Gāo shàng yù huáng xīn yìn miào jīng 高上玉皇心印妙經
The Lofty-Highest Jade Emperor’s Mind-Seal Wondrous Scripture
base scripture: anonymous, likely Táng (canonical 200-character recension); here printed with the 八祖合註 (Eight-Patriarch Joint Commentary), the planchette-attribution being to 呂洞賓 and the Lǚzǔ Eight-Cavern circle
A short scripture of approximately 200 characters in 4-character verse — one of the most-recited liturgical scriptures of the Quánzhēn daily-recitation cycle, expounding nèidān in the most condensed possible form: “上藥三品 神與氣精 / 恍恍惚惚 杳杳冥冥 / 存無守有 頃刻而成…” (“the three superior medicines: spirit, breath, essence; vague-and-fuzzy, dim-and-dark; preserve the No, guard the Yes — and in a moment it is achieved”). The base scripture is traditionally placed in the high Táng (some scholars argue Sòng); the DZJY recension reprinted here pairs it with a fresh joint commentary contributed verse-by-verse by named planchette personae of the Eight-Cavern circle: 秕秕道人 (Bǐbǐ dàorén), 鐵杖老人 (Tiězhàng lǎorén), 蓬萊道人 (Pénglái dàorén), and others.
Prefaces
No external preface; the commentary opens directly with the first verse (shàng yào sān pǐn shén yǔ qì jīng) and the gloss of 秕秕道人. The commentators speak in turn under their hào; no signatures or dates.
Abstract
The base scripture is one of the canonical short Daoist scriptures of post-Táng China, transmitted in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng as DZ 13 (and again as DZ 14, 15, 16, 17 in slightly varying recensions and with several pre-Qīng commentaries). The present DZJY recension wraps the base text in a fresh mid-Qīng joint commentary from the Lǚzǔ planchette circle (c. 1700–1750), continuous in style with the parallel Eight-Cavern joint commentaries on KR5i0005, KR5i0008, KR5i0010 and elsewhere. The dating bracket notBefore 800 / notAfter 1750 records the gap between the underlying scripture and the new commentary.
The commentary’s framing as a colloquy of multiple planchette personae — each glossing a different verse under his own hào — is generically distinct from the single-voice running commentary characteristic of secular Lǎo zǐ exegesis: it imitates the round-table structure of an actual planchette session.
Translations and research
- For the base scripture: Kohn, Livia, Daoist Mystical Philosophy, ch. 3, with English translation; and Schipper-Verellen entries on DZ 13–17.
- No substantial secondary literature located on the present DZJY commentary.
Other points of interest
This same Eight-Patriarch-joint-commentary recension — under the slightly different title Zhōngnán bā zǔ shuō xīn yìn miào jīng jiě 終南八祖說心印妙經解 — is preserved at KR5i0018, with a different framing fiction (the Eight Patriarchs descending to the Bǎojué Tán 寶覺壇 to expound the scripture to “various disciples of the Mystery”). Multiple later commentaries on the same scripture follow at KR5i0019 (蜀抱真子 註) and KR5i0020 (玄谷帝君 註, with a 1483 preface).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0017
- Joint commentary of the Eight-Cavern circle led by 呂洞賓.