道德真經全解

Dàodé zhēn jīng quán jiě 道德真經全解

Full Explication of the True Scripture of the Way and Its Virtue

preface by 時雍 (Shī Yōng; hào Xiāo yáo 逍遙), dated 1159 — Jīn-dynasty 金 Daoist scholar, resident at Bó 亳 (the birthplace of Lǎozǐ). The underlying commentary is from an anonymous manuscript received by Shī Yōng from Xī Qū huà 郤去華.

A Jīn-dynasty anonymous commentary on the Dàodé jīng ([[KR5c0045|Dàodé zhēn jīng]]) in two juàn, transmitted with a preface by Shī Yōng 時雍 dated 1159. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng as DZ 696 / CT 696 (Dòngshén bù, Yù jué lèi 洞神部玉訣類). The Daozang editors attribute the commentary to Shī Yōng himself, but Shī’s preface makes clear that he is the receiver and publisher of the text — not its author. The original commentary is anonymous.

About the work

Transmission

The text carries a preface by Shī Yōng of the Jīn dynasty, dated to the first month of Zhèng lóng 4 正隆四年 (the Dān mǎo 單閼 year = 1159 CE), signed Bó shè Shī Yōng Xiāo yáo xù 亳社時雍逍遙序 (“Shī Yōng of the Bó altar-community, hào Xiāo yáo, prefaces”). In the preface Shī Yōng records that he received the anonymous manuscript from a certain Xī Qū huà 郤去華 (of Zhēn dìng 眞定) who had returned to Bó 亳 — the legendary birthplace of Lǎozǐ (in modern Anhuī, adjoining Hénán). Finding the commentary deeply illuminating, Shī Yōng had it printed to broaden its circulation.

Philosophical character

Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:651–52, DZ 696) gives the authoritative modern framing. The commentary develops a distinctive triple-Dao cosmology:

• The Absolute Dao — the state of fusion of yīn, yáng, and harmony; in other words, the state of Primordial Chaos (hùn dùn 混沌). From this One are born yīn and yáng and Heaven and Earth. The One is the Absolute Name.
• The Dao of Heaven — without body, without desire, without action; the way of the Spirit (shén 神) and of yáng-containing-yīn.
• The Dao of Earth — immobility and quiescence; the way of qì 氣 and of yīn-containing-yáng.
• The union of the Dao of Heaven and the Dao of Earth in Humanity produces the “Harmony of the Centre” (zhōng hé 中和).

The corresponding practical programme:

• To incorporate the Dao of Heaven is to govern through non-action (wú wéi ér zhì 無為而治).
• To incorporate the Dao of Earth is to “become female and concentrate qì” (chǔ cí shǒu qì 處雌守氣).
• To incorporate the Absolute Dao is to attain the state of primordial chaos (hùn dùn) and non-cognition, which comprises all things.

Further metaphysical definitions

• Yǒu 有 = matter (xíng 形).
• Wú 無 = spirit (shén 神).

(These definitions anticipate — or parallel — the Neo-Confucian definitions given by Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130–1200), where the two are also treated as perfectly complementary.)

• Xuán 玄 = black blended with red (corresponding to the trigrams qián 乾 and kūn 坤 in Yì jīng cosmology).
• The “second xuán” of chapter 1 (xuán zhī yòu xuán 玄之又玄) lies in the Dà fán heaven 大梵天 (the Supreme Heaven of certain Daoist cosmologies) and governs the celestial palaces of the brain and heart (ní wán 泥丸 and jiàng gōng 絳宮), as well as the five qì and the hundred spirits of the universe.

Daoist-alchemical framework

On several occasions the author uses terms and notions specifically from the nèi dān 內丹 alchemical tradition:

• The Primordial Chaos results from the fusion of essence (jīng 精), breath (qì 氣), and spirit (shén 神).
• Mentions of the Southern Palace (Nán gōng 南宮) and the Capital of Mystery (Xuán dū 玄都) place the commentary in the mature Song-Jin alchemical cosmology.

Prefaces

The work is prefaced by Shī Yōng’s 1159 preface:

“The Hùn yuán 混元 five-thousand-character text’s commentaries in circulation are numerous. Most of them divide the text into chapters and analyse phrases, without connecting the passages front to back; their clever but arbitrary conjectures are not attained-by-oneself learnings. Thus the subtle words and profound meaning become darkened and unmanifest, obstructed and not opened — and the reader is troubled by the many branchings, not knowing where to turn. Now one Xī Qū huà 郤去華, returning from Zhēn dìng 眞定 [to his native] Bó, has produced a Dàodé quán jiě and shown it to me. I do not know its author’s name; but, tasting and unrolling it, heart-and-eye opened wide — my long-held doubts dissolved like ice, and the inner and outer were fused, the meanings strung like pearls, transcending ordinary sentiment. This is surely not what scholarship alone could compose. Rather, the high immortals and ultimate men [i.e., Daoist sages], pitying the deluded and dazed of the age, have revealed their profound mysteries — what the scripture itself calls ‘the Way hidden in namelessness, well-giving and yet completing’. Having obtained this text, I cannot bear to be alone in its excellence, and so I have asked my several friends of the Two-Gold altar-community and, collecting the enthusiastic, commissioned an engraver to carve the blocks to spread it abroad. First month of the fourth year of Zhèng lóng, the Dān mǎo year [1159]. Shī Yōng of the Bó altar, hào Xiāo yáo, prefaces.”

Abstract

The commentary is an important witness to mid-12th-century Jīn Daoist intellectual life, specifically in the Bó region (the legendary birthplace of Lǎozǐ, a major Daoist pilgrimage site under Jīn rule). Its preface’s explicit rejection of the “chapter-division” approach to the Dàodé jīng — in favour of a continuous, unified, experientially-oriented reading — aligns with similar editorial moves by Chén Xiàng gǔ (DZ 683, KR5c0066, 1101) and Shào Ruòyú (DZ 688, KR5c0071, 1159; the same year as Shī Yōng’s preface, in the Southern Sòng).

The date 1159 is particularly significant: the same year produced two major Daoist commentaries on the Dàodé jīng — Shī Yōng’s Jīn-transmitted anonymous work (KR5c0081 / DZ 696) in the north, and Shào Ruòyú’s Southern-Sòng Dàodé zhēn jīng zhí jiě (KR5c0071 / DZ 688) in Hángzhōu. Both share a critical stance toward the received chapter-scheme and a Chóngxuán-influenced Daoist metaphysics. This convergence attests the vitality of mid-12th-century Daoist textual scholarship across both sides of the SòngJīn frontier.

Dating. The composition date of the underlying commentary is unknown; the preface dates to 1159. Per the project’s dating rule, and since the commentary is said by the Sìkù cataloguers to be a Jīn-dynasty work, the frontmatter gives 1115–1159 as the composition window (Jīn dynasty foundation through the preface date). Dynasty: 金.

Transmission

Juàn 2 of DZ 696 was reproduced entirely in DZ 700 Dàodé zhēn jīng jiě 道德真經解 (a probably Southern-Sòng anonymous commentary), where it appears as juàn 3. This cross-reference confirms the later-Sòng circulation of DZ 696 and the common editorial practice of integrating earlier commentaries into composite 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, 2:651–52 (DZ 696, I. Robinet). Primary reference.
• Boltz, Judith Magee. A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987. For the Jīn Daoist textual context.

Other points of interest

The preface’s reference to Bó shè 亳社 — “the Bó altar-community” — is evidence of the continuing Daoist pilgrimage and ritual life at Lǎozǐ’s legendary birthplace under Jīn rule. The Tài qīng gōng 太清宮 at Lǎozǐ’s reputed birthplace (modern Lù yì 鹿邑 county in Hénán) had been formally recognised under Tàng Gāozōng in 666 and elaborated in subsequent imperial patronage. Under the Jīn, the site remained a major Daoist centre, and the community of devotees that Shī Yōng led was clearly a vigorous local organisation.

The Xī Qū huà 郤去華 who transmitted the anonymous commentary to Shī Yōng is otherwise unattested, but the distinctive name (qù huà 去華 = “departing from floweriness”) suggests a Daoist devotee with an assumed hermit-name.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0081
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:651–52 — DZ 696 entry (I. Robinet).
• ctext.org: 道德真經全解