Elixir of Great Clarity

Essential Instructions from the Scripture of the Elixirs of Great Clarity Taiqing danjing yaojue)... 

A similar recipe for the Pellet for Expelling the Demons is found in Sun Simiao s anthology of Taiqing methods, the Essential Instructions from the Scripture of the Elixirs of Great Clarity. The corresponding talisman is not reproduced either in the commentary to the Scripture of Great Clarity or in Sun Simiao s work, but is found in the commentary to the Nine Elixirs (see Fig. z) together with a third similar recipe for the Pellet. ... 

Ge Flong quotes a ceremony performed before ingesting the Elixir of Great Clarity. In this rite, different quantities of the elixir are offered to Heaven, celestial bodies, and deities, and another portion is left in the marketplace for the benefit of those who cannot devote themselves to its compounding ... 

The names of three of these methods—those for the Flowery Pond, the Red Salt, and the Hard Snow—correspond to those of the preliminary preparations mentioned by Ge Hong. As the original Scripture is not extant, however, there are no clues to identify what role these and the other methods listed above played in compounding the Elixir of Great Clarity. The Oral Instructions, moreover, does not reveal the identity of the Flying Talisman and the Divine Water of the Three-and-Five nor does it refer either to the nine cycles of heating or to the final transmutation of the elixir with cinnabar. 

Nevertheless, the Oral Instructions hints at an important role played by mercury in the method for compounding the Elixir of Great Clarity. Mercury is mentioned in several sections of the commentary. The Real Pearl is obtained by placing mercury and saltpeter inside the quill of a bird s feather (niaoge), which is sealed with wood and lacquer and is soaked in a Elow-ery Pond for seven days or longer. If it is ingested for one hundred days, it confers immortality. Mercury also appears as the name of the lead-tin compound (which is described as quicksilver, shuiyin, possibly implying a... 

Guang Huangdi benxing ji (Extended Records of the Deeds of the Yellow Emperor CT 290), 3b. The Instructions on the [Elixir in] Nine Cycles may be related to the Elixir of Great Clarity, which is obtained through nine cyclical transmutations (see below, pp. 108-9). 

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