Paper short abstract:

My paper will give an overview and analysis of different ayurvedic discourses on toxic materials with a particular focus on 10th-16th century Sanskrit medical texts.

Paper long abstract:

Poisons (Skt. viṣa) are a central concern in classical Indian medicine and are discussed in varying contexts. The earliest Sanskrit medical works known to us, the Carakasaṃhitā and the Suśrutasaṃhitā, name toxicology as one of eight traditional branches of medicine. In chapters dedicated to the subject of poisons, these works describe the symptoms of and treatment for poisoning caused by vegetable and mineral poisons or animal and insect bites. The focus is on explaining their mode of action on the human body and on describing how to counteract their effects. At the same time, however, a number of the listed poisonous plant materials also appear in recipes for medicines.

Later ayurvedic works, beginning with the thirteenth-century Śārṅgadharasaṃhitā, introduce the use of poisonous plant materials as agents for processing heavy metals, in particular mercury. Mercury, which in older works is not discussed in terms of its toxicity, is newly defined as having certain kinds of faults that need to be addressed before mercury can be used as a medicine. Poison, or poisonousness is defined as an innate fault of mercury and considered one of its most severe faults as it may cause death. Special attention is therefore given to its eradication, achieved (or at least aimed at) through triturating mercury with the juice of poisonous plants such as leadwort (one of the poisonous plants already mentioned in the Suśrutasaṃhitā), a process that could be described as fighting fire with fire.