Xiūzhēn shíshū Yùlóng jí 修真十書玉隆集
Collected Works Written at the Yùlóng Temple, from the “Ten Books on Cultivating Perfection”
by 白玉蟾 (撰, 1194–1229; born Gě Chánggēng 葛長庚, hào Hǎiqióng zǐ 海瓊子)
About the work
A six-juan collection of writings by the fifth Southern-Lineage (Nánzōng 南宗) patriarch Bái Yùchán 白玉蟾, juan 31–36 of the Xiūzhēn shíshū 修真十書, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 263f / CT 263.31 = TC 2:933–934), 洞真部 方法類. Western scholarship calls the work Tulong ji 玉隆集 (alt. romanizations Yùlóng jí); the title refers to the Yùlóng gōng 玉隆宮 on Xīshān 西山 in Jiāngxī, the Sòng-period centre of the cult of Xǔ Xùn 許遜 (Xǔ tàishǐ zhēnjūn 許太史真君), promoted from Yùlóng guàn 玉隆觀 (1008–1060) to gōng 宮 in 1116 (cf. 34.1b, 3a). According to an inscription at 31.2b, by the date of compilation Bái had visited Xīshān three times since 1218; the latest internal date is 1220 (31.3b), but a note on 33.3a reads “Ruìzhōu” 瑞州 in place of the older “Yúnzhōu” 筠州 — a renaming officially decreed in 1225 to avoid the personal name of Sòng Lǐzōng 理宗 — so the compilation must postdate 1225. The collection comprises (juan 31) inscriptions on halls and temples — only the first written at the Yùlóng gōng, the rest concerning Gézào shān 閣皂山 — followed by four poems addressed to friends; (juan 32–36) the earliest extant biographies of Xǔ Xùn, his eleven disciples, and the teachers of the Xiàodào 孝道 school (the “Way of Filial Piety”), richly annotated by Bái. All subsequent biographies of Xǔ Xùn — including those embedded in [[KR5b0440|DZ 440 Xǔ tàishǐ zhēnjūn túzhuàn]], [[KR5b0447|DZ 447 Xǔ zhēnjūn xiānzhuàn]], and [[KR5b0448|DZ 448 Xīshān Xǔ zhēnrén bāshíwǔ huà lù]] — derive from Bái’s recension here.
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:933–934 (§3.A.7, Collectanea), establishes the post-1225 dating from the Yúnzhōu / Ruìzhōu evidence. The Yùlóng jí is one of the three Bái Yùchán anthologies preserved within the Xiūzhēn shíshū — alongside the Shàngqīng jí [[KR5a0270|Xiūzhēn shíshū 37–44, ca. 1218] and the Wǔyí jí [[KR5a0271|Xiūzhēn shíshū 45–52, ca. 1216] — and the only one in which the focus shifts from inner-alchemical doctrine and lyric cí to the hagiographical and inscriptional reconstruction of the Xǔ Xùn cult and the Jìngmíng zhōngxiào dào 淨明忠孝道 movement. The frontmatter brackets composition between the post-1225 terminus established by the Ruìzhōu evidence and Bái’s death in 1229.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Yulong ji,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7, 933–934. On Bái Yùchán’s life and oeuvre: Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage and the Transformation of Medieval Daoism” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003); Judith Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley: IEAS, 1987), 173–179. On the Xǔ Xùn / Jìng-míng tradition: Akizuki Kan’ei, Chūgoku kinsei dōkyō no keisei: Jōmyōdō no kisoteki kenkyū (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1978).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0269
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7, 933–934.