கெட்டி வயதான தொரு குட்டி லிங்கப் பட்டி மகன்
எட்டிரண்டும் எட்டி யதைத் தட்டிவிடக் கட்டி யெனத்
திட்ட முடன் சுட்டு மிகு சட்டியதில் முட்டை யுடன்
கொட்டி மூ டிட்ட வுடன் கட்டி யது விட் டொளியும்
ketti vayathāna thoru kutti lingap patti makan
ettiraṇḍum etti yathaith thattiviḍak kaṭṭi yenath
thiṭṭa muḍan suṭṭu miku chaṭṭiyathil muṭṭai yuṭan
koṭṭi mū ḍiṭṭa vuṭan kaṭṭi yathu viṭ ṭoḷiyum
“A stout, well-aged ‘little one’—(called) the son of ‘Liṅga-paṭṭi’.
Bring ‘the eight-and-two’ and, reaching that, strike it off; bind it (as instructed).
With firm intent, heat it; in a large pot, together with an egg.
Pour it in; once it is covered/sealed, what was bound will slip free and shine.”
Using the language of household cooking to veil a technical operation, the verse hints at a practice where a matured/seasoned primary substance (cryptically named) is combined in a measured count (“eight-and-two” or “two eights”), then “struck off” (broken, reduced, or separated), tightly bound/secured, and heated in a closed vessel (“pot”) along with “egg” (either a literal egg used as an adjunct/binder/medium, or the symbolic ‘anda’/embryo principle). When the mixture is poured in and the vessel is sealed, the fixed/bound state reverses: the essence is released and becomes lustrous—suggesting sublimation, refinement, or liberation into a radiant product (medicine/elixir) or inner light (yogic realization).
1) Literal layer (craft/alchemy): The verse reads like a coded recipe: take an “aged” ingredient; add a numerically specified portion (“eight-and-two” / “two eights”); pound/strike to separate or powder; bind/secure (possibly pelletizing, tying in cloth, or sealing in clay); apply heat (“cook”); use a “large pot” as the containment apparatus; include “egg” as an auxiliary (albumen/yolk can act as binder, coating, sulfurous/organic medium, or a purificatory aid in some Siddha procedures); pour and seal; then the bound mass ‘releases’ and ‘shines’—language consistent with transformation into a refined, glossy, or luminous end-product.
2) Inner layer (yoga/body symbolism): “Pot” commonly stands for the body-vessel; “heat” for tapas/inner fire; “binding” for bandha/containment; “egg/anda” for the embryonic seed (bindu) or the cosmic womb. “Striking off” can imply removing obstructive residues (mala), breaking egoic crusts, or shutting down outward leakages. After containment and heating (discipline + inner fire), the ‘bound’ (conditioned self/energy) is said to ‘release’ and ‘shine’—an idiom for the arising of inner radiance (oḷi) when energy is conserved, reversed, and refined.
3) Why the verse stays cryptic: Siddhar texts often disguise specific substances and apparatuses with socially ordinary words (pot, egg, tying, covering) and with deliberately coarse or local identifiers (e.g., place-name/lineage-like tags), so that only an initiated reader can map them to a concrete medicinal/alchemical protocol or to a yogic internal practice.