The Multidimensional Nature of the Mercury Procedures as Described in Ten Million of Quintessential Instructions, The Relics (Man ngag bye ba ring bsrel)

This paper intends to analyse the contents of the dPal ldan zur mkhar ba khyad chos bye bya ba ring bsrel las grub pa’i ngag gi rtogs pa ’grol ba dā ki’i glu dbyangs (The Ḍākinī’s Song, Instantaneous Liberation through the Realisation of the Ac- complished Speech from the Ten Million Relics, Special Teaching of The Glorious Zur mkhar ba) and of the rDo rje tshig rkang dang ’brel ba’i lag len grigs su bsdebs pa (Systematic Collection of Practices Related to the Adamantine Verses). These alchemical texts—which are preserved in the Man ngag bye ba ring bsrel (Ten Mil- lion of Quintessential Instructions, The Relics, hereafter, Ring srel), a medical an- thology written by Zur mkhar ba mNyam nyid rDo rje (1439-1475)—are to be considered particularly noteworthy for the multidimensionality of the mercury procedures they describe. In these writings, the entire process is dedicated both to obtaining the mercurial panacea, endowed with therapeutic powers and apotropaic virtues, and, from a higher spiritual perspective, to the creation of an extraordinary body and the achievement of final liberation. Pharmacological procedures are, in fact, deeply interconnected and permeated by a contextual philosophical substrate, yogic and meditative practices, which have been transmitted in different bKa’gyud spiritual lineages. Their analysis could allow us to better understand the place of medical-alchemical writings in the history of Tibetan religion and philosophy of the fifteenth century, offering an insight into post-classical Mahāmudrā doctrines.