Lónghǔ zhōngdān jué 龍虎中丹訣
Instructions for the Central Elixir of the Dragon and the Tiger
Anonymous SòngYuán neidan manual, seven folios (one juǎn), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0228 / CT 228 = TC 228), 洞真部 方法類. The colophon of the source-file gives the title 龍壺中丹訣 (with 壺 for 虎), but the running title throughout the body of the text reads 龍虎中丹訣 — a typesetting slip noted here.
About the work
A short undated neidan treatise of SòngYuán date and stylistically modern in form (e.g. the seven-character qīyán poems at the close). The text covers a varied programme of inner-alchemical practices. To the meditative and respiratory exercises for the conception of the immortal embryo (tāi 胎) — illustrated through the hexagrams of the Yìjīng (notably fù 復 for “introduction” and gòu 姤 for “conception”) — the methodology adds the recitation of zhòu 呪 spells designed to activate the energies of essence (jīng 精), qì, and spirit (shén 神) for the transformation of the body. The work proper opens with general doctrinal verses (“Lónghǔ zuòyòng sòng 龍虎作用頌,” “Tāishì sòng 胎室頌,” “Tāiyáng sòng 胎陽頌,” “Tāishén sòng 胎神頌,” “Tāilíng sòng 胎靈頌,” “Tāihuà sòng 胎化頌”), followed by two key incantations — the Zhēnhuǒ zhòu 真火咒 and the Zhēnshuǐ zhòu 真水咒. A “Zhōuwǔ shì 周五式” then aligns the four cardinal hexagrams (zhèn 震 east, lí 離 south, duì 兌 west, kǎn 坎 north) with the four solar nodes (chūnfēn 春分, xiàzhì 夏至, qiūfēn 秋分, dōngzhì 冬至) and the four times of day, prescribing the number of incantation-cycles and the number of swallowed mouthfuls of “Flowery-Pool water” (huáchí shuǐ 華池水) to be performed at each. The treatise concludes with a series of nine seven-character poems, the Lónghǔ shuǐhuǒ zhōngdān jiǔhòu 龍虎水火中丹九候, describing the entire alchemical cycle of nine years through nine “phases” (hòu 候), ending in the tuō 脫 (“delivery” of the perfected immortal body).
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source. The text opens with a doctrinal proem: “The essential of the Yuánshǐ Way is wondrous, with its source in the harmonising-and-balancing; in its primal simplicity it scattered into the two principles, and the qì descended and birthed the myriad things. The pivot of life-and-death streams on without ceasing — the workings of the Tàixuán who can know? Looking-at-form has its Way; forgetting-form attains the Way. Only the essence is the master of the body; only the qì is the truth of the body; only the shén is the numen of the body. These three — jīng, qì, shén — only the heart can move and combine in transformation. Sun and moon are the supreme essence of Heaven and Earth; kǎn and lí the supreme medicines of the human body. Causing kǎn and lí to mate, the sun and moon to copulate in the Mysterious Palace, completing the True Cinnabar — this is to see the workings of qiánkūn 乾坤 and to know the pivot of life-and-death.”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:846 (§3.A.4, Neidan and Yangsheng), describes the Lónghǔ zhōngdān jué as a short undated treatise on Inner Alchemy, stylistically modern, that combines meditative-respiratory exercises for embryonic gestation (illustrated through Yìjīng hexagrams) with spell-recitation for the activation of the jīngqìshén triad. The nine-poem series at the end describes the complete alchemical cycle in terms of nine hòu 候 of one year each, ending in tuō 脫. The use of qīyán prosody and the developed system of nine hòu place the work in the late Sòng or Yuán; the frontmatter brackets composition 1100–1300 conservatively. There is no preserved transmission-story or named author. The text shares its title-pair with DZ 225, DZ 226, DZ 227, and DZ 229 in deploying the lónghǔ (dragon-tiger) metaphor but, unlike those works, eschews historical pseudepigraphy.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Longhu zhongdan jue,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 846. On the lónghǔ metaphor and the Sòng neidan tradition: Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: De l’unité et de la multiplicité (Paris: Cerf, 1995); Livia Kohn ed., Daoism Handbook (Leiden: Brill, 2000), chs. 18–19; Fabrizio Pregadio, The Way of the Golden Elixir (Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2012).
Other points of interest
The source-file metadata records the title as 龍壺中丹訣 (Dragon-Vessel Central Elixir Instructions) — a typographical slip for 龍虎中丹訣 (Dragon-and-Tiger Central Elixir Instructions). The body of the text, the running heads, and the Schipper-Verellen catalog all confirm 虎.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0229
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 846.