Zǐyáng zhēnrén Wùzhēn piān sānzhù 紫陽真人悟真篇三註
Three Commentaries on Zǐyáng Zhēnrén’s Awakening to Truth
by 張伯端 (root text, 1075), with commentaries by 薛道光 (傳, 1169), 陸墅 (註, 13th c.) and 陳致虛 (註, fl. 1331); compiled and printed by Zhāng Shìhóng 張士弘 (fl. fourteenth century)
About the work
A five-juàn compilation of three commentaries on Zhāng Bóduān’s Wùzhēn piān 悟真篇 (1075), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0142 / CT 142 = TC 142), 洞真部 玉訣類. The three commentaries are those of (i) Xuē Shì 薛式 = Xuē Dàoguāng 薛道光 (preface dated qián dào yǐchǒu 乾道乙丑 = 1169), (ii) Lù Shù 陸墅 (Lù Zǐyě 陸子野; fl. thirteenth century), and (iii) Chén Zhìxū 陳致虛 (上陽子 Shàngyángzǐ; fl. 1331). The Wùzhēn piān jì 悟真篇記 of Lù Sīchéng 陸思誠 — a transmission account containing a biography of Zhāng Bóduān — is added at the head as prefatorial matter. Compilation, editing, and printing are due to the Yuán official Zhāng Shìhóng, who served at court under Wénzōng 文宗 (1328–1329).
Prefaces
The Daozang witness opens with Lù Sīchéng’s Wùzhēn piān jì 悟真篇記 (“Notes on the Wùzhēn piān”), which traces Zhāng Bóduān (Píngshū 平叔, of Tiāntái 天台) from his exile to the southern frontier in the Zhìpíng era (1064–1067), through his service under the Lù 陸 family of Lóngtú 龍圖 in Guìlín 桂林 and Chéngdū 成都, to his transmission of his “lifelong learning” to Mǎ Mò 馬默 (Chùhòu 處厚) in the Hédōng region. The text of the jì breaks off and resumes with anecdotal materials concerning Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓 and the courtesan Zhāng Zhēnnú 張珍奴, illustrating the tàiyīn liànxíng 太陰煉形 method, then closes with admonitions on the secrecy of the transmission, signed qián dào yǐchǒu suì zhōngqiū rì sūn Xuē Shì jǐn shū 乾道五年乙丑歲中秋日孫薛式謹書 (Mid-Autumn 1169). It is followed by Lù Zǐyě’s preface (which insists that the elixir-art is “extremely simple, extremely easy” and warns against the “sānfēng cǎizhàn” 三峰採戰 sexual misreading); Chén Zhìxū’s Shàngyángzǐ zhù Wùzhēn piān xù 上陽子註悟真篇序 (which casts Zhāng’s enterprise within the Three Teachings, drawing on the Lǎozǐ, the Yìjīng and the Huāyán hélùn); the Wùzhēn piān shēngtí 悟真篇笙蹄 of the Yuán Minister of Works Zhāng Shìhóng (preserving the editorial rationale of the present compilation); and finally Zhāng Bóduān’s own Wùzhēn piān xù 悟真篇序 (dated Xīníng yǐmǎo 熙寧乙卯 = 1075), surveying the path of the elixir-art and recounting the author’s reception of the oral instruction in 1069 from a “True Person” at Chéngdū.
Abstract
According to Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:822–823 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), the editor Zhāng Shìhóng was responsible for several changes in the present Sānzhù — he excised all the poems that figure in [[KR5a0145|DZ 144 Wùzhēn piān shíyí]] and a few others he claimed to be forgeries (preface 6b). The Xuē Dàoguāng commentary collected here is the same that Chén Zhìxū attributes elsewhere to Wúmíngzǐ 無名子 (i.e. Wēng Bǎoguāng) or Xiāngchuān wēng 象川翁 (cf. [[KR5c1067|DZ 1067 Shàngyáng zǐ jīndān dàyào]] 5.10a) — the question of authorship of the “Xuē Dàoguāng” commentary is discussed in detail by Dài Qǐzōng in [[KR5a0144|DZ 143 Sānchéng bìyào]], who concludes that what was traditionally circulated as Xuē’s commentary is in fact the work of Wēng Bǎoguāng. Lù Sīchéng’s Wùzhēn piān jì, mentioned by Wēng in his 1173 preface (cf. [[KR5a0142|DZ 141 Zhùshū]], preface 5a, 8a), should originally have been placed at the end of Wēng’s commentary; the version preserved here is incomplete (it ends abruptly on page 3a, followed by a passage from Chén Zhìxū’s commentary). The “Wùzhēn piān jì” must have been written after 1161 (the zhāo fēng láng 朝奉郎 title borne by Lù Sīchéng was introduced after the Shàoxīng 紹興 era; cf. Sòngshǐ 168.4012). The frontmatter brackets composition of the received recension to 1328–1340. Note: the catalog meta gives a “1169(注)” date — this refers to the dating of Xuē Dàoguāng’s preface alone, not the present compilation, which is securely Yuán.
Translations and research
Modern translations of the Wùzhēn piān itself: Thomas Cleary, Understanding Reality (1987); Fabrizio Pregadio, Awakening to Reality (Golden Elixir Press, 2009). Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Ziyang zhenren Wuzhen pian sanzhu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 822–823. See also Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste (Paris: Cerf, 1995).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0143
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 822–823.