Growing up with Mercury in an Ayurvedic Family Tradition in Northern India

In this personal narrative, Vaidya Balendu Prakash tells the story of how he grew up in a north Indian family lineage specialising in rasashastra, a clinical specialty of Ayurveda that deals with the complex processing of mercury and metals converting toxic materials into therapeutic forms, largely known as bhasmas. As a college student, Prakash was confronted with his father’s medical knowledge through a personal illness and accepted the challenge of continuing the family lineage. His training in both Western science and Ayurveda, his experiences and experiments with different ways of knowing about Ayurveda—through his father and through ayurvedic institutionalised learning—led him to document his research based on observation, combining ‘traditional’ knowledge and ‘modern’ research methodology in a unique way. In this contribution to ‘Field Notes’, he shares his insight into developing the standards for the processing of mercury and metal-based formulations, with the aim of ascertaining reproducibility. He has also developed ayurvedic treatment protocols for certain forms of cancer and chronic diseases.