According to the Chinese historical text Shiji, the 2nd century BCE wizard Li Shaojun advised the Qin Emperor to make food vessels of cinnabar turned into gold to help prolong life.
Li Shaojun learned the formula for "cinnabar gold" from Master Anqi of Penglai. According to later texts, cinnabar gold was "red gold." The Shiji states that when emissary Xu Fu was sent as an emissary to find Master Anqi, he encountered a 'great spirit' at sea that led him toward the southeast toward Sandao "Three Islands" of which Penglai was the most noteworthy.
Some 1800 years later, we hear of Japanese merchants who traveled to Mishima 三島 由 (Chinese: Sandao 三島), where they sought highly-prized jars. Mishima or the "Three Islands" at that time consisted of Luzon, Taiwan and Macau. Of these, Luzon was the most important in terms of its highly prized Ruson-tsubo wares.
Golden bird ornaments at Ayala Museum
While many years had passed between these two periods, I believe there is a connection between the cinnabar gold food and drink vessels of Master Anqi of Penglai, and the Ruson-tsubo wares used for tea ceremonies by the Japanese shoguns and emperor.
Now in terms of the location of Sandao and Penglai, as noted Xu Fu was lead by sea to the southeast and I discuss Penglai's location and related geographic areas in the post Qingtong, Lord Lad of the East.
Penglai continues to figure in historical and semi-historical texts into the late ancient period in which it is directly related to the region of Fusang -- a connection that was indirectly hinted at in earlier sources. In the Tang Dynasty, the area was known as Foshi, and in the Sung Dynasty, Sanyu (三嶼) and Sanfotsi were probably equated with Sandao.
The placename Sandao appears again in historical records during the Yuan Dynasty, as a kingdom along the Eastern Ship Route.
Transmuting to gold
In my post on tumbaga and alchemy, I suggest that the "transmutation" of metals like copper into gold may have been an ancient reference to depletion gilding. In the last posting on goldworking, I discuss the practice in the Philippines of using red earth mixed with salt for depletion gilding at the last stage to remove any silver at the surface.
We cannot assume that the ancients understood the chemical processes at work, and it may be that they actually viewed depletion gilding as a transmutation of an alloy into pure gold. As noted, early Europeans like Juan de Salcedo and Hernando Riquel commented that even the most skilled silversmiths during the Renaissance period could not distinguish such alloys. The touchstone assay did not work, and de Salcedo says that only melting down the objects, i.e., the fire assay, could reveal the truth.
The red earth, then, could have been seen as the Philosopher's Stone, the magical material that transmutes base metals into gold.
In reality, it is believed that the red earth contained ferrous sulphate that when sufficiently heated releases its sulfur. The sulfur combines with silver to form silver sulfate. The metal is cooled and the silver sulfate is polished off leaving a pure gold surface.
During the medieval period, the Philosopher's Stone was generally thought of as a red substance. Many Chinese alchemists believed that cinnabar was the Philosopher's Stone, while the Muslims used the name al-Kibrit al-Ahmar الكبريت الأحمر "red sulfur."
The idea of the red color may come from the notion of cinnabar changed into gold during the Qin Empire. What this may refer to is the process of depletion gilding in Penglai that was taught by the Master Anqi. The technique may have used the same red earth that was mentioned some 2,000 years later in the same region.
Red earth gets its color normally either from the presence of iron or cinnabar in the soil or clay. In many cultures, red earth or red ochre is viewed in relation to blood, the fluid of life. In ancient China, it was cinnabar-rich earth rather than red ochre that was thought of in this manner.
So, the ancient Chinese alchemists may have viewed the red earth used for depletion gilding as cinnabar -- the Philosopher's Stone that transmutes base metals into gold.
The color red
Red ochre, red clay and the red color have a very important role in Philippine archaeology and ethnography. The archaeologist Jesus T. Peralta wrote a book" "The tinge of red: prehistory of art in the Philippines," the title of which highlights the importance of this color.
Red ochre was used in some of the earliest burials in the country such as those found at Tabon and Arku caves. The ochre was used to paint burial pottery, and skeletons were painted with red ochre before secondary burial. In some cases, skeletons were completely buried in red ochre. In Pila, Laguna, basins of red ochre (adobe) were used for cremation rites.
The color red was used for the clothing of warriors and their wives, and for the clothing of chiefs and nobles. To this day, indigenous peoples in the Philippines still use red as an important ritual color. The Kalinga see red as the color of health, strength and power. José Semblante Buenconsejo writes concerning the Manobo of Mindanao that the color red represents ritual blood, which in turn gives "fire, life, vitality to those persons and objects" involved in the ritual. The ancient Bisayans were said to have painted their bodies with red clay.
Blood of sacrifices was often smeared on sick people by the local healers due to its perceived health-giving property. And blood along with clay have an important role in the stories of creation in the Philippines and throughout the Southeast Asian region.
Damiana Eugenio gives 15 examples of Philippine myths in which humans, animals or other living things are formed out of clay. In one of these, the clay is mixed with blood. Among the Igorots of Sagada, red clay receives its color from mixture with human blood. In nearby Borneo, there are many myths in which blood is used as a temper for the clay used to form humans and other living things.
Volcanic clay and blood
Mt. Pinatubo's name can be interpreted as the "One that causes birth, sprouting, growth, conception, originating, beginning...," as opposed to Mt. Arayat to the east, also known as Mt. Sinukuan. The latter name comes from suku, which refers instead to death, surrender and ending.
The name of Pinatubo's deity (Apo Namalyari) can be interpreted as "One who enables" or "One who makes possible," and is in-keeping with the idea of Apo Namalyari as the creator god. In many regional myths, creation takes place after catastrophic events. For example, in a Bontoc Igorot myth, Lumawig creates the plants, animals and humans after a great battle between the Earth and Waters in which great stones are hurled through the air and the world is covered by a great flood. In a Bukidnon myth, the great Magbabaya gods allow themselves to be killed so their bodies and blood can be used for creation. A great rain of blood from one Magbabaya sinks into the ground and becomes animals, fish and plants.
Pinatubo's eruptions, I have suggested, were seen by ancient observers as a type of cosmic birth pangs and delivery -- originally of the entire creation and subsequently of the new golden age. The volcanic ash and lahar would then be the cosmic afterbirth.
Volcanic ash slowly weathers into clay at the rate of about 1 meter every 200 years, but the process begins immediately. Thus, witnesses to an ancient eruption could see thin layers of clay arising from weathered volcanic ash. Such clay was considered the building block of living things and this may not be too far from the scientific truth. A recent theory suggests that life, or at least the amino acids necessary for life, may have originated in volcanic clay. Such clay usually contains all the elements necessary to create life plus a volcanic gas, carbonyl sulfide (COS), that may have acted as a catalyst for the formation of amino acid chains.
Ancient observers would have been particularly interested in red clay, since they could have seen the red color as representing the cosmic uterine blood, the life fluid of red-blooded creatures like humans. In this red clay, one could reasonably expect to find the "secret ingredient" to health and longevity.
The red clay on its own was significant enough, so that if we add the added quality of its apparent ability to transmute other metals into gold -- the most stable of metals -- we can see how easily this red earth could be interpreted as the Philosopher's Stone. And how jars and other vessels made from this red clay would have certain "magical" qualities.
Thus, we find that the Philippine goldsmiths also used red earth to give gold a reddish tint, and maybe also with the idea that the red earth could help preserve golden heirlooms. The purer types of gold were handed down as heirlooms and relics. These heirlooms were considered sacred and were connected with the ancestors, and one's fate on the earth.
Even lowland Christianized Filipinos have kept such heirlooms until recent times. In Pampanga, heirloom jewelry is usually called tumbaga, interestingly enough, regardless of what it was made of. My paternal grandmother had a tumbaga heirloom that she had melted down and turned into rings for her children.
Red gold must have been ancient because one of the Proto-Austronesian reconstructions for "gold" *bulaw-an suggests a metal of a reddish color (bulaw "reddish, reddish gold"). Indeed, in the Philippines, the term pula in Ilocano and Tagalog refers primarily to tinting gold into a reddish color with red ochre (Tag. gintong pula "red gold"). Givin that there is another suggested Proto-Austronesian word for gold *emas, it may be that *bulaw-an referred originally to an ancient gold that was colored with red earth. The oldest archaeological gold in the Philippines is estimated to date to at least 450 BCE to 250 BCE, although the actual sites involved, like those at Duyong Cave were not dated. We will probably have to wait for further discoveries to get the oldest dates for gold in the country.
Possibly ancient Chinese alchemists confused the use of sacred red clay jars and symbolic red gold, for the idea that metals changed into gold with red earth, i.e. cinnabar, could be used to create live-giving vessels for food and drink. Or the original practice drifted in this direction. At a latter date, this idea morphed into a belief that the "elixir of life" was colloidal gold made with mercury extracted from cinnabar.
Sacred jars
Earthenware jars were among the ancient heirlooms kept in Pampanga and the surrounding region. Among the Kapampangans, these were known as balasini, and they were still being kept during late Spanish times. However, the people were beginning to lose the old ways, and the balasini were often sold at spectacular prices to merchants from Japan and elsewhere. As people became "modernized," they no longer shared the values that motivated their ancestors to keep these heirlooms. In the same way, many tumbaga jewelry heirlooms, which tended to last longer because of more practical value, were eventually sold or melted down.
The "Luzon Jars" were known for their unique ability to preserve tea leaves and tea stored in them. Jean Mallat, writing in the 1840s, tells of the red clay water jars in Cebu that "impart great freshness to the water they held."
Indeed even many people still alive today can attest to how the old clay water jars seem to keep water fresher and sweeter than other sources. In ancient times, when there were no water purification plants, refrigerators, etc. such a quality could not be underestimated.
Now, the red clay jars high is sulfur would be the best types in this regard since sulfur is a natural preservative agent and would inhibit the growth of microbes, fungi and mold. Thus the red clay used for depletion gilding, known in Pampanga as sapo, would be the very best because of its high sulfur content. Some volcanoes, like Mt. Pinatubo, release high sulfur volcanic ash that becomes high sulfur volcanic clay. However, red clay containing ferrous sulphate would have been valued for use as sangag, the mixture of red earth and salt, used for "transmutation" purposes since ferrous sulphate has a fairly low combustion point. At about 600°C or well below the melting point of gold, ferrous sulphate releases sulfur as sulfur trioxide gas, which reacts with silver allowing the resulting compound to be polished off from the surface.
With these qualities, the red clay jars would indeed match the spiritual and mundane significations of the color red and the primordial clay ingredient of life. Such jars would have been highly valued and never traded originally, but instead handed down as heirlooms.
Gold elixir
In China, alchemy took two directions. One was toward "aurifiction," the creation of an artificial "gold." Interestingly, the related gold alloy was actually known as "purple sheen gold" and had a purple or violet surface rather than a gold-colored one. The outward tinting was created by a patina consisting of a coating of various substance including cinnabar, mercury and realgar that is pickled in vinegar (acetic acid) and copper salts.
The other type of metallurgical alchemy involved the creation of colloidal suspensions of gold particles and other elixirs of colloidal minerals. These elixirs used mercury to dissolve gold and other metals, and the practice apparently developed in China from whence it spread throughout Asia into Europe and Africa.
Most of this diffusion happened during the "Tantric period" of the Middle Ages when there was a great exchange of culture between South Asia and East/Southeast Asia. With the Muslim conquests, many ideas were absorbed by the Muslim invaders and transmitted by them to Europe and Africa. The Muslim alchemist Geber apparently was primarily responsible for relaying the alchemy of gold elixirs into Europe.
Diane de Pointers, mistress of 16th century king Henry II of France died of poisoning from gold elixirs, scientists have discovered (Source: Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6865939/French-kings-mistress-poisoned-by-gold-elixir.html)
The alchemist "Nagarjuna" who is said to have imported the goddess Tara and mercury from "Mahacina," into India may have come originally from Vietnam or somewhere else on mainland Southeast Asia.
In addition to the metallurgical alchemy, aspects of "inner alchemy" also arose during this period of Tantric exchange. Some ideas originated from Daoist meditation practices. Aspects of hatha or kundalini yoga might be termed "volcano yoga" in that they use volcanic imagery in describing the efforts to generate internal "heat" through meditation. In Tibet, this is known as tummo yoga and was imported by Naropa at around the same time that the Kalacakra doctrine arrives in that country.
The inner union of "mercury" and "sulfur" may be compared to the geologic co-mingling between Pinatubo and Arayat before an eruption. In the myths of the battles between these two mountains, the fighting always accompanies courtship between the gods of the two peaks. The eruption creates the clay of Sun (Arayat) and Moon (Pinatubo) providing the substance for the creation of life or the start of a new golden age. The red clay represented the substance that unites all living things with the Earth (and Sky).
In internal alchemy, the union of the two principles creates "heat" sometimes symbolized as a fiery pearl. In Kapampangan parlance, we can call this pearl Mutia (Mutya, Mukti), the fire or spirit that creates life or drives the New Age on the cosmic scale, and on the personal level helps the practitioner unite with the pantheistic whole.
Serlingpa, the king of the "Golden Island," included elements of internal alchemy in the Kalacakra Tantra, and also possibly in the Vimalaprabhu commentary, which according to John Newman he may also have authored. The Kalacakra promoted pluralism and universalism by focusing on the interconnection and interdependence of all things, particularly as revealed by the cycles of time.
Philosopher's Stone for sale
As the people of the Luzon adopted a new religion, the value of the ancient clay jars became limited to their practical usage as water or beverage containers. The importance of ancestral heirlooms faded as the culture changed. Certainly the jars in their mind were not worth the astounding sums offered for them.
However, the indigenous people along with groups from afar still seemed to recognize the ancient value assigned to these jars. In many cases, it is otherwise impossible to explain the fact that owners would not part with these jars for any price, or that buyers would offer to pay extravagant prices for wares that were old and fragile.
The most valued Luzon Jars in Japan were the old ones made of earthenware described as reddish-brown, brown, red or dark in color.
Interestingly, the sulfurous products have again become prominent in local commerce after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. Pinatubo Lake is rich in sulphates and tour guides advertise the healthy benefits of bathing in the sulfurous waters. At a nearby Korean-owned spa, facials or full body treatments in sulfur-rich ash and mud are offered to tourists, again for their claimed benefits to skin and health.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Buenconsejo, José S. Songs and Gifts at the Frontier: Person and Exchange in the Agusan Manobo Possession Ritual, Philippines (Current Research in Ethnomusicology, Outstanding
Dissertations, vol. 4), Routledge, 2001, 147-8.
Gerrard, John. Mountain Environments: An Examination of the Physical Geography of Mountains. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990, 201.
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5, part 2. London: C.U.P., 1974.
Raedt, Jules de. Kalinga Sacrifice. Cordillera monograph, 04. Baguio City: Cordillera Studies Center, University of the Philippines College Baguio, 1989, 92.
White, David Gordon. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Showing posts with label alchemy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alchemy. Show all posts
Monday, February 01, 2010
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tumbaga and Alchemy
Men marvel at the alchemy which converts copper into gold; regard the copper that every instant fashions alchemy!
-- Rumi
Although ancient alchemy involved attempts to change all types of base metals into gold, the transmutation of copper into gold stood out as the alchemist's ultimate goal.
Changing copper into gold was important in both metallurgical and spiritual alchemy. Democritus mentions such transmutations, but it was during the medieval age that the phrase "copper into gold" became closely equated with alchemy.
The Daoists of China, the Tantrics of both India and China, the Arabs, and the European alchemists during medieval times all used the copper to gold transmutation to stand for the highest accomplishment in their science. Even into modern times, many practitioners in yoga claim that their perfection of the art is proven by their ability to change the metals copper into gold -- apparently a sign of their spiritual transformation.
From the metallurgical standpoint, we know that such transmutation was impossible. Therefore many theories have been put forth as to what the alchemists were trying to achieve. The most frequent explanation is that "gold" had different meanings in early times and alchemists were simply attempting to make other metals appear like gold -- something known as "aurifaction."
However, I think the case of tumbaga needs to be examined quite closely in relation to alchemy and especially to the idea of changing copper into gold.
Tumbaga, gold-copper alloy
Tumbaga is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and copper, and also often of silver. What is unique about tumbaga is that goldsmiths in Insular Southeast Asia and across the Pacific in the Americas did perform a transmutation "trick" with tumbaga.
The process known as depletion gilding made it seem like non-gold was transmuted into solid gold. Basically tumbaga was an early form of gold plated object. The depletion gilding on both sides of the Pacific was accomplished using the acidic juices or saps of certain plants that dissolved the copper from the surface of the tumbaga. The coating was then burned away in the furnace leaving a pure or near pure gold surface.
Writing in 1577, then governor of the Philippines Francesco de Sande mentions that "there is a very base gold that has no name, with which they deceive." In fact, latter Spanish chroniclers mention the name as "tumbaga" or by related cognates. In "Relation of the Voyage to Luzon," (1569-1576) Juan de Salcedo mentions witnessing the local people had "given two hundred taels of impure gold, for they possess great skill in mixing it with other metals. They give it an outside appearance so natural and perfect, and so fine a ring, that unless it is melted they can deceive all men, even the best of silversmiths."
In his dictionary of the Kapampangan language, Bergano mentions this art:
Belatan -- Oro falso, alquimia, ó cosa mal dorada...(False gold, alchemy, or something of poor gold.)Maŕcos de Lisboa's dictionary of the Bicol language of southern Luzon (1628) gives another related term:
Sombat -- hacer uno como oro de alquimia mezclando una parte de oro fino, otra de calongcaqui, y otra de tumbaga...(to make like the gold of alchemy mixing one part of pure gold with another of calongcaqui, and another of tumbaga.)Whether tumbaga was made to actually deceive is unlikely. The fact that tumbaga was used to make barter rings as found on the island of Samar suggests the product was highly-valued.
Sinombat -- este oro asi de alquimia...(this is the gold of alchemy.)
Barter rings and coins used in the pre-Hispanic Philippines (Source: http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/page2.asp)
In the Americas, the production of tumbaga was thought to awaken the camay, or living spirit of inanimate objects, which was seen in the form of the gold that appeared to rise to the surface. Tumbaga stood for the sacred and temporal power in both objects and people.
The fact that the word alquimia "alchemy" is used in the above definitions rather than the more ordinary definitions for metallurgy mentioning mixing or smelting of metals can be seen as indication that the process was considered magical or sacred in these regions. Unfortunately, there is little other information in this direction that I've been able to find so far.
In the Philippine context, two words may be related to the concept of transmutation -- mutya and tubo. Grace Odal-Devora in noting the different physical forms related to the word mutya states:
These forms of the mutya give birth to a concept of the mutya as an unusual natural occurrence. This concept seems to spring from a collective perception of something extraordinary emerging from nature, functioning as an offspring, a child, an outgrowth and an excrescence from nature. However, though it comes as basically a natural emergence from nature there is usually something unusual about its coming into being, something like a freakish appearance, a unique , rare and unusual phenomenon. It variously comes in the form of a round or spherical outgrowth, an excrescence, a seed, a kernel, a grain, a fruit, a child, a flower, a boil, a cyst, a bezoar stone, a fragment, piece, a pulverized or powder form of a whole stone, rock, plant, tree, animal, person or thing...the inherent powers and virtues of the various mutya objects can be the basis for conceptualizing on the nature of the self – that starts from discovering the innate powers and inherent virtues within and using them to transform oneself and one’s society – like the transformation of the pearl from slime, mud, sand or dirt into a gem of light , beauty, healing and purity.
While mutya refers to more unusual types of transformations, the words tubo or tubu as found in derived words like Pinatubo "causing to be born, grow," or tibuan "place of conception, birth, origin," speak toward the more natural concepts. Both mutya and tubo involve a form of vivification in which the life spirit arises.
Certainly, the apparent transmutation of tumbaga to gold, that would pass the test of a touchstone, could have been viewed in a manner similar to what was found in the Americas. Gold after all was among the most durable of metals -- resistant to corrosion and chemical reactions and dissolved mainly with mercury. Gold thus is a prime metal symbolic of longevity and immortality.
Tumbaga trail
Tumbaga has been found at pre-colonial sites in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. In the Americas, tumbaga seems to appear first with the Moche culture that lived along the coast of Peru. And the coastal bias of the distribution of tumbaga in the Americas has led some researchers to suggest a mainly maritime diffusion to other countries throughout South and Central America.
Wilhelm Solheim has proposed that the Nusantao seafaring network extended to the west coast of the Americas staring in 3000 BCE and that voyages across the Pacific occurred periodically for "hundreds of years." Whether this would take us to a date for the transmission of tumbaga is not clear, but in earlier works Solheim has discussed Heine-Geldern's theory that tumbaga, along with the mise en couleur technique (depletion gilding), cire-perdue casting, and granulation were carried across the Pacific by Dongson seafarers.
Actually the dates of tumbaga might be older in the Americas than in Southeast Asia, but the practice of gold granulation appears to originate from early pottery practices in the latter region. In both regions, small gold balls or spheres were used to create decorations or designs on a gold base plate. These gold balls may be the origin of the piloncitos, tiny gold coins that like the barter rings were used as a type of currency in the pre-Hispanic Philippines. As depletion gilding is not archaeologically attested for Dongson culture, and granulation was a characteristic of both the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay and the entire Philippine goldworking tradition, the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay culture would seem to be a better candidate as an agent for this cultural transmission.
http://www.bsp.gov.ph/about/history/museum/pre-hispanic_right.jpg
Piloncitos, gold coins from pre-Hispanic Philippines. (Source: http://www.bsp.gov.ph/about/history/story2.asp)
Alchemy Isles
According to the Shiji, the Qin Emperor sent missions to Penglai in search of alchemists skilled in the "transmutation of cinnabar and other substances into gold." I have tried to show that Penglai was an island nation located to the southeast or south of South China. The Biblical and Muslim traditions place the origin of alchemy in Nod or Mount Budh to the east of Eden where it was brought by Adam.
I have suggested earlier that alchemy was originally linked with a "yin-yang" type of philosophy that sought to harness the creative or life-giving principle to extend longevity or to attain immortality. Seafarers and merchants in the Nusantao network came to connect these concepts on a cosmic scale with the volcanoes Pinatubo and Arayat, which I have suggested constitute the alchemical Mt. Penglai of Chinese texts.
The seeming transmutation of a metal like copper -- subject to corrosion and reactive to the acids of plants -- into gold, the durability and stability of which can be equated with long life and immortality, may have been seen as a fitting allegory for the process of vivification. The vivifying or revivifying concepts of mutya and tubo could have been viewed as symbolized by the transmutation of tumbaga.
At a latter date, this symbolism may have evolved into an idea that transmuted metals themselves conveyed immortality through a confusion with what I suggest was the Nusantao belief that volcanic ejecta from the sacred mountains was a form of life-giving cosmic placenta.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Far-Eastern Prehistory Association. Asian Perspectives v. 22, 1979. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1957, 179, 194.
Hosler, D., 1988, Ancient West Mexican Metallurgy: South and Central American Origins and West Mexican Transformations, American Anthropologist, 90(4), pp. 832–55.
The Philippine Islands 1493-1803: Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and their Peoples, their Hist. and Records of the Catholic Missions, as related in contemporaneous Books and Ms., showing the Political ... Conditions of those Islands ... ; Transl. from the originals : With maps, portr. and other ill. Cleveland, Ohio: A. H. Clark Co, 1903, vol. 3, 81.
Miksic, John N. Earthenware in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of the Singapore Symposium on Premodern Southeast Asian Earthenwares. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003.
Shimada, Izumi. Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture. Austin, Tex: Univ. of Texas Pr, 1994, 105.
Villegas, Ramon N. Hiyas: Philippine Jewellery Heritage. Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines: Guild of Philippine Jewellers, 1997.
__. Kayamanan: The Philippine Jewelry Tradition. Manila: Central Bank of the Philippines, 1983.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The sacred hu 壺 vessels
The hu 壺 vessel was a ritual drinking container for wine and water used from at least Shang dynasty times. Vessels similar to the Hu jars date back to Neolithic times, and during latter periods there were earthenware, laquerware and bronze hu.
Hu vessels were somewhat gourd-like in shape and the original word hu 壺 means "gourd."
According to Liezi (4th century BCE), one of the three islands of the blessed was shaped like a hu with a square mouth. Starting in the Han dynasty, we see the production of boshanlu censers and jars meant to represent mountains on the three paradise islands of the southeastern seas. These mountains were Peng-hu on the island of Peng-lai, Fang-hu on Fang-chang, and Ying-hu on Ying-chou. Notice the "-hu" element in all these names.
The hu mountains were conceived as resembling hu jars in shape and with open mouths at the top.
On one of the mountains represented on the boshanlu, known as the "Mountain without peer," a hole was placed on top to allow smoke to rise from the peak. The smoke symbolized the "cinnabar furnace" that was supposed to exist within this mountain creating the elixir of immortality.
From this elixir, the Qin emperor was advised to create vessels of transmuted gold, with the help of beings from Peng-lai, that would convey long life. I have suggested that this "transmuted gold" is alchemical jargon for the clay of said vessels that was thought to have special properties. This clay was the elixir or philosopher's stone that originated from the cinnabar furnace of Peng-hu in the seas to the southeast.
In this same region, the dog deity or ancestor known as Pan-hu was also placed by ancient Chinese texts. The "hu" in Pan-hu's name again means "gourd" and Pan-hu was known as "emperor of the center" apparently a reference to the idea that this region was the center of the earth. From this center one gained entrance to Heaven through the axis mundi. Chinese cosmological texts sometimes identify Pan-hu with the primoridial dumpling from which cosmos was created. The southern peoples, whom the Chinese called Man, linked Pan-hu with the primordial gourd sometimes said to have carried the first ancestors. This gourd or dumpling was represented in microcosm by the hu-like mountain at the center of the world in Peng-lai.
Interestingly in royal Shang tombs of the cross (ya) shape variety, a dog is buried in the center of the tomb, the location possibly representing the entrance to Heaven. In Chinese astrology, the dog is also associated with the gate of Heaven. Earlier I have written that the dog guardian represented the royal lineage entrusted as custodians of the sacred volcanoes.
So the central mountain, or Peng-hu was seen as the axis mundi and as a crucible for the creation of the elixir. Indeed, the Chinese alchemist Wei-Po Yang called the pot, used in latter practices to make an artificial form of elixir, by the name Peng-hu after the mountain on Peng-lai. Chinese texts describe the hu mountains as containing the "Sun and Moon" an imagery that we have linked in this blog with the idea of a volcanic eruption. It was this eruption that produced the "elixir" i.e. the volcanic ash that later weathered into clay used to make sacred vessels of longevity.
Hu vessels and the Luzon jars
Japanese merchants called the region from which they purchased the fabled Luzon jars by the name Mishima "Three Islands" referring specifically to Luzon, Formosa and an unidentified island known as Amakawa, possibly Macau. I have not found anything yet to link these three islands specifically with the three islands of the blessed in Chinese literature, and there are other areas known as "Mishima" in both ancient and modern Japan. There is a Mishima mentioned in the ancient epic Kojiki, for example. However, interestingly one type of important pot brought back from Mishima was known in Japanese as tsubo, specifically the Ruson-tsubo "Luzon jar."
Tsubo in Japanese kanji script is represented by the character 壺 i.e., the same one that represents hu in Chinese.
While the Chinese appear to have lost at an early date the linkage of the clay as the sacred element of the hu jars, they nonetheless preserved the ideas surrounding the production of the "elixir" used to make these vessels. In Southeast Asia and Japan, the idea that the sacred jars drew their powers from the special clay with which they were made had survived.
And I have suggested that this was known as the clay of the Sun and Moon, taken from the dual volcanoes -- the mountain of Aldo (Sun) known as Arayat, and the mountain of Bulan (Moon) known as Pinatubo, and used to make the highly-valued Ruson-tsubo (Luzon Jars).
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
White, David Gordon. The Alchemical. Body: Siddha Traditions In Medieval India. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Stein, Rolf A., Phyllis Brooks (translator). The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought, Stanford, Calif., 1990.
Yang Erzeng; Philip Clart (translator). The Story of Han Xiangzi: The Alchemical Adventures of a Daoist Immortal. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2008, 238.
Hu vessels were somewhat gourd-like in shape and the original word hu 壺 means "gourd."
According to Liezi (4th century BCE), one of the three islands of the blessed was shaped like a hu with a square mouth. Starting in the Han dynasty, we see the production of boshanlu censers and jars meant to represent mountains on the three paradise islands of the southeastern seas. These mountains were Peng-hu on the island of Peng-lai, Fang-hu on Fang-chang, and Ying-hu on Ying-chou. Notice the "-hu" element in all these names.
The hu mountains were conceived as resembling hu jars in shape and with open mouths at the top.
On one of the mountains represented on the boshanlu, known as the "Mountain without peer," a hole was placed on top to allow smoke to rise from the peak. The smoke symbolized the "cinnabar furnace" that was supposed to exist within this mountain creating the elixir of immortality.
From this elixir, the Qin emperor was advised to create vessels of transmuted gold, with the help of beings from Peng-lai, that would convey long life. I have suggested that this "transmuted gold" is alchemical jargon for the clay of said vessels that was thought to have special properties. This clay was the elixir or philosopher's stone that originated from the cinnabar furnace of Peng-hu in the seas to the southeast.
In this same region, the dog deity or ancestor known as Pan-hu was also placed by ancient Chinese texts. The "hu" in Pan-hu's name again means "gourd" and Pan-hu was known as "emperor of the center" apparently a reference to the idea that this region was the center of the earth. From this center one gained entrance to Heaven through the axis mundi. Chinese cosmological texts sometimes identify Pan-hu with the primoridial dumpling from which cosmos was created. The southern peoples, whom the Chinese called Man, linked Pan-hu with the primordial gourd sometimes said to have carried the first ancestors. This gourd or dumpling was represented in microcosm by the hu-like mountain at the center of the world in Peng-lai.
Interestingly in royal Shang tombs of the cross (ya) shape variety, a dog is buried in the center of the tomb, the location possibly representing the entrance to Heaven. In Chinese astrology, the dog is also associated with the gate of Heaven. Earlier I have written that the dog guardian represented the royal lineage entrusted as custodians of the sacred volcanoes.
So the central mountain, or Peng-hu was seen as the axis mundi and as a crucible for the creation of the elixir. Indeed, the Chinese alchemist Wei-Po Yang called the pot, used in latter practices to make an artificial form of elixir, by the name Peng-hu after the mountain on Peng-lai. Chinese texts describe the hu mountains as containing the "Sun and Moon" an imagery that we have linked in this blog with the idea of a volcanic eruption. It was this eruption that produced the "elixir" i.e. the volcanic ash that later weathered into clay used to make sacred vessels of longevity.
Bird and sun-moon motif on jade ring from Liangzhu Culture (3500 BCE-2250 BCE), left, bird on cartouche and sun-moon on bi disc, Liangzhu. The sun-moon motif, in one case combined with what could be a 'fire mountain' motif appear also on Ling-yang-ho vases (4300 BCE-1900 BCE) from Shangdong, source: Wu Hung, "Bird Motifs in Eastern Yi Art." I have interpreted "crescent sun" motif as a symbol of a great Neolithic volcanic eruption that occurred centrally along the routes of the Nusantao maritime trade and communication network. The turbulent volcanic islands beyond the southeastern coast were also linked with the "Mulberry Fields" that were said to periodically rise above the sea, possibly an allusion to the still significant sea level changes in this region that continued well into the Middle Neolithic period.
Hu vessels and the Luzon jars
Japanese merchants called the region from which they purchased the fabled Luzon jars by the name Mishima "Three Islands" referring specifically to Luzon, Formosa and an unidentified island known as Amakawa, possibly Macau. I have not found anything yet to link these three islands specifically with the three islands of the blessed in Chinese literature, and there are other areas known as "Mishima" in both ancient and modern Japan. There is a Mishima mentioned in the ancient epic Kojiki, for example. However, interestingly one type of important pot brought back from Mishima was known in Japanese as tsubo, specifically the Ruson-tsubo "Luzon jar."
Tsubo in Japanese kanji script is represented by the character 壺 i.e., the same one that represents hu in Chinese.
While the Chinese appear to have lost at an early date the linkage of the clay as the sacred element of the hu jars, they nonetheless preserved the ideas surrounding the production of the "elixir" used to make these vessels. In Southeast Asia and Japan, the idea that the sacred jars drew their powers from the special clay with which they were made had survived.
And I have suggested that this was known as the clay of the Sun and Moon, taken from the dual volcanoes -- the mountain of Aldo (Sun) known as Arayat, and the mountain of Bulan (Moon) known as Pinatubo, and used to make the highly-valued Ruson-tsubo (Luzon Jars).
I have resided all my life between Heaven and Earth, with my constant residence in the Penglai Isles. I rely on the sun, moon, and stars to aid my life, and on the Five Pneumata to complete my body. I have received the Dao methods transmitted by the Lord Lao and have become enlightened to the Mysterious Perfection. By day I travel on simurghs and cranes to the Penglai Isles, at night I fly on clouds to stay at the immortals' pavilions. I honor the lords of the South Pole and the Eastern Florescence as my landlords, and the Northern Dipper and the Western Mother as my neighbors.
-- The Story of Han Xiangzi (17th century)
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
White, David Gordon. The Alchemical. Body: Siddha Traditions In Medieval India. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Stein, Rolf A., Phyllis Brooks (translator). The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought, Stanford, Calif., 1990.
Yang Erzeng; Philip Clart (translator). The Story of Han Xiangzi: The Alchemical Adventures of a Daoist Immortal. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2008, 238.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Alchemy (Glossary)
The alchemy referred to here is that centered around the use of sulfur and mercury, and their compound, cinnabar, or mercury sulfide, to transmute base metals into gold, and to extend human life.
Many believe this form of alchemy has its basis in earlier spiritual alchemy and cosmology. Some suggest that the concept of "signatures" and cinnabar's similarity in color to human blood, the fluid of life, drives the philosophy of alchemy.
Humans have used red colored materials like red ochre since prehistoric times. The presence of ochre in burials may have had some link with concepts of immortality. In ancient Egypt, the practice of painting men in red color, and women in yellow color, when in the presence of deities, may have some ancient relationship to the contrasts of red and yellow ochre.
In ancient China, cinnabar appears as a burial item at least by the late Neolithic and possibly as early as the Yangshao period. In latter times, cinnabar was used to preserve the body of the dead. In Southeast Asia, the use of red ochre to cover bodies during burial dates back to the Mesolithic Hoabinhian culture. Oppenheimer states:
Oppenheimer also notes the distribution of myths attributing the redness of the clay to tempering with divine blood and its close approximation with red clay-first man myths, and suggests that the red clays here were used as a surrogate for blood. In China, both red ochre and cinnabar could be used as substitutes for blood in rituals.
Also, in Southeast Asia, red clay was eaten during pregnancy and for health purposes. This may relate to the practice that arose in China of consuming collodial cinnabar.
The Elixir
Needham has accumulated evidence suggesting that by the Zhou (Chou) dynasty, the concept of cinnabar and mercury as contributing to immortality had become established. Also it was in this period that mercury was distilled from cinnabar, a process releasing the sulfur as gaseous sulfur dioxide (SO2 ).
In the Shiji, the Qin Emperor is advised to make gold from cinnabar which can be used in turn to make drinking and eating vessels to prolong life:
The "gold" here was interpreted by later alchemists as an amalgam of gold with cinnabar. However, "gold" in this instance might also be a metaphor for something like the Philosopher's Stone in European alchemy. It was used to create vessels that prolonged life.
The mention of Penglai is also important. In the older Daoist cosmologies, the central mountain of Penglai was viewed as rising out of the sea. The summit, or "navel," of this mountain is hollow, and extends to the deepest parts of the ocean, where lies the "Cinnabar Field," the source of all living beings. This scene is depicted on the famed Boshanlu censers.
On Penglai, also are the mushrooms of immortality, that grow over deposits of cinnabar and gold. The Chinese recognized that gold often lies above cinnabar deposits in mountains, and believed that gold was naturally transmuted from cinnabar.
Tang dynasty bonshanlu depicting Penglai. The mushroom at the top represented the mushroom of immortality, or the central mountain. Quite easily it might also stand for the "tree of life," the mushroom cloud of an erupting volcano. Source: http://www.21ceramics.com/taoci%20history/baiciimage.htm
Undated bronze boshanlu. Source: http://www.weisbrodltd.com/createpg.cgi?ctlgcode=14&pagenum=13
Boshanlu from Western Han dynasty. Notice depiction of waves lapping on shores of Penglai. Source: http://www.weisbrodltd.com/createpg.cgi?ctlgcode=14&pagenum=13
The divine mushroom was seen as a product of the sublimation of gold and cinnabar that grew over these mineral deposits. The mushroom even glowed in the dark allowing the immortals to find the sought-after lodes of minerals in addition to the fungi. Here also in Penglai were cinnabar caves inhabited by the Phoenix of the South, which the Shanhaijing describes as looking like a cinnabar-red rooster, and probably where would one would also find the auspicious giant bats of Penglai.
Later, possibly under Buddhist influence, these aspects were partly transferred to, or mirrored in, Mount Kun-lun to the west of China.
Volcanic images
Chinese texts describe the hollow summit of Mount Penglai as reaching down into the subterranean or submarine depths matching common imagery of the volcano in many cultures.
Sources of cinnabar, and its separate elements, sulfur and mercury, are nearly always located near volcanoes, hot springs or fumaroles.
Mention of the Cinnabar Field under the hollow mountain of Penglai appears to express this reality. In latter European alchemy, volcanoes were seen as natural laboratories that produced all the base metals from differing combinations of sulfur and mercury, to which they added from Arabian alchemical influence, the neutralizing element of salt.
The "Philosopher's Stone" was described as a red, glassy powder that could transmute base metals to gold, improve health and extend the life of the aged. In the sense that it could convert other metals it stood as a synthetic agent by which the natural processes of the volcano could be reproduced.
Li Shaojun's statement above indicates that in the time of the Qin Emperor certain food and drink vessels existed that were thought capable of extending life.
These vessels may have had some component of cinnabar and/or gold, or possibly the term "gold" here was a symbolic one as often used in the art of alchemy.
If such vessels were made of clay with some degree of cinnabar, it would have impressed the Chinese for at least a few reasons. Firstly, cinnabar as mentioned above, appears to have mostly taken the place of red ochre as a substitute for life-giving blood. They used it in burials, rituals and as a pigment in divination and other sacred writing.
Secondly, cinnabar contains mercury and is considered by many to be toxic, although others feel that it is not so harmful when bound in a stable fashion with other metals. Vessels containing cinnabar which did not have the normal toxic properties but instead had tonic and therapeutic qualities would have deeply impressed the Chinese who had high cultural regard for cinnabar. Also, as cinnabar contained the two base ingredients believed mutable into any other base metal, a vessel containing cinnabar without the normal harmful effects would appear as quite a coup.
Thus, alchemy may have started as an attempt to synthetically produce the material of the life-extending food and drink vessels using cinnabar as a key ingredient.
In Southeast Asia, cinnabar, mercury and sulfur only appear to became important in most areas at a late period. The Dian kingdom of Yunnan probably used an amalgam of gold and mercury in gilding burial good objects dated from 600 BCE to 300 BCE. However, generally Southeast Asians used red clay as a substitute and significator of blood.
Some of the red clays though did contain natural cinnabar. For example, red clay tested at a cave near the Tubuoy River in Pangasinan, Philippines during 1913 contained 1 percent mercury that was believed to be present in cinnabar native to the clay. The cinnabar may contribute to the red color along with iron, and this clay tends to darken with exposure to the Sun and through oxidation.
Theorectically, cinnabar present in vessels made at least partly of volcanic clay would leak little if any mercury present in the sulfide because of the strong binding properties of montmorillonite and similar minerals.
Yin and Yang, Sulfur and Mercury
The Daoists and Tantrics classified sulfur as female and mercury as male. The Arabs and Europeans reversed this classification. Paracelsus and others used the "sulfurous" and "mercurial" categories to classify all things in nature.
A key Tantric text of the Western Transmission likens the Muladhara Cakra, representing the earth and the acting as the seat of the Kundalini as the body's equivalent of the Vadavanala, the latter's description matching that of a submarine volcano.
The uterine blood of the Goddess in Tantric practice is equated to sulfur which resides in the lower parts of the body dominated by that element.
Around the middle of the 7th century CE, Chinese alchemists began moving more toward the idea of liquid elixir rather than the elixir-based vessels mentioned in the Shiji. Using the principle of "like produces like," the alchemists believed that consuming minerals like gold and cinnabar would create in the body properties similar to those in the metals.
Some of these "elixirs" proved deadly as they contained pure mercury, and other toxic minerals like lead and arsenic.
Even centuries later though, an enlightened alchemist like Isaac Newton, would still write of how he regularly consumed such potions that appear to have adversely effected his health, and traces of which have been revealed through modern testing.
In Southeast Asia, the practice of drinking toxic tonics also caught on eventually. Pigafetta states upon encountering the Prince of Luzon in Brunei: "Those Moros go naked as do the other peoples. They drink quick-silver -- the sick man drinks it to cleanse himself, and the well man to preserve his health."
While the use of toxic metals eventually fell out of fashion in most places, spiritual alchemy, which evolved in parallel with the chemical variety, continues in many forms strongly to the present with practices like Kundalini Yoga and Daoist meditation.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Mahdihassan, S. "History of Cinnabar as Drug, the Natural Substance and the Synthetic Product," Indian Journal of History of Sciences 22(1): 63-70. 1987.
Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body, University of California Press, 1994.
Many believe this form of alchemy has its basis in earlier spiritual alchemy and cosmology. Some suggest that the concept of "signatures" and cinnabar's similarity in color to human blood, the fluid of life, drives the philosophy of alchemy.
Humans have used red colored materials like red ochre since prehistoric times. The presence of ochre in burials may have had some link with concepts of immortality. In ancient Egypt, the practice of painting men in red color, and women in yellow color, when in the presence of deities, may have some ancient relationship to the contrasts of red and yellow ochre.
In ancient China, cinnabar appears as a burial item at least by the late Neolithic and possibly as early as the Yangshao period. In latter times, cinnabar was used to preserve the body of the dead. In Southeast Asia, the use of red ochre to cover bodies during burial dates back to the Mesolithic Hoabinhian culture. Oppenheimer states:
The main areas with the story of man made from red earth are Southeast Asia, Oceania and some Mundaic tribes in India. All these areas, except eastern Polyneisa, have abundant red and laterite soils.
Oppenheimer also notes the distribution of myths attributing the redness of the clay to tempering with divine blood and its close approximation with red clay-first man myths, and suggests that the red clays here were used as a surrogate for blood. In China, both red ochre and cinnabar could be used as substitutes for blood in rituals.
Also, in Southeast Asia, red clay was eaten during pregnancy and for health purposes. This may relate to the practice that arose in China of consuming collodial cinnabar.
The Elixir
Needham has accumulated evidence suggesting that by the Zhou (Chou) dynasty, the concept of cinnabar and mercury as contributing to immortality had become established. Also it was in this period that mercury was distilled from cinnabar, a process releasing the sulfur as gaseous sulfur dioxide (SO
In the Shiji, the Qin Emperor is advised to make gold from cinnabar which can be used in turn to make drinking and eating vessels to prolong life:
Li Shaojun then advised the emperor, "If you sacrifice to the fireplace you can call the spirits to you, and if the spirits come you can transform cinnabar into gold. Using this gold, you may make driking and eating vessels, which will prolong the years of your life. With prolonged life you may visit the immortals who live on the island of Penglai in the middle of the sea. If you visit them and perform the Feng and Shan sacrifices, you will never die."
The "gold" here was interpreted by later alchemists as an amalgam of gold with cinnabar. However, "gold" in this instance might also be a metaphor for something like the Philosopher's Stone in European alchemy. It was used to create vessels that prolonged life.
The mention of Penglai is also important. In the older Daoist cosmologies, the central mountain of Penglai was viewed as rising out of the sea. The summit, or "navel," of this mountain is hollow, and extends to the deepest parts of the ocean, where lies the "Cinnabar Field," the source of all living beings. This scene is depicted on the famed Boshanlu censers.
On Penglai, also are the mushrooms of immortality, that grow over deposits of cinnabar and gold. The Chinese recognized that gold often lies above cinnabar deposits in mountains, and believed that gold was naturally transmuted from cinnabar.
Tang dynasty bonshanlu depicting Penglai. The mushroom at the top represented the mushroom of immortality, or the central mountain. Quite easily it might also stand for the "tree of life," the mushroom cloud of an erupting volcano. Source: http://www.21ceramics.com/taoci%20history/baiciimage.htm
Undated bronze boshanlu. Source: http://www.weisbrodltd.com/createpg.cgi?ctlgcode=14&pagenum=13
Boshanlu from Western Han dynasty. Notice depiction of waves lapping on shores of Penglai. Source: http://www.weisbrodltd.com/createpg.cgi?ctlgcode=14&pagenum=13
The divine mushroom was seen as a product of the sublimation of gold and cinnabar that grew over these mineral deposits. The mushroom even glowed in the dark allowing the immortals to find the sought-after lodes of minerals in addition to the fungi. Here also in Penglai were cinnabar caves inhabited by the Phoenix of the South, which the Shanhaijing describes as looking like a cinnabar-red rooster, and probably where would one would also find the auspicious giant bats of Penglai.
Later, possibly under Buddhist influence, these aspects were partly transferred to, or mirrored in, Mount Kun-lun to the west of China.
Volcanic images
Chinese texts describe the hollow summit of Mount Penglai as reaching down into the subterranean or submarine depths matching common imagery of the volcano in many cultures.
Sources of cinnabar, and its separate elements, sulfur and mercury, are nearly always located near volcanoes, hot springs or fumaroles.
Mention of the Cinnabar Field under the hollow mountain of Penglai appears to express this reality. In latter European alchemy, volcanoes were seen as natural laboratories that produced all the base metals from differing combinations of sulfur and mercury, to which they added from Arabian alchemical influence, the neutralizing element of salt.
The "Philosopher's Stone" was described as a red, glassy powder that could transmute base metals to gold, improve health and extend the life of the aged. In the sense that it could convert other metals it stood as a synthetic agent by which the natural processes of the volcano could be reproduced.
Li Shaojun's statement above indicates that in the time of the Qin Emperor certain food and drink vessels existed that were thought capable of extending life.
These vessels may have had some component of cinnabar and/or gold, or possibly the term "gold" here was a symbolic one as often used in the art of alchemy.
If such vessels were made of clay with some degree of cinnabar, it would have impressed the Chinese for at least a few reasons. Firstly, cinnabar as mentioned above, appears to have mostly taken the place of red ochre as a substitute for life-giving blood. They used it in burials, rituals and as a pigment in divination and other sacred writing.
Secondly, cinnabar contains mercury and is considered by many to be toxic, although others feel that it is not so harmful when bound in a stable fashion with other metals. Vessels containing cinnabar which did not have the normal toxic properties but instead had tonic and therapeutic qualities would have deeply impressed the Chinese who had high cultural regard for cinnabar. Also, as cinnabar contained the two base ingredients believed mutable into any other base metal, a vessel containing cinnabar without the normal harmful effects would appear as quite a coup.
Thus, alchemy may have started as an attempt to synthetically produce the material of the life-extending food and drink vessels using cinnabar as a key ingredient.
In Southeast Asia, cinnabar, mercury and sulfur only appear to became important in most areas at a late period. The Dian kingdom of Yunnan probably used an amalgam of gold and mercury in gilding burial good objects dated from 600 BCE to 300 BCE. However, generally Southeast Asians used red clay as a substitute and significator of blood.
Some of the red clays though did contain natural cinnabar. For example, red clay tested at a cave near the Tubuoy River in Pangasinan, Philippines during 1913 contained 1 percent mercury that was believed to be present in cinnabar native to the clay. The cinnabar may contribute to the red color along with iron, and this clay tends to darken with exposure to the Sun and through oxidation.
Theorectically, cinnabar present in vessels made at least partly of volcanic clay would leak little if any mercury present in the sulfide because of the strong binding properties of montmorillonite and similar minerals.
Yin and Yang, Sulfur and Mercury
The Daoists and Tantrics classified sulfur as female and mercury as male. The Arabs and Europeans reversed this classification. Paracelsus and others used the "sulfurous" and "mercurial" categories to classify all things in nature.
A key Tantric text of the Western Transmission likens the Muladhara Cakra, representing the earth and the acting as the seat of the Kundalini as the body's equivalent of the Vadavanala, the latter's description matching that of a submarine volcano.
The uterine blood of the Goddess in Tantric practice is equated to sulfur which resides in the lower parts of the body dominated by that element.
Around the middle of the 7th century CE, Chinese alchemists began moving more toward the idea of liquid elixir rather than the elixir-based vessels mentioned in the Shiji. Using the principle of "like produces like," the alchemists believed that consuming minerals like gold and cinnabar would create in the body properties similar to those in the metals.
Some of these "elixirs" proved deadly as they contained pure mercury, and other toxic minerals like lead and arsenic.
Even centuries later though, an enlightened alchemist like Isaac Newton, would still write of how he regularly consumed such potions that appear to have adversely effected his health, and traces of which have been revealed through modern testing.
In Southeast Asia, the practice of drinking toxic tonics also caught on eventually. Pigafetta states upon encountering the Prince of Luzon in Brunei: "Those Moros go naked as do the other peoples. They drink quick-silver -- the sick man drinks it to cleanse himself, and the well man to preserve his health."
While the use of toxic metals eventually fell out of fashion in most places, spiritual alchemy, which evolved in parallel with the chemical variety, continues in many forms strongly to the present with practices like Kundalini Yoga and Daoist meditation.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Mahdihassan, S. "History of Cinnabar as Drug, the Natural Substance and the Synthetic Product," Indian Journal of History of Sciences 22(1): 63-70. 1987.
Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body, University of California Press, 1994.
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