Xīshān Xǔ zhēnjūn bāshíwǔ huà lù 西山許真君八十五化錄
Record of the Eighty-Five Manifestations of Perfected Xǔ of Xīshān with colophon by 施岑 (勇悟真人) and second colophon by 孫元明
About the work
A three-juàn Southern-Sòng re-edition of the Xǔ Xùn 許遜 legend, rewritten on the basis of Bái Yùchán’s 白玉蟾 Yùlóng jí 玉隆集 of 1224 (preserved at DZ 263.31 Xiūzhēn shíshū). The narrative is divided into eighty-five “scenes” (huà 化), each accompanied by an original poem.
Prefaces
The received text carries:
- A foreword and preface dated 1246;
- A postface dated 1250, signed Yǒngwù zhēnrén Shī Cén 勇悟真人施岑 — a disciple of the Zhōngxiào 忠孝 (“Loyalty and Filial Piety”) movement;
- A second postface dated 1247 (dīngwèi 丁未), signed Sūn Yuánmíng 孫元明.
Together the three paratexts document the circle around the Yǒngwù Dàoyuàn 勇悟道院 that produced the work.
Abstract
Dated by its paratexts to 1246–1250 (Jean Levi in Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 3: 902, DZ 448). The author — hiding behind the name of Shī Cén, one of the historical disciples of Xǔ Xùn — states in his presentation note that Xǔ Xùn’s teaching had enjoyed great popularity after the saint’s “descent” at Jīnlíng (Nánjīng) in 1224 (coinciding with the date in Bái Yùchán’s biography). At that time, several sanctuaries were dedicated to him, a Yǒngwù monastery became the seat of a fervent circle of followers of the Way of Filial Piety, and the Zhōngxiào movement began to crystallise.
Later, a Sòng Dàoshēng 宋道升 presented Shī Cén with a hagiography of the Twelve Saints of Xīshān 西山. To enliven the composition, Shī divided it into eighty-five scenes, each accompanied by his own poem; one of the members of the circle undertook to raise funds for the work’s diffusion. Sūn Yuánmíng’s second postface reports that, after a premonitory dream, he received a visit from Jiǎ Shǒuchéng 賈守澄, who transmitted Shī’s edition to him.
The work is a major document of the mid-thirteenth-century Zhōngxiào / Jìngmíng 淨明 synthesis and of the emergence of the Xǔ Xùn cult as a fully-fledged organised order.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer. “Taoist Ritual and Local Cults of the T’ang Dynasty.” In Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R. A. Stein, vol. 3, 812–834. Brussels: 1985.
- Akizuki Kan’ei 秋月觀暎. Chūgoku kinsei dōkyō no keisei: Jōmyōdō no kisoteki kenkyū 中國近世道教の形成：淨明道の基礎的研究. Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1978.
- Boltz, Judith M. A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987, 70–78.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 3:902 (DZ 448).