Huándān zhòngxiān lùn 還丹眾仙論
Discourse of the Many Immortals on the Cyclically Transformed Elixir
compiled (集) by 楊在 (hào Bàofù shānrén 抱腹山人) in 1052
About the work
A twenty-five-folio Northern-Sòng alchemical anthology, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0233 / CT 233 = TC 232), 洞真部 方法類. The collection is securely dated by Yáng Zài’s own preface to Huángyòu 皇祐 4 (1052), eighth day of the eleventh month. The text gathers extracts and sayings from a long roster of gods and immortals — the Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 元始天尊, Lord Dào (Dàojūn 道君), Lord Lǎo (Lǎojūn 老君), the Yellow Emperor’s Jiǔdǐng jīng 黃帝九鼎經, Shànghuáng 上皇, Máo Jūn 茅君, Lóng Shù 龍樹, Yīn Zhēnjūn 陰真君, Mǎ Míngshēng 馬明生, the Cāntóng zhé yí lùn 參同折疑論, the Bǎiwèn lùn 百問論, the Huándān xīn jìng 還丹心鏡, Yuányáng zǐ 元陽子, Wèi Bóyáng 魏伯陽 (and his Wǔxiānglèi 五相類), the Stove-God Hú Gāng zǐ 狐剛子, the Bàopǔ zǐ 抱朴子, the Cāntóng lùn 參同論, the Huāchí jīng 華池經, the Yīnfú jīng zhù 陰符經注, Sūn Zhēnrén 孫眞人, Lǚ Dòngbīn’s Zhèngyáng piān 正陽篇, Yì Xuán zǐ 易玄子, Hǎichán zǐ 海蟾子 — and concludes with practical sections on biàn jǐng 辨井 (testing the well), jū shān fǎ 居山法 (residence on the mountain), zào lú fǎ 造鑪法 (building the furnace), huǒhòu jué 火候訣 (fire phasing), biàn zhēn qiānhǒng jué 辨真鉛汞訣, fú dān yìng yàn hòu 服食金丹應驗候 (the symptoms of taking the elixir), and remedies for elixir-poisoning.
Prefaces
Yáng Zài’s preface (1a–2a): “The Returned Elixir is the seed of the Floral Pool (huāchí 華池). Within the Floral Pool can be born the Divine Water; in pure spiritual stillness, that water transforms — pure and white as frost, called the White Gold or the Yellow Sprout (huángyá 黃芽)… [On the genesis of the elixir terms]. As for me, I am a man of Xīhé in Fénzhōu. From my twentieth year I delighted in the Way; for over thirty years I sought it, until at last I met a luminous master who personally bestowed on me the oral instructions, and I came to understand the principles of the alchemical scriptures, the secret meanings, and the marvels of the fúchén 浮沉 of the substances. In the eleventh month, eighth day, of the fourth year of Huángyòu of the Sòng (1052), in a moment of leisure, I gathered the essentials from the alchemical scriptures of the various masters into one juàn, calling it Huándān zhòngxiān lùn, that fellow-seekers might have it…”
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:856–857 (§3.A.5, Alchemy), identifies Yáng Zài as a native of Xīhé in Shānxī and confirms the date of 1052 on the basis of the preface. The text falls into two main parts: (i) a long anthology of sayings on the elixir attributed to a sequence of cosmic and human authorities, ending with the more recent alchemists Lǚ Dòngbīn and Liú Hǎichán — making it an important survey of the alchemical citation-tradition as it stood in the mid-eleventh century — and (ii) Yáng’s own practical instructions on wàidān 外丹: how to choose the place for the experiments and how to build the furnace; how to apply the helical fire-phasing method (i.e., the increase and decrease of fuel in conformity with the basic cycle of thirty days, divided into six hòu 候 each subdivided into two parts; for details see Sivin, “The theoretical background of elixir alchemy,” 274); how to obtain and use the “real” ingredients of alchemical lead and mercury; how to eliminate toxic principles in the elixir; and the symptomatic effects of its ingestion. Numerous quotations otherwise lost — for instance, the Cuì gōng rù yào jìng 崔公入藥鏡 at 10b, [[KR5c0235|DZ 234 Xiūdān miàoyòng zhìlǐ lùn]] cross-references at multiple points — give the text high value as a witness to the Northern-Sòng alchemical literature.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Huandan zhongxian lun,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 856–857. On the helical fire-phasing method see Nathan Sivin, “The theoretical background of elixir alchemy,” in Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China V.4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 210–305. On wàidān practice generally: Fabrizio Pregadio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0234
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 856–857.