இணைந்துவருங் தோழிக்கு வயது நாற்பான்
இயம்புகிறேன் செம்பொன்னுக் கொன்ப தாகும்
நயம்புதிய குடத்தலையான் பூஷ ணத்துள்
நாடிவடிந் திட்டதுவே வாத மாகும்
அயம் பொன்னாம் சாதத்தின் பதத்தைப் பார்த்து
ஆக்கியளித் திடுவோரை அவனி யுள்ளோர்
இவன்பெரியன் மிகுஞானி வாதங் கண்டோன்
எனப்போற்றிப் பாதத்தில் வணங்கு வாரே
iṇaindhuvaruṅ tōzhikku vayadhu nāṟpāṉ
iyampugiṟēṉ sempoṉṉuk koṉba thāgum
nayampudhiya kuḍaththalaiyāṉ pūṣa ṇaththuḷ
nāḍivaḍin thiṭṭadhuvē vādha māgum
ayam poṉṉām sādaththin padhaththaip pārththu
ākkiyaḷith thiḍuvōrai avaṉi yuḷḷōr
ivaṉperiyaṉ miguñāṉi vādhaṅ kaṇḍōṉ
eṉappōṟṟip pādhaththil vaṇangu vārē
The companion who comes joined has the age of forty;
I declare: for red-gold it becomes nine.
Within the ornament/adornment of the newly pleasing “pot-headed one,”
that which, having been examined/sought, has dripped out—this indeed becomes vādam.
Seeing the proper stage/consistency of the preparation in which iron becomes gold,
those who make it and give it—people in this world
will praise (saying), “This one is great, a very wise knower, one who has seen vādam,”
and they will bow, worshipping at his feet.
When the allied “female companion” (an assisting principle/ingredient) has matured to “forty” (a required measure, cycle, or period), and when the work is carried through “nine” (a prescribed set of repetitions or grades) to yield “red gold,” then, using the new pot-with-a-head apparatus (a lidded vessel/alembic) and collecting what distills/drips through the channel, that collected essence is called “vādam” (also resonant with vāta). One who can recognize the correct ‘pada’—the exact stage, texture, or fixation—of the operation where iron is made to take on the state of gold, and who prepares and dispenses it, will be revered by worldly people as a great one: a knower who has mastered/seen ‘vādam,’ worthy of worship at the feet.
The verse ties Siddha authority to mastery of transformation: (1) material transformation (iron → gold) and (2) embodied transformation (vāta/vādam as wind-principle, distillate, or subtle essence). “Age forty” and “nine” function as coded measures of ripening and disciplined repetition—markers that the work is not casual but governed by exact timing and graded operations. The “pot-headed” image points simultaneously to apparatus (a head-fitted vessel for sublimation/distillation) and to a sacralized agent (a deity/adept), suggesting that laboratory procedure and ritual-gnostic legitimacy are intertwined. The key epistemic claim is practical: the true adept is the one who can read the ‘pada’—the correct moment/state of the preparation—because Siddha alchemy hinges on recognizing subtle transitions (binding, fixation, condensation) rather than merely mixing substances. Social reverence (“worship at the feet”) is presented not as mere honor but as the world’s recognition that such knowledge protects life (medicine) and transcends ordinary limits (metallic transmutation), a typical Siddhar pairing of therapeutics with liberation-oriented gnosis.