Uploaded June 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Indian alchemy - Rasashastra - is the craft of making elixirs from mercury. From the tenth century, Indian alchemists started composing treatises about their work. The earliest of these treatises was the 'Heart of Mercury' (Rasahṛdayatantra). It describes eighteen procedures for making mercurial elixirs.
We reconstructed these procedures. This film shows the fourth procedure, the 'raising', or sublimation (Sanskrit: utthāpana) of mercury. The purpose of this procedure is to activate mercury after it has been cleansed with aloe, triphala and leadwort in the thickening (mūrchā) procedure. The text gives this very brief description of the procedure:
"The mercury, which has become completely cleansed and freed from lead and tin through trituration with this, is brought to a rise from a sour gruel decoction in a condensation apparatus."
(Rasahṛdayatantra, chapter 2, verse 7)
The following procedures were executed by a trained professional and should not be attempted without expert supervision.
A collaboration of AyurYog (ayuryog.org) and neterapublishing (neterapublishing.com).
This project was made possible through funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation program under grant agreement No.639363.
Indian alchemy - Rasashastra - is the craft of making elixirs from mercury. From the tenth century, Indian alchemists started composing treatises about their work. The earliest of these treatises was the 'Heart of Mercury' (Rasahṛdayatantra). It describes eighteen procedures for making mercurial elixirs.
We reconstructed these procedures. This film shows the fourth procedure, the 'raising', or sublimation (Sanskrit: utthāpana) of mercury. The purpose of this procedure is to activate mercury after it has been cleansed with aloe, triphala and leadwort in the thickening (mūrchā) procedure. The text gives this very brief description of the procedure:
"The mercury, which has become completely cleansed and freed from lead and tin through trituration with this, is brought to a rise from a sour gruel decoction in a condensation apparatus."
(Rasahṛdayatantra, chapter 2, verse 7)
The following procedures were executed by a trained professional and should not be attempted without expert supervision.
A collaboration of AyurYog (ayuryog.org) and neterapublishing (neterapublishing.com).
This project was made possible through funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation program under grant agreement No.639363.
