Tàishàng shēngxuán shuō xiāozāi hùmìng miàojīng zhù 太上昇玄說消災護命妙經註
Commentary on the Marvellous Scripture of the Most High on Elevation-to-Mystery, Protecting Life and Averting Disaster
Yuán-dynasty Quánzhēn-school inner-alchemy commentary on DZ 19 Shēngxuán xiāozāi hùmìng miàojīng by Wáng Jiè 王玠 (zì Dàoyuán 道淵, hào Hùnránzǐ Yuán 混然子淵); twelve folios; preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0101 / CT 101 = TC 100), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A twelve-folio Yuán-dynasty commentary on the Táng Shēngxuán xiāozāi hùmìng miàojīng by the Quánzhēn 全真 master Wáng Jiè 王玠 (zì Dàoyuán 道淵, hào Hùnránzǐ 混然子; floruit within 1279–1368). In the main part of the commentary, Wáng Jiè explains the words and reasoning of the text without pursuing a systematic exegesis. His definition of key terms to some extent alters the fundamental message of the scripture: he replaces an epistemological sequence — “the experience of reality, the unreal nature of this reality, the identity of both perceptions and the ultimate reality of the marvellous sounds” — with ontological dialectics, a shift due to the influence of Neo-Confucian “substance / function” (tǐ / yòng 體/用) dialectics (see 6a). Another influence is Wáng’s alchemical orientation.
Wáng takes as his point of departure the suggestion of an esoteric meaning made by Lǐ Dàochún in DZ 101 Tàishàng shēngxuán xiāozāi hùmìng miàojīng zhù 2a (compare our text 1b), and contrasts it — to which he gives the name dàoyòng 道用 (“the use of the Dào”) — with a religious-and-literal interpretation termed shìfǎ 世法 (“the method of the age”; pp. 2a, 3a, 10b). The distinction corresponds to the same shìfǎ / dàoyòng pairing used by Chén Zhìxū in DZ 92 Dùrén jīng zhùjiě — a characteristic Quánzhēn interpretive schema. The alchemical terminology used by Wáng is that of the Quánzhēn school (compare 10a.6 in the present text with DZ 25 Yuánshǐ tiānzūn shuō dédào liǎoshēn jīng 1a.10).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:723–724 (§3.A.1), dates the commentary to Wáng Jiè’s Yuán floruit. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1279 / notAfter 1368, with dynasty 元. Wáng Jiè is the sole catalog-meta person wikilinked.
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
No translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Taishang shengxuan shuo xiaozai huming miaojing zhu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 723–724. For Wáng Jiè’s other works see DZ 140 Shàngqīng wò-zhōng-jué and the entries in the Daozang jíyào.
Other points of interest
Wáng Jiè’s commentary is the canonical Quánzhēn-school inner-alchemy reading of the Táng Shēngxuán scripture, representative of the late-Yuán Quánzhēn appropriation of Táng short-scripture material under a Neo-Confucian-inflected tǐ/yòng dialectic.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0101
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 723–724 — DZ 100 (TC) / KR5a0101 (Kanripo) entry (John Lagerwey).