Xiūzhēn tàijí hùnyuán zhǐxuán tú 修真太極混元指玄圖
Diagram Pointing to the Mystery of the Cultivation of Truth, of the Supreme Pole, and of Primordial Chaos
by 金筌子 (撰序)
About the work
A nine-folio Sòng nèidān 內丹 (“inner alchemy”) chart-text of the ZhōngLǚ 鍾呂 tradition, comprising nine diagrams together with a collection of short formulas (jué 訣) — the Mìchuán tāixī jué 祕傳胎息訣 in five sections, the Zhēn lónghǔ jiāogòu nèidān jué tú 真龍虎交媾內丹訣圖, the Mìchuán nèidān jué 祕傳內丹訣 in seven sections (zǐjīn dān, jīndān, lónghǔ nèidān, qīngjīn dān, hóngjīn dān, xīhuá dān, tàixuán dān), the Zhōutiān huǒhòu jué tú 周天火候訣圖, and others. The treatise, like its companion [[KR5a0150|DZ 149 Xiūzhēn tàijí hùnyuán tú]], illustrates the methods set out in the Xiūzhēn zhǐxuán piān 修真指玄篇 of [[KR5c1017|DZ 1017 Dàoshū]] 19.9a–22a, but supplies only the names of the techniques without practical instructions. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0150 / CT 150 = TC 150), 洞真部 靈圖類.
Prefaces
The text’s own preface, by Jīn Quánzǐ 金筌子, zì Zhúpō 竹坡, of Hángzhōu, is misplaced in the Dàozàng at the head of the preceding work DZ 149; in it Jīn describes encountering Shī Jiānwú in Nánjīng and receiving the diagrammatic transmission. No further preface is in the source.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:804 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), explains that Jīn Quánzǐ’s preface, which the Dàozàng editors inadvertently bound at the start of DZ 149, in fact belongs to the present work. A near-identical preface, with minor variations, is ascribed to Lǐ Sōng 李竦 — a disciple of Shī Jiānwú and the compiler of [[KR5a0247|DZ 246 Xīshān qúnxiān huìzhēn jì]] — in [[KR5a1248|DZ 1248 Sāndòng qúnxiān lù]] 14.22a, a work dated 1154. Whereas Jīn places his encounter with Shī in Nánjīng simply, Lǐ has Nánjīng Yīngtiān fǔ 南京應天府, a name in use in 1008–1016 (Dàzhōng xiángfú 大中祥符 era). The present text can therefore be placed between this period and 1154. One Jīn Zhúpō 金竹坡 of the Táng (618–907) is named as the author of [[KR5c0923|DZ 923 Dàdān qiāngōng lùn]], but that work is now recognised as a Southern Sòng forgery, and the present Jīn Quánzǐ should not be conflated with it. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1008 / notAfter 1154.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Xiuzhen taiji hunyuan zhixuan tu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 804. On the Zhōng-Lǚ tradition see Baldrian-Hussein, Procédés secrets du joyau magique (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1984); Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste (Paris: Cerf, 1995).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0151
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 804.