宋徽宗道德真經解義

Sòng Huī zōng Dàodé zhēn jīng jiě yì 宋徽宗道德真經解義

On the Meaning of Sòng Huīzōng’s Explication of the True Scripture of the Way and Its Virtue

by 章安 (Zhāng Ān; Northern Sòng, official at Huīzōng’s court; fl. 1110s), composed before Huīzōng’s captivity in 1125 — a subcommentary to KR5c0063 (Huīzōng’s imperial yù jiě)

A subcommentary on the imperial commentary of Sòng Huīzōng (KR5c0063, DZ 680), composed by Zhāng Ān 章安 (chéng yì láng 承議郎 “gentleman of the consultation” at Huīzōng’s court; Sòng huì yào jí gǎo 宋會要輯稿 passim) before the fall of the Northern Sòng capital to the Jurchen Jīn in 1125. Preserved in ten juàn in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng as DZ 681 / CT 681 (Dòngshén bù, Yù jué lèi 洞神部玉訣類); juàn 6, 7, and 8 are absent from the Míng Zhèngtǒng witness. The subcommentary is one of the key documents of the Northern-Sòng imperial-Daoist exegetical tradition.

About the work

The subcommentary opens with Zhāng Ān’s own preface (signed chén Zhāng Ān jǐn xù 臣章安謹序), which articulates its rationale:

“Your servant has heard that the Way cannot be made manifest without language, and language cannot carry the Way without scripture; the Way cannot be practised without the transmission of scripture, nor can the scripture be understood without the illumination of its sense. At the end of Zhōu the Way declined and the Virtue waned; the various masters arose each claiming their own heterodox doctrine — taking their cleverness of language and subtle argumentation, diffuse and insufficient to grasp principle, each in his turn beating the reed-pipes, flowing into falsity, making a floating stone and a sinking tree, boldly holding up deviant doctrines, losing the truth of the nature’s allotment, and drowning in delusion without being able to return. Lǎozǐ composed his text of five thousand [characters], illuminating the constants of the Way and Virtue — desiring to abolish learning and to return to simplicity, to restore wú wéi, and to settle [the world] in purity and stillness. This is the scripture that carries the Way. Yet its words are terse and its meaning profound; exhausting it becomes the more distant, fathoming it the deeper. Without supernatural understanding one cannot discuss its essentials — this is why the scripture has been so difficult to transmit.

“His Majesty, of inborn sagely learning, Heaven-endowed with divine sanctity, understands the subtle meanings and hidden sense not merely as knowledge but as lived practice. Out of the imperial brush a completed book has emerged. Though separated from Lǎozǐ by a thousand years and in the silent silence afterwards, the words match as if by tally: the true, eternal, marvellous root is made plain and clear — this is why the scripture is now transmitted, the meaning illumined, and the Way put into practice.

“Your servant, receiving this extraordinary charge, has purified his heart, cleared his thoughts, concentrated his spirit, and made himself single. He has reverently read the Sagely Composition, carefully pondered its ultimate meanings — and this servant’s obscuration and confusion have opened up in a flash, as if ideas had arisen. I have not been able to restrain myself. Relying on my own limited views, I have looked up to take counsel from the Sagely Instruction, and have unfolded it into a yì jiě — divided into ten juàn. A well-frog is truly not the equal of Heaven; a glowing firefly’s minuteness truly cannot add to the sun and moon. Yet the far-reaching transformation of the Way has been impressed upon even one so humble as I, that I may have the opportunity to sketch the marvels of Heaven-and-Earth’s creation…”

The preface is a classical instance of Northern-Sòng court-Daoist memorial-style. Zhāng Ān positions himself as a humble commentator upon an imperial text — “like a well-frog before Heaven” — while simultaneously claiming the sanction of having personally “received the Sagely Instruction” (yǎng xī Ruì xùn 仰稽睿訓) from the emperor.

Contents and philosophical character

Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:648–49, DZ 681) gives the authoritative modern framing. The subcommentary:

• Follows the “classical” pattern of Daoist commentary, with repeated echoes of Guō Xiàng’s commentary on the Zhuāngzǐ (郭象). This is a distinctive choice: Zhāng Ān frames Huīzōng’s Lǎozǐ reading in GuōXiàng Zhuāngzǐ terms, rather than in the more typical Wáng Bì 王弼 or Héshàng gōng 河上公 frames.
• States the fundamental tenet of the Lǎozǐ to be the doctrine of weakness and non-resistance (róu ruò, bù zhēng 柔弱、不爭) (10.14a).
• Affirms the commentator’s own commitment to wú wéi 無為 (non-action) on multiple occasions.
• Develops the Chóngxuán 重玄 doctrine of fēi yǒu fēi wú 非有非無 (“neither being nor non-being”) — the same doctrine that underwrites DZ 745 Nánhuá zhēn jīng zhù shū 南華真經注疏 of the “Double Mystery” school. This represents a sustained late-Northern-Sòng appropriation of the mature Chóngxuán vocabulary.
• Echoes the structural features of Huīzōng’s own imperial commentary while elaborating them in greater discursive detail — the 10-juàn subcommentary expanding the 4-juàn commentary in a pattern parallel to Xuánzōng’s DZ 677 → DZ 678.

Prefaces

The preface by Zhāng Ān (summarized above) is the sole prefatorial document.

Abstract

The subcommentary is a foundational document of Northern-Sòng imperial-Daoist textual culture. It is the first scholarly reception of Huīzōng’s Dàodé jīng commentary, probably composed and presented to the emperor personally within a few years of the commentary’s completion (c. 1111–1118), certainly before the Jurchen capture of the Northern Sòng capital and Huīzōng himself in 1125–26.

The composition window is given in the catalog as “before 1125”; the terminus post quem is the completion of Huīzōng’s commentary (probably c. 1111–1118); the terminus ante quem is the emperor’s captivity in early 1126. Per the project’s dating rule, the frontmatter gives 1111–1125 as the composition window. Dynasty 宋.

The subcommentary’s intellectual significance lies in its sustained articulation of the Chóngxuán 重玄 doctrine of fēi yǒu fēi wú as the philosophical core of the Lǎozǐ reading — a Northern-Sòng re-appropriation of the early-Táng Chóngxuán tradition (Chéng Xuányīng 成玄英, Sīmǎ Chéngzhēn 司馬承禎) which would prove influential on subsequent SòngYuán Daoist thought. The subcommentary bridges the Táng-era Chóngxuán revival through to the mature Quánzhēn 全真 and JīnYuán philosophical traditions.

Missing juàn

The Míng Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng witness preserved in KR5c0064 lacks juàn 6, 7, and 8 — as in the parallel structural absence at DZ 678 (Xuánzōng’s subcommentary, KR5c0060). These three juàn of DZ 681 would have covered approximately Dàodé jīng chapters 35–70 in Huīzōng’s chapter-distribution. Reconstruction is possible only through citations in later works.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:648–49 (DZ 681, I. Robinet). Primary reference.
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. Emperor Huizong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. For the wider Zhènghé-era imperial-Daoist intellectual context.
• See also the bibliography at KR5c0063.

Other points of interest

The subcommentary is notable as a specimen of the Northern-Sòng imperial court-commentary genre: a form of Daoist exegesis addressed to the emperor, framed in elaborately deferential memorial style, and pursuing scholarly depth in interpretive argument. Similar court-commentary texts include the Shàng qīng huáng tíng nèi jǐng yù jīng zhù 上清黃庭內景玉經注 attributed to Liáng Qiūzǐ 梁丘子 (Bái Lǚ zhōng 白履中), and the various subcommentaries on Huīzōng’s own Língbǎo dù rén jīng 靈寶度人經 exegesis. These texts together constitute a distinctive Northern-Sòng genre of imperial-scholarly interaction.

Zhāng Ān 章安 himself is otherwise little-known. He held the office of chéng yì láng 承議郎 (“gentleman of the consultation”), a modest eighth-grade court rank, and the subcommentary is his only known work. The Sòng huì yào jí gǎo 宋會要輯稿 mentions officials of the Zhāng 章 surname in the Huīzōng court but the identification remains uncertain.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0064
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:648–49 — DZ 681 entry (I. Robinet).
• ctext.org: 宋徽宗道德真經解義