Xiūzhēn shíshū Huángtíng wàijǐng yùjīng zhù 修真十書黃庭外景玉經注
Commentary on the Jade Scripture of the Outer Landscape of the Yellow Court, from the “Ten Books on Cultivating Perfection”
by 白履忠 (註, Bái Lǚzhōng, hào Liángqiū zǐ 梁丘子, fl. 722–729)
About the work
A three-juan commentary by Bái Lǚzhōng 白履忠 on the Tàishàng huángtíng wàijǐng yùjīng 太上黃庭外景玉經 KR5b0016, juan 58–60 of the Xiūzhēn shíshū 修真十書, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 263l / CT 263.58 = TC 1:348), 洞真部 方法類 — and the only extant edition of this commentary in the Daozang. The work is, in Schipper’s characterization, a sequel to Bái’s [[KR5a0274|Huángtíng nèijǐng yùjīng zhù]] (juan 55–57, parallel DZ 402): it bases most of its interpretations on the system of the Nèijǐng commentary, with the consequence that all major dwellings of the gods are placed in the head (e.g. the “marvellous root” línggēn 靈根 is identified with the tongue at 58.2b), rather than in the lower belly and sexual organs as the original meaning of the Wàijǐng — a slightly different and arguably older recension of the Huángtíng — appears to indicate. Among the visceral and bodily deities, Lǎozǐ 老子 is especially prominent; the whole commentary can be read as a guide to visualising an Inner Old Master (nèi Lǎojūn 內老君). The text is one of the small group of Táng commentaries on the Wàijǐng (others: [[KR5b0087|DZ 403 Huángtíng nèiwài yùjīng jīngjiě]], a fragment of Jiāng Shènxiù’s 蔣慎修 ten-juan work).
Prefaces
No preface in the source. (Bái Lǚzhōng’s prefatory matter for the Wàijǐng commentary is not preserved in the present recension; it may have shared the merged-preface arrangement of the parallel Nèijǐng commentary, but no autograph preface for the Wàijǐng commentary survives.)
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:348 (§2.A.4, Yǎngshēng), characterises Bái Lǚzhōng’s Wàijǐng commentary as effectively a sequel to his Nèijǐng commentary — extending the system of the latter to the older and shorter Wàijǐng yùjīng and in the process tilting the Wàijǐng’s body-cosmology upwards (towards the head) to harmonise with the elaborate cephalic pantheon of the Nèijǐng. The interpretive prominence given to Lǎozǐ as nèi Lǎojūn — visualisable in the upper palace — situates the work within the broader Táng pattern of cephalic visualisation. The commentary is preserved only in the present Xiūzhēn shíshū recension; it is the principal and indispensable witness to the Liángqiū zǐ exegetical programme on the Wàijǐng. The frontmatter brackets composition to Bái’s documented period of activity (722–729) — that is, contemporary with or slightly later than his Nèijǐng commentary.
Translations and research
The Wàijǐng commentary is partially translated and discussed in Kristofer Schipper, Concordance du Houang-t’ing king: Nei-king et Wai-king (Paris: EFEO, 1975) — the standard reference work on both the Nèijǐng and Wàijǐng recensions of the Huángtíng. See also Paul Kroll, “Body Gods and Inner Vision: The Scripture of the Yellow Court,” in Donald Lopez ed., Religions of China in Practice (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996), 149–55. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Huangting waijing yujing zhu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.4, 348. On the textual stratigraphy of the Huángtíng corpus and the nèi/wài relationship: Kristofer Schipper, “Le Calendrier de Jade — note sur le Laozi zhongjing,” Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens 125–126 (1979), 75–80; Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: EFEO, 1984), passim.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0275
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.4, 348.