聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

混元八景真經

11 min read

Text ID
KR5c0041
Date
1100–1145
Dynasty
北宋末—南宋初

Hùnyuán bājǐng zhēnjīng 混元八景真經

Perfected Scripture of the Eight Effulgences of the Origin-in-Chaos

Anonymous neidan 內丹 treatise in five juàn, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 660 / CT 660, 洞神部本文類), revealed by the Hùnyuán zhēnrén 混元真人 (Perfected of the Origin-in-Chaos) through a sequence of dialogue-frame catechetical instructions addressed to an unnamed disciple. The work is a systematic exposition of Northern-Sòng / Southern-Sòng transitional neidan doctrine, treating cosmogony from the primordial xūwú 虛無 through jǐng qì 景氣 → yǎo míng 杳冥 → mist, water, fire, hùndùn 混沌 → yīnyáng wǔxíng 陰陽五行, the nine grades of realised beings (jiǔ děng shénxiān 九等神仙), the theoretical underpinnings of the jīn yè huán dān 金液還丹 (Gold-Fluid Reversion Elixir), and the practical instructions of the cǎi 採 / fú 服 (collect and ingest), xiū liàn 修鍊 (cultivation and smelting), and lì tán 立壇 (altar-erection) phases of the inner-alchemical programme.

About the work

In five juàn structured as a dialogue, the treatise unfolds through the following movements:

  • Juan 1 — cosmogony and the nine grades of realised beings: the opening cosmogony derives Heaven and Earth from the undifferentiated xūwú 虛無 (formless void) by the successive crystallisation of jǐng qì 景氣 (luminous pneuma), yǎo míng 杳冥 (murk-obscurity), rùnshī 潤濕 (moisture), wù lù 霧露 (mist-and-dew), water, fire, hùndùn 混沌 (primordial chaos), and yīnyáng wǔxíng 陰陽五行. The tàidān tàiyáng 太丹太陽 (Great-Cinnabar-Great-Yang, i.e. the sun) and the tàiyīn 太陰 (the moon) emerge through the interpenetration of these opposites; man is the most numinous product of their continuing generation. The treatise then lays out the classification of realised beings into three grades of three (sān děng yòu fēn sān děng 三等又分三等, sān sān shǐ jiǔ 三三始九), giving nine grades total, culminating in the nèi jīn dān 內金丹 (Inner Gold Elixir) as the supreme attainment, with a numbered taxonomy of ingestion effects: one lì 粒 (grain) dispels ten thousand ailments; two grains pervade the body; three, gait like a galloping horse; four, hair reverses from white to black; five, the aged return to childhood; six, complexion of an infant; seven, the thought flies and a hundred spirits welcome; eight, red aureole encircles the body and clouds rise beneath the feet; nine, feathered transcendence to the rank of shàng děng zhēnrén 上等真人.

  • Juan 2 — the coupling of qiánkūn 乾坤 and the dāntián 丹田 topography: the treatise turns to the internal geography of the alchemical body. The lí lóng 離龍 (Lí-trigram dragon, of the heart) and kǎn hǔ 坎虎 (Kǎn-trigram tiger, of the kidneys) are the two charter-trigrams of neidan; their inversion (diān dǎo 顛倒) — the bringing of fire down and water up — is the central operation. The three dāntián 丹田, with their luminous palaces (jǐng gōng 景宮), the huángtíng 黃庭 as the middle palace, and the yuán gōng 元宮 as the supreme reservoir, are laid out in sequence.

  • Juan 3 — breath-regulation, the eight jǐng 八景, and the alchemical timekeeping: the classical neidan breath-regulation protocol (dǎoyǐn 導引 of the four limbs, loosening of the hundred joints, shaking of the whole body, then bí nà kǒu hē 鼻納口呵 — “inhaling through the nose, exhaling through the mouth”) is laid out, with the characteristic distinction that bí 鼻 (nose) is the tiān mén 天門 (Heaven’s Gate) and conduit of the light-pure yáng qì circulating through the six fǔ 腑, while kǒu 口 (mouth) is the dì hù 地戶 (Earth’s Door) and conduit of the heavy-turbid yīn qì exiting from the five zàng 臟. The three night-time hours xū 戌, hài 亥, zǐ 子 are the proper times for the work. The treatise introduces the shénmíng 神明 distinction (spirit-illumination as the two-fold excellence of the adept’s cognition) and systematises the chōu tiān 抽添 (drawing-in and adding-to) method by which vital essence is transferred from the perished zàng residue through the jiā jǐ 夾脊 (spinal pass) to the yuán gōng 元宮 via the shí èr chóng lóu 十二重樓 (twelve-storey pavilion — the trachea).

  • Juan 4 — ritual instructions and chronomantic keying: the text gives specific ritual instructions (fā 法 protocols), the sexagenary timekeeping of the alchemical year, the qī shí èr hòu 七十二候 (72 climatic phases), the èr shí sì qì 二十四氣 (24 solar divisions), and the sì shí bā jié 四時八節 (four seasons, eight nodes). The alchemical cycle is described as requiring sān qiān liù bǎi shí 三千六百時 (3,600 hours) for the tiān fú 天符 (celestial tally) to run its course.

  • Juan 5 — altar-erection and liturgical frame: the closing juàn deals with the lì tán 立壇 (altar-erection) — the ritual framework of the neidan practice, including the sì miàn shāo xiāng 四面燒香 (four-directional incense offering) in the purified chamber, the bài qiú 拜求 (prostration and petition), the zhì gào fā shì 志告發誓 (declaration of intent and oath-taking to the Shàngqīng 上清 powers), and the deliberate purgation of the sān dú 三毒 (three poisons — greed, anger, delusion, a Buddhist inheritance).

Prefaces

No preface. The scripture opens directly with the cosmogonic revelation of the Hùnyuán zhēnrén 混元真人. (The text has been commentatively annotated in places — e.g. the commentary noted at 3.1a confirms the division into five juàn — but no integral authorial or editorial preface accompanies the transmission.)

Abstract

Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:787–88, DZ 660) classifies the text in section 3.A.4 Neidan and Yangsheng and reads in summary:

“Book of the Eight Effulgences of the Origin of Chaos. This is an undated treatise on Inner Alchemy. Zēng Zào 曾慥 gives an abstract of the present book in [DZ] 1017 Dàoshū 道書 17, ‘Hùnyuán piān’ 混元篇, which covers the complete text as it appears here. A commentary on 3.1a confirms its present division into five juan, but the original version must have had three. On 2.5b there is a reference to a middle juan, while on 1.10b there is a mention of a third and final juan. As these references are to passages on 3.2a and 5.11b–12a, respectively, we may suppose that the first three juan of the present version, written as a dialogue, correspond to the original first two juan, while the present juan 4 and 5, which contain more practical instructions, are the original final juan. However, the text seems to have been divided from the beginning into five piān 篇 (chapters), as we find on 4.1a a reference to a fifth piān that discusses the establishment of an altar (lì tán 立壇); this reference corresponds, indeed, to a section beginning on 5.8b in the present edition. The main characteristic of the contents of the present book is its relationship to the Wùzhēn piān 悟真篇, in vocabulary as well as in argument. … The entire book is written in a vernacular style with many colloquialisms. The available evidence therefore points to the first half of the twelfth century as the period in which the present book must have been written.”

The terminus post quem is c. 1075 CE — the composition of Zhāng Bóduān’s 張伯端 Wùzhēn piān 悟真篇, with which the present treatise is in close vocabulary-and-argument parallel (cf. especially Hùnyuán bājǐng 3.5b–7b on sān wǔ 三五 and the conception of the yīng’ér 嬰兒 / Infant, cognate with Wùzhēn piān seven-word poem 14; and Hùnyuán bājǐng 4.14b on the White Tiger’s First Menses, related to Xījiāng yuè 西江月 poem 3). The terminus ante quem is c. 1145 CE — the compilation of Zēng Zào’s 曾慥 Dàoshū (DZ 1017, extant form dated c. 1145), whose juàn 17 Hùnyuán piān 混元篇 gives a complete abstract of the present book. The frontmatter accordingly uses 1100–1145 (the first half of the twelfth century) with dynasty “北宋末—南宋初”.

The catalog meta supplies only the tentative dating “12th 前半?” (first half of the 12th century) and lists no author; the catalog dating is confirmed by Schipper’s analysis. The revelation is attributed to the Hùnyuán zhēnrén 混元真人, a scriptural persona, with no identifiable historical author.

The relationship to the Wùzhēn piān tradition is the key historiographical point. The present treatise is not a commentary on the Wùzhēn piān (cf. the many other SòngYuán Wùzhēn commentaries), but an independent neidan systematisation that shares the Wùzhēn piān’s technical vocabulary and its treatment of yīnyáng inversion, the sān wǔ yī 三五一, and the chronomantic timekeeping of the fire-phasing. The Hùnyuán bājǐng ‘s practical-ritual emphasis (juan 4–5) distinguishes it from the metaphoric-poetic Wùzhēn piān and places it closer to the fú lù 符籙 / zhāi jiào 齋醮 liturgical tradition.

The title’s bā jǐng 八景 (Eight Effulgences) refers to the eight classical Shàngqīng-tradition somatic-luminous agencies — the eight spirits-of-light that dwell in the adept’s body (eight above the diaphragm and eight below in the elaborated form) — that are mobilised in the inner-alchemical work. The title thus programmatically registers the treatise’s inheritance of the Shàngqīng body-lore as the matrix within which the Wùzhēn piān-derived technical apparatus is articulated.

Schipper notes that the book is unrelated to the so-called Hùnyuán ritual (hùnyuán 混元 as a ritual category in DZ 1220 Dàofǎ huìyuán 道法會元) — the lexical overlap is incidental.

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 660, 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. For the Sòng Daoist bibliographic context.
  • 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; the principal comparative point of reference for DZ 660.
  • Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London: Routledge, 2008. Entries “Neidan,” “Cantong qi,” “Wuzhen pian,” “Zhang Boduan,” “Huohou,” “Santian neijie jing” for the doctrinal and technical apparatus.
  • Pregadio, Fabrizio. Awakening to Reality: The “Regulated Verses” of the Wuzhen pian, a Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2009. Translation of the Wùzhēn piān.
  • Robinet, Isabelle. Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste: de l’unité et de la multiplicité. Paris: Cerf, 1995. For the Sòng neidan theoretical idiom.
  • Skar, Lowell. “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage and the Transformation of Medieval China.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003. On the Nán zōng 南宗 Southern Lineage of the Wùzhēn piān-school.

Other points of interest

The treatise’s nine-grade classification of realised beings (jiǔ děng shénxiān 九等神仙) is worth noting as a late-Northern-Sòng recension of a very old taxonomic concern in Daoist soteriology (cf. the earlier three-grade division in the Bàopǔzǐ nèipiān 抱朴子內篇 and the seven-grade division in the Dàodé jīng xùjué 道德經序訣). The present treatise’s three-times-three cascade — shàng, zhōng, xià × three — keys each grade to a specific technical pathway (observation-of-Heaven, cǎiduó 採奪 extraction-and-seizure, retention of the existing jīng qì shén 精氣神), offering a theological map of realised-being hierarchies correlated with the alchemical apparatus.

The treatise’s vernacular register — noted by Schipper as “written in a vernacular style with many colloquialisms” — is another distinctive feature. This distinguishes it from the classically-phrased cāntóngqì-lineage treatises and marks it as an early specimen of neidan literature that had begun to accommodate itself to a wider lay readership.

The treatise’s ritual-altar instructions in juan 5 (lì tán 立壇, sì miàn shāo xiāng 四面燒香, zhì gào fā shì 志告發誓, qīng jìng cháng wèi 清淨腸胃) make it a rare early-Southern-Sòng witness to the liturgical framing of the neidan practice — the insistence that inner alchemy requires an outer ritual consecration is a distinctive emphasis, standing between the Zhèngyī liturgical corpus and the Quánzhēn institutional neidan to come.

The subsequent later reception noted by Schipper at Tàishàng hún yuán zhēn lù 太上混元真錄 elsewhere in the canon: “author seems to have been inspired by DZ 660 Hùnyuán bājǐng zhēnjīng (compare [those 3.4b–5b] …)” (TC 2:910) shows that the treatise was a live reference within the later Southern-Sòng and Yuán neidan corpus.

Graph View

Backlinks