玉清無極總真文昌大洞仙經註

Yùqīng wújí zǒngzhēn Wénchāng dàdòng xiānjīng zhù 玉清無極總真文昌大洞仙經註

Commentary on the “Great Cavern Scripture according to Wénchāng”

Yuán monumental commentary on [[KR5a0005|DZ 5 Wénchāng dàdòng xiānjīng]] by the Sichuan Daoist Wèi Qí 魏琪 (hào Zhōngyángzǐ 中陽子), presented to the throne 1310 with imperial prefaces; ten juan; preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0104 / CT 104 = TC 103), 洞真部 本文類

About the work

A ten-juan monumental Yuán commentary on [[KR5a0005|DZ 5 Tàishàng wújí zǒngzhēn Wénchāng dàdòng xiānjīng]] — the Wénchāng-cult recension of the Dàdòng zhēnjīng — by the Sichuan Daoist Wèi Qí 魏琪 (hào Zhōngyángzǐ 中陽子), a dàoshi from Pénglái shān 蓬萊山 in Sichuan. According to his preface, Wèi received the scripture as a young boy and studied it for thirty years before producing this new critical edition and commentary. He went to the capital to have it printed; the book was presented to the throne in 1310 and published with prefaces from:

• The thirty-eighth Celestial Master Zhāng Yǔcái 張與材
• The Hànlín scholar Zhāng Zhòngshòu 張仲壽
• The academician Zhào Biàn 趙弁

In his long preface, Wèi Qí gives a presentation of the Dàdòng zhēnjīng and its history: the version here is from Sichuan, first revealed to Wénchāng (whose earthly name he gives as Zhāng Tóngzhēn 張仝真) at the beginning of the Zhōu dynasty (c. 1050–221 BCE); later, the book was revealed once more to Wèi Huácún 魏華存 as part of the Shàngqīng scriptures; Lù Xiūjìng 陸修靜 is said to have edited the Dàdòng zhēnjīng in three parts (under Dìyī 帝一, Cíyī 雌一, Xióngyī 雄一); the Táng patriarch Wáng Bǎohé 王寶和 made a critical edition in thirty-nine sections by imperial order; the Sòng editions by Zhū Zìyīng (see DZ 6) and Zhāng Shāngyīng 張商英 were presented to the throne in 1111. Wèi states that the original version comprised one hundred and twenty juan, reduced to three juan and subdivided into thirty-six sections by Yùchén dàojūn 玉晨道君.

The first two juan, and part of the third, contain introductory material. In the first juan, Wèi exposes methodically his cosmological system, heavily influenced by Neo-Confucian thought and inner alchemy. The second juan treats the scripture’s title and symbolic numbers shared with the Yìjīng; it records (17a–21a) the “preface” by Wénchāng himself (cf. DZ 5) and gives a list of deities and legendary persons to be invoked, together with a recitation-ritual similar to that in DZ 5 (5b–9a). The main text of the scripture begins at 3.13a and ends at 10.30b, essentially the same as DZ 5 (with the order of sections 15 to 21 differing from all other editions). Each section begins with a text spoken by Yuánshǐ tiānwáng 元始天王 explaining cosmic correspondences, and ends with a summary on the efficacy of practices.

Wèi Qí’s commentary operates on the principle of multiple levels of interpretation — the world, the inner universe, and the heavenly spheres — with the human microcosm considered a metaphorical expression of realities in the heavens or the universe at large. Wèi deploys a distinctive semantic-analysis technique: to explain a given concept, he collects multiple occurrences of the same word or idea in the text and confronts their meanings and connotations (e.g. jīng 精 on 5.7a–8a; zhǔ 主 on 5.15b; sù 素 on 6.21a–b). He further translates Buddhist terms into Daoist terms of various schools (Shàngqīng, Língbǎo, inner alchemy) and Neo-Confucian terms.

Wèi brilliantly deploys Neo-Confucian vocabulary — “conscience” (liángzhī 良知; 3.25a) and “all beings are fully present in me” (wànwù jiē bèi yú wǒ 萬物皆備於我; 8.25b) — and the Mencian xìngmìng 性命 doctrine, against Neo-Confucians like Zhū Xī 朱熹 who sought to reject Daoism. Against such critics, Wèi turns their own weapons and demonstrates the natural links between Daoist religion and the classical cultural foundations of ancient China.

Prefaces

Three imperial-court prefaces by Zhāng Yǔcái (38th Celestial Master), Zhāng Zhòngshòu (Hànlín), and Zhào Biàn (academician), together with Wèi Qí’s own extensive preface summarising the Dàdòng zhēnjīng history.

Abstract

Isabelle Robinet, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:708–710 (§3.A.1), gives a laudatory account, calling the commentary “profound, multifaceted, and subtle” and characterising Wèi Qí as “brilliant” in his deployment of multiple interpretive systems. The composition-date is fixed by the 1310 presentation to the throne; Wèi’s preface is dated 1309. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1309 / notAfter 1310, with dynasty 元. Wèi Qí is the sole catalog-meta person wikilinked.

Translations and research

No complete translation. Standard scholarly entry: Isabelle Robinet, “Yuqing wuji zongzhen Wenchang dadong xianjing zhu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 708–710. For the parent scripture see DZ 5; for the wider Wénchāng cult see Terry F. Kleeman, A God’s Own Tale (SUNY, 1994).

Other points of interest

Wèi Qí’s commentary is the single most philosophically ambitious of the Yuán-era Daoist scripture-commentaries. His programmatic deployment of Neo-Confucian vocabulary to defend Daoism against Neo-Confucian criticism is a rare and important moment in medieval Chinese religious-intellectual history — a Daoist respondent to Zhū Xī meeting him on his own textual and conceptual ground. Robinet’s remark that “the much-used but rather negative term syncretism does not do justice to the virtuosity of Wèi Qí’s technique” stands as the considered judgment of the principal modern scholar of Shàngqīng Daoism on this commentary.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5a0104
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 708–710 — DZ 103 (TC) / KR5a0104 (Kanripo) entry (Isabelle Robinet).