Xuánpǔshān língmí mìlù 玄圃山靈[匚@金]祕錄
Secret Record of Numinous-Treasure of Mount Xuán-pǔ preface by 皇甫朋 (序)
About the work
A three-juǎn Táng-period secret manual of xiányìn 仙隱 (immortal-hidden) lore, claiming descent from a long lineage of esoteric transmissions beginning with the Xiàpī xiānshēng 下邳先生 (Master from Xiàpī), best known as the master of Zhāng Liáng 張良 in the Shǐjì 史記 narrative. The preface is signed by 皇甫朋 (Huángfǔ Péng). The unusual second-character of the title — 玄圃山靈[匚@金]祕錄 — combines the xiāng 匚 enclosure with the jīn 金 element, an idiosyncratic character not in standard dictionaries, glossed in the source as a phonetic stand-in for mí (cf. 銘).
Abstract
The preface narrates the transmission-history of the title: “The book comes from afar; from the moment Master Xiàpī obtained it in the rocky crevices of Mount Tài, he transmitted it to several disciples; those who obtained it either aided the state, or hid in the wilderness, or transcended ordinary things, or worked illusions in the common world; sometimes hidden, sometimes flowing forth; sometimes preserved, sometimes manifest; sometimes through several generations, sometimes by coincidence, sometimes by divine bestowal, sometimes by master-transmission; visible-and-invisible, those who obtain it do so by celestial affinity.” The preface then catalogues the recipients: Zhāngzǐfáng 張子房 (= Zhāng Liáng) got it from Master Xiàpī; Lǐ Guǎnglì 李廣利 from Zǐfáng; Fèi Chángfáng 費長房 from the gourd-man (Húzhōnggōng 壷中公); Wáng Guāngbó 王光伯 from the Chǔwángmiào 楚王廟; Liú Huángōng 劉桓公 from Guāngbó; Zhāng Gōngchāo 張公超 from Huángōng; Wáng Zǐjìn 王子晋 from the Huáshān qiáofù 華山樵父 (the woodcutter of Mount Huá); Zhūgě Kǒngmíng 諸葛孔明 from the Nányáng xiānshēng 南陽先生 (the Master of Nányáng); Máoshān dàorén 茅山道人 from the Fúhǔyán 伏虎岩 (Tiger-Crouching Cliff); Chánglúshī Zhāng Jīng 長盧師張晶 from Zhāngshì shānlín 張氏山林; etc. The historical chain is a mixture of demonstrably historical figures (Zhāng Liáng, Fèi Chángfáng, Zhūgě Liàng) with semi-legendary hermits.
The text itself, in three juǎn, presents a miscellany of esoteric fǎshù 法術 (techniques): alchemy, talisman-magic, fate-divination, exorcism. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 358–359, Catherine Despeux) treat it as a Táng-period composition. The unusual second character of the title, [匚@金], is a hapax in the Daoist canon — apparently a deliberately encrypted graph in the mì 祕 (“secret”) rhetorical idiom of the genre.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Vol. 2: 358–359 (DZ 580, Catherine Despeux).
Other points of interest
The Daoist canon transmits the title with the second character as [匚@金], which is not in Unicode and must be encoded as a composite. Some print editions print it as 鈛 or 鈐, but the manuscript witnesses preserve the unusual square-enclosure-of-gold composite.