Tǐxuán zhēnrén xiǎnyì lù 體玄真人顯異錄
Record of the Manifest Marvels of the Perfected Master Tǐ-xuán
About the work
An anonymous single-juǎn miracle-tale anthology centred on the figure of Tǐxuán zhēnrén 體玄真人 (“Body-of-the-Mystery Perfected One”) — the Daoist honorific of Wáng xiānshēng 王先生, a SòngYuán Daoist master active in the Láiyáng 萊陽 (Shāndōng) region. The work transmits a sequence of his miraculous interventions, mainly therapeutic and exorcistic.
Abstract
The opening tale, Mùshén zuòsuì 木神作崇 (“The Tree-Spirit Causes Affliction”), reads: “Láiyáng dōngnán Báipōzhuāng yǒu WángJìnzhī qī Dǒngshì huàn jígōngfēng, lǚ zhào míngyī zhì zhī fúxiào, jīng qí bànzǎi.” 莱陽東南白坡荘有王進之妻董氏患急弓風，屢召名醫治之弗效，經其半載 (“In Báipō village south-east of Láiyáng, the wife of Wáng Jìnzhī, Lady Dǒng, suffered from acute gōngfēng — convulsive paralysis; repeated summons to famous physicians effected no cure; this continued for half a year”). Hearing that Wáng xiānshēng, styled Tǐxuán zhēnrén, had arrived at the Báipō hermitage, Jìnzhī rode a horse with a servant to summon the master; the master at first refused; Jìnzhī returned and conferred with his kin, saying “if Master Wáng will not come to save us…“. The tale continues with the master finally consenting and effecting a miraculous cure by identifying the spirit of a tree as the agent of the affliction.
The text is one of the cluster of SòngYuán xiǎnyì lù 顯異錄 (manifest-marvels-records) attached to specific Daoist zhēnrén figures. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 3: 1188, John Lagerwey) date the work to the thirteenth century and place it in the Northern Daoist healing-and-exorcism tradition. The text is interesting as a witness to the late-Sòng to Yuán popular reception of the Daoist fǎshī 法師 as therapeutic specialist.
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. 3: 1188 (DZ 594, John Lagerwey).
- Davis, Edward L. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001 — treats the Daoist therapeutic-exorcistic tradition presupposed by these records.