சோகம் மிகவே வேதனையாம்
சோதி மிகவே வாதனையாம்
ஓதிய ரஸகாந் தந்தனையே
ஊதிட வேரஸ நிந்தனையாம்
பாதிய தேசுமி திப்பிலியாம்
பாலிர ஸப்பூன்பொடியாம்
சாதி லிங்கமது கட்டியதாம்
சார்ந்து மேமணியிற் கெட்டியதாம்
sōgam migavē vēthanaiyām
sōthi migavē vāthanaiyām
ōthiya rasagān thanthanaiyē
ūthida vēras nindhanaiyām
pāthiya thēsumi thippiliyām
pālira sappūnpoḍiyām
sāthi lingamathu kaṭṭiyathām
sārndhu mēmaṇiyiṟ keṭṭiyathām
When sorrow increases, it becomes pain.
When the “light/flame” increases, it becomes torment (vādanai).
The one who recited (the teaching) gave “rasakān”.
If one blows/stokes it, the raw rasa becomes something to be blamed/condemned.
Half (a portion) is “dēsumi”; (it is) tippili.
(Mixed with) milk and “rasappūn” powder.
It is bound/tied as a jāti–liṅga.
Joining (it so), it becomes firm in/like a superior gem.
Grief, when intensified, turns bodily as suffering; and inner heat/light, when intensified, turns into agitation—possibly a vāta-type disturbance.
Therefore the siddhar warns that “rasa” (either mercurial essence in alchemy, or the vital essence in the body) must not be merely “blown” or over-stoked (by heat/breath), because an unrefined essence becomes harmful and is worthy of censure.
He then gives a cryptic compounding instruction: a half-measure of an item named “dēsumi,” along with tippili (long pepper), combined with milk and a powder called “rasappūn” (possibly garlic-powder or a substance bearing that name), to be bound into a liṅga-like pellet; when properly united and processed, it becomes firm and jewel-like—i.e., a stabilized, potent medicine/essence.
This verse moves in a typical Siddhar double-register: (1) medical-physiological caution and (2) inner alchemy.
1) Medical/physiological register: - “Sōkam” (grief) is not treated as merely psychological; when it “increases,” it becomes “vēdanai” (pain), suggesting psychosomatic conversion. - “Sōthi” (light/flame/inner heat) when excessive becomes “vādanai.” The word can mean “torment,” yet it also echoes “vāta” (wind doṣa). In Siddha medicine, excessive heat and dysregulated prāṇa can present as vāta-like agitation, pain, tremor, insomnia—hence “light” becoming “vādanai.”
2) Alchemical-yogic register: - “Rasa” in Siddhar literature often points to mercury (rasa-dravya) in external alchemy and to a vital essence (semen/ojas/prāṇa-sap) in inner yoga. “Do not blow/stoke it” can warn against crude heating of mercury (producing toxicity) and, simultaneously, against forcing breath/fire practices that waste or scorch inner essence. - The ingredient list (tippili, milk, and a powdered substance) and the instruction to “bind as a liṅga” resembles preparation of a compact, stabilized pellet—an alchemical “katti”/“kattu” idea: binding the volatile into the fixed. The final image “firm as a superior gem” is a classic Siddhar trope for a perfected, non-decaying product (medicine) and, by extension, a perfected, stabilized consciousness.
Thus the verse warns: extremes of emotion and inner heat destabilize; refinement and correct proportion “bind” the essence into something durable—medicine outwardly, realization inwardly.