The Zhenyuan Miaodao Yaolue (真元妙道要略, lit. ''Essentials of the Mysterious Way of the True Origin'') is a Taoist
alchemy
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
text that dates to c. 950. It contains one of the earliest known references to
gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
.
Dating and authorship
The text is attributed to Zheng Yin, an alchemist from the 3rd century who purportedly taught
Ge Hong, but the bulk of the text appears to have been written during the 9th century.
Contents
The document compiles thirty-four recipes of elixirs that potentially could cause harm. Of these, three recipes mention
saltpeter
Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . This alkali metal nitrate Salt (chemistry), salt is also known as Indian saltpetre (large deposits of which were historically mined in India). It is an ionic salt of potassium ...
as an ingredient. A warning is given regarding a particularly dangerous combination of materials:
The ingredients would have produced a weak form of gunpowder—a mixture of sulphur, saltpeter, and carbon—with honey acting as the source of carbon.
References
Citations
Bibliography
* {{cite book, first=Joseph, last=Needham, title=Science and Civilisation in China: Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic, Volume 5, Part 7, year=1987, publisher=Cambridge University Press, isbn=978-0-521-30358-3
Gunpowder
Chinese alchemy
Taoist texts