紫陽真人悟真篇講義

Zǐyáng zhēnrén Wùzhēn piān jiǎngyì 紫陽真人悟真篇講義

Zǐyáng zhēnrén’s “Awakening to Perfection” Explained

by 張伯端 (原作) and 夏元鼎 (講義, ca. 1220–1226)

About the work

A seven-juan Southern-Sòng nèidān 內丹 (“inner alchemy”) commentary by Xià Yuándǐng 夏元鼎 (zì Zōngyù 宗禹, hào Yúnfēng sǎnrén 雲峰散人, fl. 1220s) on Zhāng Bóduān’s 張伯端 (984–1082) Wùzhēn piān 悟真篇 — the second cornerstone, after the Cāntóng qì 參同契, of the inner-alchemical canon. The commentary, jiǎngyì 講義 (“explanatory expositions”), proceeds verse by verse, glossing the Southern-Lineage (Nán zōng 南宗) alchemical idiom in the vocabulary of the ZhōngLǚ 鍾呂 transmission and supplying numerous quotations from poems attributed to Zhōnglí Quán 鍾離權 and Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓; it preserves only sixteen lǜshī 律詩, the sixty-four jué 絕, one five-character lǜshī, and the twelve Xījiāng yuè 西江月 lyrics, omitting the Buddhist-themed poems found in other recensions and rearranging the lǜshī sequence. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0146 / CT 146 = TC 146), 洞真部 玉訣類; commentary on the Northern-Sòng Wùzhēn piān (also embedded in [[KR5a0142|DZ 141 Zǐyáng zhēnrén Wùzhēn piān zhùshū]]).

Prefaces

Three prefaces by Xià’s scholar-official friends head the volume. (1) Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀 (1178–1235), dated Bǎoqìng 寶慶 3 (1227), winter solstice, third day after, at Jiàn’ān 建安: writes that Zhāng Píngshū’s hundred-odd Wùzhēn poems are, after the Cāntóng qì, the first such book; that he himself has only dabbled but cannot reach their mystery; that Yúnfēng Xià Zōngyǔ came from Yǒngjiā to Mànxíng and showed him the Wùzhēn jiǎngyì, by which “reading made one suddenly free of doubt”; reflects that Xià, formerly a man of fierce ambition in Shāndōng campaigns, has now turned to the immortals’ learning before fifty, and urges him to combine loyal service to the dynasty with this pursuit. (2) Cáo Shūyuǎn 曹叔遠, Bìshū shàojiān 祕書少監 of Yǒngjiā, dated Shàodìng 紹定 1 (1228), mid-spring: praises Xià for teaching the Wùzhēn method in his region where many literati had failed; recounts Xià’s twenty years in the mùfǔ of Yīng, Jiǎ and Xǔ, his hardships in the Tartar borderlands, his retirement and writing of three books — the Yàojìng (i.e. Rùyào jìng commentary), Yīnfú and Wùzhēn — and his master’s purpose: that all in the world may “reverse age and return to youth, leave the common and enter the marvellous.” (3) Zhāng Mì 張宓 (Zǐfú 子伏), Bìshū láng of Sìmíng 四明, dated Shàodìng 1, first month of winter, auspicious day: argues that the elixir is wholly within the body — kǎn 坎, lí 離, zhèn 震, duì 兊 are bodily things; jewel pears and fire dates are the body’s flowers, jade liquor its essence — and that without the “method of inversion” (diāndào zhī fǎ 顛倒之法), one cannot complete the Way: this Zhāng Píngshū knew, and Xià Zōngyǔ knows.

Abstract

The commentary was written between 1220 (the year Xià was initiated on Lónghǔ shān 龍虎山, Jiāngxī, according to his own account in Nányuè yùshǐ běnmò 16a) and 1226, when it is already mentioned in a postface to [[KR5a0110|DZ 110 Huángdì yīnfú jīng jiǎngyì]] 4.11b under the rubric “Three books on the gold elixir” (Jīndān sānshū 金丹三書). The earliest of the three prefaces, by Zhēn Déxiù, is dated 1227 — slightly later than the work itself. According to the Yuán author Fāng Huí 方回 (1227–1306), Xià not only practised heterodox methods but also fabricated the twelve Xījiāng yuè lyrics and wrongly attributed them to Zhāng Bóduān (Tóngjiāng xùjí 桐江續集 31.17a); the latter accusation does not hold up, however, since these poems are mentioned in Zhāng’s own preface and figure in all editions of the Wùzhēn piān. Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:823–824 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), surveys the textual issues. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1220 / notAfter 1226.

Translations and research

No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Ziyang zhenren Wuzhen pian jiangyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 823–824. On the Wùzhēn piān commentary tradition see Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: De l’unité et de la multiplicité (Paris: Cerf, 1995); Wáng Mù 王沐, Wùzhēn piān qiǎnjiě 悟真篇淺解 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1990).

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5a0147
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 823–824.