Dàodé zhēn jīng cáng shì zuǎn wēi shǒu chāo 道德真經藏室纂微手鈔
A Hand Copy to the “Subtleties Culled from the Storehouse of the Way and Its Virtue”
by 薛致玄 (Xuē Zhìxuán, hào Tài xiá lǎo rén); companion to KR5c0104 DZ 715; printed 1249
The source-critical companion to 薛致玄 Xuē Zhìxuán’s [[KR5c0104|DZ 715 Kāi tí kē wén shū]], preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng as DZ 716 / CT 716 (Dòngshén bù, Yù jué lèi 洞神部玉訣類). Both works were printed together in 1249 per the prefaces to DZ 715. Only the second half (covering the Dé jīng 德經, chapters 38–81) is preserved — the first half (the Dào jīng 道經 portion) is missing in the received text.
About the work
Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:1342, DZ 716) gives the authoritative modern framing.
Function
The Shǒu chāo 手鈔 (“Hand Copy”) refers almost entirely to the many quotations from the classics made by Chén Jǐngyuán in his commentary and gives their sources. It is thus a source-critical apparatus — a reference work identifying, for each classical citation in Chén Jǐngyuán’s DZ 714 Dàodé zhēn jīng cáng shì zuǎn wēi piān, the specific textual source.
Incomplete transmission
The work contains only the second half of the Dàodé jīng, namely the Dé jīng 德經 (chapters 38–81), as the first half is missing. This incomplete state was apparently the condition of the text when it entered the Míng Zhèngtǒng Daozang in 1445; no earlier or fuller witness survives.
Prefaces
No separate preface survives for DZ 716 — the three 1249 prefaces of DZ 715 cover the joint-publication of both parts, but are attached to DZ 715 alone in the received Daozang.
Abstract
The Shǒu chāo is an indispensable scholarly tool for reading Chén Jǐngyuán’s commentary with full awareness of its classical-intertextual depth. Chén Jǐngyuán’s commentary draws on an extraordinarily wide range of classical Chinese sources — Confucian, Daoist, historical, and literary — and the Shǒu chāo identifies these for the reader. The loss of the first-half apparatus is therefore a significant scholarly loss: the Dào jīng quotations in Chén Jǐngyuán’s commentary must be traced through other apparatus (e.g., the DZ 708 Shì wén of 彭耜 Péng Sì).
Dating. 1249 per the joint-publication date with DZ 715. Per the project’s dating rule, the frontmatter gives 1249 as the composition 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, 2:1342 (DZ 716, I. Robinet). Primary reference.
- See KR5c0103 (Chén Jǐngyuán’s DZ 714), KR5c0102 (his kāi tí), KR5c0104 (Xuē Zhìxuán’s Kāi tí kē wén shū DZ 715).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5c0105
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:1342 — DZ 716 entry (I. Robinet).
- Parent work: KR5c0103; companion apparatus: KR5c0104.