Xiūzhēn shíshū Shàngqīng jí 修真十書上清集
Collected Works Written at the Shàngqīng 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
An eight-juan anthology of writings by Bái Yùchán 白玉蟾, juan 37–44 of the Xiūzhēn shíshū 修真十書, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 263g / CT 263.37 = TC 2:934–935), 洞真部 方法類. Despite its title, only the first piece — Yóuxiān yán jì 遊仙巖記 (37.1a–2a) — is explicitly placed at the Shàngqīng gōng 上清宮 on Lónghǔ shān 龍虎山 (Jiāngxī); the remainder were written at, or addressed to friends on, Wǔyí shān 武夷山 (Fújiàn), with two exceptions: the third piece Zhúyún táng jì 竹雲堂記 (37.4a–7b), composed when Bái visited the Zhúyún 竹雲 hall on Qiānshān 鉛山 (Jiāngxī), and a poem written at Lúshān 廬山 (39.7b). Only four of the texts give explicit dates (37.4a, 7a; 39.3a, 10b), the latest being 1216; another piece, the Kuàihuó gē 快活歌 (39.4b), is dated 1218 in [[KR5c1309|Hǎiqióng chuándào jí]]. The collection bundles inscriptions and jì 記-records of visits to friends’ retreats (juan 37); poems dedicated to friends, artists, mountains, halls, and pavilions (juan 38); seven gē 歌-songs rich in autobiographical detail (juan 39), including the Yúnyóu gē 雲遊歌, the Kuàihuó gē, and the Bìjǐng réndì gē 必竟人地歌 in which Bái claims to have received instruction from Chén Níwán 陳泥丸 in 1205; jué jù 絕句 in seven-character lines on the scenery, temples, and retreats of Wǔyí shān, plus poems to friends (juan 40); cí-lyrics (juan 41); a fù-rhapsody on the name of a friend’s hermitage, a preface to a medical book, and three essays on the difficulties of sleep and Dào practice (juan 42); inscriptions and eulogies (juan 43); and short memorials (cí 詞, shūyǔ 疏語; juan 44). The Shàngqīng jí was already widely cited in early-Yuán Cāntóng qì exegesis (e.g. [[KR5d1004|Zhōuyì cāntóng qì fāhuī]] 5.5a).
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:934–935 (§3.A.7, Collectanea), dates the Shàngqīng jí “after 1218” on the strength of the dating of the Kuàihuó gē in [[KR5c1309|Hǎiqióng chuándào jí]] 12b and preface 1a. Within Bái’s three Xiūzhēn shíshū anthologies, the Shàngqīng jí is the middle in date — between the earlier Wǔyí jí (ca. 1216, KR5a0271) and the later Yùlóng jí (post-1225, KR5a0269). The frontmatter brackets composition ca. 1218–1229.
Translations and research
No full translation. Selected pieces in Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage and the Transformation of Medieval Daoism” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003), and Judith Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley: IEAS, 1987), 173–179. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Shangqing ji,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7, 934–935. On Bái Yùchán’s life and authorship: Wáng Lì-míng, Bái Yùchán xuéshù sīxiǎng yánjiū (Chéngdū: Bā-Shǔ shūshè, 2010); Hà Thúc Hoan and Pierre Marsone studies on Southern-Sòng nèidān.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0270
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7, 934–935.