Zhìzhēn zǐ lónghǔ dàdān shī 至真子龍虎大丹詩
Poems on the Great Elixir of the Dragon and the Tiger, by Master Zhìzhēn
by 周方 (撰, Zhōu Fāng, zì Guīyī 歸一, hào Zhìzhēn zǐ 至真子, of Shàoshì shān 少室山, fl. 1026)
About the work
A one-juan collection of thirty-two alchemical poems with anonymous preface dated Tiānshèng 天聖 4, jiǔyuè jiǔrì (Double-Ninth) — i.e. 9 October 1026 — preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 269 / CT 269 = TC 2:799), 洞真部 方法類. The author Zhōu Fāng 周方 (zì Guīyī 歸一, hào Zhìzhēn zǐ 至真子) is described in the preface as a hermit of Shàoshì shān 少室山 (the western peak of the Sōngshān 嵩山 complex in Hénán), who in unofficial dress (bùyī 布衣) wandered the famous mountains, met enlightened masters in the JīngLuò 京洛 area, and there received the jīndān 金丹 transmission. The poems were presented to the Sòng emperor by an official styled simply LǚTiān 呂天 — most likely Lǚ Tiānjì 呂天驥, whose official title matches exactly the one given here, and who is independently attested as having presented another alchemical text to the throne between 1111 and 1117 (cf. [[KR5d0905|Cāntóng qì wǔ xiānglèi bìyào]] 1a). According to the preface, the elixir of the present poems is “not based on plants or minerals” (fēi jīnshí zhī lèi, fēi cǎomù zhī míng 非金石之類，非草木之名); the text of the poems in general is sufficiently allegorical that it could apply to either waidan 外丹 or nèidān 內丹, and the work stands at the literary boundary between the two — a key transitional document for the early-Sòng alchemical poetic tradition.
Prefaces
The anonymous preface (paraphrased and partly rendered): “Of Shàoshì shān 少室山, recluse in unofficial dress, [is the man] surnamed Zhōu, given name Fāng, zì Guīyī 歸一, Dào-style Zhìzhēn zǐ. Master Zhōu has often pored over the immortal-scriptures, ever pursuing their secret import, exploring the gates of essence and qì, the pivot of refining the breath, longing for his body to merge with the void and his mind to forget the dust-realm. He has wandered through many commandments, traversed many famous mountains; in the JīngLuò 京洛 region he chanced on lofty masters from whom he received transmission. They opened to him the secret subtlety: split the source-root of the jade-water, sundered the ancestral mass of the gold-elixir, pointed out the marvellous workings of water-tiger and fire-dragon, the formulas of earth-metal-fire-water, made plain the rule of the inversion of qián 乾 and kūn 坤, and disclosed the periods that govern the round of day and night. Master Zhōu, having heard, his heart overjoyed, his mind exulting, then chose a famed mountain and a true and excellent place; took qián and kūn for his cauldron, Heaven and Earth for his stove, kǎn 坎 and lí 離 for the source of supreme medicine, lead and mercury for the body of the Great Elixir; relied on the four images and the three powers; wù and jǐ completed their true form; the river-chariot transported the right substance; and so the jīndān was made. The Lord of Huái 淮王, having met it, refined the qiūshí 秋石 and ascended to Heaven with his whole household; the August Yellow Emperor, having got it, gathered the jīnhuá 金華 and rode the dragon up to the Hàn 漢. This elixir is not of the kind of metal or stone, nor any plant or tree, nor a sānfēng shàonǚ 三峯少女 method nor any of the hundred fúqì 服氣 arts; those are all the products of failing to meet a true master, of finding mercury without finding lead or seeing water without seeing fire. … Now I have briefly set out the gist, broached the true mechanism, sketched its broad net, that I may transmit it to those of like aspiration. Tiānshèng 4, bǐngyín year, ninth month, ninth day. So prefaced.” Then follow the thirty-two poems, in seven-character regulated verse.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:799 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), notes the precisely datable 1026 preface and the fact that the text was presented to the throne by an official LǚTiān 呂天, whose title — once one supplies the missing character jì 驥 — matches that of Lǚ Tiānjì 呂天驥, also attested presenting alchemical material to the Sòng court between 1111 and 1117. The poems’ double-pertinence to waidan and nèidān is characteristic of the early-eleventh-century moment when the operative-alchemical vocabulary was being progressively interiorised. The frontmatter sets composition firmly in the Tiānshèng bǐngyín (1026) of the preface.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Zhizhen zi longhu dadan shi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 799. On early-Sòng alchemical poetry and the waidan-to-nèidān transition: Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste (Paris: Cerf, 1995); Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage and the Transformation of Medieval Daoism” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003); Fabrizio Pregadio ed., The Encyclopedia of Taoism (London: Routledge, 2008), s.v. “Longhu” and “Waidan / Neidan.”
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0281
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 799.