The lamp (dipana) process

The lamp vessels are first smeared with lac juice and the sulphur and poison groups ground in breast milk; mercury mixed with gold bhasma is tied in a fine cloth and placed in the vessel, and the lamp is lit with karanja and sesame oil. By this smearing the mercury is said to become very bright and more powerful and to excel among rasas and pastes; the verse says the bound mercury, endowed with greater piercing power, transforms together with metals, and the commentary that siddha mercury transforms every dhatu of the body.