Kannadi - Mirror
In a place some 8,000 miles away, there is a small village called Aranmula. In that tiny corner of the Indian subcontinent, lives a family of alchemists. For hundreds of years, this family has jealously guarded the secret of the kannadi , or mirror, of Truth. It is said that the family was first conscripted -- along with several others -- to create objects for a temple to Krishna. That temple, now over a thousand years old, traces its lineage back to the Mahābhārata and is alleged to have been built by the great warrior Prince Arjuna himself. All kannadi today are descendants of the temple Kannadi in that they follow a carefully-guarded family recipe in a complex series of steps by which tin, copper, and other alloys are alchemized to create a reflective surface that reveals the True Self. Grab the closest hand mirror you can find and take a look. What you see is a close approximation of what you really look like...but it's not perfect. If you lay the mirror flat...