alchemy coexisted alongside emerging Christianity. Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth. Augustine of Hippo later affirmed this in the 4th and 5th centuries, but also condemned Trismegistus for idolatry. Examples of pagan, Christian, and Jewish alchemists can be found during this period.
Most of the Greco-Roman alchemists preceding Zosimos are known only by pseudonyms, such as Moses of Alexandria, Isis, Cleopatra the Alchemist, Pseudo-Democritus, and Ostanes. Other authors such as Komarios and Chymes are known only through surviving fragments of text. After AD 400, Greek alchemical writers occupied themselves solely in commenting on the works of these predecessors. By the middle of the 7th century, alchemy was almost an entirely mystical discipline. It was at that time that Khalid Ibn Yazid sparked its migration from Alexandria to the Islamic world, facilitating the translation and preservation of Greek alchemical texts in the 8th and 9th centuries.

=== Byzantium ===
Greek alchemy was preserved in medieval Byzantine manuscripts after the fall of Roman Egypt, yet historians have only relatively recently begun to study and development of Greek alchemy in the Byzantine period.

=== India ===

The 2nd millennium BC Vedas describe a connection between eternal life and gold. A considerable knowledge of metallurgy has been exhibited in a third-century AD Arthashastra, which provides ingredients of explosives (agniyoga) and salts extracted from fertile soils and plant remains (yavakshara) such as saltpetre/nitre, perfume (different qualities of perfumes are mentioned), and granulated (refined) sugar. Buddhist texts from the 2nd to 5th centuries mention the transmutation of base metals to gold. According to some scholars Greek alchemy may have influenced Indian alchemy but there are no hard evidences to back this claim.

The 11th-century Persian chemist and physician Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī, who visited Gujarat as part of the court of Mahmud of Ghazni, reported locals have a science similar to alchemy which is quite peculiar to them, which in Sanskrit is called Rasāyana and in Persian Rasavātam. It means the art of obtaining/manipulating Rasa: nectar, mercury, and juice. This art was restricted to certain operations, metals, drugs, compounds, and medicines, many of which have mercury as their core element. Its principles restored the health of those who were ill beyond hope and gave back youth to fading old age.
The goals of alchemy in India included the creation of a divine body (divya-deham) and immortality while still embodied (jīvan-mukti). Sanskrit alchemical texts include much material on the manipulation of mercury and sulphur, that are homologized with the semen of the god Śiva and the menstrual blood of the goddess Devī.
Some early alchemical writings seem to have their origins in the Kaula tantric schools associated to the teachings of the personality of Matsyendranath. Other early writings are found in the Jaina medical treatise Kalyāṇakārakam of Ugrāditya, written in South India in the early 9th century.
Two famous early Indian alchemical authors were Nāgārjuna Siddha and Nityanātha Siddha. Nāgārjuna Siddha was a Buddhist monk. His book Rasendramangalam is an example of Indian alchemy and medicine. Nityanātha Siddha wrote Rasaratnākara, which was also a highly influential work. In Sanskrit, rasa translates to "mercury", and Nāgārjuna Siddha was said to have developed a method of converting mercury into gold. An example of academic scholarship on Indian alchemy is The Alchemical Body by Indologist David Gordon White. A modern bibliography on Indian alchemical studies has been written by White.
The contents of 39 Sanskrit alchemical treatises have been analysed in detail in Gerrit Jan Meulenbeld's History of Indian Medical Literature (HIML). The discussion of these works in the HIML gives a summary of the contents of each work, their special features, and where possible the evidence concerning their dating. Chapter 13 of the HIML, Various works on rasaśāstra and ratnaśāstra ('Various works on alchemy and gems') gives brief details of another 655 treatises. In some cases, Meulenbeld gives notes on the contents and authorship of these works; in other cases references are made only to the unpublished manuscripts of these titles. A great deal remains to be discovered about Indian alchemical literature.

=== Islamic world ===

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the focus of alchemical development moved to the Islamic World. Much more is known about Islamic alchemy because it was better documented: indeed, most of the earlier writings that have come down through the years were preserved as Arabic translations. The word alchemy itself was derived from the Arabic word al-kīmiyā (الكيمياء). The early Islamic world was a melting pot for alchemy. Platonic and Aristotelian thought, which had already been somewhat appropriated into Hermetic science, continued to be assimilated during the late 7th and early 8th centuries through Syriac translations and scholarship.
In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Arabic works attributed to Jābir ibn Hayyān (Latinized as "Geber" or "Geberus") introduced a new approach to alchemy. Paul Kraus, who wrote the standard reference work on ibn Hayyan, put it as follows: