Anandakanda 1.5

Ānandakanda 1.5
<The Procedure of Special Digestion>
Glorious Bhairavī [said]:
Ordinary digestion was spoken of earlier by you, O Sadāśiva; / declare the special digestion, O Lord, so that I may understand it.

Glorious Bhairava [said]:
Listen, O goddess, I shall explain the digestion named 'earth-roaming.'
<The Earth-Roaming Digestion>
One should mix black, yellow, and red [substances] into copper and wrought iron.

When pure copper is consumed to twenty-two measures, O wise lady, / one should then gradually mix in lead [treated with] sulphur to half of that.

Along with gold, sixteen parts [must] be given to one part of quicksilver; / when the sulphured lead is consumed, then mercury becomes bound.

When the gold is consumed, one should tint it with half as much incinerated metal: / copper killed with sulphur, pyrites, and cinnabar-treated iron.

One should kill it purely by incineration, and supply six times as much gold; / and when four times as much gold-seed is consumed in quicksilver,

one should know it to have bound its color, and mercury becomes resembling gold in luster. / Placed in the middle of a migration apparatus, one should cause it to migrate along with that very [seed].

Having caused three parts to migrate, one should digest it again right there; / digested and made to migrate, and again digested and made to migrate,

through the application of seven successive cycles, mercury becomes able to penetrate ten million [parts]. / The earth-roaming digestion has been explained; hear now the sky-roaming digestion.

<The Sky-Roaming Digestion>
One should make gemstones that have lost their color into mercury's leavings; / one should then give bitter-gourd seeds to half of its measure.

The wise practitioner should make a paste mixed with mahājāra; / and he should place the mercury in the mouth of a vajra crucible, right at its center.

Having united clearing-nut and gold in this manner, he should grind them; / he should apply an ointment of ruby, and give it as a swallow into mercury.

It should be consumed with diligence after bowing to the Guru and God, / having paid homage to all the Siddhas, and especially to the deities.

Swooning and a burning sensation in the limbs arise from that, without doubt; / [then] he sees himself risen, possessed of a divine body and great strength.

With the sounding of conches and kähala drums, together with Siddhas and Vidyādharas, / he moves at will through the worlds, able to change forms at wish, traveling in a celestial vehicle.

Where the gods dissolve, right there the Siddha dissolves.
<Another Method of Digestion>
I shall describe yet another excellent formulation for digestion.

Quicksilver that has been well rubbed and distilled, freed from all defects, / is then treated with the sap of vegetable shoots, with the juice of viṣṇukrāntā,

and macerated with an equal amount of sulphur and water of palāśa flowers; / and [one should take] an equal part of black mica essence, and eight parts of calamine.

One should digest wrought iron, copper, and lead by means of the tortoise apparatus; / afterwards, O Pārvatī, one should digest gold by using biḍa.

Then one should know it to be perfected, and give two shares of copper; / according to the measure of the procedures, lead turns into gold.

Hereafter I shall explain the supreme sequence of digestion. / Having repeatedly macerated the powders of the seed with oil,

one should slowly rub that swallow of a sixteenth part with a finger; / then, in an oily mixture of ginger and other ingredients, it is to be given at a sixteenth part.

Having placed it on birch bark, it should then be administered and thrown into a swing apparatus; / in a day and a night, quicksilver swallows that seed, O beloved.

Having taken out the mercury, O goddess, one should then grind it thoroughly in a mortar; / then, casting it into an apparatus, [heated] for a day and night by a fierce fire,

heated and extracted from the apparatus, one should grind it in a heated mortar; / having ground it, cast it into a bolus of ginger, and then burn it in three incinerations.

Then it quickly falls into the core and digests easily; / then one should place it in a swing apparatus together with a moist bolus.

On the third day, quicksilver digests and then swallows; / the wise practitioner [keeps it] in the swing apparatus until an equal amount is consumed.

Afterwards, by means of the tortoise apparatus, when an equal amount is digested, O Pārvatī, / one should digest it with the tortoise apparatus with a twelfth part of copper.

Just as before, [one uses] the ginger preparation and internal melting; / afterwards, casting it in, O goddess, the wise practitioner should apply incineration.

Then [give] a swallow of an eighth part, and internal melting as before; / having placed that quicksilver into the hollow of an elephant foot yam bulb,

the alchemist should incinerate it until the bulb is not burnt away; / a swallow of a quarter part is prescribed for quicksilver in a crucible.

And as before, one should supply biḍa and internal liquefaction; / when four times its measure is digested in this way, quicksilver becomes potent.

Then, situated over fire, mercury swallows the morsel by means of an iron probe; / then gemstones are to be digested according to the order to be described:

Mica, magnetite, and spiral conch, / having supplied mercurials and secondary minerals, accompanied by mahājāra,

vajrakanda creeper, brāhmī, meṣaśṛṅgī, amṛtā, iron, / bitter-gourd seeds, and incinerated metals—one should cook [these].

All [ingredients] in equal shares, ground with peacock blood; / the wise man should grind it until the mixture becomes firm.

A crucible shaped like a shallow earthen bowl should be made, along with covers; / one should place the quicksilver inside it and blow with downward air.

First of all, diamond smeared with medicinal paste must be prepared; / it is seized, there is no doubt here, just as in a fierce fire.

Diamond and other gems should be calcined. He should grind it with dried dung, / until the wise practitioner consumes diamond elevenfold [into it].

A conch-navel calcined and immersed in citron juice, / and then a pearl should be given when the diamond is consumed into the quicksilver.

By this orderly procedure, it becomes elevenfold indeed. / Pure peacock bile mixed with indigo extract,

smeared onto blue lotuses, should be cast into the quicksilver. / Mercury drinks great dyes; it should discard inferior dyes.

With gems and peacock bile combined with the great jewels, / one should coat noble gems, and cast them into the midst of the mercury.

Turmeric and indeed kaṅkuṣṭha impregnated with the juice of palāśa: / with that very mixture he should administer the digestion of topaz.

When many gems are digested, and bhṛṅgarāja [juices], O woman of noble vows, / let the lord of mercury appear, O goddess, with a blue, yellow, and reddish hue.

<Smoke-transmuting mercury>
One should smear pure gold leaves with a hundredth part [of that mercury]; / he should kill this by roasting until it resembles a cochineal insect.

By mere touch, this dead gold transfigures everything, O beloved. / He should combine three parts of the king of quicksilver with that very [gold].

While resting inside a crucible, he should digest [it] again with that very [agent]; / it becomes smoke-transmuting, O goddess, when processed again and again.

If the triple chain is digested according to this sequential method, / it will transfigure mountains, stones, and the earth without a doubt.

Light will appear on the sides, and light will indeed appear above it; / one should recognize that lord of mercury as earth-wandering, without any doubt.

Through that, O goddess, moving unwearied, one can walk a hundred leagues, / possessing divine radiance, a massive body, divine vision, and great strength.

Freed from all diseases, he lives as long as the moon, sun, and stars; / his urine and feces transfigure all base metals.

<Other modes of transmutation>
With an equal amount of digested diamond, and accompanied by gold, / placed in fire, one should digest metals; the quicksilver attains fixation.

He should transmute with that seed, transmuting even a thousandfold. / Then he should digest what has been transmuted: smeared or projected by the thousands,

he should transmute with that seed, and attain transmutation hundred-thousandfold. / By this sequential method, mercury becomes capable of transmuting ten-millionfold.

When diamond alone is digested in equal measure, / quicksilver is then known to be fixed, motionless, and free from afflictions.

The quicksilver stands in the fire and devours an iron rod in an instant; / blown with a violent fire, it devours everything eagerly.

Devouring and digesting, the quicksilver bestows longevity and wealth. / One should blow the quicksilver residing in a crucible; it will not waver at all in a violent fire.

One should digest all gems; fixed, it leads to aerial locomotion. / When the eight metals are consumed eightfold, the fixation of mercury occurs.

All metals threefold, and gold threefold likewise: / upon merely seeing its smoke, it transfigures; the sky-like [mercury] bestows liberation.

First, eightfold mica essence should be digested into the great mercury; / with a tenth of the gold, he should digest diamonds and gems equally.

And when he digests an equal amount of diamond, then that mercury moves through the sky; / in due course, turning to the right, it becomes a transmuter of ten millions.

<Special results of transmutation according to amounts of digested substance>
When lead is digested in an equal amount, mercury becomes a tenfold transmuter; / at double, it becomes a hundredfold transmuter; at threefold, a thousandfold.

At fourfold, ten-thousandfold, O goddess; one should increase it in this order; / one should digest lead therein by successive increases.

Crooked lead should be digested in increments of the number nine; / administering it in sequence, O mistress of gods, mercury becomes a ten-millionfold transmuter.

When stone beginning with sulfur has attained sixfold digestion, / the mercury becomes a destroyer of diseases; then it has an open mouth.

When that is digested a hundredfold, it destroys sickness, senescence, and death; / devouring essences of stones beginning with mica equal to itself,

overcoming sickness, senescence, and death, mercury becomes a hundredfold transmuter. / When digested twofold, quicksilver grants a lifespan of a hundred years and transfigures a thousandfold.

At fourfold, it grants a lifespan of a thousand years and is a ten-thousandfold transmuter. / Mercury, when digested eightfold, grants a lifespan of a hundred thousand years and transfigures a hundred-thousandfold.

At sixteenfold, mercury grants the lifespan of Brahmā and transfigures ten-millionfold. / When digested thirty-two-fold, it bestows alchemical perfections such as aerial locomotion.

It bestows the lifespan and strength of Viṣṇu, and quicksilver transfigures by touch; / when digested sixty-four-fold, it grants the lifespan of Śiva and transfigures by sound.

<Destruction of all defects by digesting sixfold mica>
All defects of mercury, by means of mica that is digested / sixfold, reach destruction; no deliberation should be made here.

Then it devours metals and abandons its own loss.
<The five states>
Smoking, crackling, and frog-hopping,

trembling, and violently shaking are the five states of mercury. / Digested equally, it is a child; digested fourfold, it is in its youth;

digested sixfold, it is aged, auspicious, and capable of all operations.
<Sequence of digestion>
First, one should digest sulfur; after that, all essences;

then all metals, both pairs and diverse kinds; / one should digest calcinated seeds and jewels into the liquid essence.

First a sixty-fourth part, a thirty-second part [for the second], / the third in a sixteenth part, and the fourth in an eighth,

and the fifth in a fourth part, the sixth is declared in a half part; / the seventh should be known in a hundredth part: [such is] the measure of a morsel for mercury.

<Differences in appearance according to differences in morsel size>
At a morsel of a sixty-fourth part, the mercury becomes rod-holding; / at the second application of a morsel, O mistress of gods, it resembles a leech;

at the third morsel of mercury, it resembles crow dung; / the fourth is shaped like a ball; at the fifth, it has the luster of fire;

at the sixth, quicksilver shines like the sun; and at the seventh, it is a mass of brilliance. / Such, O mistress of the gods, is the sign of the king of mercury progressively digested.

An equal portion, a double morsel, then fourfold in quicksilver, / and likewise eightfold, O goddess, and one should digest sixteenfold;

thirty-two-fold, O goddess, and sixty-four-fold in sequence.
<Qualities produced by the refinement processes>
One should produce sharpness through steaming, and purity through grinding;

freedom from defects through swooning, and destruction of fetor through revival; / rejuvenation therapy comes through distillation, and replenishment through restraint.

Steadiness results from restraining; through rekindling it blazes with an eager mouth;
association in compounds comes from fumigation; swift potency comes from feeding minerals.

Firm fixation comes from digesting; oneness from the two dissolutions;
redness from dyeing it; and pervasiveness from the three operations of running.

Penetrating power comes from transmutational infusion, and also through projection upon bodies and base metals.