Tàishàng yùchén yùyí jiélín bēn rìyuè tú 太上玉晨鬱儀結璘奔日月圖
Illustrated Version of the Flight to the Sun and Moon by Yùyí and Jiélín, of the Supreme Heaven of Jade Aurora
About the work
A seventeen-folio Southern-Sòng illustrated meditation-manual on the method of “flying to the sun and the moon” (bēn rìyuè zhī dào 奔日月之道) — a Shàngqīng solar-lunar absorption exercise traditionally attributed to the Tàisù zhēnrén 太素真人’s transmission to Péi Xuánrén 裴玄仁.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the Tàishàng yǐnshū quotation and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated tentatively to the Southern Sòng by Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 1098, DZ 435). The exercise described — flight to the sun and moon via absorption of their qì — is one of the most characteristic of the Shàngqīng meditations. Its origin-narrative traces it from the Tàisù zhēnrén to Péi Xuánrén; parts of the method are included in Péi’s biography in Yúnjí qīqiān 105 (= Qīnglíng zhēnrén Péijūn zhuàn 清靈真人裴君傳). The same practice is elaborated in several of the early Shàngqīng scriptures, notably DZ 639 Huángtiān shàngqīng jīnquè dìjūn língshū zǐwén shàngjīng and DZ 1376 Shàngqīng tàishàng dìjūn jiǔzhēn zhōngjīng 2.
The central technical terms yùyí 鬱儀 (solar absorption) and jiélín 結璘 (lunar absorption) name the two halves of the rite. The present text organises the practice with diagrams of sun, moon, and stellar positions, and specifies the prescribed days and postures. Its Sòng dating is suggested by its diagrammatic apparatus and by its integration of nèidān 內丹 terminology into the classical absorption-practice.
Translations and research
- Robinet, Isabelle. Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:1098 (DZ 435).