Xiūzhēn shíshū zázhù zhǐxuán piān 修真十書雜著指玄篇
Ten Books on the Cultivation of Truth: Miscellaneous Writings Pointing to the Mystery
by 白玉蟾 (撰, hào Hǎiqióngzǐ 海瓊子, 1194–1229) and others
About the work
The first eight juan of the comprehensive Southern-lineage Xiūzhēn shíshū 修真十書 (“Ten Books on the Cultivation of Truth”), the standard collected edition of Nánzōng 南宗 nèidān 內丹 literature, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0263a / CT 263a, juan 1–8 = TC 262 part 1), 洞真部 方法類. The eight juan of the present block carry the section-title Zázhù zhǐxuán piān 雜著指玄篇 (“Miscellaneous Writings Pointing to the Mystery”) and are attributed primarily to Bái Yùchán 白玉蟾 (born Gě Chánggēng 葛長庚, 1194–1229), the Fifth Patriarch of the Southern Lineage and disciple of Chén Nán 陳楠. The section assembles treatises and poems by Bái Yùchán, his teachers, and his disciples on the subject of inner alchemy. Most of the constituent texts can also be located elsewhere in the canon: juan 1 contains Bó xiānshēng jīndān huǒhòu tú 白先生金丹火候圖 (with explanations by Bái’s disciples; cf. [[KR5a1309|DZ 1309 Hǎiqióng chuándàojì]]); juan 2 the Huányuán piān 還元篇 (cf. DZ 1091); juan 3 the Zǐtíng jīng 紫庭經 (cf. [[KR5a1090|DZ 1090 Cuìxū piān]]) and a Yīnfú suǒ 陰符鎖 condensed from DZ 119; juan 4 Xiūxiān biànhuò lùn 修仙辯惑論, Gǔshén bùsǐ lùn 谷神不死論, Yīnyáng shēngjiàng lùn 陰陽升降論, Dānfáng fǎyǔ 丹房法語; juan 5 Jīndān sìbǎi zì 金丹四百字 (cf. DZ 1081); juan 6 Xiè Zhāng Zǐyáng shū 謝張紫陽書 (Bái’s letter of thanks to Zhāng Bóduān); juan 7 poems ascribed to Xǔ Jǐngyáng 許旌陽 and Zhōnglí Quán 鍾離權, plus Dānsuǐ gē 丹髓歌 (by Xuē Dàoguāng 薛道光); juan 8 Wèishēng gē 衛生歌 by Xīshān xiānshēng 西山先生.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The eight juan open directly with the title-page and proceed through the constituent texts; the longer Xiūzhēn shíshū in its complete form (38 juan = DZ 263) does carry separate prefaces for several of its component works, but the _000.txt frontmatter file of the present split contains only the bibliographic header.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:839–840 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), establishes that the Zázhù zhǐxuán piān is listed in the Qiānqīngtáng shūmù 千頃堂書目 16.25a as Bái Yùchán zhǐxuán piān 白玉蟾指玄篇 in eight juan. One of the texts in the present work is dated 1244 (1.10a), suggesting some component pieces were added after Bái’s death in 1229. The Zázhù zhǐxuán piān is, however, not included in Yú Yǎn’s 俞琰 (fl. 1284) list of Bái Yùchán’s works (cf. Xīshàng fútán 西上拂談 2.7b). The Dàoyán nèiwài bìjué 道言內外祕訣 contains a related miscellany also under the name Zǐqīng [Bái Yùchán] zhǐxuán jí 紫清指玄集, and a parallel collection appears in [[KR5x1219|Dàozàng jīnghuá lù]] (Shūmù lèibiān 53.24074). The frontmatter brackets composition 1218 (Bái’s adoption of his Hǎiqióng hào) to 1244 (the latest internal date), with most content composed during Bái’s active years 1218–1229 and a few items added by his disciples after his death. In the Daoist canon’s own internal organisation, the present KR5a0264 corresponds to the first portion of DZ 263 Xiūzhēn shíshū, which is then followed in the same canon-fascicule by KR5a0265 Jīndān dàchéng jí 金丹大成集 (juan 9–13), [[KR5a0266|Zázhù jiéjiào piān]] 雜著捷徑篇 (juan 14–24), [[KR5a0267|Sānzhù wùzhēn piān]] 三註悟真篇 (juan 25–34), and so on, the whole forming the SòngYuán Nánzōng 南宗 corpus.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Zazhu zhixuan pian,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 839–840. On Bái Yùchán: Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage and the Transformation of Medieval China” (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania 2003); Judith Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature: Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley 1987), 173–179; Lowell Skar, “Bai Yuchan’s Inner Alchemical Songs” in Livia Kohn (ed.), Daoism Handbook (Leiden: Brill, 2000); on the Southern Lineage: Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste (Paris: Cerf, 1995).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0264
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 839–840.