Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo tiānzūn shuō jiùkǔ miàojīng zhùjiě 太上洞玄靈寶天尊說救苦妙經註解
Annotated Edition of the Marvelous Scripture for Salvation from Distress, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure by 洞陽子 (Mr. Lǘ 呂), with preface by 周準 (序; hào Bǎozhēn zǐ 抱真子)
About the work
A one-juàn Sòng–Yuán inner-alchemical commentary on DZ 374 Jiùkǔ miàojīng (KR5b0058), composed by a Mr. Lǘ 呂 of the Sìmíng 四明 mountain range (Zhèjiāng), styled Dòngyáng zǐ 洞陽子. Prefaced by Zhōu Zhǔn 周準 (hào Bàozhēn zǐ 抱真子) of Jīnjiāng 錦江, Shàngráo 上饒 district, Jiāngxī.
Prefaces
Preface by Zhōu Zhǔn (序). Zhōu reports that during a retreat to the Wǔyí shān 武夷山 and the Xīhú 西湖 he chanced upon a certain Mr. Lǚ of Sìmíng; the two became close friends. Mr. Lǚ, styled Dòngyáng zǐ 洞陽子, had early met an adept, applied himself to the study of Zhuāngzǐ and Lǎozǐ, and became deeply versed in Daoist literature. One day he declared to Zhōu that the Jiùkǔ jīng was “a secret instruction of the Dàdòng, a hidden utterance of the superior Dào,” whose subtle meaning had remained unexpounded from antiquity to the present, and that he therefore intended to set out its sense. The commentary was completed in short order, “overflowing in ten thousand words.”
Abstract
Schmidt (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 728–729, DZ 399) places the work in the Sòng–Yuán inner-alchemical commentarial tradition on the Jiùkǔ tiānzūn scripture. Citing DZ 529 Língbǎo wújīng tígāng 靈寶無經提綱, Dòngyáng zǐ defines the Jiùkǔ jīng as “an esoteric exposition of liàndù 鍊度 (sublimation) rites” (17b). Salvation by sublimation is accomplished by “setting fire” (xínghuǒ 行火) to the sānmèi 三昧 — “the fires of the lord (the heart), the minister (the kidneys), and the people (the bladder)” (24a; cf. DZ 263 Xiūzhēn shíshū 15.1b, 3a). Dòngyáng zǐ identifies the Daoist yuánshén 元神 with the Confucian zhēnxìng 真性 and the Buddhist běnlái 本來 (2a); the líng 靈 of língbǎo is identical with shén and xìng 性, and the bǎo 寶 with qì and mìng 命 (4b–5b). Adepts of Chán are said to understand heart and nature but are “too much attached to their discourses on Emptiness” (10b). The proper course is to “create the Lords of the Three Treasures by transforming the qì, the shén, and the jīng 精” (13a).
The commentary is an important document of the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century synthesis of nèidān 內丹, liàndù ritual theory, and the Jiùkǔ cult — exactly the constellation from which the mature Southern-Sòng Daoist mortuary liturgy emerged.
Translations and research
- Boltz, Judith M. A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987 — background on the Sòng liàndù tradition.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:728–729 (DZ 399).