Huángtíng nèijǐng yùjīng zhù 黃庭內景玉經註
Commentary on the Jade Scripture of the Inner Landscape of the Yellow Court (version 1) by 劉處玄
About the work
A one-juàn Quánzhēn 全真 commentary on DZ 331 Huángtíng nèijǐng yùjīng (KR5b0015) by Liú Chǔxuán 劉處玄 (hào Chángshēng zǐ 長生子, 1147–1203) — one of the Seven Quánzhēn Perfected (七真), founder of the Suíshān 隨山 branch of the order.
Prefaces
The text is signed at the head “Shénshān Liú Chángshēng jiě” 神山劉長生解 — “Explained by Liú Chángshēng of Shénshān.” No separate author-preface is preserved in the received text.
Abstract
Liú Chǔxuán 劉處玄 (1147–1203), a native of Láiyáng 萊陽 (Shāndōng), was one of the seven principal disciples of Wáng Chóngyáng 王重陽 (1113–1170), the founder of the Quánzhēn 全真 order; he headed the order after Mǎ Dānyáng 馬丹陽 (1123–1184) and Tán Chùduān 譚處端 (1123–1185) and before Qiū Chǔjī 丘處機 (1148–1227), founding the Suíshān branch. His commentary on the Huángtíng nèijǐng yùjīng is a principal witness to the early-Quánzhēn inner-alchemical re-reading of the Huángtíng meditation tradition; together with the Táng Liángqiū zǐ 梁丘子 commentary (DZ 402, KR5b0086), it is one of the two major received commentaries on the Nèijǐng (the other is DZ 403, KR5b0087, by Jiǎng Shènxiū 蔣慎修).
Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 729–730, DZ 401) dates the work within Liú’s active commentarial period in the last two decades of the twelfth century and just after 1200. Liú’s method is verse-by-verse gloss, re-interpreting the body-deities of the Huángtíng through the Quánzhēn inner-alchemical lexicon of xìng 性, mìng 命, jīng 精, qì 氣, and shén 神. The commentary is a crucial source for the Quánzhēn appropriation of the Shàngqīng somatic-pantheon tradition.
Translations and research
- Marsone, Pierre. Wang Chongyang et la fondation du Quanzhen: Ascètes taoïstes et alchimie intérieure. Paris: Collège de France, 2010.
- Goossaert, Vincent. The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:729–730 (DZ 401).