道德真經集解 (董思靖)

Dàodé zhēn jīng jí jiě 道德真經集解 (Dǒng Sījìng)

Anthology of Explications of the True Scripture of the Way and Its Virtue

by 董思靖 (Dǒng Sījìng; hào Guī shān 龜山); preface dated 1246; two postfaces dated 1257 and to the Bǎo yòu 寶祐 era (1253–1259)

A late-Southern-Sòng commentary on the Dàodé jīng ([[KR5c0045|Dàodé zhēn jīng]]) by Dǒng Sījìng 董思靖 of Quán zhōu 泉州 (modern Fú jiàn 福建). Preface dated 1246 CE. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng as DZ 705 / CT 705 (Dòngshén bù, Yù jué lèi 洞神部玉訣類) in four juàn. The work is catalogued with the disambiguator “(二)” to distinguish it from Zhào Bǐngwén’s [[KR5c0080|Dàodé zhēn jīng jí jiě]] (DZ 695, Jīn-dynasty).

About the work

Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:1264–66, DZ 705) gives the authoritative modern framing.

Not really a “collection”

Despite its title (jí jiě 集解 = “collected explications”), the work is not a true anthology of prior commentaries. Dǒng Sījìng limits himself to quoting a number of commentators, but devotes a major place to his own interpretations. The principal cited commentators include:

• Sū Zhé 蘇轍 (蘇轍) — referred to by his zì Wén dìng 文定 (KR5c0074, DZ 691).
• Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130–1200) — the foremost Neo-Confucian of the preceding generation.
• Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光 (司馬光) (1019–1086) (KR5c0072, DZ 689).
• Sòng Huīzōng 宋徽宗 (徽宗) (r. 1100–1125) (KR5c0063, DZ 680).
• Various other Northern-Sòng and Southern-Sòng commentators — including some whose works have not survived independently and are preserved only in Dǒng’s citation.

The bibliographical list

A distinctive contribution of the work is the bibliographical list of commentators on the Lǎozǐ at 1.2b–4a, drawn in part from Dù Guāngtíng’s 杜光庭 preface to DZ 725 Dàodé zhēn jīng guǎng shèng yì 道德真經廣聖義, and supplemented by Dǒng with important additional information about subsequent commentaries and the number of characters contained in the various editions of the Dàodé jīng. This supplementation makes Dǒng Sījìng’s list one of the most valuable medieval-Chinese bibliographies of Lǎozǐ commentary, providing attestations for a number of lost Sòng commentaries.

Doctrinal summary

Dǒng Sījìng summarises the meaning of the Dàodé jīng in a few formulas (preface, 4a, 7a):

• Ataraxy (tián dàn 恬淡) — calm imperturbability.
• Non-action (wú wéi 無為).
• Spontaneity (zì rán 自然).
• Responding to events with the Void (yǐ xū yìng shì 以虛應事).
• Non-competitiveness (bù zhēng 不爭).

Metaphysical framework

Dǒng articulates a substance/function (tǐyòng 體用) metaphysics:

• The Dào is everywhere and therefore immanent, yet simultaneously transcendent — it is “beyond and anterior to all things” (zài wù wài, zài wù xiān 在物外，在物先).
• The Dào is the “substance” (tǐ 體) of which qì 氣 is the “function” (yòng 用).
• The Dào is indefinable (nameless) and metaphysical; the qì is definable (named) and physical. (The distinction maps onto the wúyǒu polarity of Lǎozǐ chapter 1.)
• The Dào and the qì do not exist one without the other, and they share the same origin (jī yuán 基源).

These formulations are at 1b, 3a, 4a — the foundational metaphysical pages of the commentary.

Critical apparatus

Dǒng Sījìng discusses the various interpretations given to certain passages or phrases — particularly at 1.3b–4b, 10a–11b, 16a–18a, and 3.20a–21b. These discussions constitute valuable mini-essays on the history of Lǎozǐ interpretation, weighing the competing readings and indicating which Dǒng himself prefers.

Prefaces and postfaces

• The author’s preface (dated 1246) is long and substantial, articulating the commentary’s programme and its bibliographic framework.
• Two postfaces close the work:
  1. By Xiè Zhī 謝芝 — dated to the Bǎo yòu 寶祐 era (1253–1259). (The cyclical dates in the text appear to be erroneous.)
  2. By Huáng Bìchāng 黃必昌 (zì Jǐng fú 警復) — dated 1257. Huáng was a scholar from Quán zhōu 泉州, Dǒng Sījìng’s own native place.

Reception

The commentary is also quoted in DZ 712 Dàodé zhēn jīng jí yì 道德真經集義 (e.g., 1.5b, 10a), under the name of Dǒng Sījìng with the variant character Jìng 竟 for Jìng 靖.

A reedition of the commentary in the Shí wàn juàn lóu cóng shū 十萬卷樓叢書 — revised and corrected by Liú Ruòyuán 劉若沅 (zì Yuán rán 沅然), with apparently only minor typographical differences from the Daozang text — carries a preface by Lù Xīn yuán 陸心源 (1834–1893). This Qīng-era reedition remains one of the most accessible modern reprints of the commentary.

Abstract

The commentary is a major late-Southern-Sòng scholarly reading of the Dàodé jīng, notable for:

1. Its integration of Northern-Sòng Confucian (Sīmǎ Guāng, Zhū Xī, Sū Zhé, Huīzōng) and earlier Daoist commentarial voices.
2. Its critical-scholarly apparatus weighing competing interpretations.
3. Its comprehensive bibliography of Lǎozǐ commentators — one of the most valuable medieval Chinese bibliographies of this subject.
4. Its integrated Daoist cultivation (dào jiā xiū liàn 道家修煉) framework alongside the philosophical-metaphysical discussion.

Dating. Preface 1246; two postfaces 1257 and c. 1253–1259. Per the project’s dating rule, the frontmatter gives 1246–1257 as the composition / completion window. 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, 2:1264–66 (DZ 705, I. Robinet). Primary reference.
• Also Schipper & Verellen 2004, 2:5146–56 (on Dǒng Sījìng’s other major work, DZ 1040, a separate commentary).
• Boltz, Judith Magee. A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987. For the Southern-Sòng Daoist context.

Other points of interest

Dǒng Sījìng 董思靖 (hào Guī shān 龜山 “Tortoise-Mountain”) is a late-Southern-Sòng Daoist scholar whose other major work is DZ 1040 Dòng xuán líng bǎo zì rán jiǔ tiān shēng shén zhāng jīng jiě yì 洞玄靈寶自然九天生神章經解義 (a commentary on the Língbǎo Nine Heavens Generating Spirits Scripture, dated 1252). Together the two works confirm Dǒng’s identity as a substantial Daoist scholar of the late Southern Sòng, working in the Fú jiàn region (Quán zhōu — also the native place of 葛長庚 Bái Yùchán and of 彭耜 Péng Sì, other major Southern-Sòng Daoist figures).

Dǒng Sījìng’s date of 1246 for the preface of DZ 705 places the work within the last generation of Southern-Sòng Daoist scholarship before the Mongol destruction of the dynasty (1276 fall of Hángzhōu; 1279 end of Sòng resistance at Yá shān 崖山).

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0092
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:1264–66 — DZ 705 entry (I. Robinet).
• ctext.org: 道德真經集解 (董思靖)