Shàngqīng zǐjīngjūn huángchū zǐlíng dàojūn dòngfáng shàngjīng 上清紫精君皇初紫靈道君洞房上經
Superior Scripture on the Dòngfáng [Cavern-Chamber] of the Purple-Essence Sovereign and the Primordial Sovereign Purple-Numen Lord of the Dao, of the Upper Clarity
About the work
A nineteen-folio Six-Dynasties Shàngqīng body-meditation scripture whose title-term dòngfáng 洞房 (“Cavern-Chamber”) refers simultaneously to one of the three central palaces of the brain and to two Shàngqīng deities (Zǐjīng jūn and Huángchū zǐlíng dàojūn; cf. DZ 6 Shàngqīng dàdòng zhēnjīng paragraphs 9 and 17). The work is entirely distinct from two other Dòngfáng jīng in the canon — DZ 133 Tàishàng dòngfáng nèijīng zhù and DZ 879 Shàngqīng jīnshū yùzì shàngjīng.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the meditation subtitle Tàisù shàngqīng zhìdìjūn wǔshén qìfǎ 太素上清致帝君五神氣法 and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated to the Six Dynasties by Robinet (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 1: 174, DZ 405). The present title bears only loose relation to the contents, and the text appears to be a compilation of originally interrelated exercises in their preserved later reassembly. The material is not elsewhere quoted under the present title, but the practices it expounds reappear scattered across many other Shàngqīng scriptures (notably DZ 1376 Shàngqīng tàishàng dìjūn jiǔzhēn zhōngjīng and DZ 1377 Shàngqīng tàishàng jiǔzhēn zhōngjīng jiàngshēng shéndān jué; see Robinet, “Kieou-tchen tchong-king”).
The present text preserves arguably the best version of this composite set of practices. Four of the exercises may antedate the Shàngqīng revelation (364–370):
- The practice of the Five Spirits (wǔ shén fǎ 五神法, 1a–3b) — the spirits of the eyes, hands, and lungs, divided into three groups for morning, noon, and evening exercises. Only the hand-spirits belong to the Shàngqīng pantheon proper. The exercise consists in reciting a poem and visualising qì that transform into dragons on which the adept ascends to the sky.
- The practice of the Twenty-Four Spirits (èrshísì shénfǎ 二十四神法, 3b–10a) — beginning with the enumeration of the body’s twenty-four spirits in three groups of Eight Effulgences (jǐng 景). The visualisation produces two mirrors formed of white qì, adapting an ancient magical practice with mirrors comparable to Bàopǔzǐ 15.69.
- A sun-and-moon absorption meditation.
- A Dòngfáng palace-of-the-brain visualisation.
The scripture is one of the principal sources for the mature Shàngqīng three-palaces-of-the-brain body cosmology, and for the Shàngqīng absorption of archaic fāngshì magical practices into a formalised meditation protocol.
Translations and research
- Robinet, Isabelle. “Kieou-tchen tchong-king: A Study of a Shangqing Meditation.” In Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
- Robinet, Isabelle. La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme, vol. 2.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:174 (DZ 405).