There are hundreds of verses in the Rasasastra texts which overtly deal with a wide variety of processes, some

simple and many complex. Three examples may be cited: (i) Mercury, cinnabar, pyrites, alum of excellent quality borax, black pepper each one part and sauvarcala salt in equal proportions to them; six parts of rock salt; powdered iron in the same proportion; and hundred parts of the juice of Emblic myrobalan, are to be kept in a stone bowl which is to be deposited in a heap of cow-dung. After one year, a liquid emerges out of it. This (liquid) is divine as well as flawless, and is to be compounded with mercury admixed with pure gold as seed. This compound possesses the capability of transmuting a thousand times its weight of all metals into gold. (Rasopanisat, XVI, 241-245) (ii) One part of the essence of capula (bismuth compound); two parts of mercury; four parts of gold (as seed); and sulphur of equal proportion to that of mercury which is to be mascerated, are to be heated in a closed crucible. Gold and capula of equal quantities are to be blended with this mercury. If this mercury is infused with a hundred times its weight of copper, it makes the latter red and this attains the power of transmuting a hundred times its weight of silver into gold. (Rasasara, XV, 19-22) (iii) One pala of powdered seed (gold); one pala of pyrites; one pala of sulphur; one pala of mercury extracted from cinnabar; and one pala of borax all together mascerated with the juices of plants endowed with the properties of fixation of mercury. Heated over fire urged by means of a blow-pipe, mercury attains fixation and undergoes colouration with the aid of sulphur. Blended with an equal weight of gold by the saranaoperation, it is killed by heating in a puta. This mercurial preparation transmutes sixty times its weight of silver-copper into excellent gold. (Rasasara, XIV,1820) The technique of effecting transmutation was of five kinds: i. ii. iii. iv. Lepa Vedha (smearing copper or silver foils with a potent mercurial product); Ksepa Vedha (throwing such a product into the base metals; Kunta Vedha (pouring the transmuting agent into them); Dhuma Vedha (subjecting the base metal to the action of the fumes of mercurial preparation); and