太上日月混元經

Tàishàng rìyuè hùnyuán jīng 太上日月混元經

Scripture of the Sun, Moon, and Primordial Commingling, of the Most High

Short neidan 內丹 theoretical treatise in one juàn (two folios), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 656 / CT 656, 洞神部本文類) as the first of the two scriptures bundled in the “èr jīng tóng juàn nǚ sì” 二經同卷女四 female-series volume 4 (paired with [[KR5c0038|DZ 657 Tàishàng dòngshén wǔxīng zhū sù rìyuè hùncháng jīng]]). The text is a compact cosmological-alchemical exposition in the Zhōuyì cāntóngqì 周易參同契 idiom, equating the alchemical crucible with Heaven (dǐng wéi tiān 鼎爲天), the ground with the spirit-chamber (dì wéi shénshì 地爲神室), qiánkūn 乾坤 with the illuminated hall (míng táng 明堂), and the medicinal ingredients with sun, moon, husband and wife, sovereign and minister.

About the work

In two folios of unbroken rhythmic prose, the text traces the alchemical cycle through the classical cāntóngqì symbolic apparatus:

• Cosmological keying: qiánkūn kǎnlí 乾坤坎離 (the four primordial trigrams for heaven, earth, water, and fire), gāngróu 剛柔 (hard and soft), the enwrapping quaternary likened to a tuó yuè 槖籥 (bellows-and-flute, the cosmic bellows of Dàodé jīng ch. 5). The primordial numerology èrsì sānwǔ yī 二四三五一 is identified as the “essence of heaven and earth,” and the èr bā 二八 (double-eight = sixteen) number aligns the tiānfú 天符 (Heavenly Tally) with the crucible.

• Chronomantic keying: the alchemical fire-phasing (huǒhòu 火候) is mapped onto the twelve pitch-pipes and the twelve calendrical branches: huáng zhōng jiàn zǐ 黃鍾建子 (the huángzhōng pitch establishes the zǐ branch, i.e. midwinter / winter solstice) → yáng rises leftward to sì 巳 (Bǐng-summer); ruíbīn jiàn wǔ 㽔賔建午 (the ruíbīn pitch establishes the wǔ branch, i.e. midsummer) → yīn rises rightward to hài 亥; the sexagenary cycle runs from one to nine, completes, and restarts.

• Ministerial homology: the text’s most striking rhetorical move is its explicit political homology. If the fire-phasing is badly timed (“lord arrogant, minister flattering, rewards and punishments mistargeted”), the celestial mechanism xuánjī 璇璣 loses its measure, cold and heat miss their seasons, and disaster ensues; if the sovereign is sagely and the minister upright, heaven and earth are serene and clear, sun and moon shine forth, the dàoqì 道氣 flourishes, the royal transformation achieves Great Peace, the Dipper-pivot responds to the seasonal joints, and the five phases and eight trigrams manifest perfectly. Inner alchemy is thereby framed as a microcosmic mirror of the wángzhèng 王政 (royal governance).

• Alchemical transformation: fire blazes, “the infant weeps” (yīng’ér shēng bēi 嬰兒聲悲 — the yīng’ér being the spiritual embryo of neidan), rising and plunging, almost escaping — the adept must “tremble and be wary, nor slacken for a moment.” The xuán huī 玄輝 (obscure radiance) transforms through five colours; the alchemical product emerges “fish-scale-like, vein-like” (yú lín 魚鱗, guān gàn 關干), “stalactite-like” (zhōng rǔ 鍾乳), “bronze-pillar-like” (tóng zhù 銅柱). Yīn and yáng come into their proper pairing: cloud following dragon, wind following tiger, shadow following form, echo following voice. Proceeding from one to nine, the product turns from white to yellow to red to black, then to zǐ guāng huá 紫光華 (purple-luminous glory); after nine transformations it is pure yáng (jiǔ zhuǎn chún yáng 九轉純陽), the five directions’ qì are sufficient, and the huán dān 還丹 (reversion elixir) is achieved — running as molten gold-and-stone, one year of cultivation by a resolute adept bringing forth the jīnshā jiǔ huán 金砂九還 (Nine-Reversions of the Gold-Cinnabar).

• Adept-anthropology: consumption of the elixir transforms the adept’s bǎi hái jiǔ qiào sì zhī wǔ zàng 百骸九竅四肢五臟 (the hundred bones, nine orifices, four limbs, five viscera); yīnqì is expelled, pure yáng 正陽 is established, and the adept, like ice melting, returns to the tài xuán 太玄. The text concludes with a reflection on the hermeneutic asymmetry between the stolid unconvertible (hūn mèi 昏昧 — the wilfully benighted) and the pre-destined to awaken (sù yùn jī xìng 宿藴機性, whose natural disposition contains the fore-germ of realisation).

Prefaces

No preface. The text opens directly with its first cosmological statement.

Abstract

Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:787–88, DZ 656) classifies the text in section 3.A.4 Neidan and Yangsheng and provides the key bibliographic anchors:

“This is a short theoretical neidan 內丹 treatise based on the Zhōuyì cāntóngqì 周易參同契. It is listed in the Chóngwén zǒngmù (dated 1042) 9.18b as well as in later Sòng bibliographies (VDL 94).”

The 1042 Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 listing supplies the terminus ante quem. Schipper further notes that Mǎ Lìzhào’s 馬驪炤 commentary in DZ 261 Jīn dān jué 金丹訣 (Yuán-era) cites the present text alongside the Jīnbì jīng 金碧經 and the Zhōuyì cāntóngqì as foundational neidan scriptures, but the Mǎ-cited passages on juan 19a and 27a cannot be found in the transmitted text: “The present text must be a fragment of the original.” The received DZ 656 is therefore a lacunary witness.

The frontmatter sets notBefore 800 (a cautious terminus post for mature neidan texts in the cāntóngqì charter-tradition, which emerges from the Mid-Táng) and notAfter 1042 (the Chóngwén zǒngmù compilation). The catalog meta gives no dynasty. Without further internal chronological evidence, only a Late Táng–Northern Sòng (800–1042) window can be defended with certainty; “晚唐—北宋” is used in the dynasty field.

The text is anonymous; the catalog meta lists no author, and none is plausibly recoverable.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:787–88 (DZ 656, K. Schipper). Primary reference.
• van der Loon, Piet. Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Period: A Critical Study and Index. Oxford Oriental Institute Monographs 7. London: Ithaca Press, 1984. The present work is VDL 94.
• Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London: Routledge, 2008. Entries “Neidan,” “Cantong qi,” and “Huohou” for the doctrinal and technical apparatus.
• Pregadio, Fabrizio. The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi, the Source of the Taoist Way of the Golden Elixir. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2011. Translation and study of the Zhōuyì cāntóngqì, the charter-text of the idiom our DZ 656 redeploys.
• Robinet, Isabelle. Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: de l’unité et de la multiplicité. Paris: Cerf, 1995. For the Táng–Sòng neidan theoretical idiom.
• Baldrian-Hussein, Farzeen. Procédés secrets du joyau magique: traité d’alchimie taoïste du onzième siècle. Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1984. Contemporary (11th-c.) neidan theoretical treatise translated and studied.

Other points of interest

The text’s explicit political homology — the alignment of alchemical fire-phasing with the zhèng míng 正名 ethics of sovereign-and-minister, articulated at juan 1b — is an unusually pointed formulation in the neidan corpus. Where most cāntóngqì-derivative texts confine themselves to cosmological and physiological mapping, DZ 656 inserts a transparent wángzhèng 王政 analogy between the two, inviting a reading of the treatise as a covert mirror-for-princes in alchemical dress. Given the text’s floruit in the Late Táng–Northern Sòng period, the political-homological reading plausibly reflects the broader Sòng neo-Confucian–Daoist dialogue on the moral ordering of the cosmos rather than being a narrowly esoteric handbook.

The text’s fragmentary transmission — established by Schipper from Mǎ Lìzhào’s unlocatable quotations — makes the received two-folio witness an incomplete one. Students of the Táng–Sòng neidan theoretical tradition should consult DZ 261 Jīn dān jué for Mǎ’s quoted passages (juan 19a and 27a) that are no longer extant in DZ 656 itself.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0037
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:787–88 — DZ 656 entry (K. Schipper).
• van der Loon, Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Period (1984), entry 94.