The Essence of Mercury

Chapter 5

One should perform the best upward distillation urdhva-patana for one yama a period of three hours. The apparatus known as the damaru-yantra drum-shaped apparatus is considered the best for distillation. (33)
Having extracted it from the apparatus with effort, one should sweat it with alkalis and acids.
One should make a paste again, and perform the sweating and distillation again and again. (34)
This process, performed twenty-one times, is described as the best upward distillation. Alternatively, the best upward distillation is performed using a "wheel apparatus" chakra-yantra. (35)
By this means, the doubt born of the impurity of lead naga and tin vanga is certainly destroyed.

Now, therefore, I will explain how the mercury becomes potent. (36)
Take the roots of the drumstick tree shigru, mustard seeds rajika, and pungent herbs katuka.
Grind them with fermented gruel aranala and form a ball with a handle kulhadi.
Adding one sixteenth part of sal ammoniac navasara, one should grind the mercury. Place the mercury mixed with sal ammoniac into that ball. (37)
One should then bind it into a bundle potali with a four-layered cloth. Place it in the juice of a lemon nimbuka combined with the juice of a citron jambira. (38)
One should put powder, alkaline water sarjika-vari, tamarind liquid chinchadrava, and sour gruel kanjika into a vessel, and suspend a stick across its neck. (39)
Having tied the bundle to the stick so that it touches the sour gruel, place a cover mallaka over the opening and light a fire day and night. (40)
Add more sour gruel there whenever it diminishes, again and again. Every day, one should make a new ball, the aforementioned kulhadi. (41)
Adding the sal ammoniac solution, one should bind the bundle again. A "swinging sweat" dola-sveda should be performed for a duration of twenty-one days. (42)
Once the King of Mercury sutaraja is sweated, it then attains strength. Collect goat urine, vanari Mucuna pruriens, and three types of strengthening herbs bala-traya. (43)