6 A reconstruction of alchemical procedures of the Rasahṛdayatantra 6 Reviving nirodhā

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Indian alchemy - Rasashastra - is the craft of making elixirs from mercury. From the tenth century, Indian alchemists started composing treatises about their work. The earliest of these treatises was the 'Heart of Mercury' (Rasahṛdayatantra). It describes eighteen procedures for making mercurial elixirs. • • We reconstructed these procedures. This film shows the sixth procedure, the 'reviving' (Sanskrit: nirodhā) of mercury. The Sanskrit term nirodhā normally means 'restraint' or suppression. However, in this context, it is understood as a synonym for 'bodhana', 'awakening'. The purpose of this procedure is to reinvigorate the mercury, whose power has been subdued with the foregoing cleansing procedures. The text states: • • It is rendered useless through trituration, thickening and condensation because of its weak potency. Once it has become replenished through revivification with sṛṣṭyambuja (water and salt?), it will no longer be impotent. • • (Rasahṛdayatantra, chapter 2, verse 9) • • The term sṛṣṭyambuja, reiterated in a number of alchemical works presents us with some problems. Some later alchemical texts (for example, Rasaratnasamuccaya 8.66 and Rasaprakāśasudhākara, 1.63; ) describe the use of salt and water for this step, but it is a bit of a leap to translate sṛṣṭyambuja as salt and water. The Mugdhāvabodhinī commentary on this verse of the Rasahṛdayatantra dismisses the translation of ambuja as either 'salt' or as 'lotus' (the latter actually is never proposed as a solution in any alchemical work). Instead, it quotes a work called the Śaktyavatāra, in which sṛṣṭi is defined as the urine, semen and (menstrual) blood of cattle, goats, sheep or humans. This actually leaves ambuja untranslated. In any case, no alchemical work spells out the use of these substances for use in the reviving process. • • Given the simple version of salt water, we decided to go with that, instead of experimenting with urine, or blood, etc • See the accompanying blog post: http://ayuryog.org/blog/reconstructin... • The following procedures were executed by a trained professional and should not be attempted without expert supervision. • • A collaboration of AyurYog (ayuryog.org) and neterapublishing (neterapublishing.com). This project was made possible through funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No.639363.

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