Yún Fù shān Shēn xiānwēng zhuàn 雲阜山申仙翁傳
Biography of the Old Immortal Shēn of Mt. Yúnfù
About the work
A short anonymous Yuán hagiography (13 folios) of Shēn Tàizhī 申泰芝 (zì Guǎngxiáng 廣样 / 廣祥, traditional dates 687–755), the Táng-period local saint of Shàoyáng 邵陽 (Shàozhōu, mod. Bǎoqìngfǔ in Húnán) honoured under the title Báiyún jūshì 白雲居士 (“White-Cloud Recluse”) and posthumously Miàojì zhēnrén 妙寂真人. The text is a single juàn organised as the saint’s xíngzhuàng 行狀 (1a–10a), followed by a Zhèngyàn shìshí 證驗事實 confirmatory episode set under Hànzōng Yuánhé (10a–12a) and the SòngGāozōng investiture decree of Shàoxīng 27 (1157) bestowing the title Miàojì zhēnrén (12b–13a). The compiler is unnamed.
Prefaces
No preface as such. In place of an authorial preface, the text carries two paratexts that frame the cult and date the present recension.
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Zhèngyàn shìshí 證驗事實 (10a–12a) — a Yuán-style “evidential miracle tale” that recasts a Táng chuánqí (already preserved as the “Lánchānggōng” episode in Tàipíng guǎngjì 69, citing Chuánjì) in the framework of Shēn Tàizhī’s promised jiězhī 解尸 transmission. The recused captain Xuē Zhāo 薛昭, fleeing prosecution for corruption, is led by an “Old Man of Tiánshān” (in fact Shēn Tàizhī in disguise) to the deserted Lánchānggōng 蘭昌宮, where he meets Chénshì 陳氏, the former cháyì 茶湯 lady-in-waiting at Xuánzōng’s court whom Shēn had instructed in the use of a jiàngxuědān 絳雪丹 talisman granting her dìxíngxiān 地行仙 status; the two enter Mt. Bàlíng together and become earth-immortals. The tale’s incorporation into the zhuàn attests its Yuán-dynasty date.
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Sòng Gāozōng’s investiture decree of 1157 (Shàoxīng 27.1.26, 12b–13a) — addressed to the Rénhuìmiào 仁惠廟 of Mt. Yúnfù in Héngyángxiàn, Héngzhōu, citing the saint’s efficacy in summoning rain and dispelling drought, and conferring the title Miàojì zhēnrén. The decree’s verbal echo of the Jiǔgē “Lord of the Clouds” (Yúnzhōngjūn 雲中君) is a typical Sòng-style chancellery flourish. The text refers (12b) to “the previous Sòng” (前宋) and “the great Yuán” (大元) and to repeated Yuán imperial sacrifice, fixing the recension squarely in the Yuán.
Abstract
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 906; entry by Hans-Hermann Schmidt) date the text to the Yuán on the internal evidence just cited and identify the protagonist with a Táng-period regional figure attested under several names — Shēn Tàizhī, Shēntiānshī 申天師, Shēn Yuánzhī 申元之 — across earlier sources (Nányuè zǒngshèngjì 3.8a–b, Lóngchéng lù 1.7a–8a, Xiānzhuàn shíyí in Tàipíng guǎngjì 33.210, Chuánjì in Tàipíng guǎngjì 69.428–31). Zhào Dàoyī 趙道一 in his Lìshì zhēnxiān tǐdào tōngjiàn (LZTT 33.13b–14a and 39.6b–7b) treated these as two separate persons; the present hagiography by contrast collapses them into a single life.
The narrative gives the family as Lúoyáng descendants of Shēnbó 申伯 of the Zhōu (the “Wéi yuè jiàng shén” line of Shījīng “Sōnggāo” being cited as the ancestral charter); a younger branch settled in Shàolíngxiàn 邵陵縣 (mod. Shàoyáng), where Tàizhī was born to Yángfūrén 楊夫人 (whose pregnancy is foreshadowed by a numinous-purple-mushroom dream). After early study of the classics and the Daoist canon, he encounters on Zhùróngfēng 祝融峰 of Nányuè the Jiǔtiān zhēnrén 九天真人, who transmits to him a Jīndān huǒlóng dàchéng 金丹火龍大成 alchemical scripture; he then retires to Mt. Liánhé 蓮荷山 to compound the elixir. The middle of the narrative (3b–7b) gives the most distinctive material: in Kāiyuán 26 (738), summoned to Cháng’ān after Xuánzōng dreams of “a Daoist of Shàolíng surnamed Shēn called Báiyún jūshì,” Tàizhī is appointed Imperial Preceptor (dàguóshī 大國師) and installed at the Yuánzhēnguàn 元真觀; on the next mid-autumn night he and Yè Fǎshàn 葉法善 transport the emperor to the lunar palace, whence Xuánzōng brings back the Níshang yǔyī qǔ 霓裳羽衣曲 (the gōngchě score of which is reproduced verbatim at 4b — a notable musicological notation). Subsequent episodes include the transmission to Yáng Guìfēi (Tiānbǎo 3 = 744), the foretelling of the Ān Lùshān rebellion (whose imminence prompts Tàizhī’s ritual jiàngé 拜章斷隔 over the Shàohéjīzǐtán 邵河箕子潭), the bestowal of the Yítángguàn 宜唐觀 plaque, the gift of the jiàngxuědān to Chénshì, and Tàizhī’s white-day ascension on Mt. Yúfú 余胡 (= Yúnfù 雲阜) on Tiānbǎo 14.8.13 (= 755) at age 69. The closing pages report continuing imperial recognition through the Sòng (the 1104 and 1246 edicts in fact belong to the Gě Xuán cult, but here only the 1157 Shàoxīng decree is preserved) and into the Yuán.
The text is the principal Daoist source for what was a vigorous local cult on the Húnán–Héngshān frontier; for the Táng background see particularly the Nányuè zǒngshèngjì and Lóngchéng lù citations marshalled by Schmidt. The musical-historical interest of the Níshang yǔyī notation has been noted but never edited.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 2: 906 (DZ 451, entry by Hans-Hermann Schmidt).
- Robson, James. Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China. Harvard East Asian Monographs 316. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. — context for the Shēn cult on Nányuè.
- Verellen, Franciscus. “The Twenty-Four Dioceses and Zhang Daoling: The Spatio-Liturgical Organization of Early Heavenly Master Taoism.” In Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions, ed. Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, 15–67. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. — for the jiàngé / bàizhāng style ritual that figures here.
Other points of interest
The gōngchě notation reproduced at 4b (“(工六工尺工尺四上上尺上 / 尺工六吾六工六吾六尺六工尺上尺上四合 / 四上尺上四上之字是也)”) purports to record what Xuánzōng heard in the lunar palace — i.e., the Níshang yǔyī score. Whatever its actual transmission, this is one of very few Daoist hagiographies to embed musical notation, and is a candidate for further study.