Shàngqīng tàixuán jiǔyáng tú 上清太玄九陽圖
Shàngqīng Diagrams of the Nine-Yáng by Master Tàixuán
by 侯善淵 (撰)
About the work
A twelve-folio late-twelfth-century nèidān 內丹 (“inner alchemy”) chart-and-poem treatise by Hóu Shànyuán 侯善淵, hào Tàixuánzǐ 太玄子 (“Master of Supreme Mystery”), a Daoist resident at the Shénjū dòng 神居洞 on Mount Gūshè 姑射山 in Shānxī. The work consists of (i) nine fundamental diagrams of the alchemical phases (the “Nine yáng”), each accompanied by a versified commentary, (ii) supplementary diagrams on the fire-phasing (huǒhòu 火候), and (iii) twelve songs corresponding to the twelve alchemical periods of the year. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0154 / CT 154 = TC 154), 洞真部 靈圖類.
Prefaces
The volume opens with a preface by the author (signed Gūshè shān shénjū dòng Tàixuánzǐ zhuàn 姑射山神居洞太玄子撰). Fundamentally, he writes, words have no substance: the speaker erects them provisionally to make manifest the Way, and the spirit, having no shape, is provisionally lodged in image so that one may seek the True. Inwardly one penetrates the yīn pò 陰魄, outwardly refines the yáng hún 陽魂, going to the principle of being and non-being and matching the rhythm of motion and stillness. With one ascent and one descent the Three Palaces are transformed; with one rising and one sinking the breath of the Six Caves is governed; non-action that is yet active perfects the One True nature; without doing yet doing, one refines the elixir of the Nine yáng. When the elixir is completed, the pearl coalesces, the essence flows, the Tiānguǐ 天癸 is met, and the day-soul ascends in resplendence — surpassing every form and image. He closes with a verse: “Before awakening one must rely on the myriad methods; once the heart is opened, all things are clean. Within is hidden the dark pearl appearing in manifestation; silent and stilled, it has no peer in the Great Void.” The first chart (Tàixuán hùndùn zhī tú 太玄混沌之圖) follows: “the chaos is empty, brahmā-pure and dim, with no light; the dark essence has shown no sign; man and creature are not separated, the substance pure, dark and unknowing of why it is so.”
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:830–831 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), identifies Hóu Shànyuán as a Daoist of the Shénjū dòng on Mount Gūshè (Shānxī), hào Tàixuánzǐ — whence the title of the present work. Hóu was a contemporary of Máo Hùi 茅蕙, who was received at the imperial Jīn court in 1190 (cf. [[KR5a0755|DZ 755 Tàishàng Lǎojūn shuō chángqīngjìng jīng zhù]] and [[KR5a0973|DZ 973 Gānshuǐ xiānyuán lù]] 7.6b). Several other works in the Dàozàng are by Hóu, including [[KR5a0124|DZ 124 Huángdì yīnfú jīng zhù]] and [[KR5a1062|DZ 1061 Shàngqīng tàixuán jí]]. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1170 / notAfter 1200 — the late twelfth century, when Hóu was active under the Jīn 金.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Shangqing taixuan jiuyang tu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 830–831. On Jīn-era Shānxī Daoist circles see Florian C. Reiter, Grundelemente und Tendenzen des religiösen Taoismus (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1988); on Quánzhēn antecedents see Vincent Goossaert, “The Invention of an Order: Collective Identity in Thirteenth-Century Quanzhen Daoism,” Journal of Chinese Religions 29 (2001): 111–138.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0155
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 830–831.