Lièxiān zhuàn 列仙傳
Biographies of Famous Immortals
attributed to 劉向 (attributed, -77 – -6)
About the work
A two-juan hagiographic compendium of seventy biographies of immortals (xiān 仙), the earliest extant work of its kind. Programmatically attributed to the Hàn classicist Liú Xiàng 劉向 (-77 – -6), but on grounds of style, place names, book titles, and so on, the present work must in fact have been written in Later Hàn times (25–220) in imitation of Liú Xiàng’s Liènǚ zhuàn 列女傳, with which it forms a planned trio (cf. Suí shū·Jīngjí zhì 33.979, listing biographies of immortals, men, and women started by Liú Xiàng during his editing of the classics). Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0294 / CT 294 = TC 294), 洞真部 記傳類, with eulogies (zàn 讚) added by the Jìn poet Guō Yuánzǔ 郭元祖.
Prefaces
No preface in the present source. The author originally wrote a preface that is lacking in the present edition but has been preserved in a manuscript version of the Shuō jùn 說郡, reproduced by Sūn Yíràng 孫詒讓 (1848–1908) in his Zhá yí 札迻 11.22a — this preface, with its fictitious date of 18 BCE, is found in Fǎlín 法琳 (572–640), Pòxié lùn 破邪論 (in Guǎng hóngmíng jí 廣弘明集 11.21a). Apart from the conventional opening biography of Chìsōngzǐ 赤松子 (“Master of the Red Pine”), the work contains many intentional anachronisms — for instance, the biography of Máo nǚ 毛女 (7b–8a) is dated 35 BCE (170 years after the fall of the Qín 秦), itself betraying the late-Hàn rather than late-Western-Hàn date of composition.
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:114–115 (§1.A.6, Sacred History and Geography), notes that the Lièxiān zhuàn is not mentioned in the Hàn shū·Yìwén zhì 漢書藝文志, whereas Liú Xiàng’s Liènǚ zhuàn is given. The Suí shū·Jīngjí zhì 33.979 lists two editions: one in three juan with eulogies by Sūn Chuò 孫綽 (314–371), and another in two juan with eulogies by the Jìn poet Guō Yuánzǔ 郭元祖, the latter corresponding to the present work. Yáng Shǒujìng 楊守敬 (1839–1915) in Rìběn fǎngshū zhì 日本訪書志 6.30b–31b and Yú Jiāxī 余嘉錫 (1883–1955) in Sìkù tíyào biànzhèng 四庫提要辨證 19.1197–1205 demonstrate that for reasons of style, place names, book titles, and so on, the present work was written in Later Hàn times in imitation of Liú Xiàng’s Liènǚ zhuàn. The oldest citations of the Lièxiān zhuàn — in Wáng Yì’s 王逸 (second-century) commentary to the Chǔ cí 楚辭 (3.13b) and Yìng Shào’s 應劭 (d. 195?) commentary to Hàn shū 25A.1204 and 57B.2599 — are no longer found in the present text; Yìng Shào’s commentary is also reported (cf. Zhēn’gào 真誥 17.17a) to have comprised seventy-two biographies, against the present seventy. The Daozang version corresponds to the version included in the Sòng canon Dà Sòng tiāngōng bǎozàng 大宋天宮寶藏 (1019), being similar to the abbreviated version of Yúnjí qīqiān 108. The frontmatter brackets composition to the Later Hàn (25–220).
Translations and research
Translation: Maxime Kaltenmark, Le Lie-sien tchouan: biographies légendaires des immortels taoïstes de l’antiquité (Beijing: Centre d’études sinologiques de Pékin, 1953; reprint Paris: Collège de France, 1987) — full annotated French translation, the standard scholarly reference. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Liexian zhuan,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.A.6, 114–115. The 1987 Kaltenmark reprint includes critical apparatus and indices that have not been superseded.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0306
- Wikipedia: Liexian zhuan
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.A.6, 114–115.