The Ocean of Mercury

( 9 )

Mercury has the power to stabilize the body. Upon learning this, those seekers began to perform the sixteen samskaras purification processes on mercury through various actions to make it functional. That is, they began to infuse specific qualities into mercury. In this work, they relied on many substances such as mica, copper pyrite, vaikrant a type of tourmaline, bitumen, blue vitriol, chapal bismuth, sulphur, alum, orpiment, realgar, antimony, kankustha a medicinal earth, gems, and metals. Following these sixteen samskaras, there are the vedha samskaras transmutation processes.2 There are two types of vedha:

1. Lohavedha transmutation of base metals into gold
2. Dehavedha transmutation of the human body into an immortal state

Dehavedha was the process of stabilizing the body to make it ageless and immortal. Lohavedha was the transformation of inferior metals into superior metals.

The belief of those sages and seekers of liberation was that if mercury processed with sixteen samskaras could turn inferior metals into superior ones, then this mercury would surely transform my own inferior body, riddled with age and disease, into an excellent, ageless, and immortal body. That is, Lohavedha began to be used or tested as a criterion for Dehavedha.3

1. "Others, the Maheshwaras who believe in identity with the Supreme Lord, also declare that since the goal of liberation while living depends on the stability of the body, mercury—known as the path to this stability—is the only substance." (Raseshvara Darshana)

2. "Therefore, a yogi desiring liberation while living should first use divine preparations born from the union of Hara and Gauri." (Rasahridayatantra)

3. "As in metal, so in the body, mercury should always be applied. Oh Goddess, it produces the same result in both the body and the metal. One should first test it on metal and then apply it to the body." (Rasarnava)