[INDOLOGY] Alchemy metaphor

[Jan E.M. Houben]

Dear Christopher,
In addition to the valuable observations already made I would like to point
out that jīrṇa here probably refers (indeed) to the or a saṁskāra of
jāraṇa having
been performed, (however) with jāraṇa not in the sense of māraṇa (which is
often [partly] parallel to what was called calcination in the past: heating
leading to oxidation in the case of metals, to elimination of CO2 and or
H2O etc. in the case of some minerals) but very precisely in the sense of
swallowing or digestion or assimilation (as mercury is able to dissolve
metals including gold but also minerals such as abhra or mica: initially
the mercury remains as fluid as before it started to "eat" the gold etc.
but at a certain point its viscosity increases significantly).
In Abhinavagupta's "fourth state" the objectivity
of śūnyādi-deha-dhātv-antaṃ "permeated" by "consciousness" (having
undergone the procedure or saṁskāra of  vedha by "consciousness") starts to
fall away as it were,
in the "state beyond the fourth" that objectivity is entirely "swallowed" /
"dissolved" by consciousness just as gold is entirely "swallowed" by the
fluid rasa i.e. mercury.
The tertium comparationis in the case of gold would then not be its beauty
or shiny nature but its capability of being "swallowed" by mercury (which
remains fluid or druta as long as it is not saturated).
I also agree that the already mentioned rich, encyclopedic Woerterbuch
of Oliver Hellwig (Wörterbuch der mittelalterlichen indischen Alchemie.
Groningen 2009 Supplements to eJournal for Indian Medicine, 2) is a must
for a fullfledged analysis of the fascinating passage you cite as it shows
with numerous citations and translations that major texts may differ
considerably in the concepts and procedures they accept.
Regarding vedha and its application to the human body (dehavedha) you may
also wish to consult Gordon White's The Alchemical Body Chicago 1996.
Jan Houben


Prof. Dr. Jan E.M. Houben,
Directeur d Etudes « Sources et Histoire de la Tradition Sanskrite »
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, SHP,
A la Sorbonne,45-47, rue des Ecoles,
75005 Paris -- France.
JEMHouben at gmail.com
*https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
<https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*



On 7 July 2014 16:25, Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu> wrote:

>  You may be interested to compare Bodhicaryāvatāra 1.10, which uses a
> similar metaphor.
> In this case, in the line
> rasajātam atīva vedhanīyam,
>
> vedhanīyam must mean something like "catalytic."
>
> The Tibetan in this case paraphrases, saying "the finest form of the
> gold-transmuting essence"
> (gser 'gyur rtsi yi rnam pa) and the available Skt. commentator,
> Prajñākaramati, is not very helpful.
> In his gloss on vedhanīyam he writes  only:
> kartari anīya.h kara.ne vā
>
> Matthew
>
>
> Matthew Kapstein
> Directeur d'études,
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>
> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
> The University of Chicago
>   ------------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> http://listinfo.indology.info
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20140707/f0a71572/attachment.htm>