道德真經解

Dàodé zhēn jīng jiě 道德真經解

Explication of the True Scripture of the Way and Its Virtue

by 陳象古 (Chén Xiàng gǔ; Northern Sòng, chéng yì láng 承議郎 at Huīzōng’s court; preface dated 1101)

A short Northern-Sòng commentary on the Dàodé jīng ([[KR5c0045|Dàodé zhēn jīng]]), in two juàn, composed by Chén Xiàng gǔ 陳象古 and prefaced in the first year of Jiànzhōng Jìngguó 建中靖國 (element of Huīzōng’s early reign), tenth month, fifth day — i.e. 6 November 1101 CE. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng as DZ 683 / CT 683 (Dòngshén bù, Yù jué lèi 洞神部玉訣類). A contemporary of Huīzōng’s own Dàodé jīng yù jiě (KR5c0063, c. 1111–1118), Chén’s commentary is an early-Huīzōng court-Daoist commentary that bypasses the imperial exegesis and works directly from the classic text.

About the work

Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:646–47, DZ 683) gives the authoritative modern framing. Chén’s commentary is distinguished by several features:

• The text is treated as a continuous discourse, not as 81 chapters. Chén Xiàng gǔ does not maintain the traditional Héshàng gōng / Wáng Bì chapter divisions; for example, on 1.18a the last sentence of chapter 25 is followed directly by the first phrase of chapter 26. This represents a distinctive editorial choice — recovering the Dàodé jīng as an extended meditative prose rather than as a set of aphoristic separate chapters.
• Textual variants from the mainstream received recensions. The Dàodé jīng text in DZ 683 shows some textual differences from the traditional Héshàng gōng and Wáng Bì editions. Most notably, the last sentences of chapters 48 (at 2.7b) and 52 (at 2.10a) are lacking.
• Short, non-systematic glosses. Chén’s comments are brief and do not develop a comprehensive philosophical system. They read as practical observations rather than as systematic interpretive claims.
• Occasional original readings. Robinet singles out Chén’s comment on chapter 13’s jí wú yǒu shēn, wú yǒu hé huàn 及吾有身，吾有何患 (“When I have a body, what suffering have I?“): “Only when one no longer relies on the fact that one has a body can the Dào operate its mysterious function within the body” — a reading that inverts the conventional Héshàng gōng yǎng shēn interpretation (preserve the body to protect the spirit) toward a more Chóngxuán 重玄 or Buddhist-inflected reading (let go of reliance on the body, so that the Dào may act through it).

Prefaces

The commentary opens with Chén Xiàng gǔ’s own preface (chén Chén Xiàng gǔ xù 陳象古序), which articulates its rationale. In translation:

“The Way, in its root, is true and pure; its principle values purity and stillness. But the people’s emotions rise and their cunning deceits multiply without end — they cannot save themselves from perishing life. The Most High Lord, moved to compassion by this suffering, composed his True Writings, saying: ‘The Way is not of my making; the hundred families all have it within them. Deluded by obstruction, they have lost their spontaneity.’ He therefore made a careful teaching, setting down his words in the most intimate way, so that men might return to simplicity and revert to the uncarved block — and all of this truly rests in the human heart. To divide it into chapters and to give it titles was the work of the ancient preceptors. The Way contains the Virtue, and the Virtue harmonises with the Way; ‘not-virtue’ is a borrowed name for its marvelous function, which is one. If one examines the thing with principle, what distinctions are there really? Today, taking the Tài shàng Lǎo jūn’s five-thousand words as a single title, I have hoped to let the full meaning stand forth. Its principle is deep and its meaning is profound; what matters is to make it plain. If one sticks to the letter without understanding, this may mislead the careful-thinking student. I have therefore preserved my explanations here, as a humble view from a narrow tube. Written on the fifth day of the tenth month of the first year of Jiànzhōng Jìngguó [6 November 1101]. Chén Xiàng gǔ, preface.”

The preface’s decisive move is the opening declaration that “to divide [the Dàodé jīng] into chapters was the work of the ancient preceptors” — implicitly legitimating Chén’s departure from the Héshàng gōng chapter-scheme. The preface’s other notable feature is the identification of Dào and Dé as, essentially, a single undifferentiated reality — “to examine with principle, what distinctions are there?” — in the manner of late-Northern-Sòng Chóngxuán synthesis.

Abstract

The commentary is a valuable early-Huīzōng-period Daoist commentary that predates Huīzōng’s own imperial commentary of c. 1111–1118 by roughly a decade. Its treatment of the Dàodé jīng as a continuous discourse is an unusual editorial approach — anticipating some aspects of modern stratigraphic readings — though it did not become influential in the received tradition, which retained the 81-chapter convention.

Reception. The commentary is cited as a source by:

• DZ 707 Dàodé zhēn jīng jí zhù 道德真經集註 of Péng Sì 彭耜 (Southern Sòng) — a major collected-commentary edition.
• DZ 710 Dàodé zhēn jīng zhù shū 道德真經註疏 — citing the passage at DZ 683 2.4b.

These citations confirm that Chén’s commentary circulated widely enough in the Southern Sòng to be incorporated into the major collected-commentary editions.

Date and author. The preface is dated precisely: jiànzhōng jìng guó yuán nián shí yuè chū wǔ rì 建中靖國元年十月初五日 = 6 November 1101 CE. Chén Xiàng gǔ is identified in Sòng huì yào jí gǎo 宋會要輯稿 4:3895 as a chéng yì láng 承議郎 (“gentleman of the consultation”) at Huīzōng’s court — the same eighth-grade court rank held by Zhāng Ān 章安 (author of the later DZ 681 subcommentary, KR5c0064). The two were probably contemporaries and colleagues at the imperial court during the Zhènghé era.

Per the project’s dating rule, the frontmatter gives 1101 as the composition date (the preface-date). Dynasty 宋.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:646–47 (DZ 683, I. Robinet). Primary reference.
• Sòng huì yào jí gǎo 宋會要輯稿 4:3895. Primary biographical notice on Chén Xiàng gǔ.
• Boltz, Judith Magee. A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987. For the Northern-Sòng Dàodé jīng commentary tradition.
• Chan, Alan K. L. Two Visions of the Way: A Study of the Wang Pi and the Ho-shang Kung Commentaries on the Lao-tzu. Albany: SUNY Press, 1991. For the comparative-commentarial frame.

Other points of interest

The 1101 preface date places Chén Xiàng gǔ’s commentary at the very beginning of Huīzōng’s reign (Huīzōng ascended the throne in February 1100, renamed the era Jiànzhōng Jìngguó 建中靖國 for 1101 only, then Chóngníng 崇寧 from 1102). The commentary is therefore one of the earliest datable Daoist-commentarial documents of the Huīzōng era, predating the emperor’s own intensive Daoist patronage by several years.

Chén’s continuous-discourse reading of the Dàodé jīng is a rare editorial choice in the Daoist tradition. It anticipates to some extent the modern stratigraphic approaches of A. C. Graham, Michael LaFargue, and others, though from a very different motivation: where the moderns read the Lǎozǐ as a compilation of separate textual strata which should be analysed discretely, Chén reads the Lǎozǐ as a unified discourse which is artificially divided by the chapter-convention. The two approaches converge, however, in questioning the authority of the 81-chapter scheme.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0066
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:646–47 — DZ 683 entry (I. Robinet).
• ctext.org: 道德真經解 (陳象古)