{"schema_version":1,"access":"public","rights":"Public-domain or compatibly licensed source editions; provenance is retained per record.","work":{"slug":"baopuzi-gold-and-silver","title":"Making Gold and Silver (Baopuzi, Inner Chapter 16)","author":"Ge Hong","tradition":"alchemy","language":"lzh","genre":"alchemical treatise","period":"Eastern Jin, c. 320 CE","source_url":"https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/抱朴子/卷16","original":{"text":"### Ge Hong's Defense of the Art of Making Gold and Silver\n\n1.抱樸子曰：神仙經黃白之方二十五卷，千有餘首。黃者，金也。白者，銀也。古人秘重其道，不欲指斥，故隱之云爾。或題篇云庚辛，庚辛亦金也。然率多深微難知，其可解分明者少許爾。世人多疑此事為虛誕，與不信神仙者正同也。余昔從鄭公受九丹及金銀液經，因復求受黃白中經五卷。鄭君言，曾與左君於廬江銅山中試作，皆成也。然而齋潔禁忌之勤苦，與金丹神仙藥無異也。俗人多譏餘好攻異端，謂予為趣欲強通天下之不可通者。余亦何為然哉！餘若欲以此輩事，騁辭章於來世，則餘所著外篇及雜文二百餘卷，足以寄意於後代，不復須此。且此內篇，皆直語耳，無藻飾也。余又知論此曹事，世人莫不呼為迂闊不急，未若論俗間切近之理，可以合眾心也。然餘所以不能已於斯事，知其不入世人之聽，而猶論著之者，誠見其效驗，又所承授之師非妄言者。而餘貧苦無財力，又遭多難之運，有不已之無賴，兼以道路梗塞，藥物不可得，竟不遑合作之。餘今告人言，我曉作金銀，而躬自饑寒，何異自不能行，而賣治躄之藥，求人信之，誠不可得。然理有不如意，亦不可以一概斷也。所以勤勤綴之於翰墨者，欲令將來好奇賞真之士，見餘書而具論道之意耳。夫變化之術，何所不為。蓋人身本見，而有隱之之法。鬼神本隱，而有見之之方。能為之者往往多焉。水火在天，而取之以諸燧。鉛性白也，而赤之以為丹。丹性赤也，而白之而為鉛。雲雨霜雪，皆天地之氣也，而以藥作之，與真無異也。至於飛走之屬，蠕動之類，稟形造化，既有定矣。及其倏忽而易舊體，改更而為異物者，千端萬品，不可勝論。人之為物，貴性最靈，而男女易形，為鶴為石，為虎為猿，為沙為黿，又不少焉。至於高山為淵，深谷為陵，此亦大物之變化。變化者，乃天地之自然，何為嫌金銀之不可以異物作乎？譬諸陽燧所得之火，方諸所得之水，與常水火，豈有別哉？蛇之成龍，茅糝為膏，亦與自生者無異也。然其根源之所緣由，皆自然之感致，非窮理盡性者，不能知其指歸，非原始見終者，不能得其情狀也。狹觀近識，桎梏巢穴，揣淵妙於不測，推神化於虛誕，以周孔不說，墳籍不載，一切謂為不然，不亦陋哉？又俗人以劉向作金不成，便云天下果無此道，是見田家或遭水旱不收，便謂五穀不可播殖得也。成都內史吳大文，博達多知，亦自說昔事道士李根，見根煎鉛錫，以少許藥如大豆者投鼎中，以鐵匙攪之，冷即成銀。大文得其秘方，但欲自作，百日齋便為之，而留連在官，竟不能得，恒歎息言人閒不足處也。又桓君山言漢黃門郎程偉，好黃白術，娶妻得知方家女。偉常從駕出而無時衣，甚憂。妻曰，請致兩端縑。縑即無故而至前。偉按枕中鴻寶，作金不成。妻乃往視偉，偉方扇炭燒筩，筩中有水銀。妻曰，吾欲試相視一事。乃出其囊中藥，少少投之，食頃發之，已成銀。偉大驚曰，道近在汝處，而不早告我，何也？妻曰，得之須有命者。於是偉日夜說誘之，賣田宅以供美食衣服，猶不肯告偉。偉乃與伴謀撾笞伏之。妻輒知之，告偉言，道必當傳其人，得其人，道路相遇輒教之；如非其人，口是而心非者，雖寸斷支解，而道猶不出也。偉逼之不止，妻乃發狂，裸而走，以泥自塗，遂卒。近者前廬江太守華令思，高才達學，洽聞之士也，而事之不經者，多所不信。後有道士說黃白之方，乃試令作之，云以鐵器銷鉛，以散藥投中，即成銀。又銷此銀，以他藥投之，乃作黃金。又從此道士學徹視之方，行之未百日，夜臥即便見天文及四鄰了了，不覺復有屋舍籬障。又妾名瑤華者已死，乃見形，與之言語如平生。又祭廟，聞廟神答其拜，床似動有聲。令思乃歎曰，世閒乃定無所不有，五經雖不載，不可便以意斷也。然不聞方伎者，卒聞此，亦焉能不驚怪邪？又黃白術亦如合神丹，皆須齋潔百日已上，又當得閒解方書，意合者乃可為之，非濁穢之人，及不聰明人，希涉術數者所辨作也。其中或有須口訣者，皆宜師授。又宜入於深山之中，清潔之地，不欲令凡俗愚人知之。而劉向止宮中作之，使宮人供給其事，必非齋潔者，又不能斷絕人事，使不來往也，如此安可得成哉？桓譚新論曰：史子心見署為丞相史，官架屋，發吏卒及官奴婢以給之，作金不成。丞相自以力不足，又白傅太后。太后不復利於金也，聞金成可以作延年藥，又甘心焉，乃除之為郎，舍之北宮中，使者待遇。甯有作此神方可於宮中，而令凡人雜錯共為之者哉？俗閒染繒練，尚不欲使雜人見之，見之即壞，況黃白之變化乎？凡事無巨細，皆宜得要。若不得其法，妄作酒醬醋羹臛猶不成，況大事乎？余曾諮於鄭君曰：“老君云，不貴難得之貨。而至治之世，皆投金於山，捐玉於穀，不審古人何用金銀為貴而遺其方也？”鄭君答餘曰：“老君所云，謂夫披沙剖石，傾山漉淵，不遠萬里，不慮壓溺，以求珍玩，以妨民時，不知止足，以飾無用。及欲為道，志求長生者，復兼商賈，不敦信讓，浮深越險，乾沒逐利，不吝軀命，不修寡欲者耳。至於真人作金，自欲餌服之致神仙，不以致富也。故經曰，金可作也，世可度也，銀亦可餌服，但不及金耳。”餘難曰：“何不餌世閒金銀而化作之，作之則非真，非真則詐偽也。”鄭君答餘曰：“世閒金銀皆善，然道士率皆貧。故諺云，無有肥仙人富道士也。師徒或十人或五人，亦安得金銀以供之乎？又不能遠行採取，故宜作也。又化作之金，乃是諸藥之精，勝於自然者也。仙經云，丹精生金。此是以丹作金之說也。故山中有丹砂，其下多有金。且夫作金成則為真物，中表如一，百煉不減。故其方曰，可以為釘。明其堅勁也。此則得夫自然之道也。故其能之，何謂詐乎？詐者謂以曾青塗鐵，鐵赤色如銅；以雞子白化銀，銀黃如金，而皆外變而內不化也。夫芝菌者，自然而生，而仙經有以五石五木種芝，芝生，取而服之，亦與自然芝無異，俱令人長生，此亦作金之類也。雉化為蜃，雀化為蛤，與自然者正同。故仙經曰，流珠九轉，父不語子，化為黃白，自然相使。又曰，朱砂為金，服之昇仙者，上士也；茹芝導引，咽氣長生者，中士也；餐食草木，千歲以還者，下士也。又曰，金銀可自作，自然之性也，長生可學得者也。玉牒記云：天下悠悠，皆可長生也，患於猶豫，故不成耳。凝水銀為金，可中釘也。銅柱經曰：丹沙可為金，河車可作銀，立則可成，成則為真，子得其道，可以仙身。黃山子曰：天地有金，我能作之，二黃一赤，立成不疑。龜甲文曰：我命在我不在天，還丹成金億萬年。古人豈欺我哉？但患知此道者多貧，而藥或至賤而生遠方，非亂世所得也。若戎鹽鹵鹹皆賤物，清平時了不直錢，今時不限價直而買之無也。羌裡石膽，千萬求一斤，亦不可得。徒知其方，而與不知者正同，可為長歎者也。有其法者，則或饑寒無以合之，而富貴者復不知其法也。就令知之，亦無一信者。假令頗信之，亦已自多金銀，豈肯費見財以市其藥物，恐有棄系逐飛之悔，故莫肯為也。又計買藥之價，以成所得之物，尤有大利，而更當齋戒辛苦，故莫克為也。且夫不得明師口訣，誠不可輕作也。”夫醫家之藥，淺露之甚，而其常用效方，便復秘之。故方有用後宮遊女，僻側之膠，封君泥丸，木鬼子，金商芝，飛君根，伏龍肝，白馬汗，浮雲滓，龍子丹衣，夜光骨，百花醴，冬鄒齋之屬，皆近物耳，而不得口訣，猶不可知，況於黃白之術乎？今能為之者，非徒以其價貴而秘之矣，此道一成，則可以長生。長生之道，道之至也，故古人重之也。凡方書所名藥物，又或與常藥物同而實非者，如河上奼女，非婦人也；陵陽子明，非男子也；禹餘糧，非米也；堯漿，非水也。而俗人見方用龍膽虎掌、雞頭鴨蹠、馬蹄犬血、鼠尾牛膝，皆謂之血氣之物也；見用缺盆覆盆、釜䥶大戟、鬼箭天鉤，則謂之鐵瓦之器也；見用胡王使者、倚姑新婦、野丈人、守田公、戴文浴、徐長卿，則謂人之姓名也。近易之草，或有不知，玄秘之方，孰能悉解？劉向作金不成，無可怪之也。及得其要，則復不煩聖賢大才而後作也，凡人可為耳。劉向豈頑人哉，直坐不得口訣耳。今將載其約而效之者，以貽將來之同志焉。當先取武都雄黃，丹色如雞冠，而光明無夾石者，多少任意，不可令減五斤也。搗之如粉，以牛膽和之，煮之令燥。以赤土釜容一鬥者，先以戎鹽石膽末薦釜中，令厚三分，乃內雄黃末，令厚五分，復加戎鹽於上。如此，相似至盡。又加碎炭火如棗核者，令厚二寸。以蚓螻土及戎鹽為泥，泥釜外，以一釜覆之，皆泥令厚三寸，勿泄。陰乾一月，乃以馬糞火煴之，三日三夜，寒，發出，鼓下其銅，銅流如冶銅鐵也。乃令鑄此銅以為筩，筩成以盛丹砂水。又以馬屎火煴之，三十日發爐，鼓之得其金，即以為筩，又以盛丹砂水。又以馬通火煴三十日，發取搗治之。取其二分生丹砂，一分並汞，汞者，水銀也，立凝成黃金矣。光明美色，可中釘也。\n\n### Formulas for Making Gold and Silver\n\n2.作丹砂水法\n治丹砂一斤，內生竹筩中，加石膽消石各二兩，覆薦上下，閉塞筩口，以漆骨丸封之，須乾，以內醇苦酒中，埋之地中，深三尺，三十日成水，色赤味苦也。\n\n3.金樓先生所從青林子受作黃金法\n先鍛錫，方廣六寸，厚一寸二分，以赤鹽和灰汁，令如泥，以塗錫上，令通厚一分，累置於赤土釜中。率錫十斤，用赤鹽四斤，合封固其際，以馬通火煴之，三十日，發火視之，錫中悉如灰狀，中有累累如豆者，即黃金也。合治內土甌中，以炭鼓之，十煉之並成也。率十斤錫，得金二十兩。唯長沙桂陽豫章南海土釜可用耳。彼鄉土之人，作土釜以炊食，自多也。\n\n4.治作赤鹽法\n用寒鹽一斤，又作寒水石一斤，又作寒羽涅一斤，又作白礬一斤，合內鐵器中，以炭火火之，皆消而色赤，乃出之可用也。\n\n5.角裡先生從稷丘子所授化黃金法\n先以礬水石二分，內鐵器中，加炭火令沸，乃內汞多少自在，攪令相得，六七沸，注地上成白銀。乃取丹砂水曾青水各一分，雄黃水二分，於䥶中加微火上令沸，數攪之，令相得，復加炭火上令沸，以此白銀內其中，多少自在，可六七沸，注地上凝，則成上色紫磨金也。\n\n6.治作雄黃水法\n治雄黃內生竹筩中一斤，輒加消石二兩，覆薦上下，封以漆骨丸，內醇大醋中，埋之深三尺，二十日即化為水也。作曾青水方，及礬石水同法，但各異筩中耳。\n\n7.小兒作黃金法\n作大鐵筩成，中一尺二寸，高一尺二寸。作小鐵筩成，中六寸，瑩磨之。赤石脂一斤，消石一斤，雲母一斤，代赭一斤，流黃半斤，空青四兩，凝水石一斤，皆合搗細篩，以醯和，塗之小筩中，厚二分。汞一斤，丹砂半斤，良非半斤。\n\n8.取良非法用鉛十斤內鐵釜中，居爐上露灼之，鉛銷，內汞三兩，早出者以鐵匙抄取之，名曰良非也。攪令相得，以汞不見為候，置小筩中，雲母覆其上，鐵蓋鎮之。取大筩居爐上，銷鉛注大筩中，沒小筩中，去上半寸，取銷鉛為候，猛火炊之，三日三夜成，名曰紫粉。取鉛十斤於鐵器中銷之，二十日上下，更內銅器中，須鉛銷，內紫粉七方寸匕，攪之，即成黃金也。欲作白銀者，取汞置鐵器中，內紫粉三寸已上，火令相得，注水中，即成銀也。\n\n9.務成子法\n作鐵筩長九寸，徑五寸，搗雄黃三斤，蚓螻壤等分，作合以為泥，塗裹使徑三寸，匱口四寸，加丹砂水二合，覆馬通火上，令極乾，內銅筩中，塞以銅合蓋堅，以黃沙築上，覆以蚓壤重泥，上無令泄，置爐炭中，令有三寸炭，筩口赤，可寒發之，雄黃皆入著銅筩，復出入如前法。三斤雄黃精，皆下入著筩中，下提取與黃沙等分，合作以為爐，爐大小自在也。欲用之，置爐於炭火中，爐赤，內水銀，銀動則內鉛其中，黃從傍起交中央，注之於地，即成金。凡作一千五百斤，爐力即盡矣。此金取牡荊赤黍酒漬之，百日，即柔可和也。如小豆，服一丸，日三服，盡一斤，三蟲伏屍，百病皆去，盲者視，聾者聞，老者即還年如三十時，入火不灼，百邪眾毒、冷風暑濕、不能侵入；盡三斤，則步行水上，山川百神，皆來侍衛，壽與天地相畢。以杼血朱草煮一丸，以拭目眥，即見鬼及地中物，能夜書；以白羊血塗一丸，投水中，魚龍立出，可以取也；以青羊血丹雞血塗一丸，懸都門上，一裡不疫；以塗牛羊六畜額上，皆不疫病，虎豹不犯也；以虎膽蛇肪塗一丸，從月建上以擲敵人之軍，軍即便無故自亂，相傷殺而走矣；以牛血塗一丸以投井中，井中即沸，以投流水，流水則逆流百步；以白犬血塗一丸，投社廟舍中，其鬼神即見，可以役使；以兔血塗一丸，置六陰之地，行廚玉女立至，可俟六七十人也；以鯉魚膽塗一丸，持入水，水為之開一丈，可得氣息水中以行，冒雨衣不霑也；以紫莧煮一丸，含咽其汁，可百日不饑；以慈石煮一丸，內髻中，以擊賊，白刃流矢不中之，有射之者，矢皆自向也；以六丁六壬上土並一丸，以蔽人中則隱形，含一丸，北向以噴火，火則滅；以庚辛日申酉時，向西地以一丸擲樹，樹木即日便枯；又以一丸，禹步擲虎狼蛇蝮，皆即死；研一丸以書石即入石，書金即入金，書木入木，所書皆徹其肌理，削治不可去也。卒死未經宿，以月建上水下一丸，令入咽喉，並含水噴死人面，即活。以狐血鶴血塗一丸，內爪中，以指萬物，隨口變化，即山行木徙，人皆見之，然而實不動也。凡作黃白，皆立太乙、玄女、老子坐醮祭，如作九丹法，常燒五香，香不絕。又金成，先以三斤投深水中，一斤投市中，然後方得恣其意用之耳。","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/baopuzi-gold-and-silver/original.txt"},"translations":[{"id":"trn_baopuzi_gold_and_silver_mouseia","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"curated","note":"Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the Chinese Wikisource transcription of Baopuzi neipian juan 16 (revision 2349099), cross-checked against the Kanripo KR5f0019 Daozang copy, covering all of Inner Chapter 16 (Huangbai): Ge Hong’s defence of the art and eight formulas, 4,296 characters, for fidelity, clarity, imagery and cadence.","text":"### Ge Hong's Defense of the Art of Making Gold and Silver\n\n1. Baopuzi says: The Classics of the Immortals contain twenty-five scrolls of formulas for the yellow and the white, more than a thousand recipes. The yellow is gold; the white is silver. The ancients kept the art secret and precious, unwilling to name it outright, and so concealed it under these names. Some chapters are titled Geng and Xin: these, too, mean gold. Most of the formulas, however, are subtle and hard to understand; few are clearly intelligible. Many people doubt the whole affair as a fantasy, just as they disbelieve in immortals. In former days I received from Master Zheng the Classics of the Nine Elixirs and the Liquids of Gold and Silver; afterward I sought and received the five scrolls of the Central Classic of the Yellow and the White. Master Zheng said he and Master Zuo had tried making them in the Copper Mountains of Lujiang, and all their attempts succeeded. Yet the labor of purification, fasting, and observance of taboos was no different from that required for the golden elixir and the drugs of immortality. Ordinary people often mock my devotion to unorthodox pursuits, saying that I insist on making sense of things under heaven that cannot be understood. Why would I do that? If I wanted to display my literary powers to posterity with such matters, the more than two hundred scrolls of my Outer Chapters and miscellaneous writings would suffice to convey my thoughts to later generations; I would have no need of this. Besides, these Inner Chapters speak plainly, without ornament. I know, too, that whenever I discuss such matters everyone calls them far-fetched and irrelevant; it would be easier to win popular favor by treating the pressing concerns of common life. Yet I cannot leave the subject alone, and write about it though I know people will not listen, because I have truly witnessed its results, and the teachers who transmitted it to me did not speak falsely. But I am poor and lack the means; I have also lived through an age of many troubles, with hardships that would not end. Roads were blocked, ingredients unobtainable, and in the end I had no opportunity to compound them myself. If I tell people now that I know how to make gold and silver, though I myself suffer hunger and cold, how is that different from a man who cannot walk selling medicine for lameness and asking to be believed? Of course no one would believe him. Yet matters do not always turn out as one wishes, and they cannot all be judged alike. I have been so diligent in committing these things to writing because I want those who delight in wonders and prize truth in generations to come to read my book and fully understand what I mean by the Way.\nWhat cannot the art of transformation accomplish? The human body is naturally visible, yet there is a method of making it invisible. Spirits and gods are naturally invisible, yet there is a means of making them appear; many people can do this. Water and fire exist in heaven, yet we draw them down with the water-mirror and the burning mirror. Lead is white by nature, yet we redden it into red lead; red lead is red by nature, yet we whiten it into lead. Clouds, rain, frost, and snow are all the breath of heaven and earth, yet drugs can produce them, indistinguishable from the real thing. Even creatures that fly and run, and all that creep and crawl, have received their shapes from creation and seem fixed in form; yet countless kinds suddenly shed their former bodies and turn into other creatures, more than one can recount. Humans are the most exalted and intelligent of beings, yet there are many instances of men and women changing form, becoming cranes or stones, tigers or apes, sand or great turtles. Lofty mountains become deep pools, and deep valleys become hills: these, too, are transformations of vast things. Transformation is nature's own work in heaven and earth. Why suppose that gold and silver cannot be made from other substances? Consider the fire drawn by a burning mirror and the water drawn by a water-mirror: are they any different from ordinary fire and water? A snake becoming a dragon, or chopped thatch becoming fat, is likewise no different from a thing born naturally. Yet the underlying causes of these things all arise from natural responses. Unless one fathoms principle and fully understands nature, one cannot grasp their meaning; unless one traces the beginning and sees the end, one cannot know their true condition. To take a narrow view from a cramped mind, shackled to one's own burrow, to call unfathomable mysteries empty guesses and divine transformations fantasies simply because Zhou and Confucius did not discuss them and the ancient books do not record them—is that not a pitiful limitation?\nAgain, ordinary people say that because Liu Xiang failed to make gold, the art must not exist anywhere under heaven. That is like seeing a farmer lose his harvest to flood or drought and declaring that grain cannot be sown and grown. Wu Dawen, administrator of Chengdu, was a widely learned and knowledgeable man. He himself said that he once served the Daoist Li Gen and saw him heat lead and tin. Li tossed into the cauldron a little drug, about the size of a soybean, stirred it with an iron spoon, and, when it cooled, it became silver. Dawen received the secret formula, but wanted to make it himself and first had to purify himself by fasting for a hundred days. Detained in office, he never managed to do so, and constantly sighed that the world of men was no fit place to dwell.\nMaster Huan Junshan also says that Cheng Wei, a gentleman attendant of the Yellow Gate under the Han, loved the art of the yellow and the white, and married a woman from a family that knew the formulas. Once, as Wei was about to accompany the imperial carriage, he had no proper clothes to wear and was deeply troubled. His wife said, “Let me bring you two lengths of fine silk.” At once the silk appeared before him from nowhere. Wei followed the instructions in the Precious Secrets Kept in a Pillow to make gold, but failed. His wife then went to see him as he fanned charcoal beneath a heated vessel holding mercury. “I want to try something before your eyes,” she said. She took a drug from her pouch, threw in a little, and after the time it takes to eat a meal, opened the vessel: its contents had become silver. Astonished, Wei said, “The Way was close at hand with you! Why did you not tell me sooner?” She answered, “To receive it, one must be destined for it.” Wei then coaxed and pleaded with her night and day, selling fields and house to supply her with fine food and clothing, but still she would not tell him. Wei conspired with an accomplice to beat and torture her into yielding. She learned of it and told him, “The Way must be passed to the right person. If one meets the right person on the road, one teaches it at once; but if it is the wrong person, whose mouth says yes while his heart says no, then even if I were cut inch by inch and dismembered, the Way would not come out.” Wei would not cease pressuring her. She went mad, ran naked, smeared herself with mud, and died.\nMore recently, Hua Lingsi, formerly governor of Lujiang, a man of great talent and broad learning, disbelieved many things outside ordinary experience. Later a Daoist told him a formula for the yellow and the white, and he had the man try it: the Daoist melted lead in an iron vessel and cast in a powdered drug; it became silver. Then he melted this silver and cast in another drug, and it became gold. Hua also learned from him the method of seeing through things. Before he had practiced it for a hundred days, lying in bed at night he could clearly see the stars and his four neighbors, unaware of any houses or fences intervening. He also saw the form of his dead concubine Yaohua, and spoke with her as he had while she lived. While sacrificing at a temple, he heard the temple god respond to his bow, and his couch seemed to move and make a sound. Lingsi sighed: “So there really is nothing that does not exist in the world! Even if the Five Classics do not record it, one cannot simply judge it by one's own ideas.” And yet, if someone unfamiliar with these arts suddenly heard of them, how could he fail to be amazed?\nThe art of the yellow and the white is also like compounding the divine elixirs. Both require more than a hundred days of fasting and purification. One must also find someone who understands the formula books and shares one's purpose before undertaking it; it is not something that the impure, the unintelligent, or those with only a passing acquaintance with the occult arts can accomplish. Where oral instructions are necessary, they must all be received from a teacher. One must also go deep into the mountains, to a clean place, and keep the undertaking from the knowledge of ignorant common people. But Liu Xiang made his attempt in a palace, attended by palace servants who surely had not purified themselves; nor could he sever all human dealings and prevent people from coming and going. How could he have succeeded under such conditions? Huan Tan's New Discourses says: Shi Zixin was appointed a clerk to the chancellor. He built a structure in an official compound and requisitioned clerks, soldiers, and the government's male and female slaves to assist him, but failed to make gold. The chancellor, thinking his own resources insufficient, petitioned Empress Dowager Fu. She no longer cared to acquire gold, but on hearing that gold once made could become a drug to prolong life, she too became eager. She appointed Shi a gentleman, lodged him in the Northern Palace, and sent an envoy to attend to him. Could anyone truly practice this divine formula in a palace amid a crowd of ordinary people working together? Even those dyeing silk and bleaching cloth in the common world dislike letting outsiders watch: if someone watches, the work is spoiled. How much more so the transformation of the yellow and the white! Every task, great or small, requires mastery of its essential method. Without the right method, even careless attempts to make wine, soy paste, vinegar, soup, or meat stew fail. How much more so a great undertaking?\nI once asked Master Zheng: “The Old Master says, ‘Do not prize goods that are hard to obtain.’ In the age of perfect rule, everyone cast gold into the mountains and threw jade into the valleys. Why, then, did the ancients value gold and silver and hand down their formulas?” Master Zheng answered me: “What the Old Master meant was those who sift sand and split rocks, strip mountains and dredge pools, travel ten thousand miles without fearing that they might be crushed or drowned, all to seek rare ornaments; who disrupt the people's farming seasons, know no moderation, and adorn themselves with useless things. He also meant those who profess to seek the Way and aspire to long life yet engage in trade as well, without cultivating trust and generosity, crossing deep waters and dangerous places, risking their lives to chase profit, and never cultivating freedom from desire. But perfected adepts who make gold intend to consume it and become immortals, not to grow rich. Thus the classic says, ‘Gold can be made, and the world can be transcended. Silver, too, can be consumed, though it is not as good as gold.’” I objected: “Why not consume the gold and silver already in the world instead of making them by transformation? If made, they are not genuine; if not genuine, they are counterfeit.” Master Zheng replied: “The gold and silver found in the world are entirely good, but Daoists are generally poor. Hence the saying, ‘There are no fat immortals or rich Daoists.’ A teacher and disciples may number ten or five: where could they find enough gold and silver for them all? Nor can they travel far to gather it; therefore they should make it. Moreover, gold made through transformation is the distilled essence of many drugs, superior to natural gold. The Classics of the Immortals say, ‘The essence of cinnabar engenders gold.’ This refers to making gold from cinnabar. Thus where there is cinnabar in the mountains, gold is often found beneath it. And when gold has been made, it is a genuine substance, the same inside and out, undiminished by a hundred refinings. Hence the formula says, ‘It can be made into nails,’ demonstrating its strength and hardness. This accords with nature's Way. If one can make it, why call it counterfeit? Counterfeiting means coating iron with azurite so that it looks red like copper, or treating silver with egg white so that it looks yellow like gold: these change on the outside, not within. Mushrooms of immortality grow naturally, yet the Classics of the Immortals prescribe planting them from five minerals and five kinds of wood. The mushrooms that grow can be gathered and eaten, and are no different from naturally growing ones: both give long life. This is another instance like making gold. When a pheasant becomes a great clam, or a sparrow a small clam, it is exactly like one born naturally. Thus the Classics of the Immortals say, ‘The flowing pearl turns nine times; a father does not tell his son. Transformed into yellow and white, they naturally act upon each other.’ They also say, ‘The highest adepts turn cinnabar into gold and consume it to ascend as immortals; the middling adepts eat mushrooms, practice exercises, and swallow breath to live long; the lower adepts eat plants and trees and live no more than a thousand years.’ And again: ‘Gold and silver can be made by oneself: that is in their nature. Long life can be learned and won.’ The Record of the Jade Tablets says: ‘All the people under heaven can live long; it is hesitation that prevents them from succeeding.’ Mercury condensed into gold can be made into nails. The Classic of the Copper Pillar says: ‘Cinnabar can become gold, and the river chariot can become silver. Once set to work, it can be completed; once completed, it is genuine. If you obtain this Way, you can make your body immortal.’ Master Huangshan says: ‘Heaven and earth have gold, and I can make it: two yellow and one red, and it is made at once, without doubt.’ The Turtle-Shell Text says: ‘My life rests with me, not with heaven; the reverted elixir becomes gold for a hundred million years.’ How could the ancients have deceived us? The trouble is that many who know this Way are poor, while some ingredients, though exceedingly cheap, grow in distant regions and cannot be obtained in troubled times. Rong salt and saline alkali are both humble substances, worth practically nothing in peaceful times; now, however high a price one offers, one cannot buy them. One could offer millions for a pound of Qiangli's chalcanthite and still fail to get it. Merely knowing the formula is just the same as not knowing it, and this is cause for a long sigh. Those with the method may lack food, clothing, and the means to compound it, while the rich and powerful do not know it. Even if they knew it, not one would believe it. Suppose one of them did half believe: already possessing abundant gold and silver, why spend the wealth in hand to buy the ingredients, for fear of losing a tethered bird in pursuit of one in flight? Thus no one is willing to try. And though the price of the ingredients, measured against the product obtained, would leave an extraordinary profit, the work also demands painful fasting and abstinence; thus no one can bring it off. Moreover, without a discerning teacher's oral instructions one truly cannot attempt it lightly.”\nEven physicians' drugs are exceedingly familiar, yet physicians keep their regularly effective formulas secret. Thus formulas call for such things as the wandering girl of the rear palace, glue from a secluded corner, a lord's mud pellet, wood-ghost seed, metal-merchant mushroom, flying lord's root, crouching dragon's liver, white horse's sweat, drifting cloud dregs, dragon child's cinnabar robe, night-shining bone, hundred-flower sweet wine, and winter Zou fasting. These are all things close at hand, yet without oral instructions one cannot even tell what they are. How much more so the art of the yellow and the white! Those now capable of practicing it keep it secret not merely because of the high price of its products. Once mastered, this Way can bring long life; the Way of long life is the highest Way, and that is why the ancients prized it. Moreover, the names of ingredients in formula books may be the same as ordinary terms yet refer to quite different things: the Maiden of the Riverbank is not a woman; Lingyang Ziming is not a man; Yu's Surplus Grain is not rice; Yao's Broth is not water. Yet when ordinary people see formulas calling for dragon gall and tiger paw, chicken head and duck foot, horse hoof and dog blood, mouse tail and ox knee, they assume these are parts of warm-blooded creatures. When they see broken basin and overturned basin, cauldron scraper and great halberd, ghost arrow and heavenly hook, they assume they are ironware or tiles. When they see the King of Hu's Envoy, the Leaning Aunt and the New Bride, the Wild Old Man, the Field Guardian, Dai Wenyu, and Xu Changqing, they assume these are people's names. If even common, accessible herbs can go unrecognized, who can understand every mysterious and secret formula? There is nothing surprising in Liu Xiang's failure to make gold. Once the essentials are grasped, it takes no great sage or prodigious talent to do it; anyone can. Liu Xiang was no fool: he simply lacked the oral instructions. I shall now record a concise, effective method to pass on to kindred spirits of the future.\nFirst take Wudu realgar, cinnabar-red like a rooster's comb, lustrous and free of stony impurities. Take as much as you wish, but not less than five pounds. Pulverize it, mix it with ox gall, and boil it until dry. Take a red-clay pot holding one dou. First line it with ground Rong salt and chalcanthite to a thickness of three fen. Put in ground realgar to a thickness of five fen, then add another layer of Rong salt. Repeat these layers until the ingredients are exhausted. Add broken charcoal, in pieces the size of jujube pits, to a depth of two inches. Make a clay from mole-cricket earth and Rong salt; coat the outside of the pot with it, cover it with another pot, and seal everything with clay three inches thick, leaving no leaks. Let it dry in the shade for one month, then keep it warm over a fire of horse dung for three days and three nights. Let it cool, open it, and blow the bellows to melt out the copper; the copper runs as it does when copper and iron are smelted. Cast this copper into a vessel, and when it is ready fill it with cinnabar water. Again keep it warm over horse-dung fire. After thirty days open the furnace and blow the bellows to obtain its gold; make this, too, into a vessel and fill it with cinnabar water. Again warm it over horse-dung fire for thirty days, open it, take out the contents, and pulverize them. Take two parts of this and one part raw cinnabar, together with mercury—mercury is quicksilver—and at once it congeals into gold, lustrous and beautiful in color, capable of taking a nail.\n\n### Formulas for Making Gold and Silver\n\n2. Method for Making Cinnabar Water\nPrepare one pound of cinnabar and put it in a fresh bamboo tube. Add two ounces each of chalcanthite and saltpeter, layering them above and below. Seal the mouth of the tube with lacquer-and-bone paste and wait until it dries. Place it in strong vinegar, bury it three feet deep in the ground, and after thirty days it becomes a liquid, red in color and bitter in taste.\n\n3. Method for Making Gold, Received by Master Jinlou from Qinglinzi\nFirst forge tin into a plate six inches square and one inch and two fen thick. Mix red salt with ash lye to the consistency of clay and spread it over the tin to an even thickness of one fen. Stack the plates in a red-clay pot. For every ten pounds of tin use four pounds of red salt; join and seal the edges firmly. Keep it warm over a horse-dung fire for thirty days. Open the furnace and inspect it: the tin will all resemble ashes, with clusters like beans within it; these are gold. Collect them, refine them in an earthen bowl, and blow the charcoal fire over them; after ten refinings, they all become gold. Ten pounds of tin yield twenty ounces of gold. Only earthen pots from Changsha, Guiyang, Yuzhang, or Nanhai will do. The local people there commonly make such pots to cook their food.\n\n4. Method for Preparing Red Salt\nTake one pound of cold salt, one pound of cold-water stone, one pound of cold black alum, and one pound of white alum. Put them together in an iron vessel and heat it with charcoal until everything melts and turns red. Then take it out for use.\n\n5. Method for Transforming Gold, Received by Master Jiaoli from Jiqiuzi\nFirst place two parts alum-water stone in an iron vessel. Heat it with charcoal until it boils, then add as much mercury as you wish and stir until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. After six or seven boils, pour it onto the ground, and it becomes silver. Then take one part each of cinnabar water and azurite water and two parts realgar water, and heat them gently in a cauldron until they boil. Stir repeatedly to combine them, then put the cauldron over a charcoal fire and bring it to a boil again. Add as much of the silver as you wish, let it boil six or seven times, and pour it onto the ground to solidify: it becomes fine purple gold.\n\n6. Method for Preparing Realgar Water\nPrepare one pound of realgar and put it in a fresh bamboo tube. Each time add two ounces of saltpeter, layering it above and below. Seal it with lacquer-and-bone paste, place it in strong vinegar, and bury it three feet deep. After twenty days it will have turned to water. The formulas for azurite water and alum-stone water follow the same method, but each is prepared in its own tube.\n\n7. The Child's Method for Making Gold\nMake a large iron cylinder, twelve inches in inner diameter and twelve inches high. Make a small iron cylinder, six inches in inner diameter, and polish it bright. Take one pound of red halloysite, one pound of saltpeter, one pound of mica, one pound of red ocher, half a pound of sulfur, four ounces of hollow azurite, and one pound of gypsum. Pound all these together and sieve them fine; mix them with vinegar and coat the inside of the small cylinder to a thickness of two fen. Take one pound of mercury, half a pound of cinnabar, and half a pound of liangfei.\n\n8. To obtain liangfei, place ten pounds of lead in an iron pot over a furnace and heat it uncovered. When the lead melts, add three ounces of mercury. Skim off with an iron spoon what rises first: this is called liangfei. Stir the ingredients together until the mercury can no longer be seen, then place them in the small cylinder. Cover them with mica and weigh it down with an iron lid. Set the large cylinder over the furnace, melt lead and pour it into the large cylinder until it stands half an inch below the top of the small one. Watch for the lead to melt, then heat fiercely for three days and nights. The product is called purple powder. Melt ten pounds of lead in an iron vessel; continue heating it for about twenty days, then transfer it to a copper vessel. Once the lead melts, add seven square-inch spoonfuls of purple powder and stir: it becomes gold at once. To make silver, put mercury in an iron vessel, add three inches or more of purple powder, heat until they mingle, and pour into water: it becomes silver.\n\n9. Wuchengzi's Method\nMake an iron cylinder nine inches long and five inches across. Pound three pounds of realgar with an equal amount of mole-cricket earth. Mix into a clay and coat it around the cylinder until it is three inches across, leaving its mouth four inches wide. Add two ge of cinnabar water. Set it over a horse-dung fire until thoroughly dry, then place it inside a copper cylinder, close it firmly with a fitted copper lid, pack yellow sand over the top, and coat it thickly with mole-cricket earth, leaving no opening at the top. Put it in a charcoal furnace with three inches of charcoal. When the cylinder's mouth grows red, let it cool and open it. All the realgar will have gone into and adhered to the copper cylinder. Take it out and put it back in by the same procedure. When all the essence of the three pounds of realgar has gone down into the cylinder, lift it out and mix it with an equal amount of yellow sand to make a furnace of whatever size you wish. To use it, set the furnace among burning charcoal. When it glows red, put in mercury; when the mercury moves, put lead into it. Yellow will rise at the sides and meet in the center. Pour it onto the ground, and it becomes gold. Once fifteen hundred pounds have been made, the furnace's power is spent.\nSteep this gold in chaste-tree and red-millet wine for a hundred days; it will then be soft enough to work. Take a pill the size of a small bean three times a day. When you have taken one pound, the three worms and the hidden corpse will depart, and all diseases will be gone; the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the old will regain the years of a thirty-year-old. Fire will not burn you; the hundred evils and every poison, cold wind, heat, and damp cannot enter your body. When you have taken three pounds, you will walk on water; the hundred gods of mountains and rivers will come to attend and protect you; your life will end only with heaven and earth.\nBoil one pill with oak-tree blood and vermilion grass, then rub your eye-corners with it: you will see ghosts and things underground, and be able to write at night. Smear one pill with the blood of a white sheep and throw it into water: fish and dragons will immediately emerge for the taking. Smear one pill with the blood of a black sheep and a red rooster, and hang it over a city gate: for a mile around there will be no epidemic. Smear it on the foreheads of cattle, sheep, and the other domestic animals, and none will fall ill or be attacked by tigers or leopards. Smear one pill with tiger gall and snake fat and throw it toward an enemy army from the direction of the month's cyclical sign: the army will at once, for no apparent reason, fall into disorder, wound and kill one another, and flee. Smear one pill with ox blood and throw it into a well: the water in the well will immediately boil. Throw it into a flowing stream, and the water will run backward for a hundred paces. Smear one pill with the blood of a white dog and throw it into a shrine of the earth god: its spirits will appear and can be commanded. Smear one pill with rabbit blood and set it in a place of sixfold yin: the Jade Maidens of the traveling kitchen will arrive at once and can serve sixty or seventy people. Smear one pill with carp gall and carry it into water: the water will part for ten feet, and you will be able to breathe as you walk beneath it; even in the rain your clothes will not get wet. Boil one pill with purple amaranth, hold it in your mouth, and swallow its juice: you can go a hundred days without hunger. Boil one pill with lodestone and put it in your hair knot. When you strike at bandits, neither naked blades nor flying arrows will strike you; if anyone shoots at you, his arrows will turn back on him. Combine one pill with earth taken under the Six Ding and Six Ren signs and use it to conceal yourself among people: you will become invisible. Hold one pill in your mouth, face north, and spray toward a fire: the fire will go out. On a geng or xin day, at the shen or you hour, face west and throw one pill at a tree: it will wither that very day. Take another pill, perform Yu's steps, and throw it at a tiger, wolf, snake, or viper: each will die at once. Grind one pill and write with it on stone, and the writing enters the stone; write on metal, and it enters the metal; write on wood, and it enters the wood. Everything written penetrates its substance, and cutting or scraping cannot remove it. If someone has just died and a night has not passed, take water from the direction of the month's cyclical sign, put a pill in it, let it enter the dead person's throat, and spray some of the water onto the face: the person will revive. Smear one pill with fox blood and crane blood and place it in a fingernail. Point at anything and speak the desired transformation: mountains will seem to move and trees to walk. Everyone will see this, though nothing has really moved.\nIn making either the yellow or the white, always set up seats for Taiyi, the Mysterious Woman, and Laozi and make offerings to them, as in the method for making the Nine Elixirs. Burn the five incenses constantly, without letting the fragrance cease. And when the gold is finished, first throw three pounds into deep water and one pound into the marketplace; only then may you use the rest as you please.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/baopuzi-gold-and-silver/translations/trn_baopuzi_gold_and_silver_mouseia.txt"},{"id":"trn_baopuzi_gold_and_silver_plain","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"plain","note":"Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the same original, covering all of Inner Chapter 16 (Huangbai): Ge Hong’s defence of the art and eight formulas, 4,296 characters.","text":"### Ge Hong's Defense of the Art of Making Gold and Silver\n\n1. The Master Who Embraces Simplicity says: The Immortals' Scripture has twenty-five volumes of formulas for yellow and white substances, with over a thousand recipes. “Yellow” means gold and “white” means silver. The ancients guarded their methods carefully and did not want to name them openly; that is why they used these hidden terms. Some chapters are titled “Geng and Xin,” which also means gold. But most of the recipes are difficult and obscure. Only a few can be understood clearly. Most people think this subject is a fabrication, just as they refuse to believe in immortals. Long ago I received the Scriptures of the Nine Elixirs and of the Liquid of Gold and Silver from Master Zheng. I then asked him to teach me the five volumes of the Central Scripture of Yellow and White. Master Zheng said he and Master Zuo had tested the methods in Copper Mountain in Lujiang, and all had worked. Yet the hard work of ritual fasting, purification, and observing prohibitions is no different from that required for the gold elixir and the medicines of immortality. Ordinary people often mock my interest in unusual teachings. They say I insist on finding a way through what cannot be made to work. Why would I do that? If I wanted to show off my writing to future generations with such stories, the more than two hundred volumes of my Outer Chapters and other writings would be enough to convey my thoughts. I would not need this. Besides, these Inner Chapters speak plainly, without decorative writing. I also know that when I discuss these subjects, everyone calls them far-fetched and unimportant. Talking instead about immediate concerns of ordinary life would appeal to more people. But I cannot leave this subject alone. Though I know people will not listen, I still write about it because I have truly seen it work, and the teachers who passed it on to me did not speak falsely. I am poor and lack the money; I have also lived through troubled times, faced hardships without end, and found the roads blocked and the ingredients unavailable. In the end I have had no opportunity to make them together. When I tell people now that I know how to make gold and silver while I myself go hungry and cold, it is like a person unable to walk selling a cure for lameness and expecting people to believe him. Clearly they will not. But things do not always go as one wishes, and one cannot judge every case by one rule. I keep setting this down in writing so that future readers who value unusual things and recognize what is genuine may read my book and fully understand what I mean about the Way.\nWhat can the arts of transformation not do? A human body is naturally visible, yet there is a method to make it invisible. Spirits are naturally invisible, yet there is a method to make them visible. Many people can perform these arts. Water and fire are in the heavens, yet we obtain them using the appropriate fire and water mirrors. Lead is white by nature, but one can turn it red to make cinnabar. Cinnabar is red by nature, but one can turn it white to make lead. Clouds, rain, frost, and snow are all forms of the energy of heaven and earth; medicines can produce them so that they do not differ from the real things. Birds, beasts, and crawling creatures all receive their forms from nature, and those forms seem fixed. Yet there are countless cases in which they suddenly change their old bodies and become other things. Human beings have the most remarkable nature among living things; there are also many cases of men and women changing form, becoming cranes or stones, tigers or apes, sand or turtles. Even high mountains turning into deep pools and deep valleys into hills are transformations of large things. Change is natural to heaven and earth. Why doubt that gold and silver can be made from other substances? Is the fire obtained with a sun mirror different from ordinary fire, or the water obtained with a moon mirror from ordinary water? A snake turning into a dragon, or minced thatch turning into fat, is no different from things born that way. But the causes behind all these things arise through the responses of nature. One who has not investigated principles and nature thoroughly cannot understand where they lead. One who has not traced the beginning and seen the end cannot grasp what happens. People with a narrow view and little knowledge, confined to their own small world, judge unfathomable mysteries by guesswork and call divine transformations fabrications. Because Confucius and the Duke of Zhou did not discuss them and the ancient books do not record them, they declare them all impossible. How limited that is! Ordinary people also say that because Liu Xiang failed to make gold, the method certainly does not exist anywhere. That is like seeing a farmer lose a crop to flood or drought and saying that grain cannot be grown from seed. Wu Dawen, the administrator of Chengdu, was a learned man with wide knowledge. He himself said that he once served the Daoist Li Gen and saw him heat lead and tin. Li Gen dropped a little medicine the size of a soybean into the vessel, stirred it with an iron spoon, and, once it cooled, the mixture had become silver. Dawen received the secret recipe, but he wanted to perform it himself and needed to purify himself for a hundred days first. He remained tied to official duties and never managed it. He would often sigh and say that the human world was no place to stay.\nHuan Junshan also says that Cheng Wei, an attendant at the gate of the Han palace, liked the arts of making gold and silver and married a woman from a family that knew the formulas. Once, when Wei had to accompany the emperor but had no suitable clothes, he was very worried. His wife said, “Let me get two lengths of silk.” Without any apparent cause, the silk appeared in front of them. Wei had tried to make gold according to the Precious Secrets in the Pillow, but had failed. His wife went to see him as he was fanning the charcoal under a tube holding mercury. She said, “I want to try something and show you.” She took medicine from her bag and added it a little at a time. After the time it takes to eat a meal, she opened the tube: it had already become silver. Greatly startled, Wei said, “The method was right here with you. Why did you not tell me sooner?” She answered, “To receive it, one must be destined for it.” Wei then spent day and night trying to persuade her. He sold his fields and house to provide her with good food and clothes, but she still refused to tell him. He plotted with his companions to beat and force her to submit. She always knew about his plans and told him, “The Way must be passed on to the right person. If I meet such a person on the road, I will teach that person at once. But someone who says yes while thinking no is not the right person. Even if you cut me to pieces, I will not reveal the Way.” Wei did not stop pressuring her. She then went mad, ran naked, covered herself with mud, and died.\nMore recently, Hua Lingsi, formerly governor of Lujiang, was a talented, educated, and widely informed man, yet he disbelieved many things that seemed to depart from normal experience. A Daoist later told him a recipe for making gold and silver, and he had the man try it. The Daoist said to melt lead in an iron vessel and add powdered medicine to turn it into silver. Then he melted that silver and added another medicine to make gold. Lingsi also learned from him the method of seeing through things. Before he had practiced it a hundred days, when he lay down at night he could clearly see the stars and his four neighbors, without noticing the house or fences in between. He also saw the form of his dead concubine Yaohua and spoke with her as when she was alive. When he made offerings at a shrine, he heard its god answer his bow, and his couch seemed to move and make a sound. Lingsi sighed and said, “There really is nothing that does not exist in the world. Even if the Five Classics do not record something, one cannot simply decide against it on one's own opinion.” But if someone unfamiliar with such arts hears of them suddenly, how can that person not be astonished? Like preparing a divine elixir, the arts of making gold and silver require over a hundred days of purification and fasting. They also require someone who understands the recipe books and agrees with their meaning. They cannot be carried out by someone impure or dull, or someone with only a passing acquaintance with technical arts. Where oral instructions are required, they must be received from a teacher. One should also enter deep mountains and a clean place, and not let foolish ordinary people learn of the work. But Liu Xiang worked in the palace, using palace servants to provide what he needed. They could not have been ritually pure, nor could he have stopped people from coming and going. How could he have succeeded under those conditions?\nHuan Tan says in New Discussions: Shi Zixin was appointed a clerk to the chancellor. An official building was put up, and clerks, soldiers, and government slaves were assigned to assist him; still he did not make gold. The chancellor thought that his own power was not enough and reported the matter to Empress Dowager Fu. The empress dowager was not especially interested in gold, but when she heard that finished gold could be used to make a life-extending medicine, she too became eager. She appointed him a court attendant, lodged him in the North Palace, and had envoys attend to him. Could this divine method really be carried out in a palace with ordinary people mixed in and working on it together? Even when common people dye silk, they do not want strangers watching: if someone watches, it is spoiled. How much more is that true of changing substances into gold and silver? Every task, large or small, has a proper method. Without it, an attempt to make even wine, soybean paste, vinegar, soup, or meat stew will fail. How much more so with this great undertaking?\nI once asked Master Zheng: “The Old Master says, ‘Do not value goods that are hard to get.’ In an age of perfect government, people throw gold into the mountains and discard jade in the valleys. Why did the ancients prize gold and silver and pass down the methods of making them?” Master Zheng answered me: “The Old Master meant people who sift sand and break stones, overturn mountains and drain deep waters, travel ten thousand li without fear of being crushed or drowned, and seek precious ornaments at the cost of the people's time, never content, simply to decorate what has no use. He also meant those who want to follow the Way and seek long life yet also trade as merchants, fail to practice trust and restraint, cross deep waters and dangers, gamble their lives in pursuit of profit, care nothing for their bodies, and do not learn to desire less. But when a perfected person makes gold, it is to eat it and become immortal, not to become rich. Thus the scripture says, ‘Gold can be made, and one can pass beyond the world. Silver too can be eaten, but it is not as effective as gold.’” I objected: “Why not eat gold and silver found in the world instead of changing other substances into them? What is made is not genuine; what is not genuine is counterfeit.” Master Zheng answered: “Gold and silver found in the world are good, but Daoists are usually poor. Thus the proverb says, ‘There are no fat immortals or wealthy Daoists.’ A teacher may have five or ten disciples. Where would they get the gold and silver to provide for all of them? They also cannot travel far to gather it, so they should make it. Moreover, gold made by transformation is the essence of many medicines and is better than what occurs naturally. The Immortals' Scripture says, ‘The essence of the elixir produces gold.’ This means making gold from the elixir. Where there is cinnabar in a mountain, there is often gold beneath it. And gold that has been made is a real substance, the same inside and out. It does not diminish after a hundred meltings. Thus the recipe says it can be made into nails, showing its hardness and strength. It follows the natural way. If someone can make it, why call it a fraud? Fraud is coating iron with azurite so that it looks red like copper, or treating silver with egg white so that it looks yellow like gold: in both cases the outside changes, but the inside does not. Mushrooms of immortality grow naturally, yet the Immortals' Scripture also describes planting them using five minerals and five kinds of wood. Once grown and gathered for consumption, these are no different from naturally grown mushrooms and likewise give long life. Making gold is similar. A pheasant becoming a giant clam, or a sparrow becoming a small clam, is no different from a clam born naturally. Thus the Immortals' Scripture says, ‘After nine cycles of flowing pearls, a father will not tell his son. They change into yellow and white; each naturally acts on the other.’ It also says, ‘The highest people turn cinnabar into gold, eat it, and rise to immortality. Those in the middle eat mushrooms, practice guiding exercises, swallow breath, and live long. Those at the bottom eat plants and live less than a thousand years.’ It also says, ‘Gold and silver can be made by oneself: this is their natural property. Long life can be learned and attained.’ The Record of the Jade Tablets says, ‘Everyone throughout the world can live long. But they hesitate, and so they fail.’ Mercury can be condensed into gold that can be made into nails. The Scripture of the Copper Pillar says, ‘Cinnabar can become gold; the River Cart can make silver. It can be done at once, and once made it is genuine. If you gain its method, you can make your body immortal.’ Master Huangshan says, ‘There is gold in heaven and earth; I can make it. Two yellow parts and one red part make it at once without fail.’ The Writing on the Tortoise Shell says, ‘My life depends on me, not on heaven. Refined elixir becomes gold for hundreds of millions of years.’ Would the ancients have deceived us? The trouble is simply that those who know this method are often poor, and some ingredients, though very cheap where they grow, come from faraway places and cannot be obtained during disorder. Rong salt and briny salt are both cheap things, worth virtually nothing in peaceful times. Now one cannot buy them at any price. Though one might offer ten million for one jin of Qiang-region copper sulfate, one cannot get it. Knowing the recipe is then no different from not knowing it. This is cause for a long sigh. Those with the formula may be too hungry and cold to prepare it, while wealthy people do not know it. Even if they did, not one would believe it. And even if they believed it somewhat, they already have plenty of gold and silver. Why would they spend the money in hand to buy ingredients, risking the regret of letting go of what they have to chase what flies away? So no one will do it. Even though the value of what they could make would greatly exceed the cost of the ingredients, the additional hardship of fasting and abstinence keeps them from doing it. Besides, it is truly unwise to try without oral instructions from an informed teacher.”\nThe medicines used by doctors are much more straightforward, yet doctors still hide their routinely effective recipes. Some recipes call for “palace wandering girl,” “glue from the secluded side,” “sealed lord's mud pellet,” “wood ghost seed,” “metal merchant mushroom,” “flying lord root,” “crouching dragon liver,” “white horse sweat,” “floating cloud dregs,” “dragon child's red coat,” “night-shining bone,” “hundred-flower sweet liquor,” and “winter Zou fast.” These are all ordinary things, yet without oral instruction one cannot even identify them. How much more is this true of the arts of making gold and silver? Those who can make them keep them secret not just because gold and silver are valuable. Once this method succeeds, one can live long. Long life is the highest attainment of the Way, so the ancients valued the method. In recipe books, the names of some ingredients resemble the names of ordinary things but actually refer to something different: the “maiden by the river” is not a woman; Lingyang Ziming is not a man; “Yu's leftover grain” is not rice; and “Yao's broth” is not water. Ordinary people see “dragon gall” and “tiger paw,” “chicken head” and “duck foot,” “horse hoof” and “dog blood,” “rat tail” and “ox knee” in a recipe, and think they all come from animals. When they see “broken basin” and “overturned basin,” “pot and scraper,” “great halberd,” “ghost arrow,” and “heaven's hook,” they think these are iron implements and clay pots. When they see “envoy of the barbarian king,” “aunt leaning,” “new bride,” “old man of the wilds,” “keeper of the fields,” “Dai Wenyu,” and “Xu Changqing,” they think these are people's names. Some do not even know familiar nearby plants. Who could understand every obscure and secret recipe? Liu Xiang's failure to make gold is no surprise. Once one has the key instructions, though, one need not be a sage or a person of great talent to make it: an ordinary person can do it. Liu Xiang was no fool. He simply lacked the oral instructions. I will now record concise recipes that work, to pass them on to those who share my interests in the future.\nFirst obtain realgar from Wudu. It should be the color of a rooster's comb, bright and free of bits of stone. Use as much as you like, but no less than five jin. Pound it into powder, mix it with ox gall, and cook it dry. Take a red-clay pot holding one dou. First line it with powdered Rong salt and copper sulfate, to a depth of three fen. Then add a layer of powdered realgar five fen thick, and another layer of Rong salt on top. Repeat the layers in this way until it is all used up. Add crushed charcoal, with pieces the size of date pits, in a layer two cun thick. Mix earth from earthworms and mole crickets with Rong salt to make mud and plaster the outside of the pot. Cover it with another pot, and plaster both with mud three cun thick, without leaving any leaks. Dry it in the shade for a month. Then heat it gently over a fire of horse dung for three days and three nights. Let it cool and open it. Blow the bellows beneath the copper so it runs, as in smelting copper or iron. Cast this copper into a tube, and put cinnabar liquid in the tube. Heat it gently over a horse-dung fire. After thirty days open the furnace and work the bellows to obtain gold. Make it into a tube and fill this too with cinnabar liquid. Heat it gently over a horse-dung fire for another thirty days, then open it, take it out, and pound and prepare it. Take two parts of it and one part of raw cinnabar, together with mercury—mercury is also called liquid silver. It will immediately set into gold. It is bright and beautifully colored and can be made into nails.\n\n### Formulas for Making Gold and Silver\n\n2. Method for making cinnabar liquid: Prepare one jin of cinnabar and put it inside a fresh bamboo tube. Add two liang each of copper sulfate and saltpeter, layering them above and below the cinnabar. Stop up the mouth of the tube and seal it with a ball of lacquer and bone. Wait for it to dry, then put it in strong vinegar and bury it three chi deep in the ground. After thirty days it becomes a liquid, red in color and bitter in taste.\n\n3. The method of making gold that Master Jinlou received from Qinglinzi: First hammer tin into a sheet six cun square and one cun and two fen thick. Mix red salt with lye made from ashes into a paste, and coat the tin all over to a thickness of one fen. Stack the sheets in a red-clay pot. For every ten jin of tin use four jin of red salt. Join the pots and seal their edges firmly. Heat them gently over a fire of horse dung for thirty days, then open them and look. The tin will all have turned to an ash-like substance. Within it will be little clustered pieces like beans: these are gold. Put everything together in a clay bowl and heat it with a charcoal fire and bellows. Refine it ten times, and all will become gold. Ten jin of tin yields twenty liang of gold. Only earthenware pots made in Changsha, Guiyang, Yuzhang, or Nanhai will work. People in those regions make plenty of clay pots to cook their food.\n\n4. Method for preparing red salt: Take one jin of cold salt, one jin of cold-water stone, one jin of cold yunie, and one jin of white alum. Put them together in an iron vessel and heat them with charcoal until they all melt and become red. Then take the mixture out for use.\n\n5. The method for changing substances into gold that Master Jiaoli received from Jiqiuzi: First put two parts of alum-water stone in an iron vessel and heat it over charcoal until it boils. Add as much mercury as you wish, and stir to mix them well. Let it boil six or seven times, then pour it on the ground to form silver. Take one part each of cinnabar liquid and azurite liquid, and two parts of realgar liquid. Put them in a metal vessel over low heat and bring them to a boil, stirring them repeatedly to mix them well. Put the vessel back over the charcoal fire and bring it to a boil. Add as much of this silver as you wish. Let it boil six or seven times and pour it on the ground. When it sets, it will become high-quality gold with a purple sheen.\n\n6. Method for making realgar liquid: Prepare one jin of realgar and put it inside a fresh bamboo tube. Add two liang of saltpeter each time. Layer the ingredients above and below, seal with a ball of lacquer and bone, and place it in strong vinegar. Bury it three chi deep. In twenty days it will turn to liquid. Make azurite liquid and alum-stone liquid the same way, but use separate tubes for each.\n\n7. The Young Master's method for making gold: Make a large iron tube measuring one chi and two cun across the inside and one chi and two cun high. Make a small iron tube measuring six cun across the inside and polish it smooth. Take one jin each of red clay, saltpeter, mica, red ocher, and cold-water stone; half a jin of sulfur; and four liang of azurite. Pound them all together, sift them finely, mix with vinegar, and coat the inside of the small tube to a thickness of two fen. Take one jin of mercury, half a jin of cinnabar, and half a jin of liangfei.\n\n8. To make liangfei, place ten jin of lead in an iron pot on a furnace and heat it over an open flame. When the lead melts, add three liang of mercury. Skim off with an iron spoon what rises first: that is called liangfei. Stir the ingredients until well mixed; wait until the mercury can no longer be seen. Put it in the small tube, cover it with mica, and weigh down an iron lid over it. Set the large tube on the furnace and melt lead, pouring it into the large tube to surround the small tube up to half a cun below its top. Keep the lead molten while you cook it over a strong fire for three days and three nights. What results is called purple powder. Melt ten jin of lead in an iron vessel for around twenty days, then transfer it to a copper vessel. Once the lead has melted, add seven fangcun-spoonfuls of purple powder and stir. It will immediately become gold. To make silver, put mercury in an iron vessel, add purple powder measuring three cun or more, and heat until they combine. Pour it into water, and it will become silver.\n\n9. The method of Wuchengzi: Make an iron tube nine cun long and five cun in diameter. Pound three jin of realgar with equal parts of earth from earthworms and mole crickets, mix them into mud, and coat and wrap the tube until its diameter is three cun, leaving a receptacle with a mouth four cun wide. Add two he of cinnabar liquid. Put it over a horse-dung fire until completely dry. Place it in a copper tube, stop it with a copper lid, and close it tightly. Pack yellow sand over it, then cover it with a thick layer of earthworm soil and mud, leaving no opening at the top. Put it among the furnace coals with three cun of charcoal around it. When the mouth of the tube turns red, let it cool and open it. All the realgar will have entered and adhered to the copper tube. Take it out and put it back in as before. When the refined material from all three jin of realgar has gone down into the tube, lift it out and mix it with an equal quantity of yellow sand to make a furnace, whatever size you wish. When you want to use it, put the furnace among the coals. Once it is red, add mercury. When the mercury moves, add lead. A yellow color will rise from the sides and meet in the middle. Pour it onto the ground, and it will become gold. After producing a total of fifteen hundred jin, the furnace's power is spent. Soak this gold in wine made from red millet and chaste tree for a hundred days, and it will become soft and easy to blend. Take one pill the size of a small bean three times a day. When you have taken a total of one jin, the three worms and the hidden corpse in your body will be subdued, and every illness will leave you. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, and the old will return to the age of thirty. Fire will not burn you. No evil influences or poisons, cold winds, heat, or damp can harm you. Once you have taken three jin, you can walk on water, all the spirits of mountains and rivers will come to serve and guard you, and your life will last as long as heaven and earth.\nBoil one pill with oak sap and vermilion grass, and rub it on the corners of your eyes. You will see ghosts and things underground, and you will be able to write at night. Smear one pill with white sheep's blood and throw it in water: fish and dragons will appear at once and you can catch them. Smear one pill with the blood of a black sheep and a red rooster and hang it above the city gate: there will be no epidemic within one li. Smear it on the foreheads of cattle, sheep, and all six kinds of livestock: they too will be free of disease, and tigers and leopards will not attack them. Smear one pill with tiger gall and snake fat. Starting from the direction indicated by the month's cyclical sign, throw it toward an enemy army. The army will immediately fall into disorder for no reason, wound and kill its own men, and flee. Smear one pill with ox blood and throw it in a well: the water in the well will boil. Throw it in a flowing stream and the water will flow backward for a hundred paces. Smear one pill with white dog's blood and throw it into a shrine of the earth god: its spirits will become visible and can be put to work. Smear one pill with rabbit's blood and place it in a location of the six yin: heavenly women who provide meals will come at once, and can serve sixty or seventy people. Smear one pill with carp gall and carry it into the water: the water will open to a width of one zhang, and you can breathe and walk underwater; your clothes will not get wet even in the rain. Boil one pill with purple amaranth and hold it in your mouth, swallowing its juice: you can go a hundred days without hunger. Boil one pill with lodestone and put it in your hair knot. When fighting robbers, neither naked blades nor flying arrows will hit you. If anyone shoots at you, all the arrows will turn back toward the shooter. Combine earth from sites associated with the six Ding and the six Ren with one pill and use it to shield yourself among people: you will become invisible. Hold a pill in your mouth and face north as you spit at a fire: the fire will go out. On a Geng or Xin day, at the Shen or You hour, face west and throw a pill at a tree: the tree will wither that very day. Throw a pill at tigers, wolves, snakes, or vipers while doing Yu's ritual steps: they will all die at once. Grind a pill and use it to write on stone: the writing will enter the stone. Write on metal or wood, and it will enter metal or wood. Whatever you write will penetrate the material itself and cannot be removed by scraping or smoothing it. If someone has just died and the night has not yet passed, put one pill in water drawn in the direction indicated by the month's cyclical sign, make it enter the person's throat, and take some of the water in your mouth and spray it on the dead person's face. The person will come back to life. Smear one pill with fox blood and crane blood, put it under a fingernail, and point at anything. It will seem to change according to what you say: mountains seem to move and trees to walk, and everyone sees it, though in fact nothing has moved. Whenever you make gold or silver, set out seats for Taiyi, the Mysterious Woman, and Laozi, and make offerings to them, as prescribed for making the Nine Elixirs. Keep the five kinds of incense burning without interruption. When the gold is complete, first throw three jin into deep water and one jin into the market. Only then may you use the rest as you wish.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/baopuzi-gold-and-silver/translations/trn_baopuzi_gold_and_silver_plain.txt"}],"retex_markdown_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/baopuzi-gold-and-silver/retex.md"}}