Pòmí zhèngdào gē 破迷正道歌
Song for Dispelling Doubts Concerning the Correct Path
attributed to 鍾離權 (Zhōnglí Quán, hào Zhèngyáng zhēnrén 正陽真人)
About the work
A short nèidān 內丹 poem in seven-character verse in one juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 270 / CT 270 = TC 2:832–833), 洞真部 眾術類. The poem is attributed to the legendary Zhōnglí Quán 鍾離權 (Zhèngyáng zhēnrén 正陽真人), one of the two patriarchs of the ZhōngLǚ 鍾呂 inner-alchemical lineage. Despite its attribution, the poem is not quoted in its present form in any earlier Sòng work; the earliest mention of a Pòmí gēlùn 破迷歌論 by Zhōnglí Quán is in [[KR5d0275|Sānjí zhīmìng quántǐ]] 15b (ca. 1250), but in the absence of a quotation it cannot be confirmed that the title there refers to the present poem. During the Yuán dynasty (1279–1368), a different poem also circulated under the title Zhèngyáng wēng zhīmí gē 正陽翁指迷歌 (cf. [[KR5d1067|Shàngyáng zǐ jīndān dàyào]] 9.6a), so multiple poems with similar titles were in circulation. There exist further variant versions even of the present poem (cf. 1b of the present text and [[KR5d0281|Bǎoyī zǐ Sānfēng lǎorén dānjué]] 11b); [[KR5b0139|DZ 139 Tàishàng dòngzhēn níngshén xiūxíng jīngjué]] preserves a reduced version with significant variants. The poem’s vocabulary and imagery are based on the Wùzhēn piān 悟真篇 KR5a0268, with a style resembling that of Chén Níwán 陳泥丸 (cf. [[KR5d1090|Cuìxū piān]]); its underlying ideas show marked influence of Chán 禪 Buddhism. The poem polemically rejects many of the popular nèidān techniques described in other texts attributed to Zhōnglí Quán and Lǚ Dòngbīn, suggesting that its actual author was affiliated with the Wùzhēn piān school. The alchemical process described is accomplished spontaneously upon the discovery and circulation of the xiāntiān zhī qì 先天之氣 (“the qì of Former Heaven”).
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:832–833 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), dates the poem to the mid-eleventh century on the strength of (i) its modelling on a Zhōnglí-attributed poem that was very much in vogue during the twelfth century, but which it polemically critiques (cf. 1a and [[KR5a0268|Wùzhēn piān, Xiūzhēn shíshū]] 28.5b); (ii) its dependence on Wùzhēn piān (1075) terminology; (iii) the absence of pre-Northern-Sòng quotation in its present form; (iv) its polemic against rival Zhōng-Lǚ-attributed nèidān programmes, locating it within the Sòng-period sectarian rivalry of the Southern lineage. The pseudepigraphic attribution to Zhōnglí Quán places it within the broader ZhōngLǚ apocryphal corpus; cf. [[KR5a0247|DZ 246 Xīshān qúnxiān huìzhēn jì]] and [[KR5a0266|DZ 263c ZhōngLǚ chuándào jí]]. Frontmatter brackets composition broadly in mid-Northern-Sòng, post-Wùzhēn piān.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Pomi zhengdao ge,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 832–833. On the Zhōng-Lǚ pseudepigraphic corpus: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, Procédés secrets du joyau magique: Traité d’alchimie taoïste du XIe siècle (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1984); on the Southern-lineage nèidān polemical tradition: 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 KR5a0282
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 832–833.