Asbestos and Salamander in India

Abstract

The present paper, an homage to B. Laufer’s “Asbestos and Salamander” (1915), adds South Asia to the story of a remarkable Eurasian cultural meme meant to explain the presence of fire-proof cloth after its manufacturing technology was forgotten, namely that asbestos was the fur of a mythical animal. I argue that none of our Sanskrit dictionaries contain the correct meaning of the term agniśauca, which does indeed mean asbestos. The widely shared motif explains why in Sanskrit literature too we have animals (a nondescript mṛga) by the same name. I examine textual passages from kāvya, purāṇas, as well as Buddhist sūtras and śāstras, to elucidate this topic. I also cite some evidence that in the period between the 9th and the 11th c. some areas of India still possessed knowledge of asbestos manufacturing. However, as for where and when the correlation was first made, I must leave the question open.