Forays into Alchemical Pottery: Part 1B, India, Earthenware Miscellanea of Indian Alchemy Compiled

by Frederick R. Dannaway Eremitic Sciences Monograph Series from The Chymical Philosophers and The Delaware Tea Society

Sacred Metallurgy in India

Part one of this series made some preliminary remarks on the case for purified mercury in a primary role of the ancient soma rites. Indian scholars hesitantly date mercury to very ancient dates, and others suggest electrum is the sacred substances referred to allegorically as soma in ancient Vedic texts. Although he does not expressly identify soma in the mercury process of electrum in his book on Vedic alchemy, Kalyanaraman writes of mercury, Mukunda, mercuric sulphide or cinnabar, sindhur (refined to produce quicksilver) Quicksilver fuses at all ordinary temperatures, eating and absorbing gold and silver metals until they form a soft pasty mass. The application of a red heat expels the quicksilver, leaving the metal nearly pure.1 Early alchemical work was to transmute cinnabar into gold. Rasava_da may be interpreted as science of mercury. Vetai or vetai-iyal in Tamil meant alchemy or transmutation of base metal into gold. Vedhana in Sanskrit means 1 http://www.sb-outdoors.org/Interpretive/NaturalHistory/quicksilver.php

transmutation. In Tamil soma man.al meant sand containing silver ore. Since the Veda is essentially concerned with the processing of soma as a material, this semantics in Tamil is significant, pointing to soma as electrum. [somnakaya = gold (Gypsy); sm = electrum (Old Egyptian); samanom, sona = gold (Santali)]. mukunda quicksilver; a kind of precious stone; name of one of the nine treasures of Kubera; name of Vis.n.u or Kr.s.n.a (Skt.lex.) bhasmasu_takaran.a = calcining of quicksilver (Skt.) Scholars debate the earthenware stills found at various archeological sites in the Gandhar region, suggesting their size suggests their use was for the distillation of alcohol. Needham (1980) cannot rule out the possibility that the Taxila stills were not used for distilling mercury, in ancient precedents for Tantric alchemical veneration. Needham notes, considering possible theories and presence of raja- mudra (royal seals), that the royal seal would be equally appropriate for the purified precious metal of mercury made from cinnabar. Many Indian scholars acknowledge the use of mercury in medicine in the proto-Ayurvedic period (Prakash 2012). To this must be addressed various ancient projects which required prodigious use of mercury as well as the huge amounts of cinnabar found in various tombs. Gandhara, especially the king, is associated with orthodox Soma cults, as mentioned in the Atharvaveda, and its related to the Mujavat (Maujavata, X.34.1) of eastern Afganistan from whom raw soma was purchased. As discussed below there are secret mercury stills called somanala yantra (Dash and Kashyap 2002).

Gandhar, worlds oldest distillation apparatus

India has never had any significant source for mercury, and it was always imported and usually named for the region from which it derived. Gandhar became basically a synonym for mercury throughout the region. There is the Gandhar Rasa, containing equal parts mercury, sulphur and opium, and other botanicals of a much later date but linking mercury techniques with the region (Niir Board 2003). The presence of the large number of drinking cups accords with out earlier speculations in the first monograph of Forays (Dannaway 2012) on drona soma cups gilded with electrum/mercury alloys to consume possibly entheogen plant/mushroom juices. Some of the earliest evidence for mercury distillation is found in India and some of the earliest references to its distillation in texts are found in the Indian Arthashastra of Kautilya dating from the first millennium BC (Srinivasan and Ranganathan 2004). Those remaining skeptical at the cup theory, which echoes in grail myths that proceed from the Indo-European haoma cult, would please explain away the ceremonial cup filled with mercury found in an Egyptian tomb dated to 1600 B.C. (Bank 2002).2 The confluence of metallic composites of the first human, angelic flowers and haoma cults in Mazdean and esoteric Shiite Islam are discussed by Corbin (1989) and the continued links of the elixirs, projection and alchemical metallic plants discussed in the works of alIraqi in Celestial Botany (Dannaway 2009). Mercury evaporates at 357 degrees centigrade, and the joints must be sealed properly. There are two types of clay for this in Ayurveda, vahni mrstsna (fire clay) and jala mrtsna (water clay), the former prepared from powder of chalk (talcum), salt, and mandura (iron rust), with all three taken in equal parts and triturated by milk. This clay is heat resistant. Jala mrtsna (water clay) is made of a type of acacia bark (Acacia arabica babula) boiled until thickened, to which is added mandura, and jaggery in equal quantities all of which are triturated. These are used for sealing joints in preparing parada (mercury). These types of luting clays are used in Indian alchemy to seal in the vapors in equipment made of pottery or iron. Later Tantric texts refer to calcinated gold/mercury recipes that take place in a earthen puta yantra, with the inside smeared with glass powder. Powdered mercury is added and its sealed with a triturated paste of powdered glass and ash. Then the whole joint of is wrapped with mud smeared cloth, when its dried it must be smeared with jala mudra. According to the Kaksaputimata there is a water-proof seal (Sarvatomukha mudra) that takes of kitta (slag) the color of pure collyrium mixed with fine wheat flower, and the juice of svarna-puspa (a plant with golden flowers) as well as the sap and yolk egg. The text cautions this should not be disclosed to anyone, even ones son if he is not worthy. This putra yantra is placed inside an outer yantra, making sure to keep the joint of the inner yantra submerged in water (to condense vapors) and the entire 2 Powdered cinnabar is found on well-preserved human bones in a tomb that dates back to 5000 B.C. in Spain.

arraignment is called bhairava yantra. This is a secret instrument called Somanala yantra, and the text says this is the king among the pharmaceutical instruments and it is rare. Mercury cooked in this instrument makes an excellent recipe mercury should be collected from it which is like an ambrosia (Dash and Kashyap 2002). One such device uses a cloth to hold the metal, requiring a thick cloth for mercury, in which it is heated in water in suspension like herbs in cheesecloth. This is known as the dola yantra. Similarly the urdhva yantra or the vidyadhara yantra is suitable for mercury, and it is composed of two earthen jars set on top of each other over a coal or wood fed fire. The lower jar has a 6 mouth diameter paste of triturated mercury and the related drugs, to which the upper jar s bottom rests and is sealed with seven layers of luting mud. The upper jar contains cold water, which is continually refreshed, with the mercury condensing on the bottom of the upper jar. The adhah patina yantra reverses this position of the mercury and the cold water, with the potting containing the water being buried and the pot with the drugs above, and covered with fire. The mercury vapors condense and drip via destillatio per descensum.

The Tiryak Patana Yantra is of a more familiar design, and resembling the Gandhar still as shown above as well as the distillation apparatus found all over the ancient labs of China, Arabia and European. It is basically two jars linked with a condenser tube of bamboo, the first having the mercury above a heat source that sends the vapor to the second which is full of cool water. Of crucial importance in this set-up, even more than the above examples which use the gravity of the vessels and the sealing underground, is the sealing of the joints. Eventually bamboo tubes, though still used, evolved to hollow iron rods or class. There are many different types of similar earthenware apparatus for distillation of mercury or for making bhasma of substances that vaporize at lower temperatures, like arsenic. Such is the bhasma yantra, which is a 6 earthen pot of wide mouth, filled with ash and the substance to be vaporized and is sealed ontop with an earthen plate and luted. There is the kacchapa yantra, or tortoise or floating apparatus, which is an ingenious reversal of the water-bath. Here an iron pot sits down into a pot of cool water, and inside the iron pot the drugs are placed in the bottom. On top of the drugs is a clay plate that is sealed down into the bottom of the iron pot. Then the clay luted clay plate covering the drugs is heaped with charcoal or

wood fueled fire, creating a unique way to process mercury and sulphur. The use of water or sand to control temperatures is used extensively in Indian alchemy, such as with the use of sand or salt in the valuka or lavana yantra. This is a heated iron pot filled with sand, with a glass bottles wrapped seven times in the luting mud and placed inside to be heated. Other still for subliming mercury take the familiar shapes of the gourd, cucurbit, alembic that is ever present in diverse alchemical regions. The shapes are also akin to the shamans or Tantrikas drum, the damaru which is two clay pots sealed together with the drug paste of mercury heated on the bottom, the vapors condensing on the top and dripping back down in sublimation and circulation. Similary shaped is the patala yantra, only the pots are more bulbous, and the apparatus is half-buried. The top half is covered with a mound of cow dung cakes outside and inside of the pot, with an inverted glass bottle of drugs surrounded by the heat to drip into the bottom pot. The bottom pot has a cup or jar as receiver, as do many of these, and the cups of the archeological digs may well be such receivers.

"On 27 May 1942 AD (Jyaistha Shukla 1 Samvat 1998) in Birla House, New Delhi Shri Pandit Krishnapal Sharma made approximately 1 tola of gold from 1 tola of mercury in front of us. The mercury was put inside a shell of reetha. In the mercury was mixed about 1 or 11/2 ratti of a white powder of some herb (jari-buti) and another yellow powder. Then the reetha shell was closed by clay and the whole thing put into the hollow of an earthen lamp and put on fire. For about 45 minutes, the fire was stoked by a fan till the coal got burnt completely to ashes. The lamp was then put into water to remove the contents. From the hollow of the earthen lamp a lump of gold was extracted. On weighing it was found to be one or two ratti less than 1 tola. It was very dry. "We could not find out what these two powders were. Pandit Krishnapal stood at a distance of 10 to 15 feet from us during this whole process. Present at that time were Shri Amritlal B Thakkar (prime minister, All India Hindu Sevak Sangh) Shri

Goswami Ganesh Duttji Lahore, secretary, Birla Mills, Delhi, Shri Sitaramji Kemka, chief engineer Shri Wilson and Shri Viyogi Hari. All were quite amazed to witness the process. We could witness this process by the kindness of Shriman Seth Jugal Kishore Birla." Nagarjuna also brought back naga clay and built many temples and stupas Rasa Vidya clay smeared pieces of cloth (Mritkarpata) In Nimbarka Sampradaya, the tilak is made of Gopi-Chandana (the clay from Gopi Kunda lake in Dwarka, Gujarat), as described in the Vasudeva Upanishad.

 References and Further Reading Corbin, H.: 1989. Spiritual Body, Celestial Earth. Princeton University. Dannaway, F.: 2009. Celestial Botany: Entheogenic Traces in Islamic Mysticism. Available http://www.chymicalphilosophers.org/celestial-botany/ Dash, B. and L. Kashyap.: 2002. Iatro-Chemistry of Ayurveda (Rasa Sastra). Concept Publishing Company. Needham, J.: 1980. Science and Civilization in China, Volume 5. Pt. 4. Cambridge University Press. Niir Board of Consultants.: 2003. Handbook of Unani Medicines with Formulae, Processes and Analysis. National Institute of Industrial Research. Prakash, V. Retrieved 2012. Importance of metallic micronutrients in Ayurveda. Srivivasan S. and S. Ranganathan.: 2004. Indias Legendary Wootz Steel: An Advanced Material of the Ancient World. National Institute of Advanced Studies.