The Essence of Mercury

Combined with alkaline acids, one should sweat the mercury in a vessel of bell metal kanta. After twenty-one full days, its impotence is certainly destroyed. (44)
One should grind it with the bile of a crow and other birds, with semen and blood, and with marking nut chitrakas. Grind it with digestive herbs such as the drumstick tree japa-shigru and upward-climbing vines. (45)
Having fashioned a clay pot kundika and placed a raised platform sthandila in its center, pour water there and set the mercury upon the platform. (46)
The mercury falls quickly from the platform into the water. This is the best activation dipana, to be performed twenty-one times or in the "wheel" chakra apparatus. (47)
When the mercury is thus activated, it shines with the luster of lightning. It is combined with the three strengthening herbs bala-traya and the eyes of a fish and snake. (48)
It is combined with the red fruit of the ivy gourd bimbi and the butterfly pea girikarnya. Cook the mercury in a bell metal vessel for a week with groups of acids. (49)
The mercury becomes hungry; afterwards, one should regulate it.

One should prepare two crucibles musha with red rock salt saindhava and the three pungents vyosha. (50)
Placing the mercury with sal ammoniac navasara and lemon juice into that crucible, one should seal the joint of the crucible well with great effort. (51)
Having taken mud and cloth, one should wrap it carefully. Having allowed it to dry in the shade, one should then place it in an underground pit. (52)
One should fill the pit eight finger-widths above the crucible. One should perform a fire of cow-dung cakes for twenty-one days. (53)
Every day, a new crucible with fresh rock salt should be used. One should sweat it with effort, and place it again in the underground pit. (54)
Now, therefore, the mercury combined with rock salt [placed] inside a flask kupika...