Táo zhēnrén nèidān fù 陶真人內丹賦
Ode on the Inner Elixir of the Perfected Táo
attributed to 陶植 (attributed, d. 825) with anonymous commentary
About the work
A short alchemical fù 賦 (rhapsody) in one juan (18 folios) attributed to the mid-Táng adept Táo Zhí 陶植 (d. 825), with an anonymous prose commentary (zhù 注), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0259 / CT 259 = TC 258), 洞真部 方法類. The poem itself is a sequence of metaphor-dense alchemical couplets opening with Dào fǎ zìrán 道法自然 (“the Way models itself on the spontaneous”) and ranging across the standard images of TángSòng alchemy: qián 乾 and kūn 坤 as crucible and furnace, the eight trigrams as the rhythmic apparatus of fire-phasing, lead and mercury as the only legitimate ingredients, qīnglóng 青龍 (Green Dragon, mercury) and báihǔ 白虎 (White Tiger, lead) as the yáng 陽 and yīn 陰 polarities, the cycle of the twenty-eight lunar mansions, and the inversion of the Five Phases. The closing lines describe the transmutation of body to perfected immortal — cǎixī xī yúnyān 水激雲煙 (“water striking, cloud and smoke”). The commentary, far longer than the poem itself, explicates each line with profuse quotation from contemporary alchemical authorities and Daoist classics: it cites Lǐ Chéng 李澄, the Cāntóng qì 參同契 of Wèi Bóyáng 魏伯陽, the Tōngxuán lùn 通玄論, the alchemist Lǐ Chúnfēng 李淳風 on the Northern Dipper, Cuī Hào 崔晧山 (Cuī Xī fán), Guō zhēnrén 郭真人, Hán Kāngbó 韓康伯, Wú Yún 吳筠 — and treats the text as a synthesis bridging external and inner alchemy.
Prefaces
The poem itself opens with a bìng xù 并序 (“with preface”) in which the author lays out the cosmological framework of the work: “Man originally takes form by means of the qì 氣 of the Five Phases, and is replenished by the essence (jīng 精) of the Four Symbols. By having rivers and seas dry up, his life-span is extended; by the waning of sun and moon, his spirit grows the more vigorous. Therefore the sages set right the gold and steady the jade, refine stone and patch heaven, regulate the yīn and the yáng and pay reverence to the sun and moon. The Dragon-and-Tiger Great Elixir (lónghǔ dàdān 龍虎大丹) is the position of mutual coming-and-going of north and south, the original two-and-three; east and west are its names of going-out and coming-in. Its motions reduce to one, while green, red, white, and black each fix the four directions; above and below all penetrate, hub-spoking the eight quarters. The positions are made of the Five Emperors; the Three Powers (sāncái 三才) erect the symbols; the myriad things take form. The sixty-four hexagrams’ lines and stations correspond to the twenty-eight lunar mansions; their reckoning resides within the seventy-two divisions of the year and runs through the three hundred and sixty days, beginning from the Yuányáng 元陽 [the cosmic Spring solstice] and ending at Huìlà 晦臘 [the New Year’s Eve]…” The preface continues with technical guidance on the recognition of the trigram-symbols, the cycle of yīn-yáng, the inversion of the Five Phases, the regulation of fire-phasing — all addressed to the zhìshì 志士, the “man of will.” It closes with a deferential request to “the worthies who consider this in detail, that they not deem it a slander upon the divine Way,” and explains that the commentary that follows the poem (“notes appended to bring forth the meaning”) was added because of the poem’s allusiveness.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:404–405 (§2.A.5, Alchemy), establishes that the work is a short nèidān poem ascribed to Táo Zhí 陶植 (d. 825) with an anonymous commentary. The poem has been known under various titles since the early Sòng (960–1279). [[KR5a0266|DZ 266 Jīnyè huándān bǎiwèn jué]] 22b cites it as Jīndān zhì lùn 金丹至論, and the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 9.21a lists a Jīndān fù 金丹賦. Juan 1 of [[KR5a0262|DZ 261 Jīndān fù]] contains the same poem with a commentary of much later date (Yuán-period). A comparison of the two recensions shows many variants, sometimes with significantly different meanings (cf. 8a of the present text with 19b of DZ 261). The poem in DZ 259 is much shorter than that in DZ 261 (cf. DZ 261 10b–11a, 19a, 30a, 37a–45a), but only one line of DZ 259 is missing in DZ 261. It is difficult to ascertain which represents the more authentic version. The commentary, much later than the poem, draws extensively on late Táng / Five Dynasties alchemical works: it quotes [[KR5a0937|DZ 937 Dà huándān jīnhǔ bólóng lùn]] 3a (at 7b) and [[KR5a0922|DZ 922 Huánjīn shù]] 7b (at 17a), the latter quotation beginning “Mr. Táo says…” — strong evidence that the commentary was not written by Táo Zhí himself. The frontmatter brackets composition 825 (Táo’s death-date) to 960 (the early Sòng terminus ante quem set by the Chóngwén zǒngmù), with a likely Five Dynasties date for the commentary.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Tao zhenren neidan fu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.5, 404–405. On the Táng-Sòng transition from waidan to nèidān: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, Procédés secrets du Joyau magique: Traité d’alchimie taoïste du XIe siècle (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1984); Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste (Paris: Cerf, 1995); Fabrizio Pregadio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (Stanford 2006).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0260
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.5, 404–405.