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真誥

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Text ID
KR5d0036
Date
499–499
Dynasty
南朝

Zhēn gào 真誥

Declarations of the Perfected

compiled by 陶弘景 (Táo Hóngjǐng, 456–536)

The foundational compilation of the Shàng qīng 上清 revelation, and one of the most important documents of Six-Dynasties Daoism. Táo Hóngjǐng assembled the Zhēn gào from the visionary records of the Yáng Xī 楊羲 – Xǔ Mì 許謐 – Xǔ Huì 許翽 family revelations of 364–370 — recollected and collated by Táo over decades of philological work, reaching finished form by 499.

Abstract

The Zhēn gào is organized in 20 juàn arranged in seven “chapters” (piān 篇):

  1. Yùn tí xiàng 運題象 (1–4): dialogues with the perfected.
  2. Zhēn mìng shòu zhě 甄命授者 (5–8): admonitions and teachings.
  3. Xié shì 恊事 (9–10): divination and cosmology.
  4. Jī shén shū 稽神樞 (11–14): geography of the perfected.
  5. Chǎn yōu wēi 闡幽微 (15–16): esoteric cosmology of the afterlife.
  6. Wò zhēn fǔ 握真輔 (17–18): Yáng Xī’s letters.
  7. Yì jū zhēn 翼鞠真 (19–20): Táo’s own editorial apparatus.

Táo’s editorial work (especially his marginal notes on handwriting identification — by which he distinguished the authentic Yáng Xī autographs from later forgeries in his collection) makes the Zhēn gào also a masterpiece of medieval textual criticism. Preserved as DZ 1016 / CT 1016 (Tài xuán bù 太玄部).

Dating. Finished form by 499 (Yǒng yuán 1 of the Nán Qí). Dynasty: 南朝.

Translations and research

  • Strickmann, Michel. “The Mao Shan Revelations: Taoism and the Aristocracy.” T’oung Pao 63 (1977): 1–64.
  • Strickmann, Michel. Le Taoïsme du Mao Chan: Chronique d’une révélation. Paris: Collège de France, 1981. The foundational Western study.
  • Bokenkamp, Stephen R. Ancestors and Anxiety: Daoism and the Birth of Rebirth in China. University of California Press, 2007. Uses the Zhēn gào extensively.
  • Yoshikawa Tadao 吉川忠夫 and Mugitani Kunio 麥谷邦夫, eds. Shinkō kenkyū 真誥研究. Kyoto: Kyōto Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 2000. Japanese critical translation and study.

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