Wúshàng sāntiān yùtáng zhèngzōng gāobēn nèijǐng yùshū 無上三天玉堂正宗高奔內景玉書
Precious Text of Flying-High in the Inner Landscape, from the Correct Tradition of the Jade Hall of the Supreme Three Heavens
A first-half-of-the-twelfth-century neidan and meditative manual of the Yùtáng dàfǎ 玉堂大法 school of 路時中 (Lù Shízhōng), two juǎn, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0221 / CT 221 = TC 221), 洞真部 方法類.
About the work
This treatise is the dedicated meditative-practice manual of the Yùtáng dàfǎ 玉堂大法 school and is to be read as the “inner” companion to the wider liturgical compendium [[KR5a0221|DZ 220 Wúshàng xuányuán sāntiān yùtáng dàfǎ]]. The “method of flying high” (gāobēn zhī dào 高奔之道) — meditative ascent to and internalisation of the qì of the sun, moon, and Northern Dipper — is sketched in two places in DZ 220 (4–5 and 27.1a–3a) for the lower degrees, but DZ 220 26.1b refers explicitly to a separate Gāobēn yùjīng 高奔玉經 for fuller exposition; the present text is that work. Juǎn 1 describes the method of flying-high to the sun and the moon (gāobēn rìyuè zhī dào 高奔日月之道), associated with the immortals of the sun and moon (Yùyí 鬱儀 and Jiélín 結璘) and tied to the “Gāobēn zhāng” (chapter 26) of the Huángtíng nèijǐng jīng 黃庭內景經 (quoted at 1.1b). The method is similar to but distinct from the methods of flying-high described in early Shàngqīng material such as [[KR5a0640|DZ 639 Huángtiān shàngqīng jīnquè dìjūn língshū zǐwén shàngjīng]] and [[KR5a1377|DZ 1376 Shàngqīng tàishàng dìjūn jiǔzhēn zhōngjīng]] 2.1a–8b. Juǎn 2, on the Dipper, consists almost entirely of excerpts from early Shàngqīng texts — chiefly [[KR5a1331|DZ 1331 Dòngzhēn tàishàng fēixíng yùjīng jiǔzhēn shēngxuán shàngjì]] 4b–8b, [[KR5a0879|DZ 879 Shàngqīng jīnshū yùzì shàngjīng]] 1a–7a, and [[KR5a1378|DZ 1377 Shàngqīng tàishàng jiǔzhēn zhōngjīng jiàngshēng shéndān jué]] 4b–11a — all apparently culled from the Yúnjí qīqiān 雲笈七籤.
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source. The text proper opens with the methodology of gāobēn rìyuè and the citation of the Huángtíng nèijǐng jīng “Gāobēn zhāng,” establishing the doctrinal ancestry of the practice. There is no autograph colophon by 路時中 in the present manuscript, but the work’s place in the school’s transmission programme is set by DZ 220 26.1b–2a.
Abstract
Poul Andersen, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1074 (§3.B.5, Tiānxīn Zhèngfǎ and Related Rites), notes the close textual link with DZ 220: the latter at 26.1b refers to a more complete description of the gāobēn method in a Gāobēn yùjīng 高奔玉經, clearly the present work. The text is therefore to be ascribed to 路時中, to whom the central texts of the Yùtáng dàfǎ tradition were revealed in the 1120s; the frontmatter brackets composition 1107–1150 to cover the revelation-and-circulation period. The practices described are pre-conditions for the public rituals of the Yùtáng dàfǎ. Lǐangqiū Zǐ’s 梁丘子 (fl. 722) commentary on the Huángtíng jīng identifies the underlying method as that described in [[KR5a0640|DZ 639 Huángtiān shàngqīng jīnquè dìjūn língshū zǐwén shàngjīng]] (see Huángtíng nèijǐng yùjīng zhù 黃庭內景玉經注 in [[KR5a0263|DZ 263 Xiūzhēn shíshū]] 57.1a–b); but the Yùtáng dàfǎ method, while inheriting elements of Shàngqīng practice, is not found in any of the extant early Shàngqīng material and is apparently an authentic creation of the 路時中 revelations (cf. [[KR5a0436|DZ 435 Tàishàng yùchén yùyí jiélín běn rìyuè tú]]).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Poul Andersen, “Wushang santian yutang zhengzong gaoben neijing yushu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.5, 1074. On the gāobēn technique see Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984), Vol. 1, 175–193, and Méditation taoïste (Paris: Dervy, 1979); Poul Andersen, “The Practice of Bugang,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5 (1989–1990): 15–53.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0222
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.5, 1074.