Xiūzhēn lìyàn chāo tú 修真曆驗鈔圖
Excerpted Diagrams of Verified Calendrical [Methods] for the Cultivation of Truth
Anonymous Táng-period illustrated alchemical treatise, eighteen folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0152 / CT 152 = TC 152), 洞真部 靈圖類
About the work
An eighteen-folio illustrated treatise on accelerated nèidān 內丹 (“inner alchemy”) preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0152 / CT 152 = TC 152), 洞真部 靈圖類. The work describes the formation of a huándān 還丹 (“cyclically transformed elixir”) that, in the natural cycle of the cosmos, would require 4,320 years of accumulated yīnyáng and Five-Phases pneumas; the alchemist, however, takes the yīn and yáng of his own body as the ingredients and accelerates the process within himself, the procedure being primarily mental, with great emphasis on emptying and fixing the mind (kōngxīn 空心 / dìngxīn 定心). The macrocosmic transformations are illustrated by twelve diagrams (cf. TC fig. 32), with two further charts on the cosmic generation of cinnabar, gold, and mercury through Five-Phases concord.
Prefaces
The volume opens with an unsigned preface (Xiūzhēn lìyàn chāotú bìngxù). It begins: “The true purport of the supreme Way takes the freezing of the nature and the refining of the body in everlasting life as supreme. Níngxìng 凝性 (‘freezing the nature’) is the xīn 心 — inwardly observant and unmoving, calm and inactive. Although there is one freezing, it admits of two outcomes: zhùxīn 住心 (‘abiding mind’) and kōngxīn 空心 (‘empty mind’). To freeze the abiding mind is to bring body and surroundings into accord with the Way, so that form and nature both transcend; this is the supreme method of true and perfect immortality, deathless and undying. To freeze the empty mind is to make the nature transcend while the body sinks; this is the lower method of detachment from the corpse-shell. By the abiding-mind freezing, mind and Way coalesce — ‘the body of empty Nothingness, the substance of true existence’ (xūwú zhī shēn, shíyǒu zhī zhì 虛无之身, 實有之質). By the empty-mind freezing, emptiness joins to Nothingness — ‘the body of empty existence, the substance of empty Nothingness’ (xūyǒu zhī shēn, shíwú zhī zhì). The latter wins the marvel of leaving behind form by relinquishing nature, but does not master the essential of refining the body; it is what the scriptural injunctions call qīnglíng shàn shuǎng zhī guǐ 清靈善爽之鬼 (‘the spirits of pure clarity and good acuity’).” The preface continues that the natural cosmic cycle of 4,320 years generates the elixir spontaneously, but that the masters, pitying the vanishing of practitioners’ lives, devised methods that compress this cycle into the twelve months of human practice. It closes by declaring that the text follows the master’s oral instructions and the secret meanings of the Zhēnjīng 真經.
Abstract
The Yúnjí qīqiān 雲笈七籤 (YJQQ) 72 preserves a parallel under the title Zhēnyuán miàodào xiūdān lìyàn chāo 真元妙道修丹曆驗鈔, attributing authorship to Cǎoyī Dòngzhēnzǐ 草衣洞真子. As Catherine Despeux notes in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:402–403 (§2.A.5, Operative and Inner Alchemy / Inner Alchemy), Cǎoyī Dòngzhēnzǐ is also taken to be the author of the Da huándān qìbǐ tú 大還丹氣秘圖 — the immediately preceding work in YJQQ, and listed in all Sòng catalogues (Van der Loon 162). Cǎoyī’s name appears at the end of the present text (16a) merely in a list, suggesting that the attribution of authorship to him is mistaken (cf. CGF 287). Quotations of “Cǎoyī” in later works are excerpts from the Huándān qìmí tú and not from the present text (e.g. Yùzhuàng xièhòu lù 玉漿邂逅錄, mid-twelfth century), and the Tōngzhì, “Yìwén lüè” 通志藝文略 5.26a ascribes the work to a certain Luó Zǐyī 羅子翼 (cf. VDL 126). The Dàozàng version is in places less complete than the YJQQ one (e.g. at 11b, where the explanatory comments on the twelve diagrams are abridged). The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 618 / notAfter 907, the dates of the Táng dynasty.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Catherine Despeux, “Xiuzhen liyan chao tu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.5, 402–403. On the zhēnyuán (cosmogonic accelerated-elixir) literature see Despeux, “L’ordination des femmes taoïstes sous les Tang,” Études chinoises 5 (1986): 53–100, and her broader survey of Táng yǎngshēng texts.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0153
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.5, 402–403.