Rasamanjari 5

English (machine translation) 5

Language: English

5.1

Rasamañjarī, 5
From gold up to metal dross, the purification, calcination, and properties, / along with tested recipes, I shall explain as spoken from the mouth of the guru.

5.2

<Metals: Purification>
In oil, buttermilk, cow's urine, horsegram decoction, and sour gruel, / heated repeatedly, one should quench [it] in each liquid seven times.

5.3

From gold up to [other] metals, purification is certainly attained. / The purification and calcination are now declared by me.

5.4

<Gold: Purification>
Impregnated for five days with earth and the sour juice of wild lemon, / one should purify gold together with ash and salt by heating it in an incineration pit.

5.5

<Gold Calx>
One should form gold equal in weight to purified mercury into a ball inside a mortar; / placing sulphur below and above, everything in equal measure, and enclosing it,

5.6

it should be subjected to fourteen incineration pits using thirty wild cow-dung cakes; / a calx that does not revive is produced; sulphur is to be added again and again.

5.7

<Gold Calx>
Having made gold leaves piercable with a thorn, one should coat [them] / with wild lemon juice, calx, and mercury; it is calcined through ten incineration pits.

5.8

<Calcined gold>
Or else one should coat the leaf with ash of mercury or with [liquid] mercury; / one should coat it with asafoetida, cinnabar, and vermilion, along with an equal quantity of realgar,

5.9

having triturated it for a day with the juice of thorn-apple, and then make a ball. / Placing it at the base of a pot, one should fill it firmly with ash.

5.10

One should kindle an intense fire for two nights. When it has cooled of itself, / having taken it out and if any remains uncalcined, three incineration pits should be given again.

5.11

By this procedure, boundless gold is produced that cannot be revived. / This is a rejuvenative, strengthening, aphrodisiac, cooling, and destroys consumption and other diseases.

5.12

<Calcined gold>
Having added lead at a sixteenth part of melted gold, / having extracted it, one should triturate it with lime juice.

5.13

One should apply sulphur powder equal to that ball below and above. / Placing it inside a casing of earthen dishes, one should incinerate it with twenty wild cow-dung cakes.

5.14

Thus, with seven incineration pits, the gold never attains revival again.
<Calcined gold>
Pyrites and lead powder ground again in calotropis sap,

5.15

and with that very [mixture], the gold leaf is calcined in merely an instant.
<Gold: medicinal properties>
Gold is astringent, bitter, sweet, heavy, and scraping;

5.16

aphrodisiac, a rejuvenative, strengthening, beneficial to the eyes, imparting lustre, pure, / bestowing longevity, intellect, stability of youth, purity of speech, and memory.

5.17

It is said to be the supreme pacifier for those afflicted with consumption and insanity.
<Purification of silver>
It is melted with one part of borax by one desiring purification.

5.18

<Calcined silver>
Four parts of silver leaf and one part of purified orpiment / are to be triturated with lime juices, and one should coat the silver leaves [with it].

5.19

Confining it, it should be cooked with three incineration pits using twenty-five wild cow-dung cakes. / It is calcined, there is no doubt in this; sulphur should be given again and again.

5.20

<Calcined silver>
One should take an equal portion of chalcopyrite and sulphur / ground thoroughly with calotropis latex, and having coated the silver leaf,

5.21

one should digest the silver with an incineration pit; it certainly becomes calcined.
<Silver: calcination (3)>
Having made a paste of silver with mercury, one should then mix

5.22

an equal quantity of orpiment and sulphur, and afterwards triturate it with lime juice. / With two or three incineration pits it becomes ash, to be employed indeed in mercurial and other recipes.

<Silver: medicinal properties>
Silver is cooling, astringent, sweet, sour, subduing vāta aggravation, / appetizing, strength-producing, unctuous, destroying severe indigestion, / promoting longevity, curing chronic diseases, and highly scraping.

5.24

<Copper>
They say poison is not poison; rather, copper is called poison.
<Copper: 8 impurities>
There is one impurity in poison, but eight impurities are proclaimed in copper:

5.25

giddiness, swooning, burning sensation, sweating, moisture, vomiting, / anorexia, and mental distress—these impurities are like poison.

5.26

Therefore, thoroughly purified copper should be obtained for the alleviation of diseases.
<Copper: purification>
One should coat copper leaf with salts and the milk of Euphorbia antiquorum.

5.27

Having heated it in fire and sprinkled it seven times with nirguṇḍī juice, / and likewise with the fresh juice of snuhī and calotropis, purification of copper will take place.

5.28

<Copper: purification>
One should cook copper leaf with cow urine for a yāma over a strong fire; / it is purified, there is no doubt in this; or now calcination is explained:

5.29

<Calcined copper>
One should triturate one [part] of mercury and two parts of sulphur for a yāma with aloe vera. / One should seal copper leaf equal to both inside a cooking pot,

5.30

along with clay and salt properly, and having placed ash at the sides, / one should cook it for four yāmas on a hearth, with cow dung on the back of the vessel.

5.31

Water should be added again and again. When it has cooled of itself, one should powder it. / It is calcined, there is no doubt in this; one may employ it in all formulations.

5.32

<Calcined copper>
One should coat copper leaves with a fourth part of mercury. / One should provide below and above a double quantity of sulphur ground with sour liquid.

5.33

In a pot filled with a paste of yellow wood-sorrel, one should cook it firmly for a yāma. / The copper leaf, turned to ash, one may employ in all formulations.

5.34

<Calcined copper>
Coated with mercury and sulphur ground with lime juice, / copper leaf placed in an earthen dish undergoes death with three incineration pits.

5.35

<Properties of calcined copper>
Copper is bitter, sour, sweet, astringent, and supremely cooling;

5.36

it destroys kapha, pitta, and tissue emaciation, cures skin diseases, is a rejuvenative, / and destroys colic and piles just as Indra's thunderbolt destroys a tree.

5.37

<Purification and calcination of brass and bell-metal>
Likewise, one should calcine brass and bell-metal separately, like copper. / Their purification is like that of copper, and they produce benefits like copper.

5.38

<Purification of lead and tin>
And melted lead and tin one should sprinkle with calotropis latex; / inside an earthen pot with holes, they attain purification in three times.

5.39

<Lead: calcination (1)>
With three pot-incineration pits, lead triturated with vāsā fresh juice / and that realgar turns to ash; that powder removes all urinary diseases.

5.40

<Calcined lead>
Having ground earthworm and Sesbania grandiflora, one should coat a vessel. / When the lead has melted, the juice of that, produced from vāsā and apāmārga,

5.41

one should mix a fourth part of alkali therein, according to the Guru's teaching. / One should cook it for a prahara on a hearth, stirred with a vāsā ladle.

5.42

Then, having taken out that powder, one should triturate it with vāsā water. / One should incinerate it, take it out again, and triturate it thoroughly with that same [liquid].

5.43

Thus, with seven incineration pits, the lead certainly becomes vermilion.
<Properties of calcined lead>
Contained in silver, lead is colouring; it dispels vāta, pitta, and kapha,

5.44

and cures dysentery, skin diseases, urinary disorders, piles, consumption of vital breath, and poisons.
<Tin: calcination (1)>
One should first purify tin; one should melt it inside an earthen pot.

5.45

Then one should add a fourth part of powdered apāmārga. / With an iron ladle having a thick tip, one should stir it slowly.

5.46

As long as it becomes ash, for so long it should be triturated as before. / Then, when all is united, it will become the colour of charcoal.

5.47

The physician should seal it inside with a new earthen dish. / Afterwards, cooked with an intense fire, it will certainly become tin ash.

5.48

<Tin: calcination (2)>
Having ground tin with orpiment and latex of calotropis, one should incinerate it. / With dry barks of the sacred fig tree, it will turn to ash in seven times.

5.49

<Properties of calcined tin>
Tin is bitter, hot, dry, slightly aggravating vāta, / destroying urinary and phlegmatic diseases, vermifugal, and dispelling delusion.

5.50

<iron:: purification:: mountain>
Sixteen palas of three myrobalans in water eight times the amount of the three myrobalans;
when that decoction is reduced to one quarter, five palas of iron [are used]

5.51

having made into sheets, heated, one should quench [them] seven times.
In this way, the mountain-born impurity produced in the iron dissolves

5.52

<iron ash>
One part of purified mercury, two parts of sulphur;
with an amount of steel powder equal to the two, one should triturate with aloe juice

5.53

for two yāmas; then one should place the ball in a copper vessel.
Covered with castor leaves, it should remain warm for two yāmas

5.54

placed inside a grain heap for three days; then one should triturate it vigorously.
That powder, strained through a cloth, floats on water like a swan

5.55

Tīkṣṇa, muṇḍa, and magnetic iron become calcined without revivification.
Combined with three myrobalans and honey, this is to be consumed as a rejuvenative

5.56

<iron ash>
One should mix cinnabar as a twelfth part of the tīkṣṇa powder;
having triturated it with aloe juice for two yāmas, one should then incinerate it.
One should thus incinerate the iron powder; seven times it goes to calcination

5.57

<iron ash>
One should quench iron sheets in the juice of kākodumbarikā;
repeatedly heated, six times, one should crush it in a mortar

5.58

Adding a fifth part of cinnabar to it, one should triturate it all
with aloe juice, and then [incinerate] the tīkṣṇa in an incineration pit, an elephant-pit likewise;

5.59

three times, and with the decoctions of the three myrobalans the same number of times, unwearied.
Thus, with fourteen incineration pits, the iron becomes water-floating

5.60

<iron ash>
Smearing a sword with the pulp of a tindūka fruit in fierce sunlight,
one should keep it with a bell-metal vessel; in a single day it is sufficiently incinerated

5.61

One should apply the paste again and again; at the end of the day, one should grind it down.
Combined with a decoction of the three myrobalans, calcination occurs in a single day

5.62

<iron ash>
An iron sheet, intensely heated, one should cast repeatedly into a decoction of the three myrobalans; having thereby turned into powder, one should cook it in a decoction produced from the three myrobalans in cow's urine;
one should incinerate it with the juice of matsyākṣī and the three myrobalans until it is non-revivable; afterwards, flooded with ghee and honey and thoroughly incinerated, it becomes iron ash

Linked texts (1)

Rasamañjarī — Śālinātha, Sanskrit