Huándān bìjué yǎng chìzǐ shénfāng 還丹祕訣養赤子神方
Divine Recipes for Nourishing the Infant according to the Secret Process of the Cyclically Transformed Elixir
related (述) by 許子微 (zì Míngdào 明道)
About the work
A short Southern-Sòng nèidān 內丹 treatise of six folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0232 / CT 232 = TC 231), 洞真部 方法類. The work explains in ten numbered sections the alchemical principles that lead to the production of the spiritual Infant (chìzǐ 赤子, or “immortal embryo”), to be nourished after birth from the body for three years and then for nine symbolic years until the practitioner achieves transcendent transformation (shénhuà 神化). The ten sections are: shénshì 神室 (the spirit-chamber); kèlòu 刻漏 (the water-clock divisions); shíguǐ 時晷 (sundial-time); zhuī èrqì 追二炁 (chasing the Two Pneumas); huì sānxìng 會三性 (gathering the Three Natures); cù wǔxíng 簇五行 (clustering the Five Phases); jìnhuǒ 進火 (advancing the fire); wēnshuǐ 溫水 (warming the water); tuōtāi 脫胎 (sloughing off the womb); and shénhuà 神化 (divine transformation).
Prefaces
The author’s own introduction (1a–1b): “Your servant, since the Chúnxī 淳熙 era (1174–1189), has set out to wander beyond the world’s bounds — visiting one elevated master after another, longing for the Way of Long-Sight and Lasting Life. By chance, in passing through the lands of Xiāng 襄 and Yǐng 郢, I came at last to Mount Tóngbó 桐栢山 in Suízhōu 隨州, and there had the fortune to meet a true master named Péng Mèngqú 彭夢蘧 (zì Bóyù 伯玉, a man of Yǐngzhōu 郢州). In the Huáidú 淮瀆 temple, I knelt with burning incense and received from him the Way of the Gold-Liquor Returned Elixir (Jīnyè huándān 金液還丹). Apart from the diagrams, the master transmitted everything orally from his own mouth into my heart — never committing it to bamboo and silk. I have observed that students of the Way in our own time are too often beguiled by alternative names and side-paths, and that those who actually achieve the Great Elixir are few. So, undeterred by the punishment due me, I have arranged the master’s Way under topical heads, that those who come after may have a foundation for advancing in the Way…”
Abstract
Catherine Despeux, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:846–847 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), identifies the work as a late-twelfth-century nèidān manual presenting in ten numbered theoretical and practical sections the path from the spirit-chamber (shénshì) and the cosmic time-divisions (kèlòu, shíguǐ) through the gathering of the Two Pneumas, Three Natures, and Five Phases, the advance and retreat of fire, and the final phases of tuōtāi and shénhuà. Although Xǔ provides a transmission lineage at the close — Zhāng Tiāngāng 張天罡 → Péng Mèngqú → Xiāo Yìngsǒu 蕭應叟 → Xǔ Zǐwēi → Lín Yuándǐng 林元鼎 — and identifies himself in this lineage as a native of Shānxī 山西 province (whereas the title page identifies him as from Xīshān 西山 hill), the text is undated. Despeux dates it to the end of the twelfth century on internal evidence; the frontmatter accordingly brackets composition 1174–1200. The title’s “Infant” (chìzǐ) here is the “spiritual infant” of the nèidān tradition: the yīng’ér 嬰兒 born in the huánglóng 黃龍 cauldron and nurtured to ascension.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Catherine Despeux, “Huandan bijue yang chizi shenfang,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 846–847. On the Southern-Sòng nèidān embryonic-symbolism see Catherine Despeux, Taoïsme et corps humain: Le Xiuzhen tu (Paris: Guy Trédaniel, 1994); Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: De l’unité et de la multiplicité (Paris: Cerf, 1995).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0233
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 846–847.