Chinese alchemists

From some Chinese alchemists [extracts made by H. P. Blavatsky], Lucifer 18, no. 107 (Jul 1896) 400-403. 

Davis, Tenney L. Stories of early Chinese alchemists - first to practice the art. 

Wilson, William Jerome. Biographies of early Chinese alchemists. Ciba Symposia 2, no. 7 (Oct 1940) 605-609. 

Davis, Tenney L. and Chao Yun-Ts ung. Chang Po-Tuan, Chinese alchemist of the eleventh century. JChem Educ 16, no. 2 (Feb 1939) 53-57. 

Ho Peng Yoke and Beda Lim. Ts ui Fang, a forgotten 1 lth-century Chinese alchemist. Japanese Studs Hist Sci, no. 11 (1972) 103-112. 

Ho Ping-Yu and Joseph Needham. The laboratory equipment of the early mediaeval Chinese alchemists. Ambix 7, no. 2 (Jun 1959) 57-115. 

In about 3600 bce, ores containing both arsenic and copper were known and mined by the early Greeks and Romans, as well as by Chinese alchemists. This is about the time when copper was smelted and alloyed to make bronze. Some ores of copper produced harder metals than others because of impurities. One of these impurities was arsenic. Because the workers were becoming ill when smelting these types of ore, the process was abandoned, and tin was added to copper to form bronze. Bronze may have been the Persian (Iranian) word for copper. ... 

The Chinese alchemist Ko Hung (281-361 A.D.) wrote in the Pao Pu Tzu, Many do not even know that mercury comes out of cinnabar (tan sha). When told, they still refuse to believe it, saying that cinnabar is red, and how can it produce a white substance They also say that cinnabar is a stone—that stones when heated turn to ashes and how then can anything else be expected of tan sha (57). 

Based upon Taoist philosophy, alchemy in China developed. Although there is not any literature concerning atomism among the ancient Chinese alchemists, five elements (Wu Xing) were acknowledged in the twelfth century BCE. These elements were water, fire, wood, gold or metal, and earth. The elements were frequently associated or matched with other sets of five, such as virtues, tastes, colors, tones, and the like (P). In about 1910, modem atomism probably came to China when Sim Yat Sen introduced modem European education. 

The earliest Chinese alchemists seem to have been the Taoists. Indeed, Chinese alchemy would be unthinkable without Taoism. Tradition ascribes the origin of Taoism to LaoTzu, a sage who was said to have lived around S00 BCE, although the wisdom... 

The next most important of the early Chinese alchemists after Wei Po Yang, ffe attempted to combine Confucian ethics with the occult doctrines ofTaoism, summarising the two great traditions as difficulty in the midst of facility , and the latter as facility in the midst of difficulty . 

Sulfur itself has been known since antiquity and, because of its associations with volcanic eruptions, was referred to in the past as brimstone (burning stone). In the third century, Chinese alchemists used a mixture of sulfur with saltpetre (KN03) as a primitive gunpowder. Elemental sulfur is widely distributed in nature and also as compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, sulfates, e.g. those of calcium and magnesium, and sulfide ores. 

Chinese alchemists in the Taoist tradition were interested in transmutation, but more frequently they sought enlightenment and immortality, rather than material wealth. Taoist alchemists thus often more inclined to the medical or pharmacological end of the spectrum, producing tinctures, potions, and pills and devising alchemical regimes to aid in the pursuit of immortality. 

The phenomenon of cementation was known to Chinese alchemists in the second century B.C. Copper was produced commercially from contaminated mine waters by cementation with metallic iron in China in 1086 A.D.. 2 q hjs process, ideally represented as... 

By the end of the ninth century, certain Chinese alchemists began to divide alchemy between esoteric (using the souls of substances) and exoteric (using concrete materials). In India, alchemy included both the exoteric and the esoteric precise observations, such as the importance of the color of the flame for the analysis of metals,34 and a mystical or tantric aspect, which emphasized... 

The earliest records of the use of mercurydD sulfide by humans date to about the third millennium in China, where the compound was used to cure diseases, relieve pain, as a narcotic and an antiseptic, and as a preservative. Chinese alchemists referred to the compound as celestial... 

Considering the root-meaning and the multiple connotations of the word dan helps us to better appreciate how Chinese alchemists understood the meaning of their work. Lexical analysis, however, can only point to, but cannot account for, the symbolic associations that exist among the different notions and entities that we have mentioned above. 

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