太上浩元經

Tàishàng hàoyuán jīng 太上浩元經

Scripture of the Vast Origin, of the Most High

Anonymous versified scripture of inner-alchemical somatic visualization in one juàn (two folios), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 659 / CT 659, 洞神部本文類) as the second of two scriptures bundled in the “èr jīng tóng juàn nǚ wǔ” 二經同卷女五 female-series volume 5 (paired with [[KR5c0039|DZ 658 Tàishàng miàoshǐ jīng]]). The scripture is a short revelation by Lǎozǐ, framed as a sustained verse of ten opening four-character lines followed by seven-character heptasyllables, which lays out the body’s Three Palaces (sān gōng 三宮 — upper, middle, and lower), their presiding deities, and the respiratory and visualization-based inner-alchemical method by which the adept coagulates the tàizhēn shéndān 太真神丹 (Divine Elixir of Great Perfection).

About the work

The scripture’s organising principle is the vertical somatic structure of the sān gōng 三宮, each palace with its presiding deity and its alchemical mandate:

• Upper Palace — the Hàoyuán tàizhēn jūnzǐ 浩元太真君子 (the Superior Gentleman of the Vast Origin and Great Perfection), resident in the dòng fáng 洞房 (the “grotto-chamber” of the head), with its jīn lú yù jǐ 金鑪玉几 (golden brazier and jade table) enshrined in the centre. The adept “steps back three cùn” (què rù sān cùn 却入三寸) — to the central node between the eyebrows — and suckles the xuán qiōng 玄穹 (dark dome). The presiding deity of this palace is the Shàngyuán tóngzǐ 上元童子 / Nánjí lǎorén 南極老人 (Upper-Prime Lad / Old Man of the Southern Pole), “the vermilion-robed spirit-guest, radiant and fathomless” (zhū yī líng bīn, xī qiě chōng 朱衣靈賓熈且冲).

• Middle Palace — centred on the Huángtíng 黃庭, the jiàngōng 絳宮 (Vermilion Palace of the heart), and the língtái 靈臺 / míngtáng 明堂 (Spirit Terrace, Radiant Hall). Its resident is the Línggūi yùnǚ 靈龜玉女 (Jade Maiden of the Numinous Tortoise), holding the jade seven-stars, seated on a golden couch, stirring the jīng 精 and suckling the One, generating the jīn huáng 金黄 (golden-ochre) elixir; she holds the register of records on the left and the register of fate on the right, flanked by six dīng 丁 spirits who drive off a hundred calamities.

• Lower Palace — centred in the qì and jīng of the lower dāntián 丹田. Its presiding spirit is the Xiàyuán zhī shén, míng Gǔxuán 下元之神、名谷玄 (the Lower-Prime Spirit, named Vale-Obscure) / Běijí zhēnrén 北極真人 (Perfected of the Northern Pole), “the ancestor of the Dào” (dào zhī xiān 道之先).

The alchemical method — recited here in rhythmic verse — couples these three palaces through the respiratory circuit: inhaling the zhōng hé 中和 (central-harmony) qì, flushing the yù jiāng 玉漿 (jade-liquor) through the lǐ quán 醴泉 (sweet-spring, the salivary elixir), permeating the five viscera, bathing the xuán chí 玄池 (dark pool) below, erecting the língtái above, rectifying the míngtáng between. The key is the elimination of jī 機 (contrived motive), the abandonment of desire, and the reversion to pǔ 朴 (unhewn simplicity); the spirit returns on its own, the fluids glisten, the qì and marrow are exchanged, and the embodied form ascends and flies.

The scripture closes with the programmatic stanza:

雄雄氣崿修崐崘，上宮朱裹宜以緼，中宮赤幘儼而存，下宮丹衣守精門，審能行之齊乾坤。

(The surging pneumas, craggy and towering, cultivate Kūnlún; in the Upper Palace the crimson wrap befits the inner fabric; in the Middle Palace the scarlet cap is held in place and dignified; in the Lower Palace the cinnabar garment guards the spirit’s gate; he who can discerningly practise this is coeval with Heaven-and-Earth.)

Prefaces

No preface. The scripture opens with Lǎo jūn yuē 老君曰 — direct revelation.

Abstract

Ursula-Angelika Cedzich’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:787–88, DZ 659) classifies the text in section 3.A.4 Neidan and Yangsheng and reads:

“Scripture of the Vast Origin by the Most High Lord Lao. This scripture is a rhymed, rhythmic text consisting of ten lines of four characters, with the remainder in seven-character verses that describe poetically the Inner Alchemical process. Respiratory control, visualization of the Three Palaces within the human body and the deities residing therein — Shàngyuán tóngzǐ 上元童子 or Nánjí lǎorén 南極老人 (upper palace), Gǔxuán 谷玄 or Běijí zhēnrén 北極真人 (lower palace), and Línggūi yùnǚ 靈龜玉女 (middle palace) — and the elimination of external desires set the inner circulation in motion and lead to the completion of the Divine Elixir (tàizhēn shéndān 太真神丹) and to longevity.”

The terminus post quem of c. 400 CE is anchored by the text’s deployment of the huángtíng 黃庭 / sān gōng 三宮 somatic framework — the mature form of which is in place by the Huángtíng jīng 黃庭經 (Eastern Jìn, c. 3rd–4th c.) and its Shàngqīng-school ramifications — and by its reliance on the Shàngyuán / Xiàyuán / Zhōngyuán mapping of the three dāntián 丹田 with specific nominated resident deities, a schema that stabilises in the early-to-mid Six Dynasties. The terminus ante quem of 1445 CE is the compilation of the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng; the scripture does not appear in the principal Sòng Daoist bibliographies, and van der Loon’s Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Period does not list it. Given the scripture’s pre-neidan idiom — the visualization of resident deities rather than the metaphorical cāntóngqì charter — a Six-Dynasties to Táng floruit is probable, but the wide 400–1445 bracket is the most tightly defensible on the strength of the internal evidence alone. The frontmatter accordingly uses 400–1445 with dynasty “六朝—明初”.

The catalog meta lists no author and no dynasty; the scripture is anonymous.

The work’s distinctive contribution lies in its compression of the ShàngqīngHuángtíng body-lore into a short, memorisable versified incantation suitable for daily meditational recitation. Where the Huángtíng nèi jǐng jīng 黃庭內景經 and the Huángtíng wài jǐng jīng 黃庭外景經 are long, systematic, and encyclopaedic, the Hàoyuán jīng is condensed, rhythmically mnemonic, and practice-oriented.

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 659, U.-A. Cedzich). Primary reference.
• Robinet, Isabelle. Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. For the Shàngqīng somatic-visualisation tradition.
• Kroll, Paul W. “Body Gods and Inner Vision: The Scripture of the Yellow Court.” In Religions of China in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., 149–55. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
• Schipper, Kristofer. Concordance du Houang-t’ing king. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1975. The foundational Huángtíng reference.
• Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London: Routledge, 2008. Entries “Huangting jing,” “Dantian,” “Sanyuan,” “Cunsi” for the doctrinal and technical apparatus.
• Despeux, Catherine. Taoïsme et corps humain: Le Xiuzhen tu. Paris: Guy Trédaniel, 1994. For the Daoist cosmology of the body.

Other points of interest

The scripture’s triplet of palace-deities is a distinctive configuration: Shàngyuán tóngzǐ and Nánjí lǎorén are paired as the two names of the upper-palace deity (equivalent to the Níwán 泥丸 infant-elder polarity familiar from Shàngqīng sources), Gǔxuán — the “Vale-Obscure” — is a rare theonym identified here with the Běijí zhēnrén as the lower-palace resident, and Línggūi yùnǚ is the heart-palace deity. This specific triangulation is not standard in the received Shàngqīng or Huángtíng corpus, and suggests the scripture draws on a sub-lineage of body-lore whose parallels may be traced in the Dòngshén section of the canon.

The scripture’s ten opening four-character lines are a notable formal feature: four-character tetrasyllabic verse is the classical liturgical metre of early Daoist scripture (cf. the Dàodé jīng’s opening and the Yīnfú jīng 陰符經), while the transition to seven-character heptasyllables for the body of the scripture marks a medieval-Daoist prosodic shift. The scripture’s combination of both metres in sequence is characteristic of the later Six-Dynasties to Táng liturgical-poetic tradition.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0040
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:787–88 — DZ 659 entry (U.-A. Cedzich).