Huándān xiǎnmiào tōngyōu jí 還丹顯妙通幽集
Collection Revealing the Marvels and Penetrating the Arcana of the Cyclically Transformed Elixir
related (述) by 潛真子 (Qiánzhēn zǐ, of Mount Shàoshì)
About the work
A Northern-Sòng nèidān 內丹 anthology of eleven folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0237 / CT 237 = TC 236), 洞真部 方法類. The collection comprises (i) Qiánzhēn zǐ’s own thirty-quatrain poem-cycle, Xuǎnmiào tōngyōu shī 顯妙通幽詩, on the various phases of the alchemical process, framed as nine numbered zhuǎn 轉 (“turnings, cycles”) with a sequence of further quatrains rounding out the cycle; (ii) the Zǐyān zhēnrén jiě dàdān sòng 紫煙真人解大丹頌 (“Exegetical Hymn of the Zhēnrén of Purple Smoke on the Great Elixir”), a series of further quatrains on the same theme; and (iii) two presentations of the famous Qín yuán chūn 沁園春 cí-lyric attributed to Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓 — the first with an anonymous commentary, the second with a versified line-by-line commentary attributed to Hé Xiāngū 何仙姑 (“the Immortal Maiden Hé”), titled Hé Xiāngū sòng Lǚ zhēnrén Qínyuán chūn 何仙姑頌呂真人沁園春.
Prefaces
Qiánzhēn zǐ’s own preface (1a–2a): “All those who give their hearts to the elixir-stove, who labour their thoughts on the Yellow Sprout (huángyá 黃芽), without a clear understanding of lead and mercury, vainly waste their substance. Some go searching for the rime of the hundred grasses, hoping to make the controlling substance; others compound the matrix of the five alums, working endlessly for the transformation. They consume their years and months in vain, never reaching the meaning of lead and mercury. From my early adulthood I have always sought after men [of insight]; just past my thirtieth year I came upon the supreme Way. Once I had grasped the meaning of the Xīyí 希夷 (the indistinct-and-the-formless), I knew the huǎnghū 恍惚 (the radiance and obscurity)… A man of penetrating insight then said to me: ‘The Dragon and the Tiger are gold and water; gold and water are lead and mercury; lead and mercury are yīn and yáng; yīn and yáng are Kǎn and Lí; Kǎn and Lí are husband and wife; husband and wife are man and woman. They begin from one source, and at the end take on different numbers — they truly come from one and have many names.’ I have observed that men go to the gēngxīn 庚辛 to seek the Tiger and to the jiǎyǐ 甲乙 to find the Dragon — without realising that the Dragon is in gēngxīn and the Tiger lives in jiǎyǐ… Daring not to refuse my modest gifts, in imitation of Yuányáng zǐ jīnyè jí I have composed thirty Xuǎnmiào tōngyōu poems, that those who follow may join with me as friends and verify them.”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:787 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), identifies the author as Shàoshìshān Qiánzhēn zǐ — “Master of the Hidden Truth from Mount Shàoshì,” in the Sōngshān 嵩山 range in Hénán, the location of the famous Shàolínsì — and otherwise unknown. The thirty-couplet poem-cycle describes the inner-alchemical process of meditation on the union of antithetical energies in the body. Coming after [[KR5a0239|DZ 238 Yuányáng zǐ jīnyè jí]] (to which Qiánzhēn zǐ alludes explicitly in his preface), but before [[KR5a0237|DZ 236 Jīnjīng lùn]] (which incorporates part of his poem under the title Xuǎnmiào tōngyōu shī), the present work falls in the Northern Sòng. The frontmatter brackets composition accordingly. On the Qínyuán chūn attributed to Lǚ Dòngbīn and its complex commentarial tradition, see Baldrian-Hussein’s discussion of [[KR5a0136|DZ 136 Lǚ Chúnyáng zhēnrén Qínyuán chūn dāncí zhùjiě]]. He Xiāngū’s pseudo-commentary here is one of the earliest attestations of her name in association with the Qínyuán chūn.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Huandan xianmiao tongyou ji,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 787–788. On the Qín-yuán chūn tradition: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Yüeh-yang and Lü Tung-pin’s Ch’in-yüan ch’un: A Study in Religious Literature,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 75 (1986): 133–170.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0238
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 787–788.