Xuányuán shízǐ tú 玄元十子圖
Portraits of Ten Masters of the Mysterious Origin
by 趙孟頫 (撰)
About the work
A thirteen-folio illustrated album by the great Yuán painter, calligrapher, and scholar-official Zhào Mèngfǔ 趙孟頫 (1254–1322), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0163 / CT 163 = TC 163), 洞真部 靈圖類. The album presents portraits with biographical notices of the Ten Masters of the Xuányuán (玄元十子) — the ten disciples of Lǎozǐ 老子, the Xuányuán 玄元 (“Mysterious Origin”) — modelled on the Confucian “Ten Worthy Disciples” (shí zhé 十哲) of Confucius. The ten figures are: (1) Guānyǐn zǐ 關尹子, (2) Wénzǐ 文子 (the source uses 卒 Zú — preserved here, but a typographical slip for 辛 Xīn), (3) Gēngsāng zǐ 庚桑子, (4) Nán Róng zǐ 南榮子, (5) Yǐn Wén zǐ 尹文子, (6) Shì Chéng zǐ 士成子, (7) Cuī Qú zǐ 崔瞿子, (8) Bó Jǔ zǐ 柏矩子, (9) Lièzǐ 列子, and (10) Zhuāngzǐ 莊子. According to the colophon by Huáng Shíwēng 黃石翁 (1307), the album originally also included a portrait of Lǎozǐ. The work was commissioned by Zhào’s teacher and patron Dù Dàojiān 杜道堅 (杜道堅, hào Nángǔ zǐ 南谷子, 1237–1318), and reissued in print c. 1305–1308 under the auspices of the daoshi Lù Yúnxī 路雲溪 (alias Lù Míngzhēn 路明真) of Chángchūn Lù 長春路 (in modern Jiāngsū). The printing-blocks were ultimately deposited at the Tàiqīng Gōng 太清宮 at Bózhōu 亳州 (Lǎozǐ’s traditional birthplace, in Hénán), while Dù Dàojiān had the portraits copied as murals at his temple, the Zōngyáng Guān 宗陽觀.
Prefaces
The volume opens with multiple prefaces and colophons. (i) The Thirty-eighth Heavenly Master Zhāng Yǔcái 張與材 (d. 1316), in a zàn 讚 dated Dàdé yǐsì 大德乙巳 (1305), praises the album as preserving “the brushwork of the high antiquity” and notes that Lù Dàotōng of Chángchūnlù had collected subscriptions to print it. (ii) Yáo Yún 姚雲 (jìnshì 1268), of Jiāngxī, in an essay “in the manner of an ōu chéng xiāng 謳成相 ode,” styles the Ten Masters as “an ancient and supreme person, a hidden virtue heavenly-recluse,” and concludes that “if not by the strength of the Way, how could the lineage be perpetuated?” Dated 1308 (大德戊申). (iii) Huáng Zhònggǔi 黃仲圭, zì Zhènzhòng 鎮仲, of the Sānmáo táng 三茅堂, in a Zhèngyī 正一 register-priest’s preface dated Dàdé bǐngwǔ 大德丙午 lìchūn 立春 (1306 spring): “The Ten Masters are like Confucius’ Ten Worthy Disciples; the latter are honoured in temple sacrifices but the former, in our gate, have not yet been investigated… Now, with the true wind blowing far and the mysterious customs returned to purity, with Confucius and Lǎozǐ as one family and the Way and Virtue equally honoured, the academician (Zhào Mèngfǔ) has painted the images and the master and Perfected (Dù Dàojiān) has eulogised them — the two arts together advance, and the learning of the Ten Masters has begun to shine.” (iv) The Yándào shì 巖道士 (Cliff-Daoist) Huáng Shíwēng 黃石翁, in 1307, recounts how the album came to him, how Dù Dàojiān refused to part with his treasured copy, and how the subsequent printing was undertaken. (v) Zhào Mèngfǔ’s own colophon (12a–12b), dated Zhìyuán 至元 23 (1286): “Master Nángǔ (Dù Dàojiān) — I have known him from childhood. While he resided at Shēngyuán Guān 昇元觀 (the old residence of Wénzǐ at Yúyīng, said to bear unusual luminous portents), the master directed me to make portraits of Lǎozǐ and the Ten Masters, with biographical notices for ten of them. He hoped to store the work in a famous mountain to bequeath to posterity. Considering the matter not lightly to be refused, I have, in spirit-converse with the ancients, given a likeness in this scroll. The master’s name is Dàojiān 道堅; his hào is Nángǔ 南谷.” (vi) A closing note by Dù Dàojiān himself (1306): “The Way has no fixed body, the Sage has no fixed name; only the absence of fixity makes transformation boundless and mystery beyond knowing… The Academician Zhào Zǐáng has, on the basis of those who had books and words, composed the Xuánshèng shízǐ xiàng — that students may gaze on the images and recite the words and so seek to be of the company of the sage. Truly, this rests with us.” Each portrait is followed by a paragraph of canonical biographical detail, drawing from Zhuāngzǐ 莊子, Shǐjì 史記, the Tōngxuán-Wénzǐ tradition, and Daoist hagiography.
Abstract
Caroline Gyss-Vermande, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:894–895 (§3.A.6, Sacred History and Geography), describes the album as a “fine example” of Daoist iconography in the early-Yuán literati tradition, emphasising that the prefatorial apparatus of 1305–1308 documents the printing history with unusual precision. Zhào Mèngfǔ’s colophon of 1286 establishes the terminus a quo for the original album; the subsequent prefaces and the reissue in printed form fall in 1305–1308. The album was copied by the Yuán artist Huá Tángqīng 華唐卿 (see Guóyún lóu shūhuà jì 過雲樓書畫記, “Huálèi” 畫類, 2.11b), and the daoshi Sūn Dàfāng 孫大方 obtained this copy and undertook to have it printed (per Huáng Shíwēng’s 1307 preface). Other works in the canon refer to the Xuányuán shízǐ tú, including [[KR5c0089|DZ 702 Dàodé xuán jīng yuán zhǐ]] of Dù Dàojiān and the Tōngxuán zhēnjīng zuǎnyì of the same author. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1286 / notAfter 1308.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Caroline Gyss-Vermande, “Xuanyuan shizi tu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 894–895. On Zhào Mèngfǔ as Daoist illustrator and his collaboration with Dù Dàojiān see Chu-tsing Li, The Autumn Colors on the Ch’iao and Hua Mountains: A Landscape by Chao Meng-fu (Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1965); Shane McCausland, Zhao Mengfu: Calligraphy and Painting for Khubilai’s China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011). On the shízǐ hagiographic tradition see Florian C. Reiter, “The Visible Divinity: The Sacred Icon in Religious Taoism,” Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens 144 (1988): 51–70.
Other points of interest
The frontispiece and biography of Wénzǐ in the source as transmitted carries the surname 卒 (Zú) — clearly a typographical slip for 辛 (Xīn) — preserved here as in the source (“Wénzǐ surnamed Zú, named Jiān, also called Jì rán…”). The same passage gives Wénzǐ’s native place as “Kuíqiū Púshàng” 葵丘濮上 and traces his teaching of Fàn Lǐ 范蠡 and the latter’s failed counsel to Goujiàn 勾踐 of Yuè 越 — a composite biography drawing on Lǐ Xiān 李暹’s commentary tradition.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0164
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 894–895.