Jiǔhuán qīfǎn lónghǔ jīndān xīlǐ zhēnjué 九還七返龍虎金丹析理真訣
True Method Explaining the Theory of the Nine-Times-Returned and Seven-Times-Reverted Dragon-and-Tiger Golden Elixir
by 程昭 (Chéng Zhāo, zì Shìmíng 士明, of Wǔchāng 武昌, fl. 11th cent.), nine folios (one juǎn), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0229 / CT 229 = TC 229), 洞真部 方法類.
About the work
A small treatise on Inner Alchemy in the form of a recorded dialogue between 程昭 and a recluse referred to only as the Sìmíng yěkè 四明野客 (“Wild Guest of Sìmíng”). 程昭 introduces himself as a fervent enthusiast of the Way who had read deeply in the furnace-and-fire alchemical literature — Dòngyuán jì 洞元記, Hùnyuán jué 混元訣, Jīnbì jīng 金碧經, Yùhú lóngtāi fèngchì 玉壺龍胎鳳翅, and the Tàiyǐ cāntóng 太一參同 — without finding the key. In a rénshēn 壬申 mid-spring “in the Great Sòng” he is finally taught the principles of inner alchemy by the Sìmíng yěkè, who lodges with him one night and disappears at daybreak. The treatise that follows transcribes their exchange. Its programme is rigorously polemical against operative waidan 外丹: the Sìmíng yěkè insists that the “Nine-Times-Returned and Seven-Times-Reverted” elixir is not made of mineral or vegetable substances but is an inner work of qiánkūn 乾坤 / kǎnlí 坎離 / lónghǔ 龍虎, and that the only “lead” (qiān 鉛) and “mercury” (gǒng 汞) of the True Cinnabar are the zhēnqiān 真鉛 (the essence of kǎn, the Real One within the yīn) and zhēngǒng 真汞 (the essence of lí). The dialogue moves systematically through the Tàiyǐ generative scheme — Tàichū 太初 → Tàishǐ 太始 → hùndùn 混沌 → liǎngyí 兩儀 → sāncái 三才 → bāguà 八卦 → jiǔgōng 九宮 — locating each cosmological stage in the alchemical process, and rebutting in turn the standard external-substance claimants (the twelve common kinds of mineral lead, the various forms of zhūshā 朱砂, the candidates for “true earth”). The work closes with the cryptic dictum of Qīngxiá zǐ 青霞子: “Cauldron, cauldron — yet not a metal cauldron; furnace, furnace — yet not a drug furnace; lí descends below kǎn and ignites; mercury dwells within earth. Once the embryo is sealed and does not leak, transformation is in an instant — there is no need to hurry the cauldron and the apparatus.”
Prefaces
The work opens with 程昭’s autobiographical preface, signed Wǔchāng Chéng Zhāo zì Shìmíng shù 武昌程昭字士明述: “I have been deeply attentive to the gate of the Way, and have once perused the immortals’ classics, and have skimmed the hundred schools on furnace-and-fire. From reading the Dòngyuán jì, Tújīng 圖經, Hùnyuán jué, Jīnbì jīng, Yùhú lóngtāi fèngchì, and the Tàiyǐ cāntóng, I have analysed and rephased the fire-process to the very details of the Nine-Reverts and the Seven-Returns of the Golden Liquid Reverted Elixir, with its three modes of cultivation, indeed manifold; yet the deep, far-reaching original mechanism is not far off — and yet of those who study, ten thousand cannot bring it to one. All have failed for the same reason: lead and mercury are hard to distinguish, and the yellow sprout (huángyá 黃芽) cannot be recognised. From this comes their loss; they cannot fathom the original lineage. By this delusion years have piled up. In the rénshēn mid-spring of the Great Sòng, I encountered a wild guest of Sìmíng who lodged with me; I asked him concerning the principle of the Golden-Liquid Reverted Elixir…”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:798–799 (§3.A.4, Neidan and Yangsheng), notes that the work’s author is otherwise unknown, and that the dialogue mode and quoted authorities (Zhōuyì cāntóng qì 周易參同契; Lónghǔ jīng 龍虎經; Yānluó zǐ 煙蘿子; Qīngxiá zǐ 青霞子; Cuī Xuánzhēn 崔玄真 fl. 741–756, the author of [[KR5a0136|DZ 135 Cuī gōng rùyào jìng zhùjiě]] 崔公入藥鏡注解; an unknown Lóngtāi jīng 龍胎經; and the Five-Dynasties or early-Sòng alchemist Yuányáng zǐ 元陽子, cf. [[KR5c0238|DZ 238 Yuányáng zǐ jīnyè jí]]) all refer to the early stage of Inner Alchemy. The work therefore plausibly dates to the Northern Sòng, the rénshēn year of the colophon being either 1032 or 1092 — frontmatter brackets accordingly. The treatise is one of the earliest sustained polemical articulations of the neidan doctrine that the jīndān 金丹 (“Golden Elixir”) is wholly an inner work, and that mineral and vegetable “lead” and “mercury” are categorical category-mistakes. The closing Qīngxiá zǐ dictum — “Cauldron, cauldron — yet not a metal cauldron…” — is one of the earliest neidan passages of its kind to be quoted in the canonical literature, and is recurrently cited in later compendia.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Jiuhuan qifan longhu jindan xili zhenjue,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 798–799. On Northern-Sòng neidan doctrine and its anti-waidan polemic: Fabrizio Pregadio, The Way of the Golden Elixir (Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2012); Isabelle Robinet, “Original Contributions of Neidan to Taoism,” in Livia Kohn ed., Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (Ann Arbor 1989), 297–330; Catherine Despeux, La moelle du phénix rouge: Santé et longue vie dans la Chine du XVIe siècle (Paris: Trédaniel, 1988).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0230
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 798–799.