Shàngfāng dàdòng zhēnyuán yīnyáng zhìjiàng túshū hòujiě 上方大洞真元陰陽陟降圖書後解
Additional Explanations on the Diagrams and Texts on the Ascent and Descent of Yīn and Yáng, of the Marvelous Scripture of True Origin, the Great Cavern, and the Highest Direction
About the work
A thirteen-folio Southern-Sòng Daoist text transmitted in the Dàozàng in a composite juàn with DZ 439 (KR5b0123). In reality, DZ 437 (KR5b0121) and the present DZ 438 form a single work divided by the Míng editors.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with its diagrammatic explanations.
Abstract
Dated to the Southern Sòng by Yuán Bǐnglíng (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 3: 1221, DZ 438). See KR5b0121 for the combined context: together with DZ 437, this work provides the complete set of twelve cosmological diagrams of the Zhēnyuán 真元 corpus. The present half contains the latter seven diagrams (the first five being in DZ 437). The first drawing here illustrates the phases of yīn and yáng, and hence huǒhòu 火候 (“fire-phasing”) in alchemy. The text again cites the Jīndān gē 金丹歌 of Gāo Xiàngxiān 高象先 (fl. 990–1013; cf. DZ 1079 Zhēnrén Gāo Xiàngxiān jīndān gē), and the Táng emperor Xuánzōng (“Mínghuáng”) is mentioned at 10b.
The work is a principal witness to the cross-pollination of nèidān 內丹 thought, Daoist cosmological diagrammatism, and the Xuánwǔ 玄武 / Wǔdāng 武當 cult in the twelfth-century Daoist synthesis.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 3:1221 (DZ 437–438).