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唐玄宗御製道德真經疏(外傳)

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Text ID
KR5c0062
Date
900–950
Dynasty
唐-五代

Táng Xuán zōng yù zhì Dàodé zhēn jīng shū 唐玄宗御製道德真經疏 (外傳)

Imperial Subcommentary on the True Scripture of the Way and Its Virtue by Táng Xuánzōng — with Outer Supplement (wài zhuàn)

attributed to 李隆基 (Lǐ Lóngjī; Táng Xuánzōng 唐玄宗, r. 712–756); in fact a late-Táng / Five-Dynasties (c. 900–950) editorial composite drawing heavily on 杜光庭 Dù Guāngtíng’s 杜光庭 Dàodé zhēn jīng guǎng shèng yì 道德真經廣聖義 (DZ 725); attributed by Van der Loon (VDL 153) to Qiáo Fēng 喬諷 (fl. 950)

The third of the three-work imperial Xuánzōng Dàodé jīng exegetical corpus in the Daozang, catalogued as DZ 679 / CT 679 (Dòngshén bù, Yù jué lèi 洞神部玉訣類). Preserved in four juàn plus a substantial Outer Supplement (wài zhuàn 外傳) — the latter being an extraordinarily valuable late-Táng bibliographical and hagiographical document. This entry (KR5c0062) provides the full text; the parallel catalogue entry KR5c0061 notes the same text bibliographically but lacks Kanseki source files.

About the work

The text consists of two distinct sections:

  1. The Wài zhuàn 外傳 (Outer Supplement) — a substantial prefatory matter consisting of (a) a detailed hagiography of Lǎozǐ, (b) a comprehensive bibliography of 60+ earlier Dàodé jīng commentators, and (c) a note on Xuánzōng’s own commentary and its 733 promulgation.
  2. The subcommentary proper (shū 疏) in four juàn, glossing the 81 chapters of the Dàodé jīng.

The Wài zhuàn — hagiography and bibliography

The Wài zhuàn opens with a brief hagiography of Lǎozǐ: he was conceived by the Mysterious Jade Maiden (Xuán miào Yù nǚ 玄妙玉女) in the gēng shēn 庚申 year of the seventeenth year of Shāng king Yáng jiǎ’s 陽甲 reign, was carried in the womb for 81 years, and was born in the gēng chén 庚辰 year of the ninth year of Shāng king Wǔ dīng’s 武丁 reign at Bó zhōu 亳州 Wéi zhēn xiàn 衛真縣 (the site of the present Tài qīng gōng 太清宫) on the fifteenth day of the second month at the mǎo 卯 hour, the Sagely Mother being delivered through a rupture of her left armpit — “along with other supernatural portents recorded in the Dào shǐ 道史”.

The Wài zhuàn then presents a remarkable bibliographical survey of all known pre-Xuánzōng commentators on the Dàodé jīng, listing approximately sixty-two figures from ShāngZhōu legend through the early Táng. This list is one of the most valuable late-Táng Daoist bibliographical documents and includes (selected):

  • Lǎozǐ and Yǐn Xǐ 老君與尹喜 — Jié jiě shàng xià 節解上下
  • Zhāng Dàolíng 張道陵 — Xiǎng ěr 想爾 (2 juan)
  • Yǐn Xǐ 尹喜 — Nèi jiě shàng xià 內解上下
  • Héshàng wēng 河上翁 — Zhāng jù 章句 (Western Hàn, under Wéndì)
  • Yán Jūnpíng / Yán Zūn 嚴君平/嚴遵 — Zhǐ guī 指歸 (14 juan, Western Hàn under Chéngdì)
  • Wáng Bì 王弼 of Shān yáng (zì Fǔsì 輔嗣)
  • Hé Yàn 何晏 of Nán yáng (zì Shūpíng 叔平, Wèi imperial son-in-law)
  • Guō Xiàng 郭象 of Hénán (zì Zǐxuán 子玄)
  • Zhōng Huì 鍾會 of Yǐngchuān (zì Shìjì 士季, Wèi Míngdì era)
  • Sūn Dēng 孫登 (recluse)
  • Yáng Hù 羊祜 of Tàishān (4 juan, Jìn pú shè)
  • Kumārajīva 羅什 (2 juan, under Fú Jiān 苻堅)
  • Fó tú chéng 佛圖澄 (2 juan, Later Zhào)
  • Sēng zhào 僧肇 (4 juan, Jìn)
  • Táo Hóngjǐng 陶弘景 (4 juan, Liáng)
  • Gù Huān 顧歡 (4 juan, Southern Qí)
  • Liáng Wǔdì 梁武帝 (Xiāo Yǎn 蕭衍, 4 juan, Buddhist-inflected)
  • Liáng Jiǎn wén dì 梁簡文帝 (Xiāo Gāng 蕭綱, shù yì 述義, 10 juan)
  • Liú Jìnxǐ 劉進喜 (Daoist, Suí, shū 6 juan)
  • Zhū Róu 諸糅 (Daoist, Chén, Xuán lǎn 玄覽, 6 juan)
  • Fù Yì 傅奕 (Táng Tài shǐ lìng, 2 juan with yīn yì)
  • Wèi Zhēng 魏徵 (Táng, Sōngshān Daoist, Yào yì, Tàizōng-era chancellor)
  • Sòng Wénmíng 宋文明 (Yì quán 義泉, 5 juan)
  • Yǐn Wéncāo 尹文操 (Jiǎn yào yì 5 juan)
  • Yǐn Yīn 尹愔 (Xīn yì 新義, 15 juan — jiàn yì dà fū, Sū míng guān zhǔ)
  • Chéng Xuányīng 成玄英 (Jiǎng shū 6 juan — the foundational Chóngxuán reading)
  • Lǐ Róng 李榮 (zì Rèn zhēn zǐ 任真子, 2 juan)
  • Yáng Shàngshàn 楊上善 (Gāozōng era, Jí zhù 20 juan — author of the canonical Huáng dì nèi jīng tài sù)
  • Wáng Zhēn 王眞 (Lùn bīng shù yì 論兵述義, 2 juan — a Daoist military-political reading)
  • … and, as the climax of the list: Xuánzōng himself, who “personally annotated the Dàodé jīng in 2 juan [upper and lower] and produced a jiǎng shū in 6 juan — this is the guǎng shū [expanded subcommentary] of today”.

The Wài zhuàn closes with a concluding note on the distinctive division of the received 81 chapters into an upper Dào piān 道篇 of 36 chapters (4 × 9 — corresponding to the four seasons chūn xià qiū dōng) and a lower Dé piān 德篇 of 45 chapters (5 × 9 — corresponding to the five phases jīn mù shuǐ huǒ tǔ), with specific correlations between chapter-groups and seasonal-elemental doctrines. This division, attributed to Xuánzōng’s own Kāiyuán 21 (733) promulgation, is an imperial editorial organisation of the text — the kind of detail available only through the Wài zhuàn’s preservation.

The subcommentary proper

The four-juàn subcommentary glosses the 81 chapters in sequence, following the distinctive Chóngxuán reading of the Lǎozǐ. The opening of juàn 1 exemplifies the style:

On dào kě dào fēi cháng dào: “Dào takes xūtōng 虛通 (empty-penetration) as its meaning; cháng takes zhànjì 湛寂 (deep stillness) as its name. What we call ‘the Supreme Way, the true nature of all beings’. ‘The Way that can be spoken of’ is the Dào that can be named — a law that can be pronounced. Though named ‘the sayable Way’, it must be appropriate to its audience — it has sound and exposition, and is therefore not the true, eternal, concentrated, still Way…”

This is the distinctive language of the Chóngxuán 重玄 school, with its characteristic use of xūtōng, zhànjì, níngcháng 凝常 (concentrated-eternal), and zhēn jì 真寂 (true stillness) — all technical terms that entered the TángSòng Daoist philosophical vocabulary.

Prefaces

The Wài zhuàn itself functions as the de facto preface; no separate authorial preface is provided.

Abstract

Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 1:286–87, DZ 679) provides the authoritative modern framing — as already outlined at KR5c0061. The key points:

  1. The attribution to Xuánzōng is spurious. The work is pseudo-Xuánzōng, compiled from extracts of Dù Guāngtíng’s Dàodé zhēn jīng guǎng shèng yì (DZ 725). Textual comparison (e.g. DZ 679 1.6a–b with DZ 725 8.1a–7a) confirms the dependence.
  2. Probable compiler: Qiáo Fēng 喬諷 (fl. 950), per the Van der Loon bibliographic catalogue (VDL 153) — a Five-Dynasties Daoist editor.
  3. Significant textual disorder. The preface (1a–4a) repeats Dù Guāngtíng’s own preface; the opening of the commentary (1.1a–3b) begins with an interpolation from Chéng Xuányīng’s Dàodé jīng kāi tí xù jué; Dù Guāngtíng’s text is variously labelled under shū, zhù, or yì — sometimes with two headings applied simultaneously to the same material. These features mark the text as a composite editorial product rather than a coherent authorial composition.
  4. Exceptional historical value of the Wài zhuàn. Despite the text’s composite character, the Wài zhuàn’s preservation of the 60+ pre-Xuánzōng commentator-bibliography is of extraordinary historical value — it provides the most comprehensive survey of pre-Táng Dàodé jīng commentary known from any single Daozang source, including many commentators whose works are otherwise lost.

Per the project’s dating rule, the frontmatter gives the composition window as 900–950 CE (covering Dù Guāngtíng’s Guǎng shèng yì, c. 901, and Qiáo Fēng’s extract-compilation, fl. 950). Dynasty: 唐-五代 (late-Táng / Wǔdài).

Translations and research

  • Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:286–87 (DZ 679, I. Robinet). Primary reference.
  • Van der Loon, Piet. Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Dynasty. London: Ithaca Press, 1984, p. 153 (VDL 153). Attribution to Qiáo Fēng.
  • Hung, William 洪業. “A Bibliographical Controversy at the T’ang Court A.D. 719.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20 (1957): 74–134. For the wider Táng imperial-bibliographical context.
  • See also the bibliography at KR5c0059 and KR5c0060.

Other points of interest

The Wài zhuàn’s bibliographical survey is arguably the most important section of the text for contemporary scholars. It preserves titles, juan-counts, authors, and brief biographical notes for a majority of the lost pre-Táng Dàodé jīng commentaries, and is a key primary source for the reconstruction of the pre-Xuánzōng Dàodé jīng tradition. Modern scholarship on commentators such as Sòng Wénmíng 宋文明, Liú Jìnxǐ 劉進喜, Zhū Róu 諸糅, and others frequently returns to this passage as a key witness.

The Lǎozǐ hagiography in the Wài zhuàn — with its specific gānzhī 干支 date-coordinates (Yáng jiǎ 17, gēng shēn; Wǔ dīng 9, gēng chén) for Lǎozǐ’s conception and birth — is one of the most detailed Táng imperial presentations of the Lǎozǐ birth-narrative. It places Lǎozǐ in the Shāng dynasty (well before any historical date) and locates his birthplace at Bó zhōu 亳州 / Wéi zhēn xiàn 衛真縣 (the modern Lùyì 鹿邑 county of Henan, site of the Tài qīng gōng 太清宫, still standing). The Tài qīng gōng was in Xuánzōng’s lifetime a major imperial pilgrimage site; its association with Lǎozǐ’s birthplace was formally confirmed in 666 when Gāozōng 高宗 visited.

The four-juan + wài zhuàn structure — not the ten-juàn of DZ 678, nor the 4-juàn of DZ 677 — is a distinct editorial arrangement of the Xuánzōng material, reflecting the Qiáo Fēng era’s synthesis of the imperial tradition. The same 4-juàn arrangement reappears in DZ 724 Dàodé zhēn jīng jí yì 道德真經集義 as a composite edition.

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