Lìshì zhēnxiān tǐdào tōngjiàn xùbiān 歷世真仙體道通鑑續編
Supplement to the Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Who Embodied the Tao through the Ages
attributed to 趙道一 (fourteenth or fifteenth century)
About the work
A five-juan supplement to [[KR5a0308|DZ 296 Lìshì zhēnxiān tǐdào tōngjiàn]], extending the chronological range of the parent work into the Jurchen Jīn (1115–1234) and Yuán (1279–1368) periods, with its emphasis on Quánzhēn 全真 masters. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0297 / CT 297 = TC 297), 洞真部 記傳類. Programmatically attributed to Zhào Dàoyī 趙道一 (the compiler of the parent work, fl. 1294), but on internal evidence the text continues beyond his attested working life into the Yuán; Schipper & Verellen accordingly date the work to “the fourteenth or fifteenth century.”
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with biographical entries continuing the parent work’s chronology, beginning with figures in the late-Sòng / Jīn boundary period.
Abstract
Jean Levi, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:893 (§3.A.6, Sacred History and Geography), describes the Xùbiān as supplementing [[KR5a0308|DZ 296 Lìshì zhēnxiān tǐdào tōngjiàn]] by extending its chronological span to the Jurchen Jīn (1115–1234) and Yuán (1279–1368) periods, with the emphasis on Quánzhēn 全真 masters; he dates the compilation to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. This dating implies that the conventional Daozang attribution to Zhào Dàoyī cannot be sustained throughout: while some material may go back to a continuation begun by Zhào himself or his immediate disciples, the work in its received form was completed only after his death — its final shape probably approaches that of the late-Yuán to early-Míng period, immediately preceding the Zhèngtǒng dàozàng compilation of 1444–1445. The frontmatter brackets composition 1300–1450; the conventional attribution is preserved in the persons-list with the explicit qualifier “attributed.”
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Jean Levi, “Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian xubian,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 893. On Yuán Quánzhēn hagiography: Vincent Goossaert, La création du taoïsme moderne (EHESS dissertation, 1997); Pierre Marsone, Wang Chongyang et la fondation du Quanzhen (Paris 2010); Florian C. Reiter, “Some Remarks on the Chinese Word T’ung-chien: ‘Comprehensive Mirror,’ as a Source for Taoist Studies,” Oriens Extremus 33 (1990), 51–60.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0309
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 893.