Anandakanda 2.6

Ānandakanda 2.6
The venerable Bhairava:
<Tin: subtypes>
Tin is said to be of two kinds: khuraka and miśraka. / Among them, khura is superior in qualities, whereas miśraka is deficient in qualities.

<Khura: physical properties>
White, soft, smooth, rapidly melting, heavy, / and soundless is khura tin; miśraka is darkish-white.
<Miśraka: physical properties>

<Tin: synonyms>
Trapu, trapusamārūpa, vaṅga, kuṭila, hima, / kurūpya, viccaṭa, raṅga, pūtigandha, and named rasa.

<Tin: testing: good quality>
Clear, intolerant of heat, cool, yielding thin sheets, light; / in destroying illness and making silver, that tin is declared superior.

<Purification of tin (1)>
Having melted it, thrown into juice of nirguṇḍī together with turmeric, / khura tin is purified in three times, without doubt.

With punarnavā, vāsaka, and rock salt ground in sour buttermilk, / tin placed inside a bitter bottle gourd—both [types] are completely purified.

Having smeared tin sheets with calotropis milk containing orpiment, / with alkali from the bark of peepal and tamarind, he should then give light-pit furnaces.

Having ground it, he should make ash; that is praised in mercury [processes] and the rest.
<Purification of tin (2)>
He should purify tin like lead; likewise with ash of peepal and tamarind;

he should grind that ash and orpiment in equal parts with sour [gruel], / or having stirred it with liquids derived from palāśa, he should blind it in a pit furnace.

Having extracted it, he should grind it with a tenth part of orpiment.
<Purification of tin (3)>
Having mixed it with the previous liquids, sealed, he should cook it in an elephant-pit furnace.

With twenty-one pit furnaces, tin becomes dead and removes disease. / A ball [of tin] combined with aloe and powders of siris and turmeric,

a tin sheet smeared with mercury, ground equally into a ball, / sealed and cooked in light-pit furnaces, becomes dead by the previous number.

Having ground [the drugs] with decoction of bibhītaka and bhallātaka, he should coat the sheets; / then, having thrown it into sesame oil cake and sealed, he should cook it in pit furnaces.

With forty elephant-pit furnaces, tin becomes ash.
<Properties of tin>
Tin is sharp, hot, pungent, and slightly provokes vāta;

it destroys diseases of fat and phlegm, kills worms, destroys urinary disorders, / is cool, astringent, salty, removes jaundice and burning sensation, and is laxative.

It is scarifying and slightly increases pitta humor; tin (trapu) and lead (sīsa) share these properties.
<Lead>
Lead is inert and cold; [its synonyms are] yavaneṣṭa, bhujaṅgama,

yogīṣṭa, nāga, uraga, kuvaṅga, and paripiṣṭaka.
It is soft and dark metal, considered an agent for purifying eyelashes and silver.

It is [also called] sirāvṛtta, vaṅga, and cīnapiṣṭa—these are sixteen [synonyms].
Lead, however, is equal to tin in taste, potency, and post-digestive effect.

<Defects from Consuming Unpurified Tin and Lead>
Lead and tin that are deficient in calcination cause leprosy and abdominal tumors;
they are known to produce urinary disease, anemia, fever, phlegm humor, vāta humor, and pitta humor.

Lead that melts quickly, is very heavy, black and brilliant when cut,
foul-smelling, and black on the outside, is pure; otherwise it is impure.

One should smear a lead sheet with powder of nirguṇḍī root together with the latex of arka.
Then, when it is dry, one should melt it and quench it.

It should be smeared, melted, and quenched again seven times for purification.
Turmeric, seeds of tumburu, kokilākṣī, kuberaka,

gaurīphala, mallikā, mokṣa, brahmā, and mayūraka—
one should triturate the ash of these, as available, with the latex of vajrī.

Pure lead melted within that should be quenched seven times.
With the bone powder of a buffalo, it attains good calcination by quenching in urine.

Tin becomes pure in that manner, and lead [is purified] by lead-bone [ash] and urine.
<Lead Ash (1)>
[Taking] ash from the bark of aśvattha and ciñcā equal to one-fourth part of the lead,

one should throw it [with the lead] onto a hearth, cook it over fire, and stir it with an iron ladle.
When it turns to ash, one extracts it, [adds] realgar equal to the ash,

and having ground it with jambīra lime [juice] or fermented sour gruel, confines it and calcinates it in a puṭa.
When cold of its own accord, having ground it again with a twentieth part of realgar and sour liquid,

and calcinating it in this manner with sixty puṭas, the lead becomes non-revivable.
<Lead Ash (2)>
Alternatively, lead sheets smeared with powder [are placed] in an earthen pan;

one should cook them over a mild fire for one yāma. One should roast that ash with juices of citraka
in an iron vessel, stirring it with an arjuna-wood stick.

Juice is to be added repeatedly for up to sixteen yāmas.
Having taken it out, one should vigorously crush it with a stick with citraka juices;

having rolled it into a ball and sealed it, it dies quickly with six puṭas.
<Lead Ash (3)>
With the ashes produced from ciñcā, akṣa, sugarcane, bhallātaka, vāsā, and vajralatā,

as well as the ashes produced from apāmārga, arjuna, and aśvattha,
one should roast it firmly in an iron vessel with a palāśa stick.

In just seven days it dies; of this there is no doubt.
<Lead Ash (4)>
Having ground agastya and earthworms, one should smear and cleanse a pot.

One should melt the lead in that pot; once the lead has melted, one should throw in
the alkali of vāsā and ciñcaṭā and stir with a stick of vāsā.

One should cook it on a hearth for one yāma, take it out, and mix it;
and having pulverized it with realgar and copper pyrites along with the alkali of vāsaka,

[in an amount] equal to one-fourth of the aforesaid lead, one should calcinate it with twenty-one puṭas.
Two puṭas should be given with alkalis of ciñcikā combined with vāsā juice.

The lead dies, possessing the luster of vermilion, accomplishing all purposes.
Lead is extremely hot, unctuous, bitter, and dispels vāta humor and kapha humor.

It destroys urinary disease and defects of bodily water, stimulates digestion, and cures āmavāta.