Tàiwēi língshū zǐwén lánggān huádān shénzhēn shàngjīng 太微靈書紫文琅玕華丹神真上經
Superior Scripture of the Divine Truth of the Lánggān Flower-Elixir, in Purple Writ from the Numinous Book of the Tàiwēi Heaven
anonymous
About the work
A short Shàngqīng 上清 alchemical scripture in one juan (8 folios), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0255 / CT 255 = TC 254), 洞真部 方法類. The title refers to the lánggān 琅玕, a mythical jewelled tree on Mount Kūnlún 崑崙 whose fruit is the heavenly archetype of the elixir. The work belongs to the Lǐngshū zǐwén 靈書紫文 group of Shàngqīng scriptures (originally a single work later split into several texts: cf. DZ 639, DZ 179 Tàiwēi língshū zǐwén xiānjī zhēnjì shàngjīng, DZ 442 Shàngqīng hòushèng dàojūn lièjì; the rules of transmission given here apply to all of them). The text gives a detailed alchemical recipe of fourteen ingredients commonly used in Daoist waidan recipes (cinnabar, orpiment, realgar, white quartz, malachite, amethyst, antimony, saltpetre, sulphur, yángqǐshí 陽起石, mica, jīnyáshí 金牙石, white lead, halite, cíhuáng 雌黃 — listed under their esoteric Shàngqīng aliases such as Jiànglíng zhū-er 絳陵朱兒 and Dānshān rìhún 丹山日魂). The recipe involves preparing two earthenware crucibles sealed with a special clay (shén ní 神泥) compounded of oyster shell, ant-hill earth, horse and goat hair, talc, and red ochre, kneaded with three years of fermented vinegar. The crucibles are then fired in a charcoal furnace for one hundred days; on the first round of firing they yield the Lánggān huádān 琅玕華丹 (“Lánggān Flower-Elixir”); on a further hundred days the Huángshuǐ yuèhuá 黃水月華 (“Yellow Water Moon-Flower”); and on a third hundred days the Huíshuǐ yùjīng 廻水玉精 (“Returning-Water Jade Essence”), which contains three pearls “as large as a chicken’s egg.” Detailed instructions are also given for using the elixir to grow huánjiāng 鐶剛 trees and fènglǎo zhī 鳳腦芝 mushrooms (forms of the tàijí yǐnzhī 太極隱芝 “Hidden Mushroom of the Great Ultimate”) in earth-pits. The closing rules of transmission limit the work to three transmissions in seven hundred years.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the manufacture of the shén ní 神泥 sealing-clay.
Abstract
Isabelle Robinet, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:151–152 (§1.B.2, Shàngqīng), establishes that the work is part of the Lǐngshū zǐwén 靈書紫文 group; the rules of transmission given on 7b–8a apply to all the texts in the group. They derive from the original Shàngqīng revelation to Yáng Xī (364–370). The fourteen-ingredient elixir recipe contains substances commonly used in Taoist alchemical recipes; their esoteric names correspond — with a single exception — to those used in another Shàngqīng recipe at [[KR5a1376|DZ 1376 Shàngqīng tàishàng dìjūn jiǔzhēn zhōngjīng]] 2.9b–11b. The frontmatter brackets composition within the Eastern Jìn (317–420), the period of the original Shàngqīng revelation; the text was already complete by the time of the Wúshàng bìyào 無上祕要 (late sixth century).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Isabelle Robinet, “Taiwei lingshu ziwen langgan huadan shenzhen shangjing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.2, 151–152. Foundational study: Michel Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” in Facets of Taoism (New Haven 1979), 134–136. Standard study of the Shàngqīng tradition: Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984), 2 vols.; for context on Shàngqīng waidan, Fabrizio Pregadio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (Stanford 2006).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0256
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.2, 151–152.