Dānjīng jí lùn 丹經極論
Ultimate Discourse on the Alchemical Scriptures
Anonymous Southern-Sòng nèidān 內丹 treatise, eleven folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0235 / CT 235 = TC 234), 洞真部 方法類, sharing a Dàozàng fascicle with [[KR5a0237|DZ 236 Jīnjīng lùn]].
About the work
A short anonymous Southern-Sòng treatise on internal alchemy, distinguishing itself from the wàidān 外丹 tradition through a principled rejection of the use of the “five metals and eight minerals” (wǔjīn bāshí 五金八石) and an insistence that the only true elixir is the xiāntiān 先天 (“pre-Heaven”) qì of the True Lead (zhēnqiān 真鉛), found within the body. The work is structured in three main parts: (i) a long theoretical discussion of zhēnqiān, the xiāntiān yī qì 先天一氣, and the difference between the nèiyào 內藥 and the wàiyào 外藥 (“internal” and “external” medicines, both understood in nèidān terms); (ii) detailed huǒhòu 火候 instructions for the wàiyào and the nèiyào; and (iii) a chapter on chū shén 出神, the emergence of the yángshén 陽神 (the “yang spirit-body”) through the brahma-aperture (tiānmén 天門), with extensive practical advice on the protection and gradual exteriorisation of the new spirit-body. Several quatrains and one xī jiāng yuè 西江月 cí-lyric on the alchemical process are appended at the end, attributed to the Wùzhēn yí piān 悟真遺篇 (“Posthumous Verses of the Wùzhēn piān”) tradition of Zhāng Bóduān 張伯端.
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source; the text opens directly with the doctrinal exposition. The opening lines: “True Lead — before Heaven and Earth had emerged from the chaos, lead first received the One and was first to take form. Thereafter were gradually born Heaven and Earth, yīn and yáng, the Five Phases, and the myriad species. So lead is the parent of Heaven and Earth, the basis of yīn and yáng. The sage takes the root of Heaven, Earth, parent, and child, and uses the parent of yīn and yáng as the elixir-mother…”
Abstract
The treatise is unsigned and undated. Internal evidence — particularly the citation of Zhāng Bóduān’s Wùzhēn piān and Wùzhēn yí piān (the latter with appended xī jiāng yuè lyrics that are characteristically of the late-twelfth- or thirteenth-century Wùzhēn commentarial tradition); the typology of wàiyào / nèiyào in nèidān terms (which becomes standard in Southern-Lineage texts of the Nán zōng 南宗); and the closing reference to a Huándān fùmìng yí piān 還丹復命遺篇 — places this within the Southern-Sòng (1127–1279). The work belongs to the Wùzhēn-derived nèidān literature in which the language of the Southern Lineage of Zhāng Bóduān, Shí Tài 石泰, Xuē Dàoguāng 薛道光, Chén Nán 陳楠, and Bái Yùchán 白玉蟾 is dominant. The frontmatter brackets composition broadly within the Southern Sòng.
Translations and research
No full translation. On the Southern-Lineage nèidān tradition: Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: De l’unité et de la multiplicité (Paris: Cerf, 1995); Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage of Taoism and the Transformation of Medieval China” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003); Catherine Despeux, Taoïsme et corps humain (Paris: Guy Trédaniel, 1994). On the Wùzhēn piān tradition see Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004) Vol. 2 §3.A.4.c (813–826).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0236
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4.