Chapter 8: Locating Openings in the Earth

8.1At that point the Goddess asked, “Is there some method for poor beings who seek worldly wealth and possessions?” [F.55.b]

8.2The Blessed One replied, “I will explain the procedures for the various siddhis in Jambudvīpa so that yogins who might perform them will attain all the earthly siddhis. The mantras used should follow the explanation given in the chapter on mantras.

8.3“At night, in a vajra dwelling, one should consume various substances such as fish, meat, and blood and offer them as a bali to pacify vighnas.

8.4“One who is oppressed by enemies should write the mantra on the leaf of a crown flower with yellow orpiment. Then, while employing it, one should write the target’s name and bury the leaf in the ground. Trample it with the left foot while reciting the mantra and visualizing Mahākāla’s form.

8.5“Yogins who want to pacify them should wash a metal vessel with milk while incanting it with the mantra oṁ mahākālakāruṇika sarvaśatrūn mukhaṃ bandhaya stambhaya mohaya hūṁ heṃ phaṭ. They should make a finely ground mixture of the three hot spices, marking nut, fresh ginger, and costus root, and pour it into the vessel. They should then eat this with some honey. No enemy will be able cause bodily harm, and the body of the benefactor of the rite will increase in size.

8.6“When this process is repeated for twenty-one days, the weak fire in the stomach will strengthen, at which point one should boil sap from a bodhi tree and yellow myrobalan with the roots of scarlet leadwort, long pepper, sudarśana root, and mustard oil and eat it with salt. When made into a pill over the course of twenty-one days, it will restore one’s previous physical form, one’s fire will be hot, and the siddhi will be indicated through a strong body.

8.7“First, one should combine equal amounts of belleric myrobalan, Indian valerian root, emblic myrobalan, and sesame oil. Then make a large nāga, place this mixture in its mouth, and daub both eyes with owl’s blood. An opening under the earth will appear. Additionally, after placing the mixture in the nāga’s mouth, one should smear a mixture of mercury bonded with the sap of Indian mallow leaves, [F.56.a] blood, and camphor one one’s eyes. An opening under the earth will appear.

8.8“One should mix mahākāla fruit, bitter gourd, rosary peas, and pomegranate seeds, combine the mixture with the three hot spices and honey, and cook it with black sesame. It should be used to purify the body, and then following the prescription for beans, it should be eaten. Within five days an opening under the earth will appear. If one carefully rubs it on their body they will be able to see as far as Mount Kailāsa and the like. If one washes with spring water, they will be as before.

8.9“After combining balañjarī sap, vulture meat, and black sesame oil, one should consume it for twenty-one days. After that, one should use their own urine as a collyrium, and buried treasure will become visible.

8.10“One should combine equal parts honey from an underground hive, fat from a nonvenomous snake, and cow bezoar and mix it into spring water. When applied to both eyes as a collyrium, one will be able to see any buried treasure within five cubits with perfect clarity.

8.11“One should allow ambirolī sap, blood, cow bezoar, tannin, and cloth from a charnel ground to dry out and then fashion them into a wick. It should then be made into eye-black by burning it in goat fat in the skull of a brahmin. Afterward, it should be applied to the eyes to purify defilements. Additionally, one will still be able to see when their eyes are blindfolded.

8.12“During the lunar mansion Svāti, one should purify themselves with a string of lotuses and sandalwood and daub a cloth eye-covering with saffron powder and musk. It should then be made it into eye-black by fashioning it into a wick and burning it in jackal fat within a human skull. Once it has cooled, it should be used as a collyrium, and an opening under the earth will appear. Afterward, one should rinse one’s eyes.

8.13“One should cook the fat of a cow, then human fat, and then buffalo butter in a mixture of mercury, lead , and the three metals. After that, one should place the pill in one’s mouth and fast for three days. Then one should use one’s own saliva as a collyrium, and openings under the earth will appear.

8.14“First, one should cleanse one’s bowels and fast for one day. [F.56.b] Cook onions and bhūmilatā oil, make fourteen pills, and eat them on the first day. Then one should eat twenty-one pills on the third day, thirty-three on the fourth day, thirty-five on the fifth day, and thirty-five again on the sixth and seventh days. Drink milk each day: goat milk on the eighth day, buffalo milk on the first and second days, the milk of a yellow cow on the third day, and ordinary milk through the nostrils on the fourth day. Then, during the fifth watch of the day, one should use their own urine as a collyrium, and an opening into the seven subterranean levels will appear.

8.15“One should wash with water containing the three myrobalan fruits, bdellium, and cow urine. Then one should consume a mixture of white mustard oil, honey, molasses, the three hot spices, onions, and ghee and then drink goat’s milk. After seven days have passed, one should cook bhūmilatā in black sesame oil. One should take an amount equal in size to five twigs and eat it together with sesame oil and barley for an additional seven days. For an entire day and night on the twenty-first day, one will certainly see openings under the earth appear.

8.16“On the eighth day of the lunar month, one should recite the mantra of four-armed Mahākāla five thousand times, consume alcohol, meat, fish, the five thorns, and so forth, and then worship the goddess. Next, by applying the collyrium to the eyes one will see terrestrial beings such as yakṣas. If this eminent procedure does not work, it would be as if I have committed the five actions entailing immediate retribution. If Mahākāla has not arisen, it will not be my authentic collyrium.

8.17“One should cook with joyweed, Chinese wedelia, false daisy, bamboo shoots, the three hot spices, dhak tree bark, and black nightshade, and then cook that mixture seven times together with kumuḍa flesh. One should then cleanse their bowels with black sesame oil and, while subsisting only on barley meal, eat two portions on the first day, [F.57.a] three portions on the second day, five portions on the third day, six portions on the fourth day, eight portions on the fifth day, ten portions on the sixth day, and fifteen portions on the seventh day. On the eighth day, one should smear both eyes with honey from an underground hive, and an opening under the earth will appear.

8.18“One should drink milk for twenty-one days by taking goat’s milk through the left nostril. Then one should make a collyrium with cow bezoar and honey and smear it on both eyes. All buried treasure will then be visible.

8.19“One should pulverize a mixture of khoṭī seeds, sesbania seeds, the juice of waved-leaf fig leaves, the juice of water lettuce, cow bezoar, menstrual blood, datura juice, juice from the roots and leaves of spider lily, and garlic together with medicinal herbs, honey from an underground hive, and bile from a nonvenomous snake. It should be made into pills and, after two days, applied as a collyrium at dusk. An opening under the earth will appear.

8.20“One should combine honey from an underground hive with ghilaka grains, then muddle them with butter from a yellow cow, cow bezoar, semen, and blood. One should then fast until hungry and then use this as a collyrium. An opening under the earth will appear. Know that if one writes the mantra fourteen times on birch bark, places it their mouth, and then applies the aforementioned collyrium to their eyes during the daytime, all buried treasures will become visible.

8.21“One can properly employ the collyrium siddhi to the extent that these procedures are correctly followed. Yogins should employ the procedure based on the result they seek. They should always develop the specific intent in relation to what is gained. They should visualize Mahākāla’s circle while residing in a charnel ground for five days and consuming the five ambrosias to pacify vighnas.

8.22“No matter where the treasure was permanently interred, they will see it there as it was before. [F.57.b] The ground should be purified and blessed by bali offerings, offerings of attractive foods, and mantra and then carefully excavated. Otherwise the siddhi will not be attained.”

8.23“Blessed One,” the Goddess asked, “what are the characteristics of places where treasures that eliminate the suffering of beings are located?”

8.24The Blessed One replied, “The characteristics of such a place are as follows: whatever medicinal substances that are appropriate and inappropriate to speak of are present. All the food and provisions needed for rites of protection and so forth will be available. Yogins who truly possesses the siddhi described in this chapter can see whatever they are looking for day or night and can be as confident in it as if it were a water lily or other flower, or smoke and so forth. If they hear the sound of mice in an empty house, there is definitely a treasure in that spot. Or, if they see a cloud before them out in the countryside that stops where flowers are scattered about, there is a treasure. If they incant a banyan tree with the sixteen-arm Mahākāla mantra seven times and supplicate the deity, they will definitely see the treasure while dreaming there. Any spot where they place some of the hair of their head will contain a treasure. A jewel can be found on the spot where the sound of a peacock is heard. It can be used to fulfill the aims of beings.”

8.25This is the eighth chapter in The Glorious Tantra of Mahākāla, “Locating Openings in the Earth.”