Yǎngshēng dǎoyǐn mìjí 養生導引秘籍
Secret Compendium of Nourishing Life through Daoyin edited / printed by 胡文煥 Hú Wénhuàn (fl. Wànlì, Hángzhōu publisher).
About the work
A two-juan anthology of classical yǎngshēng literature, opening with the 《養性延命錄》 Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù — the canonical Six-Dynasties / Táng yǎngshēng compendium traditionally attributed to 陶弘景 Táo Hóngjǐng (456–536), the great founder of the Shàngqīng 上清 Daoist tradition — and proceeding through related dǎoyǐn, fúshí, and xíngqì sources. The opening Jiàojiè piān 教誡篇 of the Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù draws explicitly on the Shénnóng jīng 神農經 (those who eat grain are wise and clever; those who eat stones are nourished and not-old; those who eat zhī-fungus live forever; those who eat yuánqì, Earth cannot bury and Heaven cannot kill) and on the Hùnyuán dào jīng 混元道經 (i.e. Dàodéjīng) with the 河上公 Héshànggōng commentary glossing the “gǔshén bù sǐ” 谷神不死 passage as referring to the inner-physiological gǔ / “valley” of yǎng (nourishment), with xuánpìn 玄牝 (“the mysterious female”) read anatomically as the nose-and-mouth.
Prefaces
The 漢學文典 reprint preserves no separate xù; the work opens directly with the Jiàojiè piān of the Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù.
Abstract
The work belongs to the Hú Wénhuàn editorial-publishing programme (cf. KR3eo011, KR3eo014, KR3eo018, KR3eo019, KR3eo020, KR3eo027, KR3eo036, KR3eo042). Hú’s editorial intervention has produced a one-volume yǎngshēng manual centred on the Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù, supplemented by selections from other classical texts in the cultivational genre. The Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù (DZ 838, HY 838, two juan) is itself attributed to Táo Hóngjǐng but is now widely thought to be a Six-Dynasties / Táng-era compilation drawing on a body of older sources (the Yǎngshēng yàojí 養生要集, etc.). Hú’s selection preserves the standard six- to twelve-chapter form of the work.
The work’s value is principally as a late-Míng popular print of the foundational yǎngshēng classic, making the Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù available outside the Dàozàng. Hú’s editorial method preserves the integrity of the source-text rather than re-organising it by domain.
The date bracket 1590–1602 reflects Hú’s principal publishing window.
Translations and research
- Daoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang, ed. Schipper and Verellen (Chicago, 2004), entries on DZ 838 Yǎng-xìng yán-mìng lù.
- Catherine Despeux, La moelle du phénix rouge (Paris, 1988); idem, Taoïsme et corps humain (Paris, 1994).
- Livia Kohn, Chinese Healing Exercises: The Tradition of Daoyin (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008).
- Eskildsen, Stephen, The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004).
- Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature (London, 1998).
Other points of interest
The pseudepigraphic attribution of the Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù to Táo Hóngjǐng (which Hú Wénhuàn’s editorial frame accepts at face value) is now understood by Daoist Studies as a post-Táo accretion: the work most likely dates to the Suí-Táng era as a compilation drawing on earlier Yǎngshēng yàojí materials.
Links
- Related: KR3eo036 養生導引法 (parallel Hú Wénhuàn dǎoyǐn compilation).
- 胡文煥 DILA
- Kanseki DB
- 養生導引秘籍