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 [[KR5a0019|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 [[KR5a0019|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 [[KR5a0102|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 [[KR5a0092|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 [[KR5a0025|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
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 [[KR5a0140|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).