Xiūzhēn shíshū Wǔyí jí 修真十書武夷集
Collected Works Written on Mount Wǔyí, 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 Bái Yùchán’s 白玉蟾 writings composed on Wǔyí shān 武夷山 (Fújiàn), juan 45–52 of the Xiūzhēn shíshū 修真十書, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 263h / CT 263.45 = TC 2:935–936), 洞真部 方法類. Of the three Bái Yùchán anthologies in the Xiūzhēn shíshū, the Wǔyí jí preserves the earliest material — none of the internal dates is later than 1216 — and is uniquely characterized by its inclusion of liturgical and ritual material in the form of qǐ 啟 (“requests”) and biǎo 表 (“memorials”) composed by Bái at the Chóngyòu guàn 沖佑觀 (juan 47). The titles by which Bái refers to himself match those in [[KR5g1220|DZ 1220 Dàofǎ huìyuán]] 76.3a. The collection also contains material on other ritual activities — most notably a long text-with-commentary on praying for rain (46.6b–12a). About three quarters of the collection is verse: poems in various styles dedicated to friends and to specific temples; juan 46 includes eulogies on thirty-two Heavenly Masters from Zhāng Dàolíng 張道陵 to Zhāng Shǒuzhēn 張守真 (1136–1176); autobiographical material is preserved in the inscription on the rebuilding of the Zhízhǐ ān 直止庵 (45.1a–5a). The importance of the collection for the study of early-thirteenth-century Daoism lies in the wealth of its information on Sòng-dynasty Daoist temples, monasteries, and personalities.
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:935–936 (§3.A.7, Collectanea), establishes that the Wǔyí jí is the earliest of the three Xiūzhēn shíshū anthologies of Bái Yùchán’s writings, with internal dates not later than 1216. The work is the principal documentary source for Bái’s residency at the Chóngyòu guàn on Wǔyí shān during the years following his 1212 jiéyuán 結緣 (“forging connections”) with the Chén Níwán 陳泥丸 transmission. Its inclusion of explicit ritual material — qǐ and biǎo not found elsewhere in Bái’s works — provides one of the few extant glimpses of the ritual activities of the Southern-Lineage nèidān school’s leading figure, integrating nèidān doctrine with the active liturgical life of a major Sòng temple. The frontmatter brackets composition ca. 1212–1216, the early-residency phase of Bái’s Wǔyí period.
Translations and research
No full translation. Selected pieces translated and discussed in 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. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Wuyi ji,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7, 935–936. On the Wǔyí shān as a Daoist sacred site: Lǐ Yáng-zhèng, Dàojiào shǐ (1992); James Robson, Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2009).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0271
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7, 935–936.