Distant Age and Ten Thousand Years Elixir

Pattern-based

• For long taking
• to settle the souls and extend life

Biomedical correlates

• Longevity tonic

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

詩曰, 遐齡萬壽丹, 服食魂魄安, 養藥雞抱卵, 日期要周全, 修合室深宜, 一切人勿觀, 甲子庚申夜, 爲丸不見天, 一還增六十, 二還百卄年, 服藥非凡骨, 壽同天地間, 秘之深秘之, 玄之又更玄. 茯神ㆍ赤石脂ㆍ川椒(微炒出汗) 各一兩, 朱砂(細硏水飛)ㆍ乳香(燈心同硏) 各一兩, 別爲末, 用雞卵二箇, 去淸黃, 只將朱砂ㆍ乳香各裝一卵內, 用紙糊七重, 以靑絹袋盛之. 令精壯婦人懷於肚上, 常令溫煖. 朱砂懷三十五日, 乳香懷四十九日, 取出再硏, 前三味藥, 亦爲細末, 和勻, 以蒸棗肉和丸菉豆大, 每日, 空心, 溫酒呑下三十丸. 或人參湯下. 一月外, 加至四十丸. 以甲子ㆍ庚申之夜, 幽靜處修合, 忌婦人雞犬見之. 《丹溪心法》 回春, 一名五老還童丹.

Translation

A verse says: the Distant Age and Ten Thousand Years Elixir — take it and the souls are at peace; nurse the medicine as a hen broods an egg, the days must be complete; compound it in a deep room, let no one at all look on; on a gapja or gyeongsin night, make the pills unseen by heaven; one round adds sixty years, two rounds a hundred and twenty; who takes this medicine is no ordinary bone, and lives as long as heaven and earth; keep it secret, deeply secret — dark, and darker still. Poria with pine root, halloysite and Sichuan pepper (lightly fried until it sweats) 1 nyang each; cinnabar (finely ground and water-floated) and frankincense (ground with juncus) 1 nyang each, powdered separately. Take two hen's eggs, remove the white and yolk, and pack the cinnabar and the frankincense each into one egg; paste over with seven layers of paper and put in a bag of blue silk. Have a woman in vigorous health carry it against her belly, keeping it always warm — the cinnabar thirty-five days and the frankincense forty-nine. Take them out and grind again; powder the first three medicinals finely as well, mix evenly, bind with steamed jujube flesh into pills the size of a mung bean, and take thirty every day on an empty stomach with warm wine, or with ginseng decoction; after a month increase to forty. Compound it on a gapja or gyeongsin night in a secluded quiet place, and let no woman, hen or dog see it. — Danggye Simbeop 丹溪心法 (Donguibogam · Sinhyeong) The Hoechun calls it the Five Elders Return to Childhood Elixir.