Yīn zhēnjūn huándān gē zhù 陰真君還丹歌註
Commentary on Zhēnjūn Yīn’s Song of the Cyclically Transformed Elixir
by 陰長生 (歌, attributed) and 陳摶 (註, attributed)
About the work
A nine-folio nèidān 內丹 (“inner alchemy”) gē 歌 (“song”) attributed to the legendary Hàn immortal Yīn Chángshēng 陰長生 (Yīn zhēnjūn 陰真君), with a commentary attributed to the tenth-century master Chén Tuán 陳摶 (hào Xīyí 希夷, d. 989); preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0134 / CT 134 = TC 133), 洞真部 玉訣類. The poem falls in the tradition of huándān (“cyclically transformed elixir”) verse; the commentary reads it consistently as a concealed teaching on the purification and refinement of the male seminal essence (xiàyuán jīng 下元精), equating the poem’s alchemical jīn shā 金砂, hé chē 河車, zhū què 朱雀, and yù quán 玉泉 with interior body-regions and fluids, and presenting the cultivation regime as nèidān proper.
Prefaces
No preface in the source; the commentary opens directly with the poem.
Abstract
The poem is first listed in the Bìshěng shěng xùbiān dào sìkù quèshū mù 秘書省續編到四庫闕書目 as Yīn zhēnjūn dà huándān gē 陰真君大還丹歌 in one juan; the Sòngshǐ 宋史 gives the present title, omitting the 大 (Van der Loon 139). Péng Xiǎo 彭曉 (fl. 974) quotes lines of it in [[KR5c1002|DZ 1002 Zhōuyì cāntóng qì fēn zhāng tōngzhēn yì]] 2.22a and 3.11b, which secures a Five-Dynasties terminus ante quem for the poem itself. The commentary is not mentioned in Chén Tuán’s biographies, and since many works were forged in his name during the Northern Sòng, its authorship is uncertain; a related ChénTuán work on similar subject matter, the Zhǐxuán piān 指玄篇, is recorded at Sòngshǐ 457.13421 as treating “gymnastics, the art of nourishing the vital principle, and the cyclically transformed elixir.” The poem is reproduced with minor variations in [[KR5c0927|DZ 927 Tàiqīng yùbēi zǐ]]. Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:843–844 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), assigns the poem to the Five Dynasties (907–960) or earlier and the commentary to the early Sòng. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 907 / notAfter 989, coinciding with Chén Tuán’s floruit.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Yin zhenjun huandan ge zhu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 843–844. On Chén Tuán see Livia Kohn, “Chen Tuan in History and Legend,” Taoist Resources 2.1 (1990): 8–31; Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: De l’unité et de la multiplicité (Paris: Cerf, 1995).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0135
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 843–844.