Rasarnava 7

English (machine translation) 7

Language: English

7.1

The venerable Devī said:
Command [the teaching on] the primary minerals along with their characteristics and processing,
and whatever else is like that, O God, which assists alchemical knowledge.

7.2

The venerable Bhairava said:
Pyrite, vimala, bitumen, capala, calamine,
blue vitriol, cinnabar, and stibnite make eight;
such are the eight primary minerals; listen to them first.

7.3

Now Kṛṣṇa, having heard the [Mahā]bhārata, entered into yogic sleep;
his sole of the foot was pierced by a hunter who mistook him for a deer.

7.4

The drops of blood that fell there on the ground from the wound,
having the form of neem fruits, indeed became stones of pyrite.

7.5

Pyrite there is of two kinds, through the division into yellow and white.
Vimala is of three kinds, O Devī: white, yellow, and red.

In oil, sour rice-gruel, and buttermilk, in cow's urine, and in plantain juice,
with decoctions of horse-gram and kodrava grain, pyrite and likewise vimala,
placed within an elephant-foot yam, should be repeatedly steamed, O lady of excellent complexion!

7.7

Combined with alkalis, acids, salts, castor oil, and ghee,
three calcination fires should be applied; the two will become purified.

7.8

Powdered pyrite, macerated in breast milk and the milk of snuhī and arka,
when well blown, releases metallic essence, when delighted by borax and kaṅkuṣṭha.

7.9

Submerged in [the juice of] plantain bulb, basil, and sour orange,
given seven times seven calcination fires, combined with the five solvents,
delighted by woman's breast milk and blown, pyrite releases metallic essence.

7.10

Repeatedly macerated with honey and castor oil,
with cow's urine, ghee, and extract of plantain bulb,
pyrite, when blown in a crucible, releases soft metallic essence resembling copper.

7.11

Pouring in devadālī juice, combined with a one-fourth part of borax,
making an open crucible, one should blow the desired metallic essence.

7.12

What wonder is there here? Well-cooked with plantain juice in a hollowed elephant-foot yam,
burnt in a calcination fire with castor oil, pyrite attains excellent purity.

7.13

Macerated with cow's urine, snuhī latex, and castor oil,
pounded for one day and formed into a cake,
pyrite should be blown like mica for metallic essence; this is also the procedure for blue vitriol.

7.14

Tāpya, āvartaka, dhātumākṣika, madhudhātuka—
pyrite is bitter and sweet, destroying urinary diseases, hemorrhoids, consumption, and skin disease;
it removes kapha and pitta, imparts strength, acts as a vehicle, and is a rejuvenating alchemy.

7.15x

At the mere recitation of whose name, fevers, saṃnipāta disorders, and even poverty
perish over a hundred yojanas—who can transmute base metals better than that?

7.16

Vimala [mixed] with horseradish-tree water, with alum, green vitriol, and borax,
combined with vajrakanda, macerated with plantain juices,

7.17

combined with alkali of mokṣaka, blown in a blind crucible,
releases metallic essence resembling the moon and the sun; there is no doubt.

7.18

Fallen and unfallen—thus bitumen is of two kinds, O sovereign Lady;
it is also to be praised in other treatises, [and] has been praised by many gods.

7.19

In summer, the mountains, heated by the heat [of the sun],
release the metallic essence of ores and resin; that is declared to be bitumen.

7.20

Blown like a stone, it is mineral; mountain-born, originating on the slopes of mountains;
rock-born pitch; the mountain is rock; it has been recounted as spoken by you.

7.21

Blown with alkalis, acids, and cow's urine, bitumen is purified;
or indeed, placing it in an iron vessel with cow's ghee
and the juices of triphalā and fresh ginger, one should purify it with effort.

7.22

Having powdered the bitumen, with fermented grain water, secondary poisons, and poisons,
having bound a pellet according to rule, one should cause it to fall like capala.

7.23

Fair, white, reddish, and black: capala is commended;
that having the lustre of gold and that having the lustre of silver especially bind mercury.

7.24

The remaining two are middling, melting quickly like lac, but are fruitless;
it melts like tin in fire; therefore it is called capala (fickle).

7.25

If, bound with a cloth, capala would cross the ocean,
it would immediately envelop the cloth; therefore it is remembered as capala.

7.26

One should cause capala to flow through cooking in a calcination fire on the summit of a mountain;
it indeed causes binding of the body, and especially the binding of mercury.

7.27

Moving like a cloud, capala effects the transmutation of mercury;
capala is scraping, unctuous, and considered to produce a body of iron.

7.28

Through the divisions of earth, molasses, and stone, calamine is of three kinds.

7.29

Yellow and earth-like, earth calamine is superior;
that resembling molasses is known as middling; that resembling stone is inferior.

7.30

Stirring it with the exudation of bitter bottle-gourd, one should cook calamine;
purified, freed of defects, it indeed becomes yellow in color.

7.31

What wonder is there here? Calamine macerated with mercury [and] the menstrual blood of a menstruating woman,
gradually prepared and colored with lead, turns copper into gold by three calcination fires.

7.32

Even when placed in fire, it does not diminish, having the form of metallic essence, possessing great power.

7.33

Having powdered calamine and bound it in cloth, the wise one
should place it in women's urine for seven nights, O Lady of the gods.

7.34

One should macerate it with the juices and petals of red and yellow flowers.

7.35

Repeatedly macerating calamine with alkalis, fats, and acids,
combined with wool, lac, turmeric, harītakī, earthworms, and soot,

7.36

placed into a blind crucible and blown, combined with borax,
it surely releases metallic essence resembling tin; there is no doubt.

7.37

Gobhadda, rasaka, tuttha, dross of the earth, born of mercury,
kharpara, enemy of eye diseases, producer of brass, colorer of copper;

7.38

calamine is coloring, dry, producing vāta, destroying phlegm;
its metallic essence destroys the three doshas and destroys eye defects.

7.39

Garuḍa, having drunk the kālakūṭa poison, being unable to bear it,
also vomited nectar; the snake and the nectar having been consumed,
when it emerged spontaneously from his beak, that became blue vitriol, dark blue in color.

7.40

Blue vitriol is of one kind; one should macerate its powder in women's urine,
or place it in hare's blood for one day.

7.41

Its powder, O great Sovereign, combined with a one-fourth part of borax,
placed within karañja oil, one should set aside for one day.

7.42

Placed inside a blind crucible, one should blow it with three charcoal [fires];
beautiful metallic essence resembling an indragopa beetle falls out.

7.43

Blown once in this way, sasyaka falls down [as metallic essence], / free of blackness, red, and resembling the throat of a peacock.

7.44

Sasyaka is mayūratuttha; it stimulates fire and destroys Death. / It is fit for rejuvenating alchemy, and it arrests aging.

7.45

Triturated with the red group, sasyaka attains purification.

7.46

Darada is said to be of three kinds: carmāra, śukatuṇḍaka, / and haṃsapāda as the third, each more virtuous than the preceding.

7.47

Darada is further divided into two kinds by the distinction of powder and mercury.

7.48

Having cooked [it] for three days in beef, in buffalo urine, / in sour curd, and in sesame oil, one by one, one should triturate it with peacock bile.

7.49

One should distill the darada in a distillation apparatus into a water container. / A metallic essence resembling mercury is produced; of this there is no doubt.

7.50

Laghukandara, rasa, mleccha, hiṅgula, cūrṇapārada, / maṇirāgaja, and carmāragandhika are indeed its names.

7.51

Hiṅgula is bitter, hot, divine, and born of mercury and sulfur; / it cures skin diseases caused by metals, and kindles divine strength, intellect, and digestive fire.

7.52

What wonder is there here? Well triturated with ewe's milk and repeatedly with the acid group, / darada turns white gold heated in intense sun directly into the luster of excellent saffron.

7.53

Resembling the top of an anthill, possessing the luster of a blue lotus when broken, / and red-ochre-colored when ground—such is srotoja, O you who are worshiped by the gods.

7.54

Triturated repeatedly in cow dung juice and cow urine, / and in ghee, honey, and muscle fat, it binds mercury quickly.

7.55

Thus the major minerals have been declared; hear now of the secondary minerals, my dear.

7.56

Sulfur, orpiment, realgar, saurāṣṭrī, green vitriol, red ochre, / lapis lazuli, and kaṅkuṣṭha are recorded as the eight secondary minerals.

7.57

Formerly, O Devī, on Śvetadvīpa, adorned with all jewels, / delightful and fulfilling all desires, on the shore of the milk ocean,

7.58

with the foremost Vidyādharīs, and with lovely women, / with the beloved women of the Siddhas, and likewise with hosts of Apsarases,

7.59

and with other divine women playing [there] formerly, my dear, / with varied songs and dances, and with musical instruments of diverse kinds;

7.60

while you were playing thus, your menstrual blood issued forth. / That menstrual fluid, O fair-hipped woman, was exceedingly fragrant and captivating.

7.61

From the great abundance of the menstrual fluid, your garment turned red; / abandoning that garment there, and bathing well in the milk ocean,

7.62

surrounded by the celestial women and gods, you went to the city. / By the waves, your menstrual garment was carried into the middle of the ocean.

7.63

Thus your menstrual blood entered the milk ocean, O auspicious one; / and at the churning of the milk ocean, it arose together with the nectar of immortality, / delighting all the gods and demons with its natural fragrance.

7.64

Then it was declared by the hosts of the gods: 'Let this be called gandhaka (the fragrant one).

7.65

May this serve for the binding and digestion of mercury; / whatever virtues are declared in mercury, let them also be in this.'

7.66

Thus it was spoken formerly by the delighted hosts of gods, O ruler of the gods; / therefore this became celebrated as sulfur upon the earth's sphere.

7.67

It is also of three kinds, O Devī: that resembling a parrot's beak is the best; / the middling is yellow-colored, and the white-colored is the lowest, my dear.

7.68

Having melted [it] with karañja oil and castor oil into goat's milk, / one should sprinkle it three times into the extract of dhattūra, each separately;

7.69

one should triturate it with the powder of jvālinī seeds and fish bile, / or triturated for seven days with the water of bhṛṅga, and washed with water,

7.70

heated with jujube coals in an iron vessel smeared with ghee, / and stirred over a mild fire upon a ghee-smeared cloth,

7.71

and quickly washed in the extract of bhṛṅga, sulfur becomes beneficial.

7.72

For sulfur is by nature fluid in its essential form. / One should purify sulfur in milk, and likewise in ginger juice,

7.73

in the juice of bhṛṅgarāja, and likewise in lime juice; / purified seven times, sulfur becomes spotless.

7.74

Orpiment is of two kinds: foliated and lump; of these, the former is superior. / A wise man should steam orpiment in ash gourd a hundred times,

7.75

and separately seven times each in the milky latex of snuhī and the juice of bitter bottle-gourd; / mixed with sesame, mustard, śigru, lac, salt, jaggery, / and borax, orpiment liquefies in a subterranean pit fire.

7.76

With the alkali of aragvadha fruit and with sweet ash gourd, / and with juices derived from punarnavā, a wise man should grind it for seven days.

7.77

Adding a one-fourth part of all [these], one should then apply an elephant-sized calcination fire / in a distillation apparatus; the metallic essence falls from the good orpiment.

7.78

Red realgar cooked in beef with the sour juice of citron / should be triturated with the juices of red and yellow flowers and with biles.

7.79

Saurāṣṭrī is white and black, and consists of powder and pieces.

7.80

One should then triturate saurāṣṭrī a hundred times with ox bile; / having blown it, one should extract its metallic essence, which is penetrative and most secret.

7.81

Green vitriol is of three kinds: white, black, and yellow, my dear.

7.82

Having powdered green vitriol, one should triturate it / with the juice of kāsamarda, the juices of rājakośātakī, and biles.

7.83

Red ochre is of three kinds, distinguished as red, golden, and pure; / one should triturate it separately with juices and decoctions of the red group and with biles.

7.84

By this method, one should blow the spotless red ochre; / in succession, its beautiful metallic essence, white and red, falls down.

7.85

Lapis lazuli is of two kinds, O Devī, distinguished as nodules and powder.

7.86

Combined with buffalo milk, O ruler of the gods of gods, / that powder mixed with cow's ghee should be cooked in an iron vessel.

7.87

Powdered, O sovereign of the gods, mixed with realgar and ghee, / and formed into a ball with borax and the five products of the cow, / blown with khadira charcoal, it yields an excellent metallic essence.

7.88

Kaṅkuṣṭha has the luster of coral, and it is rich in metallic essence, my dear.

7.89

With the juices of the roots of sūryāvarta, udakakaṇā, vahni, and śigru, / with the pulp of plantain root, and with juices of vandhyākośātakī,

7.90

and likewise with the juices of kākamācī, devadālī, and vajrakanda, / either separately or together with these, along with alkalis, acids, unctuous substances, and rock salt, / the major minerals and secondary minerals, when triturated, attain purification.

7.91

Lac, salt, borax, soot, the three pungents, / śigru root, beeswax, pathyā, guggulu, the metals,

7.92

along with natron, śāla resin, oilcake, wool, / pigeon dung, small fish, and the five liquefying agents—

7.93

Oil cake of sesame, mustard, wheat, black gram, and round-pod beans,
combined with goat's milk, is indeed called the adamantine ball (vajrapiṇḍī).

7.94

With this adamantine ball, combined with five buffalo products,
the primary minerals (mahārasas) are gladdened, and macerated with the five bovine products.

7.95

Blown with fierce fire in a furnace, they release metallic essence, O faithful one.
Thus from stones, creatures, and earths, metallic essence is produced.

7.96

Thus the secondary minerals (uparasas) have been declared; hear next of the metals.

7.97

Gold, silver, copper, wrought iron, tin, and lead:
the metals are indeed sixfold, and in order of their precedence they are imperishable.

7.98

Among them, starting from the beginning, O ruler of the gods, two metals are considered noble (sāra);
wrought iron and copper are intermediate, while tin and lead are base (pūtika).

7.99

Produced from mercury, produced from the earth, and produced from metallic transmutation:
gold arises threefold; a fourth is not found.

7.100

Reddish and yellow-colored: gold is twofold, O Devī.
Red upon burning, white upon incision, saffron-colored on the touchstone;

7.101

Heavy, soft, smooth, free of silver and copper,
gold rich in sixteen hues is praised for [treating] the body and metals.

7.102

Earth macerated for five days with the acid of citron,
together with ash and salt, purifies gold through calcination fire.

7.103

White and darkish silver: silver is twofold, O beloved.
Heavy, lustrous, soft, and white silver is deemed excellent.

7.104

Melted with lead and borax, it attains purification,
when silver is thrown three times into the oil of *piśācī*.

7.105

Copper is also declared twofold, red and black, O queen of gods;
enduring hammering, smooth, red foil, soft, is best.

7.106

Coated with milk of *snuhī* and *arka*, salt, alkali, and acid,
one should douse the copper leaf into the juice of *nirguṇḍī*.

7.107

*Rohaṇa*, *vājara*, and thirdly *paḍālaka*:
thus wrought iron is threefold; that is remembered as loadstone.

7.108

Blue-black, lustrous, having a sharp edge: iron is auspicious.
*Guḍūcī*, *haṃsapādī*, *naktamāla*, the three fruits (triphalā),

7.109

*gopālakī*, *gorasānā*, and *tumburu* are iron-destroying.
One should douse it into the juice of these to remove mountain defects.

7.110

Tin (trapu) is to be known as twofold, through the division of white and black;
white, light, soft, and glossy is said to be the best tin.

7.111

Lead is only of one kind, O Devī: fast-melting, soft, and heavy.

7.112

By the addition of powdered buffalo bone and sprinkling with its urine,
tin becomes pure; likewise, lead by lead-bone and [lead-]urine.

7.113

The fruits of *gaurī*, *kṣuraka*, turmeric, and *tumburu*,
seeds of *kuberākṣa*, and of *mallikā*, O beautiful one,

7.114

with alkali of *palāśa* and dry *apāmārga*, and the milk of *snuk*,
by throwing in seven times, purify lead.

7.115

And then one should throw in tin along with *snuhī* milk.

7.116

With milk of *snuhī* and *arka*, *halinī*, *kañcukī*, tuber of *citraka*,
*guñjā*, *karañja*, *dhuttūra*, roots of *hayagandhā*, and orpiment;

7.117

together with the roots of *naktamāla*, *iṅgudī*, and *śakravāruṇī*,
ground in buffalo buttermilk and kept for seven nights:
quenching in this destroys the impurities of all metals, no doubt.

7.118

Repeatedly macerated with the juice of *devadālī* fruit powder,
by adding it, it melts gold, and it will not become hard again.

7.119

And through its power, it liquefies all metallic essences.

7.120

An equal part of cochineal insects (suragopa) and the powder of *suradālī*,
when added, O Devī, makes gold look like water.

7.121

With frog bone, fat, borax, horse saliva, and cochineal insects,
upon projection, gold remains melted for a very long time.

7.122

Ash of *jvālinī* filtered twenty-one times in cow urine:
one should dry it; by its addition, wrought iron inside a crucible melts.

7.123

Macerated twenty-one times with the ash of *nicula*
and with the juices of *ketakī*, wrought iron attains liquidity upon addition.

7.124

Macerated for seven days in a conch shell with the juice of ripe emblic myrobalan (dhātrī),
and again macerated for seven days with the water of *kañcukī*,

7.125

placed between a pair of earthen shallow bowls and very firmly fired:
that powder of wrought iron, O ruler of the gods, assumes the form of mercury.

7.126

Orpiment, sulfur (gandhapāṣāṇa), realgar (śilā), pyrite, red ochre,
green vitriol, alum (khaṇḍasaurāṣṭrī), blue vitriol (tuttha), and mica;

7.127

likewise the dung of a dog, jackal, hyena, and cock,
and equal parts of the excrement of a peacock, vulture, and cat;

7.128

one should macerate three times with the milk of *snuhī* and the juice of *devadālī*.
With an eighth part of that paste, one should coat metal sheets.

7.129

One should blow: the metal becomes melted; with these very [juices] one should quench it.
One should grind the roots of *aṅkola* with sour gruel,
then apply a paste on the metal and keep it on the fire, O beloved.

7.130

Then one should apply the paste again with the juice of *paricchinnā*
and with fish bile, O ruler of gods, and keep it on the fire, O beloved.

7.131

One should make another paste from the tuber of *lāṅgalī*;
with three coatings the metal melts, spotless like clear water.

7.132

Powdered tortoise bone, goat horn, and *śilājatu*,
by projection, make it solidly stable like water.

7.133

*Arka*, *apāmārga*, *musalī*, *nicula*, and *citraka*,
plantain, *potakī*, and *dālī*: one should prepare an alkali from these.

7.134

One should filter it six times in buffalo urine, O praised by gods;
by addition, this liquefies the powder originating from mica essence and the like.

7.135

*Dantī* and ivory especially liquefy [it] like water.

7.136

Powder of *vaikrānta* drenched with the juice of *uttaravāruṇī*,
when added, liquefies metals like water.

7.137

I shall describe the liquefaction of gems, and likewise the liquefaction of mica (gagana).

7.138

The three myrobalans (triphalā), the three pungents (trikaṭuka), the three alkalis, the five salts,
*balā*, *atibalā*, and thirdly *mahābalā*,

7.139

*aśvagandhā*, *cavī*, *nārī*, earthworm, *mātṛvāhaka*,
*gopendramaṇḍalī*, *ṣaḍbindu*, and *dvimukhī*,

7.140

*dhīrā*, and the tuber of *sūraṇa*, *kañcukī*, and *punarnavā*,
*snuhī*, *arka*, *unmatta*, *halinī*, *pāṭhā*, and *uttaravāruṇī*,

7.141

loadstone, *gokṣura*, soft *dūrvā*, *amlavetasa*,
*śilājatu*, *sauvīra*, aconite (viṣa), sulfur, and borax:

7.142

take ten palas of each separately and make a fine powder.
With two jars of horse gram and wood of *tiniśa*,

7.143

one should boil with gentle heat until reduced to one jar.
With that decoction, one should macerate that powder twenty-one times.

7.144

gems coated with this and placed in its decoction should be blown again; / in a day and night, they quickly liquefy just like water.

7.145

Mica and the other metals liquefy beyond doubt, / and become immaculate, resembling the seed of Hara.

7.146

And they unite quickly with mercury, and remain imperishable when placed in fire. / Through mere touch with those liquefied [metals], mercury is bound in an instant.

7.147

I shall declare the calcination of metals; listen with a focused mind: / red lead with the latex of snuhī; gold and silver likewise,

7.148

pyrite and copper with that very same [latex]; sulfur with goat's milk; / cinnabar with mother's milk; wrought iron, tin, orpiment, and palāśa leaves,

7.149

and lead with realgar and arka latex, having been made into clean leaves, O beloved. / One should calcine [them] through a calcination fire; ash free from resuscitation is produced.

7.150

There is no elephant among metals that the lion of sulfur / does not slay by its mere odor, or else the lion of pyrite.

7.151

Calcined metals become like mercury, O worshiped by the gods; / they remove all diseases; how much more so when combined with mercury! / By continuous use they certainly destroy wrinkles, gray hair, disease, and old age.

7.152

Diamond, pyrite, wrought iron, and mica are praised for work upon the body; / one should employ lead, tin, and stibnite for work upon base substances.

7.153

The metal which is paribāla, and that which originates in Malaya— / these two metals, O goddess, especially preserve the body.

7.154

Having known the coloration of the primary minerals and others, one should accomplish the seeds. / Speak of that to me, O ruler of the gods; what else are you worthy to hear?

Linked texts (1)

Rasārṇava — Sanskrit