Zhēnyī jīndān jué 真一金丹訣
Explication Concerning the Gold Elixir of the True One
compiled (集) by 王常
About the work
A short Sòng nèidān 內丹 treatise of nine folios in one juàn, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0231 / CT 231 = TC 230), 洞真部 方法類, with an appended Tāixī jiéyào 胎息節要 (“Essentials of Embryonic Respiration”). The work is a spurious composition attributed in its opening narrative to the lineage Zhōnglí Quán 鍾離權 → Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓 → Shī Jiānwú 施肩吾, with an elaborate framing tale that Wáng Cháng 王常 traces the transmission of the text and states that it was hidden in a cave by Shī Jiānwú. The compiler’s name appears in the body of the text as “Sòng Wáng Cháng jí” 宋王常集.
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source; the opening transmission narrative serves as the functional introduction. The text opens: “In days past, in the marshy waters of Jīnghúběilù 荊湖北路, the great hermit-recluse Zhōnglí Quán 鍾離權 wandered the clouds and waters until at last he came to Mount Kōngdòng 崆峒山 — the Jade Maiden Peak (玉女峯) — southeast of Zōuchéng 鄒城 in Lǔ. There, in the fifth year of the Xiǎnqìng 顯慶 era of the Great Táng (the gēngshēn 庚申 year), on the first day of the first month, the rényín 壬寅 new moon, he met an immortal worthy who led him into the cave and bestowed on him the elixir formula…”
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:840 (§3.A.5, Alchemy), identifies the work as a spurious treatise attributed to Zhōnglí Quán, Lǚ Dòngbīn, and Shī Jiānwú. The text is divided into two main sections. The first comprises poems on the three methods of the Yīnfú jīng 陰符經 (the qīngxū 清虛, the fùguó ān mín 富國安民, and the qiángbīng zhànshèng 強兵戰勝 ways), followed by a short essay on the circulation of qì through various points of the body. The nomenclature and the theory are similar to the ZhōngLǚ texts of the Northern Sòng (compare [[KR5c1017|DZ 1017 Dàoshū]] 19.9a ff). The second section, Tāixī jiéyào 胎息節要 (“Essentials of Embryonic Respiration”), is devoted to that specific topic. A passage on 7a is quoted at [[KR5a0826|DZ 826 Zhūzhēn shèngtāi shényòng jué]] 2b under the heading Yùqì fǎ 玉氣法; another paragraph on 7b is a quotation from YJQQ 59.10b. The frontmatter brackets the work broadly within the Sòng (960–1279).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Zhenyi jindan jue,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 840. On the Zhōng-Lǚ corpus see Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, Procédés secrets du Joyau magique: Traité d’alchimie taoïste du XIe siècle (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1984).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0232
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 840.