Huándān gējué 還丹歌訣
Songs and Oral Formulas on the Cyclically Transformed Elixir
compiled by 元陽子 (編, hào Yuányáng zǐ; late-Táng / Five-Dynasties or later)
About the work
A two-juan collection of alchemical poems and koujue 口訣 (oral formulas), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 265 / CT 265 = TC 2:854), 洞真部 方法類. The collection is attributed in the heading to Yuányáng zǐ 元陽子, the author or recipient of [[KR5a0238|DZ 238 Yuányáng zǐ jīnyè jí]] and [[KR5a0240|DZ 239 Huándān jīnyè gē zhù]] — a late-Táng / Five-Dynasties Daoist alchemist also known by the title Tōngxuán xiānshēng 通玄先生. Since the first poem in the present collection mentions Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓 (1.2a), Northern-Sòng (960–1127) is the earliest possible date for the compilation in its present form, even though many of the constituent poems are demonstrably earlier. Many of the poems can be located in earlier Five-Dynasties or early-Sòng works: 1.12b–17b corresponds passage-for-passage to portions of [[KR5d0926|Dà huándān zhàojiàn]] 10a, 16b, 17a, and 22b; part of the Dòu zhēnrén 竇真人 poem at 1.9b is quoted in [[KR5a0278|Jīnyè huándān bǎiwèn jué]] 10b; the long poem in juan 2 also appears in [[KR5a0238|Yuányáng zǐ jīnyè jí]] 1a–15b with a different commentary. The collection is thus a Sòng-period anthology of older alchemical poetic materials assembled (or transmitted) under the hào of Yuányáng zǐ.
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:854 (§3.A.5, Alchemy), describes the Huándān gējué as a Sòng-period (or later) compilation of alchemical poems attributed to Yuányáng zǐ. Its parallel-text relations with [[KR5d0926|DZ 926 Dà huándān zhàojiàn]], [[KR5a0238|DZ 238 Yuányáng zǐ jīnyè jí]], [[KR5a0278|DZ 266 Jīnyè huándān bǎiwèn jué]], and other early huándān corpora establish it firmly within the late-Táng-through-Sòng huándān literature. The mention of Lǚ Dòngbīn — who as a culted figure does not become prominent in alchemical literature until the Sòng — provides the terminus post quem of 960. Whether all the poems should be regarded as alchemical (waidan) or inner-alchemical (nèidān) depends on the individual piece; the corpus straddles the Sòng-period boundary at which waidan poetic vocabulary was being repurposed for nèidān contemplative practice. The frontmatter brackets composition broadly to the Sòng (960–1279).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Huandan gejue,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 854. On the huándān poetic corpus and the waidan-to-nèidān transition: Fabrizio Pregadio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2006); Isabelle Robinet, “Original Contributions of Neidan to Taoism and Chinese Thought,” in Livia Kohn ed., Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), 297–330; Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage and the Transformation of Medieval Daoism” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0277
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 854.