Shàngqīng dòngzhēn jiǔgōng zǐfáng tú 上清洞真九宮紫房圖
Illustrations of the Purple Room and the Nine Palaces, According to the Shàngqīng Tradition of the Cavern of the Perfected
Anonymous Táng-dynasty Shàngqīng 上清 illustrated treatise on the inner pantheon of the head, six folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0156 / CT 156 = TC 156), 洞真部 靈圖類
About the work
A short illustrated work on the body-gods residing in the cranial palaces of the Daoist adept, transmitted under the auspices of the Shàngqīng 上清 revelation. The text falls in two parts: (i) a sequence of pantheon illustrations on 1a–4a (lost or detached from their captions in the present recension), and (ii) the Jiǔgōng zǐfáng sān dāntián jué 九宮紫房三丹田訣 (“Formula of the Three Cinnabar Fields, the Purple Room, and the Nine Palaces”) on 4b–6b, which gives a concise verbal description of the inner topography of the head. The text maps nine palaces (jiǔgōng 九宮) measured in cùn 寸 inward from a point three fēn 分 above the space between the eyebrows: the Shǒucùn shuāngtián 守寸雙田 (“Doubled Field of the Inch-Guard”) at three fēn, the Míngtáng 明堂 (Hall of Light) at one cùn, the Dòngfáng 洞房 (Cavern Chamber) at two cùn, the Dāntián 丹田 (Cinnabar Field) at three cùn, the Liúzhū 流珠 (Flowing Pearl) at four cùn, and the Yùdì 玉帝 (Jade Emperor) at five cùn; with the Tiāntíng 天庭, Jízhēn 極真, Xuándān 玄丹, and Tàihuáng 太皇 palaces stacked above. Each palace houses named deities — Wúyīng gōngzǐ 無英公子, Báiyuán jūn 白元君, and HuángLǎo jūn 黃老君 in the Cavern Chamber; Tàiyī zhēnjūn 太一真君 in the Mysterious-Cinnabar palace, and so on — whose visualization sustains the adept and binds the body-gods to the body.
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:319–320 (§2.A.1, Shàngqīng under the Táng), dates the text to the Táng (618–907). The work has a complex transmission: titles closely resembling the present one — “Diagram of the Purple Room of the Nine Palaces” — are referenced already in [[KR5a0671|DZ 671 Tàishàng wújí dàdào zìrán zhēnyī wǔchēng fú shàngjīng]] 2.12a, and the inner topography described here parallels [[KR5a0134|DZ 133 Tàishàng dòngfáng nèijīng zhù]] (the Dòngfáng 洞房 cult). Schipper notes that the illustrations preserved in the opening of the present text are entirely unrelated to the body-pantheon described in the jué: they appear to be displaced material originally belonging to [[KR5a0156|DZ 155 Sāncái dìngwèi tú]]. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 618 / notAfter 907.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Shangqing dongzhen jiugong zifang tu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.1, 319–320. On the body-pantheon and the dòngfáng tradition see Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: EFEO, 1984), 2 vols.; Kristofer Schipper, “The Taoist Body,” History of Religions 17 (1978): 355–86.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0157
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.1, 319–320.