Qīngtiān gē zhùshì 青天歌註釋
Glosses on the “Song of the Azure Sky”
About the work
A nine-folio commentary by the Yuán-dynasty Quánzhēn 全真 master Wáng Jiè 王玠 (hào Hùnránzǐ 混然子, fl. 1331–1380) on the Qīngtiān gē 青天歌 (“Song of the Azure Sky”) of Qiū Chǔjī 丘處機 (Chángchūn zhēnrén 長春真人, 1148–1227), the second patriarch of the Quánzhēn order; preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0137 / CT 137 = TC 137), 洞真部 玉訣類. Wáng divides the song’s thirty-two seven-character verses into three blocks — twelve verses on innate nature (xìng 性), twelve on vital force (mìng 命), and eight on the fusion of xìng and mìng that delivers the spirit (shén 神) of the adept from the body — and supplies a detailed gloss that draws on the Three Teachings, with [[KR5a0001|DZ 1 Língbǎo wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng]] (the Dùrén jīng) as its principal Daoist warrant.
Prefaces
Wáng Jiè’s preface (signed Hùnránzǐ 混然子) opens the volume. The Qīngtiān gē is said to be the spontaneous composition of the zhēnrén Qiū Chángchūn, in thirty-two verses set against the Thirty-two Heavens of the Dùrén jīng. Wáng admires it for its simple language and direct doctrine — a “shortcut for the cultivation of the True, a stairway to the Way.” The first twelve verses set out the substance of the cultivation of nature; the middle twelve detail the labour of recovering vital force; and the closing eight describe the spiritual transformation in which xìng and mìng are fused and the adept escapes the body. Lamenting that ordinary people sing it as idle verse without grasping its inner correspondences (“nine harmonies and ten conjunctions” 九和十合), Wáng has composed the present gloss for the benefit of beginners.
Abstract
According to Catherine Despeux in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1175 (§3.B.9, The Quánzhēn Order), the song itself is also preserved, in identical form, in Qiū Chǔjī’s collected works (see [[KR5c1159|DZ 1159 Pánxī jí]] 3.1a–b). The text of the Qīngtiān gē was engraved on stone in 1273. Wáng Jiè’s commentary reads the song in the xìng/mìng dual-cultivation register characteristic of mature Quánzhēn doctrine: refining one’s nature is the substantial root, regulating one’s vital force the operative method, and the fusion of the two yields shénhuà tuōtāi 神化脫胎 — spirit-transformation and the shedding of the embryo. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1325 / notAfter 1340, broadly contemporary with Wáng’s gloss on the Rùyào jìng (see DZ 135).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Catherine Despeux, “Qingtiange zhushi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.9, 1175. On Qiū Chǔjī and the early Quánzhēn songs see Vincent Goossaert, La création du taoïsme moderne: l’ordre Quanzhen (PhD thesis, EPHE, 1997), and Florian C. Reiter, “Ch’iu Ch’u-chi (1148–1227): A Pioneer of Religious Daoism,” Oriens 31 (1988): 234–252.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0138
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.9, 1175.