Tāixī bìyào gējué 胎息祕要歌訣
Oral Formulas and Songs on the Principal Secrets of Embryonic Breathing
Anonymous Táng-dynasty manual of respiratory cultivation, four folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0131 / CT 131), 洞真部 玉訣類, copied in the same Dàozàng fascicle as [[KR5a0131|DZ 130 Tāixī jīng zhù]] and [[KR5a0133|DZ 132 Tàiqīng zhēnrén luòmìng jué]].
About the work
A small anonymous handbook in mixed prose and verse, covering the main topics of Táng-era embryonic-breathing (tāixī 胎息) practice: breath-retention (閉氣), the projection of breath to another to heal disease (布氣), the Six Qi technique for treating internal-organ disorders (六氣: 呬, 呵, 呼, 噓, 吹, 嘻), the regulation of saliva and fluids (調液), dietetics (飲食所宜 / 飲食雜忌), abstention from grain (休粮), moral discipline (慎守), and a nine-year transformation programme (九載功變) ending in a detailed sequence of tongue-and-saliva exercises keyed to the five directions. The text shares its subject matter with [[KR5a0820|DZ 820 Tàiqīng tiáoqì jīng]] and is thus likely of later compilation; the substitution of lì 理 for zhì 治 (avoiding the personal name of Táng Gāozōng’s father, 李治) on several folios confirms a Táng terminus ante quem non. The final sequence of directional saliva exercises is, so far as Kristofer Schipper notes, not found elsewhere and may be the author’s own invention.
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
The text is anonymous. Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:368 (§2.A.4.b, Respiratory Techniques), dates the work to the Táng and notes that it very probably postdates DZ 820, whose framework it re-articulates. The Táng taboo-substitution 理 for 治 further confirms a Táng origin. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 618 / notAfter 907.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Taixi biyao gejue,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.4.b, 368. On Táng embryonic-breathing literature see Henri Maspero, “Methods of ‘Nourishing the Vital Principle’ in the Ancient Taoist Religion” (Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion [Amherst 1981], 443–554); Ute Engelhardt, “Longevity Techniques and Chinese Medicine,” in Livia Kohn ed., Daoism Handbook (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 74–108.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0132
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.4.b, 368.