The Glorious Sovereign Tantra of Mahākāla
Chapter 13: The Mercury Siddhi In this chapter the multiple Sanskrit terms used for mercury—most often rasa or pārada—were not consistently translated into Tibetan using the same equivalents. In order to disambiguate this use of these terms, the English translation uses “mercury” for rasa and “quicksilver” for pārada regardless of the equivalent term used in the Tibetan translation.

“Now, for those in Jambudvīpa who seek the supreme joy,” the Blessed One continued, “I will explain the mercury siddhi that liberates beings. One should use mercury that is highly potent and productive. The secret use187 of clear language, as well as esoteric language, coarse language, and signs, expresses the attainment of the great joy of supreme bliss. Yogins who understand the science of mercury will fully generate its immeasurable power. It has potency as a mercury pill when it has been collected together. The two syllables of the term rasa, “mercury,” are received during the stage in which the two are unified.188

“First, a person preparing mercury should grind it in goat’s milk and combine it with the juice of datura leaves, sea salt, salt, and cow urine. Add starfruit juice, let it sit in the sun for three watches of the day, and then rinse it with rainwater and spring water. Take human blood and pomelo juice, one portion of gold dust, twenty-four portions of quicksilver, and leave them in a juice made from velvet bean leaves for one month. Then grind it and rinse it again in the same way.

“One should place the letter in the middle of the second consonant group before the first letter of the name. At what is identified as the end, place the first letter of the fourth consonant group and ornament it with the fourth vowel. One should then write the first letter of the sixth consonant group at what is identified as the middle, and the final letter of the fourth consonant group at the end of that. [F.63.b] Ornament the two previous syllables with the vowel a, and it spells jayantī.189

“After heating the juice from that plant’s leaves over hot coals, the adept should prepare one pala and three portions of white mica powder, stabilize it, and mix it so that it increases fourfold. Skilled yogins should refine it for one month while observing it each day. They should then add the mica to copper. If it has transformed into gold by the twenty-first day, then it is fit for human consumption.

“If one has abstained from leafy vegetables, sour foods, and women for the entire twenty-one-day period190 during which it is consumed, then any food one desires will come to them. Their wrinkles and grey hair will clear up, they will live for one thousand years, and they will avoid all lower rebirths. One will have a healthy body and an extremely sharp intellect.

“If one adds tin, it will become silver following the above procedure.

“The mantra to recite during this procedure when performing the bali offering is:191

“A large bali offering should be performed three times every day for seven days using black gram and rose apple, human flesh, alcohol, fragrances, incense, garlands, lamps, powders, parasols, bells, banners, and the like along with blood and rice. Then one should recite the mantra for the sixteen-armed form while performing this mercury rite, and the siddhi will undoubtedly be attained before long.

“One should take mercury and add the juice of chimili192 leaves and the juice of boiled oṣaṇa leaves.193 One should then take some alambu194 and progressively combine it with snake’s tongue, gorakṣataṇḍula195 leaves, and sunflower and then grind all of it with black mica. It should be all be covered well, above and below, in a vessel, placed on a fire pit the size of an elephant’s foot, and allowed to harden in the vessel. [F.64.a] One should take individual palas of hardened white tin and add them to each of the portions so that they turn into silver. The adept should then consume all of it.

“One should take mercury, combine it with cat’s bile, and then rinse it with the juice of a plantain. It should be crushed with powdered red ocher, plantain tree, alkali, and the saturated earth beneath a burned corpse. One should then rinse it with the fat of a jackal and rosary pea juice, place it in sour gruel and vetiver root, and let it sit for six watches over the course of a day. After that one should remove it, rinse it with hot water, and leave it in rose apple juice for two days. It should then be rinsed, first in human fat and then in a solution of water from a rain-fed spring, and left for one watch of the day. Know that this is how it is properly prepared.196

“Now for the preparation of firewood:197 Between the light and dark halves of the lunar month, one should take a single leaf and leave it in a mixture of sour gruel, buffalo curd, and goat’s milk for one day. Then one dips it in a mixture of liquified cow dung, fluid excreted from an elephant, and sour gruel and removes it. One should grind it with rohita carp bile and a dog’s bile and let it dry for five full days.198 Kardoñjana199 should be added, and the mixture allowed to dry for one day. An adept should then use it to refine mica, and they will master what has been described in this tantra.

“Someone who has purified it through these two refining procedures and is well equipped with all requisites should take one pala of powdered mercury200 and four palas of powdered tin and place them in a vessel with double the amount of mica. They should add the juice of kurchi root and then take raja juice,201 juice from sesbania leaves, and sweet flag and let the mixture break down over a fortnight until it becomes granular. Next they should light a fire and infuse one portion of that granular powder into one pala of tin. It will then transform into mercury.202 [F.64.b]

“A yogin who takes that same prepared mercury and consumes it each time he has sex203 will, by following the aforementioned procedure, perfect the corporeal siddhi.

“One should cook the juice of pomelo leaves with black sesame oil in a copper vessel, apply mercury, and allow it to dry out for three watches of the day. It should then be muddled with the juice of velvet bean leaves and poured into a vessel with the roots of boswellia and coconut palm, bhadrapatralatā, lodhra, mung bean, and gagana. One should next pour these ingredients into a vessel, apply clay to the top and bottom, and cook the mixture in a hole the size of an elephant’s foot until it solidifies. Yogins who eat this will become Śiva’s equal and be unrivaled,204 and they will be successful within one month. If it does not work, then I am not Mahākāla. One can also infuse the preparation with a portion of copper following the above instructions, and it will certainly turn into gold.”

“Blessed One,” the Goddess asked, “there is some doubt regarding the day on which the siddhi and mercury will be produced. In that case, Blessed One, if someone considered exalted such as myself is indifferent to kakkola205 and adopts the conduct of wandering the earth, are they certain to attain the mercury siddhi?”

“Goddess,” the Blessed One replied, “the mere fact that you are a goddess means you will always clearly understand. To the extent that someone lacks that capacity, they cannot ward off virulent disease, nor prevent being stricken with ocular distortions, liver diseases, and bone marrow diseases. That is why people who carry out this practice should also focus on the eight siddhis.

“When someone brings about liberation from the horrors of the great ocean of cyclic existence while regarding it as an illusion and thus acts free from plurality, they abandon their previously accumulated wicked behavior and effortlessly attain these various siddhis here on this earth.” [F.65.a]