and assess them for use. A number of classical texts, like Atharvaveda ( BCE) mention some dye stuff, the material used were turmeric, madder , sunflower, orpiment, cochineal and lac. Some other substances having tinting property were kamplcica, pattanga and jatuka . Varähmihir’s Brihat Samhita gives references to perfumes and cosmetics.
Recipes for hair dying were made from plants, like indigo and minerals like iron power, black iron or steel and acidic extracts of sour rice gruel. Gandhayukli describes recipes for making scents, mouth perfumes, bath powders, incense and talcum power. Paper was known to India in the th century as account of Chinese traveller I-tsing describes. Excavations at Taxila indicate that ink was used in India from the fourth century.
Colours of ink were made from chalk, red lead and minimum. It seems that the process of fermentation was well-known to Indians . Vedas and Kautilya’s Arthashastra mention about many types of liquors. Charaka Samhita also mentions ingredients, such as barks of plants, stem, flowers, leaves, woods, cereals, fruits and sugarcane for making Asavas.
The concept that matter is ultimately made of indivisible building blocks, appeared in India a few centuries BCE as a part of philosophical speculations. Acharya Kanda, born in BCE, originally known by the name Kashyap, was the first proponent of the ‘atomic theory’. He formulated the theory of very small indivisible particles, which he named ‘ Paramãnu ’ (comparable to atoms). He authored the text Vaiseshika Sutras .
According to him, all substances are aggregated form of smaller units called atoms ( Paramãnu ), which are eternal, indestructible, spherical, suprasensible and in motion in the original state. He explained that this individual entity cannot be sensed through any human organ. Kanda added that there are varieties of atoms that are as different as the different classes of substances. He said these ( Paramãnu ) could form pairs or triplets, among other combinations and unseen forces cause interaction between them.
He conceptualised this theory around years before John Dalton ( - ). Charaka Samhita is the oldest Ayurvedic epic of India. It describes the treatment