Wúshàng chìwén dònggǔ zhēnjīng zhù 無上赤文洞古真經註
Commentary on the “True Book of Arcane Antiquity, Ultimate Red Writ”
Yuán inner-alchemy commentary by Lǐ Dàochún 李道純 (d. 1306) on the Chìwén dònggǔ jīng 赤文洞古經, six folios; preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0108 / CT 108 = TC 107), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A six-folio Yuán commentary by Lǐ Dàochún 李道純 (d. 1306) on the Chìwén dònggǔ jīng 赤文洞古經. The main text is identical with DZ 103 and DZ 107 (both by Chángquánzǐ 長筌子); the three parts are likewise titled Cāozhēn 操真, Rùshèng 入聖, and Zhùshì 住世.
Lǐ Dàochún’s commentary draws on Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist sources — a characteristic feature of his Three-Teachings synthetic method. The term chìwén 赤文 (“red writ”) in the title refers in the Língbǎo context to the revealed Língbǎo texts, where it designates the luminous and spontaneous script that emerged from Chaos (see [[KR5a0087|DZ 87 Sìzhù]] 2.6a); but here Lǐ Dàochún uses the term with reference to inner alchemy and Tantric Buddhism, where red is the colour of the qì of the Void (1b). Lǐ specifies that in Buddhism red is the symbol of the “empty body.”
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
Catherine Despeux, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:708 (§3.A.1), dates the commentary to Lǐ Dàochún’s Yuán floruit (to d. 1306). The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1280 / notAfter 1306, with dynasty 元. Lǐ Dàochún is the sole catalog-meta person wikilinked.
Translations and research
Frederic Balfour, “Three Brief Essays (Translations from the Tao Canon),” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 21 (1887), 286–293, gives an early partial translation. Standard scholarly entry: Catherine Despeux, “Wushang chiwen donggu zhenjing zhu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 708.
Other points of interest
Lǐ Dàochún’s deployment of Tantric-Buddhist chìwén symbolism — red = qì of the Void, symbol of the “empty body” — is a rare Daoist textual witness to the SòngYuán Daoist absorption of Tantric-Buddhist colour symbolism into inner-alchemical discourse.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0108
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 708 — DZ 107 (TC) / KR5a0108 (Kanripo) entry (Catherine Despeux).