History in the Making – Mining, Myth, and Medicine: Gemstones in South Asian Healing (Dr. Patricia Sauthoff, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Mining, Myth, and Medicine: Diamonds in South Asian Healing explores the mythologies and medical uses of diamonds withing the rasaśāstra (Indian alchemical) tradition. It centers around the 17th century Sanskrit Rasapaddhati and its verses on the use of diamonds and gemstones. Comparing the myths about the formation and mining of gems found in various Sanskrit sources and comparing these descriptions to those in Western travel writing, it traces how the myths spread and were reinterpreted by different groups and who and how they were extracted from the earth.

Using this knowledge, I then discuss several alchemical procedures to process gemstones into usable medicines and examine several recipes that use gems as panaceas against disease, provides longevity, and destroys cosmetic ailments like wrinkles and grey hair.

Dr. Patricia Sauthoff is a historian of South Asian religion and medicine at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research focuses on explorations of death, medicine, health, anti-aging, ssxuality, gender, and ritual with an emphasis on tantra and alchemy. She is the author of Illness and Immortality: Mantra, Maṇḍala, and Meditation in the Netra Tantra (OUP 2022). Most recently she has published three chapters in Indian Alchemy: Sources and Contexts (OUP 2025. Ed. Dagmar Wujastyk) that examines the alchemical laboratory, the apparatuses used for alchemical processes, and recipes for potency and sexual pleasure.

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