太上老君內丹經

Tàishàng Lǎojūn nèidān jīng 太上老君內丹經

Scripture of Inner Alchemy, by the Most High Lord Lǎo

anonymous Táng-era short treatise on inner alchemy in one juàn of three folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 643 / CT 643, 洞神部本文類) and in the Dàozàng jíyào (JY067); third of the seven scriptures bundled together as “Qī jīng tóng juàn shāng bā” 七經同卷傷八.

About the work

The text is one of the earlier surviving Táng-era distillations of the nèidān 內丹 / wàidān 外丹 doctrinal substitution. It opens with a tripartite scheme: “the Way [in its alchemical aspect] has three [levels]: the upper has the huándān jīnyè 還丹金液; the middle has the shénshuǐ huáchí 神水華池; the lower has the wǔ jīn bā shí 五金八石 [five metals and eight minerals].” Each is then matched with a tripartite social scheme — shénxiān bàoyī 神仙抱一 (the Sage’s embrace of the One), fùguó ān mín 富國安民 (enriching the state and pacifying the people), and qiángbīng zhànshèng 強兵戰勝 (strengthening the troops and winning battles) — assigning the inner-alchemical reading to the upper level: “jade furnace blazing, the chànǚ 姹女 [demure maiden] rigorous, the yīng’ér 嬰兒 [infant] holding affection, root deep and stem firm, five phases pair-aligned, eight trigrams interlinked.” The middle (fùguó) level uses the lónghǔ 龍虎 / qiāngǒng 鉛汞 / shuǐhuǒ jì jì 水火既濟 imagery; the lower (qiángbīng) reads the body’s hall, three peaks, dragon-tiger pair, and níwán dào 泥丸道 as battlefield. The remainder of the text gives short Lǎojūn discourses on:

• the priority of lǐxīn 理心 (regulating the heart) and xíngzhèng 行正 (correct conduct) before the practice of qì;
• the prerequisites of “extreme stillness” (清靜身心) and isolation in deep mountains and stone caves;
• the analogy of the body to a state and the heart-mind to its sovereign (以身爲國以心爲君);
• the year-by-year nine-year cycle of inner refinement: 1st year augments qì; 2nd, jīng; 3rd, the conduits; 4th, flesh; 5th, marrow; 6th, sinews; 7th, hair; 8th, bones; 9th, transforms form and spirit;
• and the closing aphorism: “the Three Pure Ones are within yourself — why labour to look upward? Lǎojūn is within yourself — why labour to seek outside? Knowing this and refining accordingly: this is what is called a Sage.”

Prefaces

No preface. The text opens directly with Lǎojūn’s teaching.

Abstract

Kristofer Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 1:406, DZ 643) places the work firmly in the Táng (618–907) on the strength of an internal Táng taboo avoidance: the opening phrase reads xiān xū lǐxīn 先須理心 (“first one must regulate the heart”) in place of the expected zhìxīn 治心, the character zhì 治 being avoided as the personal name of Táng Gāozōng 唐高宗 Lǐ Zhì 李治 (r. 649–683). Frontmatter notBefore is accordingly set to 649 (Gāozōng’s enthronement) and notAfter to 907 (the fall of the Táng). The catalog meta gives the title alone with no dynasty; the present narrowing follows TC. Schipper further observes: “The terminology of the Zhōuyì cāntóngqì 周易參同契 is virtually absent” — a point that situates the text in the early phase of Daoist nèidān doctrinal formation, before the wholesale absorption of the cāntóngqì hexagram-fire-phasing apparatus that defines later Sòng nèidān literature (cf. the Wùzhēn piān 悟真篇 of Zhāng Bóduān 張伯端, 11th c.). The catalog meta lists no author, consistent with the work’s pseudo-revelatory frame.

The text is a key witness to the early-Táng moment when wàidān 外丹 alchemical vocabulary (the lónghǔ qiāngǒng opposites, the huándān jīnyè, the furnace and crucible) was being systematically reread as a code for inner cultivation, but before the Sòng-era systematisation of that reading. Together with KR5c0022 Nèiguān jīng and KR5c0023 Liǎoxīn jīng in the same qī jīng 七經 bundle, it documents the Táng-period xīnxìngnèidān synthesis that would underpin the later Quánzhēn 全真 inner-alchemical curriculum.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:406 (DZ 643, K. Schipper).
• Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London: Routledge, 2008 — entries “Neidan” and “Waidan” for the doctrinal-historical context.
• Robinet, Isabelle. Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: De l’unité et de la multiplicité. Paris: Cerf, 1995 — for the early-Táng integration of alchemical and meditational discourse.

Other points of interest

The Táng taboo avoidance lǐxīn 理心 / zhìxīn 治心 in line 1 is one of the cleaner internal datings preserved in the inner-alchemical corpus of the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng and supplies the terminus a quo of 649 with a high degree of confidence.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0024
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 1:406 — DZ 643 entry (K. Schipper).