Jīnjīng lùn 金晶論
Discourse on the Gold and the Crystal
Anonymous Northern-Sòng nèidān 內丹 treatise, six folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0236 / CT 236 = TC 235), 洞真部 方法類, sharing a Dàozàng fascicle with [[KR5a0236|DZ 235 Dānjīng jí lùn]].
About the work
A short anonymous treatise of three numbered chapters (上篇, 中篇, 下篇 — “Upper, Middle, Lower Sections”) plus a closing poem in eleven couplets entitled Jīndān dàyào jīnjīng qiānhǒng lónghǔ zhēnjiǎ gē 金丹大藥金晶鉛汞龍虎真假歌 (“Song on the True and False [Methods] of the Great Alchemical Elixir of Gold and Crystal, Lead and Mercury, Dragon and Tiger”). The author opens with a definition of his title: “Gold (jīn 金) is the upright qì of the moon’s flower; Crystal (jīng 晶) is the true crystal-glow of the sun’s brilliance” — i.e., the symbolic luminosities of yīn and yáng — together representing the zhēnyī 真一 (“True One”) that, when concentrated in the body, becomes the huánjīng bǔnǎo 還精補腦 (“returning the essence to nourish the brain”) of the nèidān practice.
Prefaces
The author’s own preface (1a–2a) opens: “Jīnjīng is the foundation of creation, the way of the Empty-Non-Being. It speaks of the having within the empty, measures the principle of Heaven and Earth: the empty has its having, and the having is the empty; knowing emptiness yet not empty, knowing form yet not form — only when one passes from one huǎnghuǎng 惚惚 to another, then radiance shines forth, and this is called the Marvellous Sound. Jīn is the upright qì of the moon’s flower; Jīng is the true sun-crystal radiance. Therefore it is said that the One qì gives birth to the Two Forms; the Two Forms complete each other and the Three Powers stand…”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:787 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), identifies this as a short anonymous nèidān treatise. The text is divided into three sections (piān 篇); at the end is a poem in eleven couplets, “Song on the True and False [Methods] of the Great Alchemical Elixir of Gold and Crystal, Lead and Mercury, Dragon and Tiger.” This poem appears to have been copied from another alchemical song by Qiánzhēn zǐ 潛真子, which figures in [[KR5a0238|DZ 237 Huándān xiǎnmiào tōngyōu jí]] under the title Xuǎnmiào tōngyōu shī 顯妙通幽詩 (compare the present text 5a–b with DZ 237 2b–3b). Schipper observes that gold and crystal here are symbolic homologues of other alchemical ingredients such as lead (qiān 鉛) and quicksilver (hǒng 汞); the true ingredients do not exist outside the human body. The practice, explained in allegorical terms, has distinct sexual overtones, its aim being to “return the crystal [i.e., the energy of the kidneys] in order to repair the brain” (huánjīng bǔnǎo 還晶補腦, 4b) — a transparent disguise of the “return of the sperm” (huánjīng 還精) widely attested in the sexual arts of Daoism. The frontmatter brackets composition in the Northern Sòng on the strength of the citation patterns and the relative chronology with DZ 237, which post-dates DZ 238 Yuányáng zǐ jīnyè jí but precedes the present text.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Jinjing lun,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 787. On huánjīng bǔnǎo in the Daoist tradition see Douglas Wile, Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics, Including Women’s Solo Meditation Texts (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992); Robert van Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China (Leiden: Brill, 1961).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0237
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 787.