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.