Tàixuán Lǎngrán zǐ jìndào shī 太玄朗然子進道詩
Advancing in the Way: Poems by Master Tàixuán Lǎngrán
by 劉希岳 (撰, Liú Xīyuè, zì Xiùfēng 秀峰, hào Tàixuán Lǎngrán zǐ 太玄朗然子, fl. 988)
About the work
A short collection of thirty seven-character regulated juéjù 絕句 in one juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 271 / CT 271 = TC 2:932), 洞真部 眾術類. The poems are by Liú Xīyuè 劉希岳 (zì Xiùfēng 秀峰, hào Lǎngrán zǐ 朗然子), a Northern-Sòng Daoist who according to his autograph preface — dated Duāngǒng 端拱 wùzǐ (988) — composed the poems in the Tōngxuán guàn 通玄觀 in Luòjīng 洛京 (Luòyáng). A colophon (7a) records that Liú was the head of the temple, and that in 988 the temple was renamed Jìzhēn guàn 集真觀 in his honour by Emperor Zhēnzōng 真宗 of Sòng — a renaming presumably consequent upon Liú’s xījiě 屍解 (“corpse-liberation”) transfiguration. The poems were widely read in the twelfth century: they were inscribed in stone in Shàoxīng 紹興 1 (1131) of the Southern Sòng and again in 1150 under the Jīn dynasty, when they were also printed (cf. Bā qióngshì jīnshí bǔzhèng 八瓊室金石補正 123.18a–24a). The text in the present Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng and the Jīn inscription show only minor differences. The work also circulated under other titles: Shénxiān wùdào shī 神仙悟道詩 (per the colophon) and Lǎngrán zǐ shī 朗然子詩 (per Sòngshǐ 宋史 Yìwén zhì 4.5196). The thirty poems contain many allusions to qì-techniques practised in inner alchemy, alongside autobiographical reflection: the jìndào 進道 (“advancing in the Way”) theme provides the unifying frame.
Prefaces
Liú Xīyuè’s autograph preface (paraphrased and partly rendered): “I was born in residence at Zhāngshuǐ 漳水, of solid scholarly family, raised in the milder learning, and once put forth on the xiānggòng 鄉貢 examination. Sighing that the floating world rushes by like an arrow let loose, that the daylight pours away like a torrent in spate, I was unable to keep myself from withdrawing into the gate of the Mystery, lodging my heart in cap and brown gown. By external alchemy (wàidān 外丹) I penetrated the import of huǎnghū yǎomíng 恍惚杳冥; by inner qì (nèiqì 內氣) I made plain the wellsprings of the embryonic-breath returning current. After labour of fewer than ten years, men marvelled that I do not age, though my count of years has already exceeded five jì 紀 [= sixty]. Becoming aware of this, and of the spiritual penetration that had come upon me, I could no longer hold my tongue, but reverently chanted thirty stanzas, calling them the Lǎngrán zǐ shī, that I might offer them to my fellow-travellers in the Way and hope that they should turn their hearts. The sage’s intent is not far off — only people, of themselves, are perplexed and lost. Sòng Duāngǒng wùzǐ (988) year, last winter month, residing in the Luòjīng Tōngxuán guàn 洛京通玄觀, occasionally moved I have set them down. Lǎngrán zǐ inscribes.” (Note: in the Xiūzhēn shíshū / DZ source file, this preface is followed in the same juan by the related preface to [[KR5a0284|Liǎomíng piān]] of Mào Rìxīn 1168.)
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:932 (§3.A.7.b, Collected Works), notes the discrepancy between the colophon (which has Emperor Zhēnzōng renaming the temple after Liú in 988) and the Jíxiān zhuàn 集仙傳 / Lìshì zhēnxiān tǐdào tōngjiàn (50.1b) biographies, which place Liú’s becoming a Daoist in 988–989 at the age of sixty-four — implying a birth year of ca. 925. The 988 dating of the preface itself is firmly established. The Jīn-dynasty 1150 stone inscription (which is missing only the colophon by Wáng Cān 王粲 found in the present text) provides an independent textual witness establishing the rapid mid-twelfth-century circulation of the work. Frontmatter brackets composition precisely to 988, the date of the autograph preface.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Taixuan langran zi jindao shi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7.b, 932. On Northern-Sòng Daoist poetry: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “Daoist Poetry,” in Stephen Owen ed., The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010), 1:213–224. The thirty poems were imitated by Mào Rì-xīn’s master Sòng xiānshēng (cf. [[KR5a0284|Liǎomíng piān]]), who matched them rhyme for rhyme — establishing the jìndào shī as a fixed type within Sòng-Jīn Daoist poetry.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0283
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.7.b, 932.